2. Asch
ASCH
I rub at the cut on my arm. A sharp, stinging pain is followed by blood welling up and smearing across my thumb. It had scabbed over overnight, but walking around campus today had opened it up again.
I hadn’t thought she’d cut me that deeply, but now I’m wondering if I should’ve gotten stitches with the way the cut refuses to stay closed. I grab a few napkins, pushing them against the wound.
“Hey, Asch,” a pretty red head says, startling me. “How was your summer?” She sits down across from me, where Blaze was supposed to sit as soon as he’s done grabbing our food.
I try to remember where I know her from, until I realize she was in my Intro to Economics class last semester. I’d mentioned to Blaze that I thought she was cute, and he’d somehow charmed her into bed with both of us.
“Laura,” I say, hoping I got the name right. “Hey.”
The redhead purses her lips. “ Lara .”
Well, that was pretty close. I wince anyway and give her a sheepish smile. “Sorry. Hey, Lara. My summer was pretty good.” Of course I’m going to say as much, but it’s usually easy enough to get other people to talk about theirs instead of asking more questions. “Yours?”
She starts to speak, but it’s hard to pay attention.
Going home had been a shock, even though I’d tried my best to brace myself for the worst. I’d known it would be beyond messy, but her hoarding had escalated even more in my absence.
Even though we’d spent days going through trash, forgotten packages, clothes, and a whole number of other things cluttering the floors, it had still been bad when I’d left.
She needs more help than I can give her.
I need more help than Blaze can give me.
It had been enough to motivate me to try to clean my room when I got back, but that had faded quickly.
“I really enjoyed the art museum, but then my parents dragged me to the history museum, and that was a real yawn-fest,” Lara is saying when I zone back in.
I wish I could go anywhere at all with my mother, but she’s refused to leave the house for anything but what’s absolutely necessary for the past few years.
“Still sounds like fun,” I remark, glancing over the restaurant as I try to catch Blaze’s attention. He’s chatting with another woman near the counter to pick up food, and when he catches my eye, he shrugs.
I shake my head slightly, trying to pay attention to Lara.
“I got together with a childhood friend of mine,” Lara continues, and there’s something about her tone of voice that tells me there’s a hidden meaning. “He grew very buff in the year I didn’t see him. And he was so flirty with me.”
Am I supposed to mind? Is she trying to make me jealous? Either she’s trying to tell me she’s unavailable, or she wants me to know she’s very available.
“Did I get buff in the last year?” I ask her, grinning. I lift my arm to flex, and her eyes go wide when she sees the bloody napkin.
“Oh my god, what happened to your arm?” she asks, staring at it .
I glance at it, realizing I’d forgotten all about the injury. I don’t even know what excuse to give her.
Blaze, as always, comes to my rescue. He pushes a tray in front of me and sits down next to Lara, completely ignoring her. “Here’s your food, Alvarado. Also, why are you bleeding?”
“It looks serious,” Lara says. “Should I call the health clinic? There has to be a first aid kit around here—” She stands up, but Blaze grabs her wrist to stop her from leaving.
“Don’t be dramatic,” Blaze says. “Asch is fine. Right?” He meets my gaze.
“Of course I’m fine,” I say. And I would be if I hadn’t been poking at the injury. “How about I text you later, Lara?”
She’s still looking at the injury with concern, but then she looks back at me with a smile. “Did you get my number the last time?”
I try to remember.
“I’ve got it,” Blaze says as he lets go.
“Lara, right? Asch dropped his phone over the summer and lost all his contacts, but I’ll text it to him.
” He gives her a bright smile. “Sorry to ask this, but I’ve got a few personal things I need to discuss with Asch right now.
Secret frat stuff. Think you could give us some privacy, and he’ll text you in the morning? ”
Lara doesn’t look pleased by that request, but she nods. “Sure. And I’ll see you in the macro-economics class, Asch.” She waves to us before she finally leaves.
Blaze’s smile drops a fraction after she’s gone. “You still into her? I thought she was kind of boring.”
“I didn’t even remember her name,” I tell him.
Blaze bursts out laughing. “That’s why you’ve got no game, Asch.”
“I have all the boyish charm. You’re the suave one,” I retort, for all that I’d shown neither charm nor suave when speaking to Lara. “But my game would’ve gotten us Pandora if someone hadn’t gone and fucked things up with that chick. ”
Blaze’s expression grows darker. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll look into that. Now come on, eat.”
My stomach growls, and I look down at the tray in front of me. As usual, Blaze has taken it upon himself to get food for me even though he doesn’t need to. It’s a constant source of embarrassment for me, but I’m starving.
“You didn’t have to get me anything. I wasn’t hungry,” I lie. I’ve already gone through the two meals on my plan for the day, and I don’t want to go through my stipend so fast that I have nothing at the end of the quarter.
“ I’m hungry though,” Blaze says. “And I can’t eat if you’re just staring at me like a weirdo.” He unwraps his vegetarian wrap and starts eating. “Fuck, this is way better than the crap they serve at the caf.”
Yeah, but I can actually afford the stuff at the cafeteria, and when we go out to the restaurants on campus, they’re too expensive for me to justify ordering at.
I grab another napkin to cover the blood on my arm. “Thanks,” I mumble, not wanting to sound ungrateful, but at the same time, I really am hungry.
He always gets me the steak wrap even though it’s more expensive, and I try to tell him not to bother, but he always makes some excuse to feed me.
I guess the money really doesn’t matter to him, given who he is and what kind of money he comes from.
It should bother me that his family is the most prominent crime syndicate in the New Valence area, but he’d taken one look at me in my battered shoes and threadbare shirts and had decided I was his new best friend.
As suspicious as I’d been at first, it hadn’t taken me long to realize he was genuinely interested in having a friend who wasn’t simpering over him and his wealth — or scared of him, even though I should’ve been.
I still should be .
“So?” Blaze asks, motioning to my arm. “Where’d you get the cut?”
I shouldn’t have been picking at the scab or flexing my arm, I guess, and I grab another napkin to cover it better in between bites of food. “Pandora,” I say reluctantly, not wanting to admit that she’d managed to swipe me with the knife.
All of my martial arts training should’ve prevented her from getting the drop on me, but I’d let my guard down around her.
It’s not a mistake I’ll make again.
I’d been embarrassed enough that I’d skipped the rest of the party, simply telling Blaze that I was tired.
“Right.” Blaze’s nose wrinkles. “Pandora. What a dumb name.”
“At least it’s more memorable than Laura,” I say, my appetite threatening to vanish. “I was helping her, then I got pissed because she was treating me like I’d done something wrong, and next thing I knew, she’d pulled a knife on me.”
I’m not helpless by any means, and the fact that she’d manage to get one up on me is hurting my pride — to put it lightly.
“Wait, what?” Blaze asks, his eyebrows shooting up. “She pulled a knife on you? How did she manage that? Why ? You were being weirdly nice to her.”
“Guess she didn’t agree,” I say, setting the wrap down so I can dab at the wound and put pressure on it. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
I will, though.
I’m enough of a bleeding heart — as Blaze would put it — to help in the same sort of situation again, even if it did get me burned.
But I think Pandora might be an exception.
Blaze finishes his wrap and starts eating the tofu salad he got with it. His eyes meet mine, and I wonder what he sees that he suddenly says, “No, fuck that. She won’t make that mistake again. We have to teach her a lesson, Asch.”
His grin makes my heart hammer harder in my chest. It’s the expression he gets whenever he’s decided to claim something. When Blaze sets his sights on something, he gets it.
No exceptions.
If he can’t charm it or buy it, he’ll take it by force — and he’s not afraid to do his own dirty work.
A high school classmate of ours had shown up with a vintage Mustang in near perfect condition one day. He’d refused to sell the car to Blaze.
So Blaze and I waited until after school, and I watched as Blaze beat our classmate bloody.
“Help me out,” Blaze had ordered, and I’d held the guy down so Blaze would have an easier time with the punches.
It went on and on, until the guy sobbed in my arms and begged to give his keys to Blaze.
“I’ll get you a check for three hundred thousand tomorrow,” Blaze had said, still smiling.
And not only had he paid, but a year later, after we’d taken that car on several road trips and used it to pick up countless dates, he’d returned the car.
“Bored of it now,” Blaze had declared.
Five years of friendship or not, I sometimes wonder if he’ll get bored of me .
I manage to make the cut stop bleeding and ball up the napkins, starting to eat again. “Yeah?” I snort. “What kind of lesson would we even teach Pandora? Don’t be dumb, Blaze. Just ignore her.”
I don’t want to ignore her, though.
I want to make her bleed.
That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.