A Deal With the Devil (Boys of Preston Prep 2)

I spin around. George Whoeverthefuck, the gangly, pimple-ridden fucker behind me, is using a folder to hide his flapping mouth from the teacher. I snatch it from his hand and fling it down the aisle. “My name is Reynolds. Now shut the fuck up.”

I can practically feel him gaping at the back of my head as I jot the date down in the opposite corner of my name. Who cares, anyway. This isn’t Mountain Point; I’m not going to be doing ten push-ups because I put the date in the wrong place.

I hear George get up from his seat, and then watch from my periphery as he slumps across the room to retrieve his folder, face all pinched and sour as he returns.

Try me, bitch.

The remainder of class is spent in a blissful, George-free silence, which is good, because it takes me half of it to decide whether or not I should use the back side of the paper, or just get a new sheet. It’d be hilarious if I weren’t so close to pulling my own hair out in frustration. Academically, Mountain Point was pretty competitive, which basically means I already covered most of this shit junior year. This should be a cakewalk, not a clusterfuck of indecision.

It’s easier on the field. Coach tells me where to go and what to do. I’m in my element there, physically excelling at every practice. All those mornings of mandatory runs and constant training make it impossible for anyone to question my last-minute addition to the team. I can already see the gleam in the other guys’ eyes, like they all know between me and the core team they already had, we’re definitely going to make it to State this year.

I stick around when class ends, feeling flustered and pissed off when I drop the three sheets of paper onto the teacher’s desk. “I didn’t know which way to do it.”

She picks up the pages, frowning in confusion. “You did the assignment twice?”

Once with writing on both sides of the paper, and again using the fronts of two sheets.

I chew out a terse, “Yes.” For the record, I don’t need her to look at me like that. I know it’s stupid. Better to do something stupid than spend an hour agonizing about it, though.

“Okay,” she says slowly, swivelling in her chair to tuck it all into the pile.

While her back’s turned, I bend over her desk to swipe her personalized stationary pad in all its hideous pink glory. I tuck it into my pocket—Mine now—and am already halfway out the door before she turns around.

In the hall, I stop at my locker, pulling the pad from my pocket and writing a quick missive. I tear off the top sheet and leave the rest inside. That could come in handy someday.

Minutes later, I discover Mr. Kent is the easiest mark yet. “Yeah, I’ve got some extra colored pencils.” He heads into a closet at the back of the room, raising his voice. “Are you all doing another book cover project?”

I nod as I rifle through his drawers. “Yep. It’s uh—” Pens, highlighters, soy sauce, napkins, beads. “It’s Fitzgerald.”

“I hope you’re doing some art deco!”

I open his bottom drawer, and there it is; a tube of lipstick.

Mine now.

“Here you are.” Mr. Kent hands me three boxes of unlovingly used colored pencils. “You can just tell her to hold on to them.”

I toss a lazy wave over my shoulder as I leave. “Sure thing.”

I wait until I turn down the east hall to chuck the pencils into the nearest trash can.

My eyes jump back and forth between the macaroni and the mashed potatoes. They’re both perfectly sufficient carbs. Although, the macaroni has more protein. On the other hand, potatoes have more vitamins. But who knows what kind of potatoes these are. They’re probably bullshit rehydrated flakes. Does that make potatoes less nutritious? Does the macaroni even have real cheese?

I swipe a bead of sweat from my forehead. I wonder if it’s just me, or if the lights in the lunch line are roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun. Someone behind me in line exhales loudly and the sounds of their shifting feet distract me, breaking my internal debate. Now, I’ll have to start all over. Fuck.

Thankfully, the decision is taken out of my hands when the lunch lady picks up a serving of each and dumps both on my tray. The ball of tension that’s been rapidly growing between my shoulderblades suddenly releases.

I nod, muttering a thanks as I leave the line.

The person behind me huffs, “Finally,” and someone else says, “Oh shit, that’s the guy?” and someone else says, “Yeah, I think I remember him from before.”

I’m not a fan of being the object of whispered talk in the hallways. In the classrooms. In the lunch line. In the seat directly behind me. It’s hard to know what’s basic ’new kid’ chatter and what’s gossip about what I’ve done and where I’ve been. At least having Emory by my side makes it easier. He might not be leading the Devils, but you wouldn’t know it going by the way he’s treated here.

It becomes obvious pretty quickly that scandals don’t carry huge weight at a school like Preston. Wealth and access make it so that parents can get their kid out of any kind of trouble. Drugs, DUIs, vandalism, and—if the gossip is true—even bigger charges, like assault. If anything, my mysterious background and the fact I came back a foot and a half taller, boosts my image—something that no one cared about at military school. Over there, I was just another fuck-up sent away for doing something dumb enough to get caught.

In short, I can survive the gossip. It’ll pay dividends. But you don’t exactly need super-hearing in this place to realize that people are talking about Vandy, too. Without consciously realizing I’m doing it, I’ve searched her out in the cafeteria. She’s coming from the south doors, eyes trained ahead as she limps into the room.

Watching her