The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

“You’re nice. You wouldn’t understand,” I said bluntly.

“Yeah, but—” The girl was seriously perplexed.

Enough was enough. I wasn’t about to explain myself to an Invisible who recently discovered the fun of making out.

“So you and Larkins, huh?” I mentioned casually, sitting back, and waiting for her to blush. One…two…there is was. I couldn’t contain a chuckle.

“Shut up. We’re not like that…well—”

“You are. You both had to have the ‘sex’ talk with me. You are like that.”

“We did not.” She sighed, blushing at the same time. “Okay—”

“You did. The two of you are a couple. So just fucking admit it.”

“Oh my God,” she moaned, burrowing her head in her hands. Sorry girl, you can’t disappear in the middle of class.

“Did you guys have the ‘sex’ talk with each other?”

“Shut up. Please,” she moaned, her voice muffled by her hands.

I laughed at that, but I pressed on, “Come on. Seriously. Larkins was on strict instructions to have the talk. Did he? He better have.”

“Do you and Tray have the talk?” she asked, her voice still muffled.

“Yeah,” I smiled fondly, images of naked Tray in mind, “it usually consists of ‘bend over’ or ‘do you want to screw?’.”

“Oh my God,” she squeaked, trying to burrow through the desk this time. The Invisible wasn’t much of an Invisible right now.

“What’s with the act? You were fine asking me questions on Thursday.”

“That wasn’t about sex,” she hissed. “That was about…other stuff.”

“That other stuff is just another form of sex.”

She squeaked again which I found damn funny.

“Matthews!” Carter called across the room. “What the hell’s so funny?”

Molly groaned loudly and pulled her head from the desk to her lap. Almost—literally—underneath the table.

This made me laugh even more.

“It’s annoying,” Sasha griped, but it lacked heat.

I gritted my teeth, really, really, really hating that everyone was treating me differently today.

I snapped, the humor vanishing like the slam of a door. “I’m not some fucking fragile china doll. You don’t have to treat me like I’m going to break.”

Sasha’s eyes widened to saucers. She choked back whatever she had been thinking—imagine that, a Hooters platinum blonde not having a blonde moment—and sputtered, “Excuse me?”

“Oh, please, Sasha. Since when have you ever sugar-coated your insults?”

“Oh my God. I cannot believe you, Taryn! Excuse me for not going for the jugular—”

“That’d be assuming you’ve gone there in the past. Trust me, your aims—not even close,” I said smoothly. “You’re like a guy who can’t find the hole.”

“Oh!” “Damn!” “Fuck!”