I paused, my heart thudding to a complete stop. “Did you or did you not tell someone about me and Ms. Glenburg? Because I have to say, you just stirred up a bunch of shit for me.” His voice lowered as he brought his head down to my ear. My entire body went haywire as his warm breath graced the sensitive skin. “I know you heard the conversation, Gemma.”
I gulped, tilting my head over so he had better access to my neck. What the hell was I doing? I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want him to leave my personal space. I wanted him to keep breathing down on my neck like he was, because…I liked it. I liked it a lot. “I was eavesdropping.” My voice was low and breathy. “But I didn’t tell anyone.”
There it was again, his hot, minty breath mingling over my skin, causing goosebumps to rise. “Are you sure about that? Because if you did tell someone, I will find out.”
This time, I pulled my wrists out of his grasp, and I basically ran to the door. I peeked over my shoulder, my chest rising and falling like I was in PE instead of art. Isaiah was staring at me intently, looking completely unbothered in his school uniform. He was effortlessly attractive, and he knew it. “I’m sure, so again, I don’t owe you anything.”
And with that, I threw the door open and stepped back into the art room, breathing in the fresh air that wasn’t nearly as intoxicating as Isaiah’s.
But as soon as I took a deep breath and felt my shoulders relax, they shot up to my ears again because every single set of eyes, the teacher’s included, were staring directly at me. And when Isaiah stepped out of the closet, I could see the wheels already spinning inside my classmates’ heads.
A deep, throaty chuckle sounded as he walked past me. I stared after him, feeling my body go numb at the rumors that were likely about to be floating around this desolate boarding school.
Isaiah turned around on the heel of his shoes and began walking backwards, smiling from ear to ear at me like the devious bad boy that he obviously was. Once he slid back onto his stool, the classroom as still as if it were empty, he slyly said, “I guess I know who will be featured on the gossip blog tomorrow…with a new story.” My eyes drove into his with a burning intensity. He winked. “Consider us almost even, Good Girl.”
I was on fire from embarrassment as he spun around in his stool, putting his back to me. Cade and another guy stood beside him, snickering as they, too, winked at me.
Isaiah had no idea what he just started.
Chapter Seven
Gemma
My stomach growled loudly as I sat on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chin. The junky phone that Richard gave me months ago laid untouched beside me on the fluffy cobalt-blue comforter that had somehow appeared on my bed along with a few girly pillows thrown on top for good measure.
When Sloane had walked in earlier, after all of our classes were finished, she paused while taking off her maroon blazer that fit her like a glove and laughed.
“See?” She grinned, nodding to my bed. “He loves you.”
“Who loves me?”
A deep voice from the past tried to weasel into my head with insults about no one loving me, but I pushed it away as I focused on my roommate.
She gave me a pointed look, kicking the shoes off her feet, which went flying across the room. “Headmaster Ellison. He obviously got those”—she nodded to my blanket and pillows—“for you—unless someone sent them from home?”
I couldn’t stop the sarcastic laugh from tumbling out of my mouth. “Definitely not.”
Sloane smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.
We’d both fallen into easy silence while doing our homework after she’d asked about my day and complained for a solid ten minutes about the fact that we didn’t have any classes together. I peeked up at her a few times from my desk, watching her type something on her computer, unbeknownst to her that I was literally sweating while trying to focus on my own homework, which took me no more than an hour to complete. Auntie was very thorough with my studies over the years, and a lot of the time, the only thing I had to occupy myself with was reading the textbooks she and Richard supplied me with. As sad and boring as it was, learning was the only thing I had to look forward to in my childhood.
But as each second passed with Sloane buried in her computer, my stress levels rose. Sloane didn’t say a single thing about Isaiah and the whole art-supply-closet ordeal, so I assumed the news hadn’t reached her yet. I had a big feeling that Sloane was definitely the type of friend who wouldn’t let something like that slide under the rug. But what did I know about having a friend?
After another hour, she asked if I was ready to go to dinner, but I told her I wasn’t hungry. Her lips pursed, but she didn’t push me on it. She only nodded after asking me one last time before slipping out of the door, and I hadn’t seen her since.
That was when I turned my cell phone on and laid it beside me. I knew Richard would hear about the rumor of Isaiah and me—whatever the “rumor” was. For all I knew, it would get back to Headmaster Ellison, and he would call Richard, letting him know what his niece was up to. I didn’t know much, but I knew enough to know that if a girl was shoved inside a closet with a boy, especially one as popular as Isaiah, the rumors would be juicy.
I remembered every last thing down to the smallest of details from when I’d attended Wellington Prep for those few short months before coming here. Sex. Parties. Drugs. Drinking. I drank it all up in huge gulps as I stayed behind in the shadows, hoping no one would pay attention to the judge’s strange niece as I eavesdropped on classmates and their gossip. Rebecca, the only other person in the senior class that talked to me, usually filled in the gaps for me. She didn’t know it, but she taught me a lot. She brought me up to speed. And one thing I knew with absolute certainty, from attending Wellington Prep and Rebecca’s short, one-sided friendship, was that high schoolers were vicious with their gossip, and scandal was the one thing that fed it.
I was lucky to have made it out of Wellington Prep without ever being the center of anyone’s gossip. I knew how to blend in, and not many people paid me any attention, except when Ms. Weltings started really looking into my drawings, which was what landed me in St. Mary’s in the first place. Although, now that I was here, I was wondering if Richard knew all there was to know about this school. He certainly acted like he did, but I also knew that one of his personality traits was acting arrogantly confident in every situation he was ever in. Even if he flew blindly, he still acted as if he knew every last detail. He made it seem like St. Mary’s was a prison. A punishment. A way to keep me under lock and key while also getting the social worker off his back. It was his subtle way of reminding me that I was his and that I needed to follow the rules. As soon as I turned eighteen, the social worker would no longer look into Judge Stallard’s hidden niece. There would be no need to pretend that he followed the laws that he so righteously protected. I was his, and his to do with whatever he pleased. Or so he thought.
Several shaky breaths shuddered from my chest as I glanced back down to my phone, seeing nothing but a blank, black screen. And then the door flew open. Sloane quickly darted inside our room, wearing tight jeans and an off-the-shoulder shirt that was knotted in the front, showing off her flat belly. The chains on the other side of the door jingled, and my stomach twisted at the sound before she slammed it shut and placed her hands on her hips.
“Holy hell, Gemma!” Her mouth gaped, and my face flamed almost instantly. Here we go. “You’re here for less than twenty-four hours, and you score a closet date with Isaiah Underwood?”
The realization hit me head on, like the final snip of a thread. A closet date.
I flew up from my bed. “No! That is not what happened!” I let out a tiny growl and started pacing the room in my short sleep shorts and plain t-shirt. “He set me up. He thinks I’m the one who told that blog thing about him and the teacher!” I flung toward her, probably looking no less than a frantic mess. “But I didn’t, and I told him that!” Anxiety from Richard finding out that I was caught in the closet with Isaiah was causing me to act erratically, and I would be lucky if Sloane still wanted to be my friend after I just rushed toward her like a rabid animal.