Bitter (A Dark High School Bully Romance)

“Scrawny,” I say with an almost uncontrollable laugh.

I feel something hard pressing against my backside. I don’t move away from it. Neither does he. His lips are at my ear again. “Maybe we should head back.”

It’s dark. We’re walking in the snow toward the car, laughing, hollering. Where’s the car? Who knows? We should find it. It’s cold.

He’s next to me again. Ahead of us is Heath, stumbling around, kicking snow up. He’s not looking.

Twin Aston Martins in the parking lot. I’m stumbling, and so is the boy beside me. He grabs my hand to keep himself from falling, and I almost go down with him. We laugh. He runs his hand down my back, and it sends shivers down my spine. His hand cups my ass briefly, then snatches away.

Ahead of us, Heath gets into a car. “Beck’s already in here!” he yells.

I turn. Next to me is Jasper.

“You can get in mine,” he says, slurring so hard I barely understand. I nod.

In the car. A partition between us and the driver. I can’t see through it.

“Soundproof,” Jasper says.

“Touching,” I say out loud as his hand rests on mine.

“It’s weird,” Jasper says, or at least attempts to say. “Seeing you with Olive makes me jealous.”

“Not weird,” I reply as his fingers curl around mine, as he pulls me closer, as his other hand rests on my hip. He puts his face close. His breath smells like beer. So does mine. Blue eyes right in front of me.

“But I think I’m jealous of Olive. ‘Cause she’s hanging with you.” Jasper’s lips move. Is he really saying these things?

And am I really liking this?

Warm. The car, his hands. He leans toward me. My hand is on his knee, sliding up. I giggle.

“Do it,” I say when his lips stop mere inches from mine.

Jasper stops. I can see he wants to. I want him to. One of his hands is on my face. When did this happen?

Chicken. I’ll do it. I lean forward, I’m closing the distance, I’m going to kiss him—

He pushes me too hard. Harder than he meant. I fall back against the door and he turns away, puts his face in his hands.

When he straightens back up, none of the warmth remains on his face. He leans forward and raps three times on the glass. He’s rigid when he falls back into his seat. He won’t look at me.

“Won’t be long now until we get you back to the school. We never should have kept you out so late.”

“Alex?” The professor’s voice penetrates my thoughts.

I jerk back to reality and scurry up to his desk to dump the collected homework onto it, then dart back to my own seat, breathing hard.

“What the hell happened?” Rafael asks.

“Jasper,” I gasp. “Last night. It was Jasper.”

Rafael gasps and shoots a look over there. “I knew it.”

“No, you didn?

??t.”

Rafael is still considering Jasper carefully. “Do you think he’ll respond if I shoot my shot?”