Tough Shit (Rejects Paradise 1)

I give him a beaming smile knowing it must be driving Jude insane. “I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m doing alright. Maybe we could have lunch together today?”

“Sure, I’d love that.”

“Great. Listen, babe … you’re not fucking helping the situation.”

Spencer lets out a groan, slamming his fist into Jude’s stomach. “Calm the fuck down,” he says as the familiar purr of Colton’s Veneno sails through the parking lot. “Colt’s here, man. He’s going to have your ass for this. He warned you last night, she’s his. You’re not to touch her.”

“The fuck?” I laugh as students start panicking and racing away, clearly not wanting to get involved in something that has to do with Colton. “She ain’t anybody’s, especially not his.”

“Babe,” Charlie says, looking back at me with the sickly-sweet smile again. “I mean this in the best possible way, but do you mind fucking off now?”

I let out a groan but as the bell sounds, I give in. “Okay, but only because you’re pretty.”

He winks, and with that I allow Milo to start dragging me away. “Okay,” he says slowly as I glance back to see Colton getting out of his Veneno, looking around with hard eyes and wondering what the fuck he just missed. “You have some explaining to do and you have about thirty seconds to do it.”

———-

I stand before my health teacher, Coach Sylvester, as he slams a sports uniform into my chest wondering how the hell I’ve managed to make it to the middle of the day, but more importantly, how the hell I ended up having to do PE. I was not born for this shit. I’m a fuck around and have fun kind of girl, not the put my body through grueling workouts for nothing kind of girl.

“Here, hurry up and get dressed. I don’t take too kindly to students who don’t come prepared for their classes. You should have had your sports uniform ready to go when you looked over your class schedule this morning. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”

What the hell is his issue? I wonder if now’s a good time to let him know that I’m not exactly the type to check my schedule every morning either. I’m more of a wing-it kind of girl.

The rest of the class begins making their way over and passes behind us as they start heading for the locker room. “Okay, so where the hell am I supposed to get dressed?” I ask as Milo holds back to wait with me in case he’s about to be called to show me where to go.

Coach Sylvester’s eyes narrow and he looks at me as though I’m stupid. “Where do you think you’re supposed to get dressed?” he grunts, pointing toward the locker rooms where the rest of the boys just filed in. As his words reach them, they all stop and look back at him with questioning, excited glances. “Get in there, get yourself ready for my class, and stop wasting my time.”

I gawk at him while the rest of my class watches on, Colton being one of them. “I’m not getting changed in there with the rest of them,” I snap.

“Yeah, Coach. That hardly seems fair,” Milo adds. “Or I don’t know … legal.”

Coach Sylvester glares at Milo. “What’s fair is treating all my students as equals. If the boys have to get dressed in there then why should she get any special benefit? One school. United. Equal,” he finishes, adding the school code to bring home his point.

“Come on,” Spencer says behind me and I turn around to find my future wannabe husband, leaning against the gated doors of the locker room with his arms folded casually over his wide chest. “I promise I won’t bite.”

“I might,” a guy I don’t know adds as I feel Colton’s intense stare shooting into my back like a laser beam.

Milo steps in closer. “This is fucking insane,” he insists. “This is a sexual harassment case waiting to happen.”

“One school. United. Equal,” Coach Sylvester replies. “If she doesn’t like it, she can leave and she’ll receive a fail for physical education. What’s your pick?”

My jaw clenches. This is fucking humiliating. Surely there has to be some kind of law against this. I’m only seventeen, still a minor while some of these guys are eighteen. I really don’t give a shit if they see my body. I have nothing to be ashamed of but that doesn’t mean I exactly want to go flaunting it around and stripping myself of privacy.

“What happened to all that gender equality you girls are always going on about?” Spencer questions. “Here’s the perfect chance. If we have to use the locker room and get dressed together like sardines, then you can too. If you girls want to be like the boys, well, come on in baby.”