Her pen is frantically moving over the paper, possibly a result of the energy drink she downed. I read the sentences as she jots them down. I read them more than once, but they don't make a lick of sense, no matter how many times I read them.
Trains and buses stole my shoes and now I have to eat raw squid.
I laugh at the randomness of all the sentences sprawled across her page, and she glances up at me. I meet her gaze and she grins mischievously.
She looks down at her notebook and taps her pen against it. "I get bored," she whispers. "I don't have a very good attention span."
I normally have a great attention span, but apparently not while I'm sitting next to her.
"Sometimes I don't either," I say. I reach across the desk and point at her words. "What is that? A secret code?"
She shrugs her shoulders and drops her pen, then slides the notebook closer to me. "It's just something stupid I do when I'm bored. I like to see how many random things I can think up without actually thinking. The more they don't make sense, the more I win."
"The more you win?" I ask, hoping for clarification. This girl is an enigma. "How could you lose if you're the only one playing your game?"
Her smile disappears and she glances away, staring down at the notebook in front of her. She delicately traces her finger over the letters in one of the words.
I wonder what the hell I just said to change her demeanor so drastically and so fast. She picks her pen up and hands it to me, shaking away whatever thoughts just darkened her mind.
"Try it," she says. "It's highly addictive."
I take the pen from her hand and find an open spot on her page. "So I just write anything? Whatever comes to mind?"
"No," she says. "The exact opposite. Try not to think about it. Try not to let anything come to mind. Just write."
I press the pen to the paper and do exactly what she says. I just write.
I dropped a can of corn down the laundry shoot, now my mother cries rainbows.
I lay the pen down, feeling slightly stupid. She covers her mouth to stifle a laugh after she reads it. She turns to a fresh page and writes, You're a natural, then hands me the pen again.
Thank you. Unicorn juice helps me breathe when I listen to disco.
She laughs again and takes the pen from my hand just as the professor dismisses class. Everyone throws their books in their bags and slides out of their seats in a hurry.
Everyone but us. We're both staring down at the page, smiling, not moving.
She puts her hand on the notebook and slowly shuts it, then slides it down the table and into her backpack. She looks back at me. "Don't get up yet," she says as she stands up.
"Why not?"
"Because. You need to sit there while I walk away so you can determine whether or not I really am a fine piece of ass." She winks at me and spins around.
Oh my god. I bite my knuckles and do exactly what she says, planting my eyes directly on her ass. And just my luck, it's perfect. Every bit of her body is perfect. I sit completely still as I watch her descend the stairs.
Where the hell did this girl come from? And where the hell has she been all my life? I curse the fact that whatever just happened between us is all that could ever happen. Relationships never begin well with lies. Especially lies like mine.
She glances over her shoulder before she walks out the door and I bring my gaze back up to her eyes. I give her a thumbs up. She laughs and disappears out the classroom door.
I gather my things and attempt to get her out of my head. I need to be on point tonight. There's too much riding on this to be distracted by such a beautiful, perfect ass.
SLOAN- 3
Chapter Three
Sloan
I finish the days homework at the library, knowing I won't be able to concentrate once I step foot back in the house. When I first moved in with Asa, I was one night away from being evicted from the couch I was crashing on...not to mention all the other financial issues I dealt with. We had only been dating two months, but I had nowhere else to go.
That was over two years ago.
I knew based on the cars he drove and the size of his house that he had money. What I wasn't sure of was whether or not it was old money, or if he was involved in something he shouldn't be involved in. I had no idea it would be both. He hid it pretty well for the first couple of months, excusing his spending habits on the fact that he had a big inheritance. I believed him for a while. I had no choice but to believe him.
When people I didn't know began showing up at odd hours of the night, and Asa only spoke to them behind closed doors, it became more and more obvious. He tried to explain his reasoning and swore he only sold "harmless" drugs to people who were going to find it somewhere else anyway. I didn't want any part of it, so when he refused to stop, I left.
The only problem was, I had nowhere to go. I crashed on a few friends' couches, but none of them had room or money to keep supporting me. I would have resorted to a homeless shelter before going back to Asa, but it wasn't my life I was worried about. It was my little brother's.
Stephen was born premature, and with a lot of mental health issues. He was receiving state funding for his care, but when that was cut off, I couldn't risk him being sent back home. I didn't want him back in that life, and I'd do anything to make sure he wasn't a part of it ever again.
I was gone all of two weeks when I had nowhere else to turn back to other than Asa. Walking back through his doors and asking for his help was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was as if running back into his arms was the equivalent of relinquishing my self-respect. He let me move back in, but not without consequences. Now that he knew exactly how much I had to depend on him, he stopped hiding his lifestyle. More and more people came over, transactions were out in the open rather than behind closed doors.