Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Smiling, I click into the Bass forum. Girl made a good point about Callie, and I don’t like when fandoms pile on characters like they’re worth less than dog shit. Unloved ones get more love from me.
With my attention half on the hall, I respond to Illyana_Dallas222.
Don’t know why everyone is so heated over Callie. Season isn’t even halfway over yet. You’d think we were on the finale but the pitchforks have already come out.
She’s quick. Within a couple seconds, my phone pings with a Fanaticon notification.
Illyana_Dallas222: I guess the upside is that there is a lot of interaction with the show. Season 2 is prob guaranteed.
I send: Better be. So many cool directions the show could go and its top-tier atm
Illyana_Dallas222: I hope they stick the season landing 🤞🙌 I like your username btw
I reread the last bit, about to type out a lengthy response, but the classroom door cracks open. So I send a quick thx. No time to be on the internet, I slip my phone in my back pocket.
It’s not Xander.
I try to wash away my annoyance when I see the short senior cheerleader in a Dalton Cheer outfit. Delilah. Bathroom hall pass in her hand, she gently shuts the door and flashes her blue eyes over at me.
I act like I’m scoping out the empty hallway.
“Hey,” she whispers, lingering around me.
This is the fifth bathroom break Delilah has taken this week. Her cheer friends have taken just as many during their Calc class with Xander.
“There’s a football game tonight, you know.” Delilah shifts against the blue lockers next to me, and I tense, uncomfortable at her closeness.
I touch my earpiece, as though comms are coming through.
“Are you going to go?” she wonders, twirling a piece of strawberry-blonde hair. “Maybe I’ll see you there?”
I click my mic. “Donnelly to SFO, I gotta offload some freight. Over and out.”
Oscar responds, “You hear that, gang? Donnelly has to take a shit at high school.”
“You sound like you want to watch, Oliveira,” Farrow chimes in. “Go drive over there and hold his hand.”
“He’s a big boy, Redford. You, on the other hand.”
“You’re not holding my hand.”
“I’ll hold it,” I quip.
Oscar laughs over comms.
“Hold your shit, Donnelly,” Thatcher interjects. “Bell’s going to ring soon.” He’s keeping up with the school schedule, even though his client is Jane.
“Good Papa,” I joke on comms. I’m not in any toilet dilemma. Just trying to get the cheerleader to go.
I risk a brief glance.
Delilah hasn’t left. She looks more enthralled. “Hey, I liked your recent TikTok video.”
I stiffen more as she taps on her phone and flashes my TikTok at me.
I’m shirtless and simply nodding my head to the beat of a trending song. Just feeling myself, nothing criminal. She’s making me dislike the things that I enjoy doing—and I hate that.
I eye the door. “Your teacher know you’re not using the bathroom?”
“She won’t care. Ms. Davis is cool.”
You’re seventeen, I almost spout. I get that I look like someone who’d do immoral things. I get I’m not always proper and upstanding, but to go after underage girls isn’t in me.
It shouldn’t be in anyone.
The only time I surprised myself even going for someone much younger than me was Luna. But she was almost nineteen. I would never…
I could never…
It sickens my insides, even the thought of someone young being taken advantage of. I know what that’s like.
“Well I care,” I tell Delilah. “And you shouldn’t be talking to me.”
“Why not?” She slips me a bashful smile. “You seem just as cool as Ms. Davis. Aren’t you?”
“Nah,” I shake my head. “I think you should go to the bathroom.”
She starts walking backwards, grin expanding towards me.
I avoid her eyes.
“I like a guy who plays hard to get.” She wags her fingers to catch my attention.
“You have no shot with me, Delilah.”
She giggles like I’m joking, then winks. “See you at the football game, Paul Donnelly.”
I don’t reply.
I wonder if I should be asking for a temp to cover the football game instead of me. Nah, I’m not letting a high school cheerleader scare me off from doing my job. I wish I could just post up in the classroom, but the administration decided my presence inside the class distracted the students.
Instead, they’re distracting me outside the class.
Bell rings while she’s still in the bathroom. No second confrontation with Delilah is my single stroke of luck for the day. Xander hustles out of the class first.
“Let’s go,” he says quickly, practically sprinting with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein against his chest. Swiftly, I shift out in front of Xander as the halls fill with the student body. Lockers click open, backpacks and books appearing as everyone heads home or to after school functions.
“Locker?” I ask as we pass his, but he shakes his head, cheeks beet-red.
“Just go.” He catches on to my tee a few times as students bump into him.