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By the time I walk into class, everyone else is already seated, which is exactly what I wanted. I needed to know where she was sitting. I spot her. It’s not hard. She stands out like a shiny fucking diamond.

“Can I help you?” Mr. Porter asks me.

“Ah, yeah, I just transferred into this class.” I hand him the piece of paper Miss Kemp gave me.

“Okay, take a seat, Mr. O’Malley,” he says.

“It’s just Connor,” I tell him before heading to the back of the room where there just so happens to be an open seat.

Aurora glares at me as I slide in beside her. “What the hell are you doing?” she hisses.

I look around the room. “Math?” I ask her. “This is general math, right?”

I see her lips twitch. She won’t let herself smile at me. That’s fine, because I like this feisty, pissed-off look she has going on. “Why are you sitting here?”

“Looked like a good spot.” I shrug.

“If you’re done, Miss Valentino, we can get on with today’s lesson,” Mr. Porter calls out.

“Oh, I’m done, Mr. Porter.” Aurora smiles at him.

“We are far from done,” I whisper under my breath while pulling my laptop out of my bag.

“We never started,” Aurora counters.

Ignoring her dig, I keep my attention on the front of the class, not that I need to. A preschooler could do this fucking shit. Halfway through the lecture, I’m bored out of my mind. My hand drops under the table to Aurora’s bare thigh. She jumps, clearly caught off-guard.

“Get your filthy fucking Irish hand off me!” she grinds out between clenched teeth.

“That’s not what you were saying the night we met.” My hand moves higher up her leg.

“Connor, I’m not going to give you another warning,” she says.

“You can pretend all you like that you don’t want me touching you, babe, but you and I both know you do,” I tell her, slowly stalking my fingers upwards until I reach the hem of her skirt, and a sharp stabbing pain radiates through my hand. “What the fuck?” I curse under my breath. I look down and see a pen protruding from my skin.

Before I can say anything more, Aurora smirks at me and stands from her seat. “Mr. Porter, I just got my period. I need to use the restroom.” She picks up her bag and walks out.

Fucking hell. She just fucking stabbed me with a pen and walked out. I don’t know if I’m impressed or… No, scratch that. I’m fucking impressed.

I pick up my own bag and drop my laptop inside it. “Sorry, sir, I seemed to have jabbed myself somehow.” I raise my hand to the teacher, the one that’s still impaled right in the spot between my thumb and index finger, before I pull out the pen. Blood runs down my palm. “Fuck, that hurts like a bitch.”

“Mr. O’Malley, go to the nurse’s office now,” Mr. Porter says, pointing to the door.

“Sure thing, sir,” I tell him.

It doesn’t take me long to find Aurora, especially since I walked straight into the closest girls’ bathroom.

“What are you doing in here? Last I saw, you weren’t a girl,” she says, folding her arms over her chest.

“You made me bleed. You should kiss me better.” I hold up my hand to her.

Aurora takes a step backwards. “You are out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m kissing any part of you.”

My head tilts to the side, my eyes roaming up the length of her body. “You know, when I made you bleed, I kissed you better. Fair is fair,” I remind her.

“Again, not happening,” she says.

Well, fuck. I didn’t think I’d have to work this hard to get her onboard with the idea.“Did you really get your period?”