Page 12

Keahi

“Come on!” Eteri pulls me down the hall and into her room after training.

“That was a shitty training, so I need your help.”

“Only if you beg for it,” I tease her as I close the door behind us, bathing us in utter darkness.

Her roommate isn’t here, and the lights are off, which I don’t mind at all.

Eteri doesn’t like the dark, which makes this so much more fun.

Just enough light to navigate the room flows through the gap underneath the door and I revel in the thought of how hard Eteri’s heart must be pounding right now.

I take my time walking over to her bed, where she is already waiting for me, and linger at the edge.

Have her eyes adapted to the dark yet? Can she see my silhouette like I see hers? Nothing more than a faint shadow.

Her breathing is audible by the time I lower my body over hers. I don’t touch her, simply hovering with my knees and hands caging her in beneath me.

“Please,” she breaths after torturous seconds of me not closing the one-inch gap between our lips.

Content that she did what I asked, I concede and lower my head to kiss her.

This is no anomaly for us at this point, with her nearing her seventeenth birthday and me being sixteen, we’ve been doing this for over a year.

I don’t even remember the first time I kissed her.

Or maybe she kissed me. Not that it matters, we don’t have an anniversary or anything. There are no feelings involved, at least for me, and I’ve made it very clear that I intend for it to always be this way.

It was a rule I set in place when we started fooling around, but even though she says we are on the same page, I know we’re not.

A better man would have tried to talk to her or end it, but that’s not me.

As long as she doesn’t bother me with her feelings, it is not my problem, and we can continue.

I won’t take the blame for any possible heartbreak.

Not when my cards have always been on the table from day one.

If Eteri is feeling self-destructive, then so be it. If I get a good time out of it, even better.

“Where are you going?” she asks softly when I slip out of her bed a while later.

“Your roommate will be back, and I need to get ready for dinner,” I say, forcing my voice to sound less dismissive than I feel before I leave.

I’m an asshole, but I’m not trying to hurt the girl more than she already is due to her own inability to tell me off.

It’s the only decency I can offer her. After all, before we started fooling around, we were something like friends.

I respect her, but I can’t and won’t act like intimacy above what our instincts demand doesn’t make me want to crawl out of my skin.

So, with a quick goodbye, I leave her.

I take a shower and eat dinner early before getting comfortable in a corner of the library.

Not many Students come here other than me, which is precisely what makes this my favorite spot in the academy.

Today seems to be my unlucky day, though, since a familiar voice in a nearby aisle reaches my ear not too long after my arrival.

“You’re part of the water division, right? How long have you been here?” Aiden’s voice grates on my nerves.

He is a year older than me and joined my division three years ago, much to my despair.

The reason why I hate him is because he uses the library almost as often as me, although instead of quietly reading a book, he likes to take girls here to try to get into their pants.

He’s disturbed my peace so often I know all his lame lines by heart.

He’s the slimy kind of guy, getting a girl’s hopes up to get what he wants and then making fun of her for it around his friends.

I would feel bad for the girls if his behavior wasn’t such a well-known fact by now.

If they are still na?ve enough to think they are special to a guy like him, that’s their issue.

“A little over five years,” a lyrical voice replies.

I almost burst out laughing when I recognize it as Malia’s.

He really chose the wrong girl if he wants to get some action tonight. As far as I know, she’s never even kissed another person, and I think I would know.

I keep an eye on her as much as possible.

It started over two years ago when she found out about my secret way out of school as a way to look for something to hold against her to even the scales.

I thought watching her would give me the best chance to hit her where it hurt most when the time was right, but she hasn’t given me much to work with. She’s always put together and stays well within the lines of the school’s rules. By now, watching her has become somewhat of an unconscious habit that I just can’t shake.

I hear the two of them settle down a few aisles away from me and roll my eyes to myself.

The library has two levels, but they are sitting between me and my way up.

And my way out, for that matter.

I definitely don’t want them to see me as I sneak by.

Besides, this corner is the most comfortable place to read in.

Malia is not completely braindead, maybe she’ll tell him off in a few minutes.

But she doesn’t.

A few minutes pass and I am waiting for the moment Aiden gets rejected.

Instead, I hear Malia giggle around like all the girls before her. He flatters her and makes her feel special, and she is too blind to see through his act.

I try to continue reading my book, I really do, but they are talking loudly enough for me to catch every word without making an effort.

I guess they think this place is deserted as much as I did, and I can’t leave now.

They will know I heard their whole conversation, and I will seem like a creep.

Aiden stays charming the whole evening, but Malia doesn’t let him get too close to her.

I can imagine he tried to make a move a couple of times, but apparently, it led to nothing.

Thank the skies above for that, since the only thing that might be worse than hearing Malia talk would be hearing her make other noises. I shudder at the thought.

They finally leave half an hour before curfew, and I can read my book again.

Over the next few days, I see the two of them together multiple times.

They seem to have gotten a little closer since I heard them in the library, and I catch them kissing in the hall to the fire division dorms on my way back from dinner one day.

Somehow, the image of her being pressed up against the wall with another guy’s tongue down her throat is enough to make my flame rear inside my chest. I mean, why would anyone do things like that in public? It’s revolting and obnoxious.

“Whoa, what’s gotten you in such a bright mood?” Blaze asks after I slam the door to our dorm shut behind me.

“Just saw the worst thing in my life,” I announce, dropping down on my bed.

“The princess is French kissing one of our own down the hall.

The fire division has sunk low.” I groan as the mental image resurfaces and slam my pillow over my face.

“I don’t know about that.

She’s quite hot,” my roommate argues casually.

The pillow drops from my hands and my head snaps up so fast I think I might’ve pulled a muscle. I shoot him a look that should convey my feelings toward his statement rather clearly, and he chuckles. “Don’t act like this now. I am sure you have been fantasizing about her as well,” he adds.

“As well?” I exclaim, shellshocked and more than a little disturbed.

Blaze laughs at me.

“I’ve seen her in her uniform, and it’s a sight for sore eyes.

You are lucky you get to see her in those tight black clothes every day.

The guy making out with her is kind of lucky if you ask me. I didn’t know she was on the market. I’ve never seen her with anyone,” he goes on, but I am only half listening now.

My mind is hung up over what he just said.

Now that I think about it, maybe she doesn’t look as bad as my mind has her classified as.

She grew into her stocky limbs in the last year, filling out in all the right places and growing more muscle as our training grew more grueling, Still doesn’t make up for her being a nosy know-it-all. It might be enough to have some fun with her, though. If I didn’t hate her, a voice in the back of my head reminds me, and I quickly get off that train of thought.

“Who was it anyway?” Blaze asks, saving me from the alarming turn my thoughts just took.

“Aiden.”

“No way!” he exclaims, and I raise an eyebrow for him to elaborate.

“I heard he made a bet with some guys about getting into some stuck up girl’s pants, but I didn’t know it was her.

I have to admit, he has some balls. She’s the last girl at school I’d try to mess with. She might be nice and all but she’s hella strong from what my trainer always gushes about. At least I don’t have to worry about them getting serious, though.”

“Right, because she would want to start something with you right after getting played and humiliated by Aiden,” I huff, but Blaze doesn’t seem to understand.

“Whatever.” I dismiss the conversation and get ready for bed.

She’s too trusting, she’ll break like a toothpick when she finds out.

There’s a twitch in my gut at the thought, that persistent little voice nagging at the back of my mind.

It might be my stifled conscience making a rare appearance, but I block it out.

I only regret that I won’t be the reason for her pain. That’s probably it. What Aiden does is his deal. What Malia allows him to do is her own responsibility.

What’s done is done.

Maybe she’ll learn something from it.