Chapter 11

Nikolai

I walked down the hallway to school, hating that my eyes immediately looked to Hannah’s locker to see if she was there. Seeing her yesterday had been unsettling. She’d looked different—better than when she’d marched up to me the day before. She was still wearing those oversized glasses, but her clothes actually fit, showing off more of her shape, a shape I found myself thinking about more often than I would have liked.
After catching her eye before first period, I found myself seeing her everywhere. We must have had classes near each other all along, but I had just never noticed. Never noticed her. I made sure to never make eye contact again, but I could feel her presence like a gravitational pull. I found myself always looking for where she was, who was around her. Had any of these other fucking guys noticed how much better she looked today?
Fuck. I felt resentment and frustration like a clawed hand around my throat. I didn’t like this building awareness of her. Seeing her stare at me yesterday—her violet eyes wide with apprehension and hopefulness—had soured my mood further. I knew what she’d been looking for, and that was the exact reason I’d never wanted any woman to have emotional expectations of me.
I leaned against my locker and tipped my head back, trying to regain my former apathy. I didn’t care about his girl. I got suckered into helping her, and once we put this thing in motion, I could quickly wrap it up and I would forget about her.
“Hey, Nikolai,” I heard a female voice purr. I jerked my head up and saw Taylor Ferguson standing next to me, smiling flirtatiously. She’d been hitting on me for years. We messed around a few times, but I was no dummy. She wanted a boyfriend, and that was never going to happen between us. I actually didn’t mind her because she understood we could flirt with each other and it wasn’t going anywhere. She was pretty harmless.
Taylor was another girl I couldn’t figure out. With light hazel eyes and long medium brown hair, she also had guys falling over themselves to date her, but she only wanted the ones she couldn’t have.
I smirked back her. “Hey, Taylor.”
“You looked pretty deep in thought. Be honest. You were thinking about me, right?”
I laughed. “You got me.” This is what I needed—mindless distraction.
Taylor laughed and leaned into me rubbing her hand on my chest. She did this frequently—casual, intimate touching. She was a piece of work.
“Are you going to Mark’s party?” she asked.
“Yeah, I think so. You?”
“I can’t. My family is going to Lake Geneva for the weekend.”
Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Hannah approaching. It was like I had developed this hyperawareness of her. Whenever she was in a particular radius, I could practically feel the air vibrating with her presence. I noted that she was wearing another outfit that, while not particularly fashionable, better suited her figure, particularly her chest. Fuck, she was stacked. It pulled me right out of my meaninglessness interaction with Taylor, which, in turn, pushed my anger and resentment to the surface.
Knowing that Hannah would be unable to avoid seeing it, I grabbed Taylor and pulled her to me. I twisted my hands in her hair, barely registering her look of shock as I slammed my mouth down on hers. The kiss probably looked more passionate than it actually was, but I was eager to create space between me and the idiotic thoughts Hannah was provoking in me.
I had my eyes open slightly and noted that Hannah, looking stunned, had come to stand still in the hallway. Her look of wounded shock caused an irritating twinge under my breastbone. I switched my focus back to Taylor, who was starting to rub against me. My body had no actual interest in her, so while her movements were pointless and easily to ignore, I realized we were creating a scene. I pulled back and stared at Taylor’s dreamy, dumbfounded expression and realized I was going to have to explain this incredibly uncharacteristic behavior in a way that made sure she didn’t get the wrong idea.
I saw Hannah barrel past us, her cheeks red and her face expressionless. Her ponytail swung furiously as she walked away, her back stiff. I was half tempted to follow her, but Taylor tugged on my arm, pulling my attention back to her.
“Nikolai, where did that come from?” she asked, hazel eyes wide with expectation.
Goddamn it. I didn’t have the capacity to deal with this shit right now. “Nowhere – it was just an urge. I was just fucking around. You know, like we do.”
Taylor’s face crumbled in disappointment. “Oh, yes, right.” She swallowed and smiled half-heartedly. “Well, I better get to class.”
“Yeah, me too.” Eager to get the fuck out of this hallway, maybe out of the school, I moved quickly and mindlessly away from Taylor. I was so focused on escape, I didn’t notice Jack until he was standing right in front of me. He was wearing a comically confused look.
“What the fuck was that?”
“What?”
“What the fuck do you think? Making out with Taylor in the hallway. What are you trying to do, steal my moves?” Jack was joking, but still appeared to be genuinely surprised by my behavior.
I drove my fingers through my hair in frustration. “I don’t know, I just fucking felt like it, okay?”
Jack jerked his head back at my atypically sharp tone. “Whoa, settle down. I don’t give a fuck who you make out with. It just wasn’t like you, is all.”
I responded in a low voice. “I know, this stupid deal with Hannah is fucking with my head. I needed her to understand that there is no actual relationship between us, so I kissed Taylor to make sure she was clear.”
Jack’s eyes widened with comprehension. “Now, that makes sense. Is Hannah trying to act like your real girlfriend?” He responded in an equally low tone. The bell had just rung, so the hallway was mostly empty. Although I was starting to seriously regret helping Hannah, I had agreed and didn’t want other people to overhear us. Fortunately, there were mostly lockers and vocational classes in this hallway, so not too many students were here between classes.
I shook my head. “No, not really, but I feel like it could head in that direction. I don’t need some fucking attention-starved nerd getting the wrong idea and creating all kinds of fucking drama.”
“Nik–”
“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have fucked with Taylor like that,” I continued.
“Nikolai, you–”
“I’m a dick? Yes, I know, but Hannah needs to fucking get it. I do not want a girlfriend under any circumstance, least of all her.”
I heard a locker slam loudly behind me. “Message received.”
Hannah.
Jack was grimacing and shaking his head. He slapped me on the arm, turned and walked away. He was the lucky one.
I slowly turned and saw Hannah standing there, her expression indecipherable. Her dark blue eyes were glassy, but I couldn’t tell if they were filled with tears of sadness and embarrassment or glistening with rage. I was going to go with anger. Her cheeks were flushed, and her chest was heaving in a way that made me aware of her wrath and her full breasts. Fuck, I didn’t need that kind of distraction, so I quickly jerked my gaze back to her face.
Hannah took a quick look around the hallway, then stepped closer to me. “You have a lot of nerve, Nikolai. You think you are so fucking irresistible?” She had lifted her finger to point at me and ended up poking her finger into my chest with each of her words. “Do you?”
“Look, Hannah, I–”
“No, you listen to me. I never said I wanted to date you in real life, you got it?”
I moved my back against the wall of lockers, so I could see if anyone wandered into the hallway, and also to escape her jabbing finger.
My move seemed to infuriate her because she then started to pace in front of me, ranting and raving in a low voice about narcissistic personality disorder and jumping to conclusions. Although I was adamant about her not having any expectations for a real relationship, I had to admit there was something sort of adorable about her as she stalked back and forth, waving her hands in gestures of frustration and outrage. I wasn’t really even listening to her anymore, just watching.
She suddenly turned to me, her hands on her hips. “Okay?”
“Okay, what?” I goaded her. While I really hadn’t been listening, I could have played it off.
“Weren’t you listening to me?” Hannah squawked with outrage. “You can kiss every girl in this school for all I care. I just need your help, that’s all, so you can take your oversized ego and…and….”
I popped off the lockers. “And what?” This was where I fucked myself. I wanted her to not want to date me, yet when she is telling me directly that she didn’t care about me making out with some other girl, I didn’t like it. I could tell when a woman was interested in me, and I knew she was probably only saying this stuff to salvage her pride, but it rubbed me the wrong way that she was so emphatic about her disinterest. It was one thing for me to set her straight, it was another for her to set me straight.
“And shove it…” Hannah’s face turned bright red, probably from the combination of my intense stare and whatever she was trying to say.
I walked toward her, so now her back was against the lockers. I put a hand on either side of her head and leaned my face close enough that I felt her panting breath on my mouth. I reached up and pulled her glasses off her face. I had no idea why I did it, but I needed to see her features unobstructed. She blinked in surprise at the sudden and unexpected move.
“And shove it where, Hannah?”
Hannah just stared at me, at a loss for words.
“Are you sure you weren’t just the tiniest bit jealous? Jealous that it wasn’t you I was touching, you I was kissing?” I stared at her pink lips as I questioned her. Lips that were unremarkable moments ago, but now looked ripe and soft. Her tongue reached out to swipe at them, making them shine in a way that was suddenly captivating.
“No,” Hannah croaked softly.
I leaned in a little closer, my mouth moving slowly towards her ear, my breath caressing her cheek. “Are you sure?” I whispered in her right ear.
Her eyelids slid down, and she nodded her head.
What the fuck was I doing? This was the opposite of the original plan. I pulled back, and remembered I had her glasses in my hand. I quickly slid them back onto her face, and her eyes popped open.
“Good, keep it that way.” I turned and left her gaping at me in confusion.
I knew how she felt.