Chapter 18

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As Rose stood with Lissa in the hallway ten minutes before first hour, the two of them were reviewing each other's schedules.

"Hey, guys," Natalie Dashkov said, as she approached from behind Rose, "you two comparing schedules?"

"Hi Natalie," grinned Lissa. Even more stick thin than Lissa but without any of Lissa's feminine grace or soft features, Natalie was pasty-pale and kind of a nerd, with thick glasses and stringy black hair, but Lissa was always nice to everyone, "Yeah, we were just looking over our classes. What have you got?"

Natalie passed her schedule over to Lissa, taking Rose's from Lissa in exchange. "Hey, both of us have the same first hour!" she said, a little too enthusiastic.

"We do?" asked Rose, "Lissa has that same class, too. Oddly, there's no teacher listed, but it's in Stan's classroom. Cultural Literacy sounds like a total snore-fest, especially with him teaching it, but I heard from my mom, who's on the school board, that they're really pushing the angle after some of the lawsuits that have popped up in the past few years."

"Stan?" asked Natalie, clueless.

"She means Mr. Alto," Lissa added helpfully, "He and Rose don't exactly see eye-to-eye. Although ..."

Rose tried unsuccessfully to cock an eyebrow and finally just asked, "What Liss?"

"Well, if it weren't for Mr. Alto, you never would have ended up in detention," Lissa responded, making eye contact.

Natalie scratched her chin. "What's so special about detention?"

Rose looked at Lissa, mentally willing her to keep from accidentally spilling her secret when talking to Natalie, knowing that Natalie could never keep her big mouth shut.

"Sexy Mr. Belikov is in detention. Without being there, Rose never would have met her boyfriend," Lissa said, realizing after she said it where she had gone wrong, but it was too late to take it back.

"What Lissa means is that Mr. Belikov made me pair up with my boyfriend for tutoring after school when he realized how far behind I was in English Lit," Rose covered quickly, "Although honestly, Belikov himself is absolutely yummy to look at."

"Really?" Natalie asked, "I wonder if I could get him to set me up with a tutor. I did horrible at Literature last term. Based on my schedule, it looks like I have him for my Lit class."

"Yeah," said Lissa, "I'm sure you could talk to him about it; he's a really nice guy."

Turning to Lissa, Natalie added, "And if he's so great-looking, maybe I could even convince Daddy to pay him to tutor me himself! God knows I could use a hot teacher as my tutor, working all close to me."

Natalie's father, Victor Dashkov, was as wealthy as Rose's parents, but he was also a criminal defense attorney. He was as slimy as they came and would freely offer bribes to get people to do what he wanted. Or what Natalie wanted, as was often the case.

Rose rolled her eyes at Natalie while her back was turned, but argued, "He actually recommended someone else because he's super-busy. The guy has like three jobs, and a girlfriend besides."

"Wow, Rose," said Natalie, turning to look at Rose again, "you sure know an awful lot about this guy for his being your teacher in detention. Is he this chummy with all of his students?"

"Trust me," Rose tried, hoping her lie was believable, "I wouldn't know this if my dad hadn't tried to get him to tutor me and Belikov offered up all of these excuses. He offered him an obscene amount of money, too."

"You don't even use Belikov's first name like you do every other teacher," Natalie countered, "It's probably because you don't even know what it is.  I bet if I had my daddy ask him, he could offer him even more money - enough that he could quit one of his other two jobs. And Daddy could get me a first name out of him."

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