Sweet talk

Thwip.

Ian jerked her head up from her math textbook, her eyes falling on the thing that had just hit her in the head, now lying innocently on the table in front of her.

A purple candy heart.

SWEET it said.

She picked it up and looked suspiciously around the library.

There was a giggling group of freshmen two tables over but she didn't see any candy boxes or Valentines, just paper and pens and library books.

The student council meeting up front was talking about fundraising, with a list of themes for the spring dance written on the whiteboard.

In the back corner, next to the windows, Mickey and Iggy Milkovich were lounging. Well, Mickey was lounging, her feet up on the table, her chair tipped back on two legs. Iggy was scribbling something on a piece of paper.

As Ian watched, Mickey lifted the little cardboard box in her hand and shook a few candy hearts into her mouth. She crunched them loudly, staring back at Ian. Then she grinned. Mean and wide. Like a shark.

Ian shook her head and tried to focus on the math problem in front of her again. Mickey probably had it out for Lip this week. Ian remembered when they'd actually kind of been friends as kids, but Mickey had broken one of Lip's Hot Wheels—a rare and precious birthday gift from Monica—and it had all been downhill from there. And when Lip and Mickey were having a problem, Mickey was more than happy to take it out on any Gallagher he could get his hands on. Ian wasn't going to fall for the bait.

Thwip.

Ian gritted her teeth. That one had bounced off her ear and hit the floor.

Thwip.

Mickey was clearly perfecting her aim. The next one landed right in front of Ian, on his textbook.

BE MINE.

Ian brushed it off so it sat next to the other one, and squinted at where she had started writing the next problem down in his notebook. If x equals 12 . . .

Thwip thwip thwip. Three more hearts: one hit Ian's forehead, another her cheek, and when she lifted her head to glare at Mickey, the last one hit her on the nose. Mickey tried and failed to smother a guffaw at the look on Ian's face.

Ian narrowed her eyes, and glanced toward the librarian, who was staring at his computer behind the circulation desk. Even the teachers didn't want to mess with the Milkoviches if they didn't have to.

Fine. Whatever. She needed to get this homework done, and Mickey was wasting the only free time she had at school to do it.

Ian slammed her book shut and gathered up all the candy hearts, chalky in her sweaty palm. She marched over to the table in the corner. Mickey raised her eyebrows. Iggy kept scribbling.

"These are disgusting," Ian told Mickey, and dropped the handful of candy into her lap. "If you're going to be annoying, at least throw something good."

Mickey stared back at her, then curled her lip in a sneer. Ian glared for another second, then turned around and stalked back to her own table. She could feel Mickey's eyes burning a hole in the back of her head, but she refused to give her the satisfaction of turning around.

Ian managed to get through the next three problems in blissful peace and quiet—except for the obnoxious freshmen, whose teacher kept yelling at them—though she actually wasn't sure if she had the right answers. Ms. Collins only assigned the ones that weren't listed in the back of the book, so she never knew if she was on the right track or not. She
wrote down the equation for the next problem, then started chewing on the end of her pencil while he thought about how to solve it.

Mickey's chair legs hit the ground hard enough that Ian could hear it, even though the floor was carpeted. Ian didn't look up, but she couldn't help but notice when Mickey reached over and crumpled up Iggy's piece of paper.

"Eh!" Iggy protested, and Mickey bounced the paper ball off Iggy's head, then leaned her chair back again. Ian winced—even she could tell that was a mistake. Iggy hooked one foot under Mickey's chair and tipped it over backward. Mickey flailed but didn't manage to keep her balance, falling sideways to the ground with the chair on top of her.

Even the librarian couldn't ignore that.  But before he could come over and kick them out, Mickey and Iggy got up and sauntered out of the library, like they were doing him a favor.

Ian shook her head. She had twelve problems left and only half an hour to do them, but at least now she would be able to focus.

Except, it turned out, she still couldn't. Without the distraction of Mickey throwing things to keep her entertained, she couldn't avoid the truth of the matter: her math homework was just kind of...boring.

She didn't even have any candy or anything. Sure, candy hearts were disgusting, but it was better than nothing. And sometimes, the printing on the messages got all blurry or off center, and they ended up saying stupid random shit like PEA or BE GOO. (Not that the stuff that was on them normally wasn't also stupid and random.)

Feeling around in her pocket, she realized she at least had a cigarette left from the pack she'd swiped from Lip's dresser, and her lighter in her backpack. Leaving the rest of her stuff there—if anyone wanted to copy off her algebra homework, they were probably going to get what they deserved—she ducked into the bathroom for a smoke. She'd be able to focus better after a break, probably.

When she came back, the freshmen were gone and the student council meeting was finally wrapping up, but Mickey was back, alone this time, sitting in the corner by the window.

Ian rolled her eyes, then pointedly went and sat on the other side of his own table, so her back was to Mickey. She settled into her chair and looked down at his textbook.

THWIP.

Whatever had just bounced off the back of her head, it was bigger and heavier than a candy heart, and Mickey had thrown it pretty hard.

Ian spun around, but before she could say a word, Mickey looked pointedly down at the ground.

It was a heart-shaped piece of chocolate, wrapped in red foil. Ian blinked, then leaned down and picked it up. She flipped it over—there was a place to write names on the back, like when you had to give one piece of candy to everyone in your class as a little kid.

FROM: DANIEL

TO: ALISA

"Alisa?" She said, then looked up at Mickey, who was staring back at him, blank-faced.

Ian shrugged, then unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth.

Mickey pulled his box of candy hearts out, and threw one into the air, then caught it in her mouth, crunching down on it like it was an ice cube.

"Gross," Ian muttered, the melting chocolate sweet and thick on her tongue. She turned back to her math homework, but not before she saw Mickey grinning. Less mean, this time.