𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐬𝐬

Chapter Seventeen.

FOR THEIR SLTS class the next week, it was in the gymnasium, Jojo setting up as everyone else is wondering why they were there in the first place. "Why do you look upset?" Enya whispers to Romeo who just sighs. "I'm not." He lied and Stevie nudged his waist. "Hey. Sasha told me that Amerie is throwing a party at her place, theme is Back From The Dead." She whispers to him and Romeo just nodded his head.

"I'm gonna get so shit-faced." He says quietly and she giggles. "Can I come?" Enya looks at the two to her left. "Yeah, totally." Stevie nods quickly, kind of taken back. "I don't even care enough to say no." Romeo murmurs and Stevie just softly frowns at him. She leans closer, putting her head to his best friend's shoulder as she holds onto his arm.

"Alrighty. Thank you all for showing up today." Jojo says to the students lined up in front of her. "Hang on, we're missing Dusty?" She says. "Yeah, he's not coming." Spider tells her. "Well, I saw him this morning. He should be here." She said, glancing around. "So, uh, we're going to be playing a game called Stuck in the Mud. You might be familiar with it. If you get tagged, you're stuck and you can't move again unless someone else crawls between your legs and set you free." Miss Obah explained to them.

"Okay, why?"

"Because why not? It could be fun. Amerie, you're it. If Amerie managaes to get you all stuck in the next five minutes, I think I'll give her, I don't know, twenty bucks?" She says, making Amerie interested as she smiles. "Okay, laps. Let's go." Jojo then added. "Miss, uh, we're not dressed to sweat." Ant said, grabbing Darren's skirt and then letting it go.

"Well, I don't care what you're dressed for. You're all going to start running now, or you'll be running after school. Your choice." She then says before all the students began running in laps around the gymnasium. After their rounds of laps, they run all around and try to avoid Amerie, but about 10 seconds in, Romeo let Amerie catch her so he just stood there, arms crossed and watched everyone else.

"Okay, new rule, anyone wearing a checkered shirt is now automatically stuck for the rest of the game." Jojo tells the students. "What the hell, you can't just change the rules." Spider exclaims at their teacher. "Actually, yeah, I can. Now anyone wearing blue is also stuck." She says so Sasha and Quinni come to a stop as Amerie chased after Spider around.

"And anyone wearing a watch. That means you, Spencer." She says as the boy runs behind Quinni and Sasha. "That's not fair." He says to their teacher. "Well, fairness is irrelevant. You're stuck in the mud or you're on double detention." She tells the boy who now stops to stand between Romeo and Quinni.

Amerie now runs over to Harper, touching her on her back. "Alright. It's good hustle, Amerie. Twenty dollars, as promised." She took out the cash and held it out. "Thank you!" The Wadia girl takes it from her. "You can't make us play a game and then change the rules every ten seconds, miss." Missy spoke up, so Jojo looks over at her. "There's a catch. There's always a catch." Romeo now says.

"Yes. Romeo's right. So you all agreed to play the same game, but someone, me, decides to change the rules. Does that feel fair?" She asked the students now. "No." Ant answers her. "But you still kept playing." She tells the Vaughn boy. "Yeah, because you told us we'd all get detention and you promised Amerie twenty bucks. It was rigged." Spider spoke up, making Romeo look over at him.

"So this brings us to the point of today's exercise. I want you to start thinking about this unfair power balance. About other times something like this might happen in life. You know, a boyfriend who decides what their partnet is allowed to--" "oh, yeah, here comes the man bashing." Spider now says.

Everyone looks over at him, "you want to know what is unfair? The fact that this entire school is out to get anyone with a pair of nuts between their legs." The blond boy says and Romeo just rolls his eyes. "Okay, that is completely untrue." Jojo scoffs. "What? So I get detention for looking the wrong way, but Harper gets a pat on the back for publicly shitting on Dusty." Spider now pointed at the McLean girl.

"You wonder why he doesn't rock up." He added when the blonde girl turns away. "Hey, look around, Spencer. No one's feeling sorry for you or Dusty because you aren't the victims here and I really don't think you're convincing anyone that you are. Anyway..." Jojo turns around, facing the other students. "Fucking feminazis, man." Spider now says as some students gasp and Romeo instantly looks at him, making a sour face at the blond boy.

"Sorry, what did you just say?" Jojo asked him. "I said this is bullshit!" Spencer raised his voice. "Get out of my class!" She tells him, pointing towards the gymnasium doors. He walks over, picking up his bag and walking out. The bell rings then, "um... okay, we'll pick this up next week." Jojo tells the students who all walk away to grab their bags and leave.

Later at home when they're getting ready for the party, Romeo enters his room as Stevie was sitting on his bed, doing shots. "Alright, how do I look?" He does a spin and she snorts. "Like a dumb Luke Skywalker." She said and he just flips her off. He and Enya had the brilliant idea of reusing their Luke and Leia Halloween costumes from two years ago, while Stevie is dressed in a pair of black jeans, a grey t-shirt and a pale blue button up. And her hair is messily tied up. And Romeo has no idea who she is dressed up as.

"Ellie Williams." She said and he just shook his head. "Don't know who you're talking about." And then when she walked over to Enya's room to let her know they're gonna be going soon, Enya walked out, in her all white drapes and the signature space buns. "Ellie." She pointed and Stevie laughs. "Yeah. How'd you know?" She said and Enya shrugged.

"You never shut up about the Last Of Us. Also, I have something for you." She walked back into her room and Stevie just stood there. "Here ya go." She held out something. A PlayStation gift voucher. For eighty dollars. "For you." She says and Stevie looks up at her. "You can't be serious..." She says softly.

"Dead serious. I saw how upset you looked over losing the competition..." She says and Stevie chuckles, taking the card. "Wow... thank you so much." She stared at it and Enya just stared at her with a small smile. "Yeah, no problem, Stevie..." She says quietly.

"I'll go tell Romeo you're ready." Stevie said suddenly and rushed off, finding her best friend standing by his desk, spraying cologne on. "She gave me a gift voucher since I lost last week." She said, setting it down onto the desk and Romeo looked at her right away. "Oh, man... and you're falling even more in love." He says and she just shook her head.

"No, I'm not." She denied then looked at him. "Hey, what's up with you anyway? You seemed really down today." She now asked, taking a seat at his bed and he scoffs. "Yeah, okay, change the topic then." He mutters and she rolls her eyes, grabbing the vodka bottle to take a sip from it. "Just spill it." She says.

"I was hooking up with Spider." He says, turning around and she snorts. "Shocker." She says and he rolls his eyes. "Nevermind then--" "no, no, go on. Seriously." She said, now looking at him with sympathetic eyes. "I recently realized I don't want anything to do with him, and he still claims to be straight and doesn't indulge, like all he did was go down on me, or... do other stuff, but he was never involved. He was obviously using me, maybe to laugh about it after, or experiment to figure out if he likes guys or not." He said and she just grimaced at him.

"No way your first relationship with a man is with a straight guy." She says, shaking her head in disappointment as he rolls his eyes, looking away. "So... he's really why you've been fumbling Missy?" She asked now and he sighs, crossing his arms. "I guess." He says and she just frowns at him. "For Spider of all people." She whispers and he looks at her with an annoyed look. "It's all over now. He's out of my life. I'm done with him." He says as he walks over to grab the vodka.

"Mm-hmm, sure. I'll believe it when I see it."

 

authors note
enya and stevie.... 🫶🏼
the fact enya bought her a gift voucher with a higher price on it 😭

+ i forgot to update earlier bc i've been busy watching a tv show with my sister for the past like two or three hours lmao