The Trench

Chapter 25 - Vegan Wench

"Good morning, Grumpy Gus." I fake my cheesiest grin and he rolls his eyes at me before setting his black briefcase down on the table beside me.

"Good morning, Nosy Rosy." He looks down at me from his standing position and raises an eyebrow. I scrunch my nose in disapproval at his nickname for me. He's right, I am super nosy but that doesn't mean I like when people tell me that.

"A little early for classes aren't we, making friends?" He turns his head in the direction the table guy went with his mom, his mouth pressed in a hard line.

I lean back and fold my arms across my chest looking at him. He's dressed in khakis today with a light grey shirt and a deep purple tie. At the moment his sleeves are pushed up revealing his cross and other tattoos, I couldn't help but think it's incredibly sexy when his sleeves are pushed up like that. He looks all professional, yet there's that one part of him that he hides from everyone else on campus that I've seen multiple times.

"Is someone jealous?" I ask amusingly. He turns his head back to look down at me, a frown in his face. He looks back up at the building and his jaw clenches before he speaks.

"You know damn well I am." He says in a low voice. "You'd be mine already if you'd let me." Without looking at me again he grabs his briefcase and walks away from my table inside the building.

I sigh and put my face in my hands, resting my elbows on the table. Would a relationship really be that bad?

Yes, yes it would Riley. Don't even go there. You know what happened with Cole, that was our last straw.

But he never mentioned a relationship, hoe bag. All he wanted was another date. My subconscious argues.

Whiiiiiich leads to what?

Technically not a relationship, it could just lead to casual sex. You're not opposed to that.

Neither are you, who's the hoe bag now?

I take a deep breath and shake my head clearing my thoughts. There's no use in sitting here arguing with my subconcious, she always wins.

After being interrupted several times I've lost interest in finding my place again in my book. I shove it frustratingly into my bad and I look at my phone. There's only about 10 minutes until class starts now, so I grab my backpack and head inside.

I step inside the classroom, Austin was in his office I assumed and there were only a few kids in class so far. I climb the steps and walk over to the far side and take my usual seat between Aimee and Mae's seats, neither one is here yet so I pull my phone out and browse my social media newsfeed. Aimee just posted a long rant about anti-vegans; I guess she got into it with another patron at her favorite café again. I laugh to myself, Aimee told me she was a vegan when we first met. As a meat lover myself, I couldn't live without it. However, I don't go bashing people who chose to leave it out of their diet. To each their own.

Speaking of the devil, the door opens and Aimee walks in coffee in one hand and what I assume is her tofu breakfast sandwich in the other.

Yuck.

"Good morning, hun." She says as she plops down in her seat beside me and takes a swig of coffee.

"Good morning, I see you've had your morning spat with strangers." I give her a sarcastic smirk and wiggle my phone at her and she laughs as she unwraps her sandwich.

"I just don't get it. You eat meat, whatever floats your boat. I'm not one of those snobby vegans who will burn you at the cross for consuming innocent animals. Like I totally know you eat meat, Riley. You enjoy hunting, yet here we are having a mature conversation about it like adults. People are so fucking RUDE and can't handle a debate! He's no better than me; eating meat doesn't make you more of a person than me. You don't stand behind a person in line and sneer at their food order decisions like it's your fucking JOB and then give me your unwarranted opinions about my life choice. I DON'T NEED YOUR FUCKING OPINIONS ASSHOLE, my food is FINE!"

Aimee ripped a part of her sandwich off and shoved it in her mouth, still shaking and bobbing her head along with a silent, fictional argument inside her head. I suppress a laugh as I notice several other students had wondered in and everyone was trying not to stare our way. Her rant started off innocent but towards the end her voice raised to a high volume which got everyone's attention pretty quick.

Including Mae, who was headed to her seat on the other side of me. One eyebrow raised towards Aimee in a disdainful expression.

"Oh good morning Mae, I have exciting news." I fake a smile and she eyes me suspiciously as she slips in her seat.

"Come to find out I'm invisible." I throw my arms up in an exaggerated shrug. "No one gets my texts or phone calls anymore, so I guess I'm some sort of super human now. That's the only explanation I can come up with."

I slouched in my seat bemusedly as Mae rolled her eyes and sighed.

"If you're referring to me I never got any calls or texts." She gives me a small shrug and pulls her notebook and textbook out, Austin is now in the front of the class but class hasn't started yet. We still have a few minutes before the door is locked.

I hear Aimee scoff on my other side and apparently Mae did too. Mae leaned forwards to shoot daggers at Aimee.

"The fuck is your problem, wench?"

"Jesus, Mae." I muttered as I shoved her shoulder lightly.

"Wench? Did we travel back in time to the Old English?" Aimee spat, irritatingly tapping the end of her pen against the desktop.

"Fuck you, Aimee." Mae stood up so fast her chair fell over behind her, students turned to look at her and Austin snapped his head up, a worried and confused expression on his face.

"Miss Michaels, is there a problem?" Austin's voice carries through the classroom and his eyes left Mae and came down hard on Aimee and I and his lips pressed into a thin line.

Don't look at me like that, we didn't do shit mister. I thought to myself as I gave him a wary look.

Mae ignored him and swung her bag over her shoulder before hastily moving down the stairs and across the front of the room. She flung the door open and walked out, the door slamming shut behind her.

Austin gets out of his seat and strides to the door and exits, whether to reassure her or scold her for causing a scene I'm not sure.

As I'm staring towards the door the room erupts in a hum of voices, whispering to each other about the drama and taking advantage of the delay in class. I drop my head on the desk and press my right cheek against the cool top, and I notice something on the floor underneath of Mae's desk.

Her phone.

Quickly I lean over and snatch it off the ground, I press the home button and the screen pops on. I swipe my finger across the glass and surprisingly there's no passcode and I'm inside.

"What are you doing? Is that Mae's?" Aimee leans over my shoulder to look at the screen and I nod.

"Yep, it's hers. Guess whose text messages are read?" I slide the phone over for Aimee to look at; all of my phone calls and texts have been opened. "Didn't get my messages my ass." I mutter.

I shift in my seat to where I'm sitting sideways facing Aimee.

"This has gone on long enough, I don't know what happened between you two but I need answers. I can't keep being tossed in the middle of you two." I stare down Aimee, after a few hesitant seconds she nods in agreement.

"Meet me by the campus gym at 3; we can go to my house. I'll tell you everything."