Liability

Chapter 2 - Rhys

Rhys groans when a heavy weight lands on his back and a godforsaken screeching noise nearly busts his eardrums. He shrugs his shoulders and turns his head to the side to glare at his assailant, his gaze meeting with the dark brown glittering of Thommy Prescott's eyes and wide grin.

"You're heavy," he deadpans, making Thommy's grin spread even further if possible. Rhys tries to glare harder, but Thommy just laughs and ruffles his hair before he finally gets off Rhys back.

"You heard?" Thommy asks, all excitement and little attention to his surroundings. "We're getting new teachers. Some freshies were already babbling about two young bombshells, so I hope we'll be the lucky ones to get one of them for homeroom."

The two of them are one of the few non-dorm living students who don't take a car to school. The long line of flashy cars always seemed tacky to Rhys and he hated waiting in line for his turn to finally get out in front of the school's entrance just to show off his family's influence and money. It was pathetic when he was twelve, just starting Edison, and it seems even more pitiful now that he is nearly seventeen. So, he has been walking the small distance between his condo and the school ever since he was fifteen and officially entered senior high school. Thommy just chose to follow his example after he refused the offer of a ride, when Thommy mistakenly thought there was something wrong with their car-as if the Martinez family didn't have several of them he could use if he wanted. Their group of friends laughed at first, teasing Rhys about slumming it up with the dorm-kids, but it became old news pretty fast and now, nearly two years later, no one really noticed or cared anymore.

Looking up at Thommy's excited face, Rhys bites back a fond smile. He doesn't know much about the new teachers, but he would bet that the principal would never assign their group a young woman as their homeroom teacher. Correction, the principal would never assign a young woman as any kind of teacher to the entire senior academy student body. Still, he doesn't share his thoughts with his friend. He needs something that will make the day at least marginally interesting if predictable. Not that he really cares, but he's fed up with being constantly bored yet unable to escape.

"What do you think, Rhys?" Thommy asks with a huge smile. "Who will tag the new teach first?"

Tag.

He wanted to sneer at the distasteful tradition that was established when the first female teacher was hired at the academy. It involved the students pulling no stops to put their tag on the new teacher by seducing her and showing evidence of bedding her. It was demeaning yet never explicitly banned besides firing the teacher every time the game was won by someone. The only attempt at putting a stop to the sick tradition was made by the current principal who hasn't hired a female faculty member under fifty since her appointment much to the students' disappointment.

"Do your best and you could do the honors," he says instead of voicing his real thoughts. He knows it would only take a few well aimed words to make all his friends forget about participating in the game, but Rhys never cared enough about teachers to prevent any prank his classmates pulled. "But let's not ignore the off-chance that we get some old hag or a guy."

"Oh, yeah! You always think of everything!" Thommy exclaims with a laugh just as they walk through the automatic glass doors and instantly get mobbed by the rest of their group.

"Who's excited to get some fresh meat?" James croons, wrapping himself over Thommy's shoulder even though he has to rise onto his tiptoes to reach them. He winks at Rhys with a saucy smirk.

"I'm sure you're dying to get to play the bad student, Hudson," Mark retorts snidely, adjusting his thick black glasses. "That pathetic virginity of yours must be burning a hole into your pants."