Boarding with the Bad Boy [COMPLETE + BONUS published edition]

THE BOARDERS: 02

Sam

"You have got to be fucking kidding me that bitch is back in Salisbury. And doing her senior year at Remington? No fucking way." Brandon Ott is fuming, clenching his fists and releasing them, his knuckles white.

"Come on, man. You don't know that she is." I've known Ott for just over six years, and I've heard about Logan Somers through every single one of them. Early on, when we first met at summer camp, the stories were funny, kinda sweet. By the time we turned thirteen, Ott couldn't stand the chick. And when she ran off to California with her mom and his dad? Let's just say the word 'hate' doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Bullshit," he snaps now. "If she's not enrolling, what the hell is she doing parked in front of Admissions with a fucking welcome packet in her hands? And don't 'come on, man,' me, Evans. You have no idea what that girl is capable of. None."

I don't bother answering; it wouldn't matter if I did. It's always like this when the Somers family comes up. Ott just needs to talk himself through it.

"So fucking entitled, and self-righteous, and just a liar straight through to her dead core. Like her whore mother," Ott mutters. He pauses for a moment, breathing hard, before he curses again. "I was this close to getting out of Salisbury and never having to even think about her again."

I glance back at Logan's old truck, trundling down the hill toward the dorms. I don't call Ott's attention to this. He's on a roll now anyway.

"This year was supposed to be our year—my year—my shot at getting out of the hellhole that is Salisbury High and making some kind of name for myself before college."

"Why can't it still be that?" I reason.

"You don't get it!" Ott's straight up spitting with rage. "Logan Somers is a virus—a fucking parasite. She'll suck you dry and leave you for dead before you can ask what the hell is happening."

I think about the chick, her mouth twisting into an acid smile as she announced that there was bite to go with her bark. "I wouldn't mind being sucked dry by those lips," I say, like an idiot.

Ott gives me a look that shrivels my insides. "I know you're just fucking around, but don't even joke about that shit."

I put my hands up, my remorse coming full and fast. He's right. It would be the ultimate betrayal to even be attracted to Logan Somers. Which I'm not. I'm not. But if I was...it wouldn't matter.

We walk in silence for a few moments, my brain working hard to bury any and all pull toward the feisty chick in the beat-up truck. Like Ott said, this year is for him and me—to rule Remington, get our rocks off, go down in a blaze of glory before we graduate and get turned out into the real world. Which is only funny because my mother is convinced that Ott's presence at Remington will keep me sober and in line. Her voice rings in my ears: "If you get kicked out of one more boarding school..."

We take our time getting to the dining hall. It's still early, and since boarders have only begun arriving this afternoon, the place basically empty. Ott and I claim a corner by the windows and settle in. He hasn't said a word since he told me off for making that shit joke about Logan Somers, and I'm starting to worry about him when he turns to me, a fake grin plastered over his features.

"All right, I'm done thinking about this crap. Tell me about the new roommate. You meet him yet?"

I groan and drag a hand over my face. I'd been rip-shit when I found out that I was getting a roommate less than a week before school officially started. One of the contingencies I'd given my mother when she enrolled me at Remington last spring was that I'd have a single for my sixth form year. If I was getting my shit together and living under the watchful eye of my neglectful father (how's that for an oxymoron?), I could at least have 200 square feet of school dorm to myself.

She'd promised me that, and then Headmaster Carr's secretary had sent a bullshit email about a last-minute addition to the Remington family in need of housing. As the only student with a single, I got saddled with him. I'd stopped reading after the first paragraph. I have no interest in knowing anything about the guy, because if everything goes to plan, he'll either take a new roommate or transfer out of Remington before we ever get to be best pals.

I tell Ott as much. He barks a laugh and slaps a hand into my shoulder.

"How're you gonna do it?" Ott loves nothing more than fucking with a weak link. I think it's because he used to be the guy at the bottom of the totem pole that he takes such great pleasure out of putting someone else there. He sure as hell got a kick out of terrorizing Logan Somers, even when she was 3,000 miles away.

I shrug. "Left him a little something to welcome him home this afternoon."

"No fucking way," Ott crows, leaning back in his seat and locking his hands behind his head as he studies me. "You shit in his bed?"

"What?" I'm doubled over laughing at the suggestion; I hadn't even thought of it. "Hell no. I just left all my clothes and shit there. Dude, are you serious?"

Ott's laughing now too, holding his hands up in a "wasn't me" motion. Finally, we both settle down and he gives me a strange look.

"I've got Ho-gan here to fuck me up, and you've got some bitch roommate cramping your style, but nothing's going to get in our way of having the best year of our fucking lives, right?"

Without permission, my memory throws me back two weeks to the first time I saw Logan Somers in person, at some Salisbury High chick's party. She was coming downstairs from one of the bedrooms, Seb Weaver's hand on her ass, his lips on her ear. She'd looked a little bewildered and a lot pissed, and I'd felt a surge of need I had never experienced before or since. At least until this afternoon. And that cannot become a problem.

I hold my soda up. "To the best year of our fucking lives."

Ott taps it and takes a slug of his drink before standing and announcing that he's going to get dessert.

As he walks away, a loud, grating laugh at the entrance of the hall catches my attention. I glance up to see Jared Weaver barking at something the girl next to him has said. My eyes narrow on the latter. Her back is to me, and I can tell from here she's hot, but she's wearing my hat. From my dorm.

She follows Weaver to a table, turning to scan the room before she takes a seat. My jaw clenches as the recognition settles: Logan Somers is having dinner with Jared Weaver, just a couple weeks after she and his brother Seb...well who knows what really happened that night.

She sits across from Jared, facing away from me again. He leans comfortably across two chairs, talking animatedly with his hands. Her back stays stick straight. If I had to guess—and, what the hell, I am—her posture reads as nervous and uncomfortable. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear as she picks up her fork, nodding slightly to whatever dumb line Weaver's feeding her. I think about her eyes at the party—haunted and angry—as she came down those stairs with Seb, before reminding myself that this is the girl who disappeared to California with my best friend's dad. She and her mom ruined Ott's family. She's a bitch and a homewrecker, or as good as. And the unsettling attraction I feel toward her ends now. I watch her for a moment longer, memorizing the way she moves so that I never have to do it again. Then I shove back from my table and head her way.