Sugar and Spice / l.h ✔️

8

~Maeve's POV~

I sat down at the lunch table with Priscilla beside me, so used to Nicolai's insistently annoying presence that I had learned that it was best to just try to ignore him by now. However, Luke, who sat directly across from me like he did every day, was a completely different case. I liked him, so obviously he was perhaps the only guy at the table I didn't ignore entirely. Maybe I wouldn't ignore the other guys if they weren't brainless minions who followed Jase and Nicolai's every order.

"Hi." I smiled at Luke as I swirled my spoon around in my macaroni, mixing the cheese around some more. He glanced up at me and looked at me for a moment before he offered me a small smile. "Hey." He muttered, looking down at his tray as he scooped a spoonful of his own macaroni into his mouth. We seemed to have gotten the same thing to eat today.

I noticed he was still a little bit closed off around me, but I was fine with that. Slowly he was talking to me more, which is more than could be said for a lot of the people who tried to talk to him—even members of the football team didn't seem to be able to get him to talk to them unless he had to. To me, it was funny. And it wasn't like I was in a big rush to get ahead in our friendship honestly; it would grow stronger the longer we knew each other and the more time we spent getting to know one another, I was sure, so I wasn't concerned about it.

Quietly I ate my lunch, trying my best to ignore the way that Nicolai was glaring at me from beside Luke, pure fury in his blue eyes. What he was angry about this time, I couldn't say. The possibilities were endless with him.

After Luke had finished eating, he stood up and stalked off to throw away his trash, making Nicolai immediately lean over the table towards me. It was instinct when I looked at him, raising my brows in expectation for him to say something, which he inevitably did. "Why are you talking to Luke?" He demanded to know, his palms flat against the table as he stared at me. Frowning, I stopped stirring my macaroni around and wondered if he was serious, but it was obvious that he was. "Because we're friends. Friends talk to each other." I answered casually, giving him a soft shrug of my shoulders.

Nicolai snorted and gave me a flat look. "Really? You are friends with him?" He laughed, as if something was funny. I just frowned at him, not breaking our gaze. "Yes." I affirmed simply, nodding my head. His blue eyes were narrowed and full of doubt. "Somehow I doubt that." He laughed, making me inhale deeply as I tried to keep my calm. "Why's that?" I asked in a touchy tone, holding the side of my tray tightly just so I wouldn't snap on him. Nicolai had been proving himself to be more and more of a jerk everyday, but I still wasn't used to it in a way that didn't surprise me each time at his sheer audacity.

There was an amused smirk on his lips. "Because you're a prissy little bitch and Luke doesn't even talk to any of us on the team. Why would he waste his time on someone as unimportant as you?" He chuckled, blue eyes glinting with mirth and malice. Ever since we'd broken up, he'd made it his mission to constantly put me down, no matter what. I just tried to ignore it, but it was hard.

Beside me, Priscilla sneered at him. "Unimportant?" She scoffed, glaring at him angrily. "If she's so unimportant, why are you so pissed that you couldn't sleep with her? It must suck having such a fragile ego that you can't even accept that you don't own access to someone else's body."

Her words made my lips pull up into a little smile, finding it sweet that she was coming to my defense. I couldn't help but to giggle a little, amused at how utterly true her words were. Nicolai could deny it all he wanted, but his hatred for me only stemmed from his inability to have sex with me like he wanted. I was no idiot—I knew he was attracted to me then and even now, just like I knew he truly couldn't handle my refusal to have sex with him. It was a good thing I had, too, because it was very obvious he'd only been after my virginity and I knew that now.

What Priscilla said visibly made him very angry as he tightened his hands into fists and clenched his jaw. "My ego isn't fragile." He hissed. "And I figured that I'd at least get laid once by her, but every time I'd start trying to go farther, she pushed me away and would say she wasn't ready. She's a tease." He scoffed, his eyes narrowed in a glare as he looked at me instead of her. I frowned, because it was true. I had done that a few times when he tried to take things all the way, but it wasn't like I was refusing because I wanted to tease him. I just wasn't ready yet.

"You know what?" I frowned at Nicolai as I set my plastic spoon down onto my tray. "I'm glad I never gave you it. You never deserved it in the first place." I scoffed, making his face turn dark red and the veins popped out of his neck from anger. He looked like his head was about to explode.

"Oh, what?" He laughed sarcastically and sneered at me. "You really think someone else is deserving of it other than me? I'm the best boyfriend you've ever had." He boasted, sounding quite delusional to me.

I smiled in amusement. "You're the only one I've ever had, but we both know I could have anyone I wanted. So yes, someone else is more deserving. Because you might be my first boyfriend but you definitely were never going to be the best boyfriend." I retorted, watching as his eyes widened and then Priscilla snickered from beside me. He looked at me while he silently fumed but didn't respond, probably not knowing what to say yet.

However, he never got the chance to respond because Luke came stalking back over and sat down across from me again, so Nicolai turned away to continue to angrily eat his lunch. I peered at Luke as he searched through his backpack and then pulled out a book, beginning to quietly read. It was obvious that he shut out the world around him when reading, which I thought was super cute, not that I'd ever tell him that. A little smile found its way onto my face as I looked down at my tray again, grabbing my spoon so I could eat my thankfully still warm macaroni.

It felt good to have the last word over Nicolai, because he never let me have that.