Burn Before Reading(37)

Eric backed way the hell up from me, suddenly going pale. He narrowed his eyes at me.

"So you're shacking up with the Blackthorn assholes now, huh? How many of them are you sleeping with? One? Two? Or all three, you whore?"

Before I could open my mouth to rip him a new one, a cascade of some pinkish, chunky liquid came crashing down on Eric's head. It smelled sour and awful - vomit. I wouldn't have escaped the splash damage if it weren't for Burn pulling me back at the last second. Eric sputtered, wildly wiping at himself to get it off. I looked up to see Wolf standing on a little balcony two stories above us, an antique vase in his hands and a wildfire in his green eyes.

"Whoops," He called down to us. "Sorry, I was just taking out the trash."

Eric flailed towards his friends, who shouted and tried to keep away from him. Burn and Wolf and I watched him crash into a lawn chair as he tried to rip off his clothes in an effort to get away from the disgusting smell. Finally, another of his friends pulled him, half-naked, up by the arm, and guided him out of the yard and into a car. I almost laughed, it was so pathetic.

I looked up at Wolf, who made a 'tsk' sound and narrowed one eye at the retreating Eric, as if he was sorry Eric wasn't sticking around longer so he could torment him more. He caught me looking at him, the steady flame of his gaze a little less furious, and disappeared back into the house.

Burn turned me by the shoulder. "Did any of it get on you?"

"No, I'm fine."

Burn's face rarely changed, so when he glared in the direction of where Eric disappeared, I was surprised.

"If he bothers you again, let me know."

Something about his simple offer made my stomach warm up. I smiled. "Okay. Thanks, Burn."

"Wolf helped, too." He reminded me. I scoffed softly.

"Yeah. I guess."

I could feel Burn watching my face. He walked into the house for a moment, then came back out with a bottle of fancy, old wine. He handed it to me.

"Take this to Wolf."

I hefted the heavy bottle. "Not even a 'please'?"

Burn was silent. I sighed.

"Okay, okay. I'm going."

I trudged into the house, looking back one last time. Burn had settled himself on a clean lawn chair, making it flat so he could gaze up at the stars. He was pretty much the only one out there, looking serene and unfazed and sleepy as always.

I finally found the stairs and ascended them slowly, jumping out of the way of screeching girls going up and down, and avoiding the couples pressed into the banister and each other. I vaguely heard Fitz in the living room shout something about 'heretics', and 'blasphemers', in a very slurred voice. I smirked a little - we'd gone over those in tutoring, and we decided they were both very good insults. But this wasn't tutoring - this was a party in which I was currently tasked with delivering wine to the boy everyone thought I'd tried to kiss.

Upstairs was just as big as downstairs, so I centered myself in relation to the yard and tried to locate the room Wolf must've been in. Sure enough, there he was; in the room at the end of the hall, sitting on a queen-sized bed and drinking from a bottle of wine on the bedside table. He wore a black sweater and jeans, both of them hugging his shoulders and hips too well to be anything but designer. His hair was an infuriatingly stylish mess as always, and the way he sat - relaxed yet somehow regal - made the inside of the guest room seem like a throne room.

I couldn't just walk in. I could barely even think about speaking to him, after the pool incident. What would I say? 'I'm sorry'? 'I wanted to check if you really did have a touching phobia like a total asshole'? Sitting in Auto Class with a bunch of people around us was totally different from a one-on-one with him. Before I could turn and walk away, he spotted me, and quirked one hawkish brow in my direction.

"Well?" He said. "Are you coming in, or not?"

"BurnwantedmetogiveyouthiswinethanksforhelpingwithEric," I blurted quickly, stepping over the threshold only to put the wine on a nearby dresser. "Okaybye."

"Scholarshipper." His voice stopped me at the door, and I turned. He took a swig from his already-open wine bottle and stood up, playing with the silver rings on his fingers. "You and I have things to discuss."

Irritation won over anxiety for a brief moment, and I gritted my teeth.

"For. The. Last. Time. I. Have. A. Name."

"As do I," He said. "And yet I've never heard you use it."

"That's because you - you haven't said mine either!"

"Are we going to be stuck in a loop forever, avoiding each other's names until one of us gives in and says it?"

I glared at him. Or, more accurately, his shoes.

"We are," He finally asserted. "Because I'm prideful and you're childish."

"Childish?" I sneered. "That's rich, coming from the guy who puts slips of paper in people's lockers."

"You're really hung up on that, aren't you?" He scoffed. "There's more to me than that, you know."

"I wouldn't know," I said. "I don't know anything about you, except that you hate me for some reason and want to take my scholarship so I'll get kicked out."

He was quiet. It fueled the molten pool of anger that I'd kept quietly seething in my heart all this time.