Playing The Game (Playing With Fire sequel)

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CHAPTER TWO

“Hey, um, Connery Alec Sutton, right?”

“It’s Cory,” I corrected, turning my eyes on my new class partner. She had a head full of straight, silky, black hair that curled around her chin, and steel grey eyes, the type that could look right through you.  It was scary, but kind of hot in a weird way. “Only my parents call me by my full name.”

She smiled at me and relaxed her posture a little, leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on the table and her face in her palms. “I’m Sienna Castillo.” She said mellifluously. In front of us, a boy turned in his seat to glare at us. Or just me. I couldn’t tell. I kind of hoped that it wasn’t directed at me. An enemy on the first day of starting uni would be such a drag. “My friends call me Anna for short.”

“You should hear what they call you when you’re not around.” Sneered Glaring Boy. A couple of his friends laughed with him. Apart from his ridiculous haircut—a bleached Mohawk surrounded by short dark hair—I couldn’t decide what they found particularly funny. That ass was about as funny as a funeral.

I turned to Sienna. “What is his deal?”

“Just ignore Jeff,” she said. With a smirk, Mohawk turned back around to face the front, obviously pleased with his sad excuse for a diss. “He’s probably getting a little jealous that I’m talking to you. He’s my ex,” she explained, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “I guess you can see why we’re not still together.”

“I’m failing to see why you dated him in the first place.”

“I… its complicated,” Sienna hesitated. She exhaled through her nose and turned her gaze to a redhead sitting in one of the front rows, discreetly tapping away on her phone. “But my friend likes his older brother, Josh, and so we figured that if I dated Jeff, Chloe could spend more time around him and his brother. She never asks any of our other friends because they already have boyfriends.”

Just listening to her explanation was beginning to give me a serious headache. The whole situation was stupid. Why couldn’t Chloe just tell him that she liked him and get it over with? Why did women have to be so freaking complicated?

“Tell her you have a boyfriend.” I suggested. “That should solve the problem, right?”

Dismayed, she said, “There’s no point. Unless she saw him for herself, she would never believe me.”

I returned my attention to my textbooks and tossed through the pages, copying out the first few lines of the fifth paragraph on page 24. “I’m sorry.” I said to her, as I wrote. “I hope it works out.”

By the time class let out and I arrived in the cafeteria, I saw our group had already taken their seats around the small, circular table by the window. Cain sat with his back turned to his set of undercover bodyguards—or entourage, as Sam liked to call them—chatting to Jason and Sam, while they sat closely together with Sam’s hand resting on Jason’s knee.

Although they hadn’t announced it, Jason and Sam were officially a couple. After Jason’s party, they became inseparable. They worked through their issues, set some rules—neither of them were allowed to talk to the opposite sex outside our circle of friends—and decided to keep their relationship on the low. No one except our group really knew about it, but Jason’s rage whenever someone offered to walk Sam to class, kind of got them all suspicious.

I approached them and took a seat beside Jason, surprised to see only a tuna and cucumber sandwich on his tray and a bottle of water. Had she forced him to eat healthily too? “Hey.”

“Hey, New Kid,” Jason teased, flashing me a smile. “How was class?”

“The same as every other year.”

“And did you meet anyone you like?” Cain asked, popping a spoonful of chocolate dessert into his mouth.

“No,” I answered. “Although… there is one person I’m interested in.”

“Really?” Sam said, excited about this particular topic. “Who is she?”

“It’s not a she,” I said. “It’s a he.”

Jason’s face palled. “What?!”

“His name is Jeff,” I continued, trying to recall what he looked like. “He’s pretty short and sports the most ridiculous Mohawk in the history of the world. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”