The Bad Boy with a Heart of Gold

✖ Chapter 7 ✖

I had no idea how I was going to get him to graduate if with one line he'd already made me want to smack him. I folded my arms to prevent them from causing him bodily injury.

"Mr. Davies and I have been trying to talk with you."

He stretched his arms above him with a yawn. "I know."

"So?"

"I don't wanna talk," he said. As if that was that.

"Well tough," I said. "This is part of your punishment for that stupid fight with Taylor Banks."

His now scabbing lip probably hurt as it stretched into a small smirk. But he said nothing.

I huffed. "Look, the fact is that you don't have enough credits to graduate and you need help."

"No shit, I still have a full school year left," he said.

That was when I realized he didn't really know the trouble he was in. Which was why I was there, enduring the weird looks from the weirder people nearby, so that I could give him the gospel.

I enumerated his faults with my fingers. "First of all, your detention record is the worst in the school, and would you look at that? This week you'll be adding more to it." I ticked another finger. "Your grades are abysmal. You skip class or arrive late. You get into fights. And if that weren't all you've got caught fooling around with girls at school before." I gave out an angry laugh, seeing the monumental task ahead of me. "Pal, I don't even know if one more full year will be enough to get you that diploma. It's almost like you don't even want it."

He hoisted himself up to his full height. A whole head higher than me. Sawyer breached the distance between us until he was truly looking down at me, both in the literal and the figurative sense. I was vindicated by the fact that the ugly snarl had to be hurting his lip.

"And what would a screw up from the wrong side of the tracks like me do with a diploma?" He tilted his head, as if waiting for an answer. "Shove it up his ass? Because where I'm headed in life I won't need it."

Then I felt his fingers tilt my chin up. I froze.

His grey eyes turned to lead as he stared into my wide ones. "Not all of us are bound for the glitz and glamour of a college life, followed by student debt, marriage, a mortgage and a happy family with kids and a dog."

I felt a shiver crawl up my back. It wasn't because of the rasp in his voice. It was because he was from that side of the tracks. The side where the houses had no picket fences or golden retrievers. Where families were as broken as the houses were broken down. Where people started out life a lot of steps behind everybody else.

I slapped his hand away from me. He'd hidden behind that excuse all his life to get away with all of this. And the world had fallen for the act. Poor Sawyer, they said. Give him a break, they said. He had no one to teach him any better, they said. His father was certainly no example, and his mother had high tailed it as soon as she had a chance.

Yeah, well, other people had it even worse and they still pulled themselves up by the boot straps. Like papa.

"Cut it out, the self deprecating act won't work on me." He jerked back as if I'd hit him. I advanced one step as I jammed my index into his shoulder. I bit through the spark of pain in my poor finger, because I'd miscalculated just how solid he was. "I'm going to give you an opportunity to shape up and you're going to take it. You know why?"

His eyes shone like he was amused. He tilted his head forward and licked his lips as he asked, "Why?"

I refused to let him show that this caused a reaction in me. An unexpected and very unwelcome reaction. One I never wanted to feel in his presence.

Something like... anticipation.

I pushed him away with both hands, so he got the message loud and clear. I wasn't here for any of his games.

"Because it's the last chance this school is giving you," I said, half bluffing. The other half was all about how this was going to help me, but if he knew that it'd be all the more reason for him to dig in his heels and just let the year go by in a blur of mediocrity and tomfoolery.

"Hmm." He held his chin as if he were considering this. "That'd be a compelling argument if I cared."

"Ugh," I said, stomping my foot. It was so unfair that I got loaded with this useless sack of muscle in order to get a glowing recommendation. But I was my papa's daughter and I was not short on determination.

"Sawyer Logan," I started, sounding like my mama about to throw a chancla. I poked his shoulder again, "If you don't-"

Two things happened at once. The first was that he grabbed my hand, presumably so I'd stop hurting him. The other was that a new voice suddenly joined the conversation.

"What are you doing here?"

I jumped around to find Lexie Cooper there, a royal among the lowest rung of peasants, gracing us with her presence. She had her hands on her hips and her eyes narrowed at me, as if I were the only person in this place who didn't belong.

"What are you doing here?" I volleyed back.

"That's none of your business," she snapped and I gritted my teeth. I should've just replied to her question that way.

I bent down to pick up my bag because I wasn't going to waste time trying to get in between Sawyer and his latest plaything. Especially when said plaything had acrylic claws that I didn't want anywhere near me.

I turned to Sawyer and narrowed my eyes at him. "This isn't over."

He looked at me from under his eyebrows. "I have no doubt."

I huffed and turned to leave, except Lexie got in my way. All arms folded and eyebrows up like she meant business.

"What's not over?" she asked.

I took great pleasure in saying, "None of your business."

I left her gaping at me and didn't miss the fact that Sawyer laughed. It deflated my sense of victory because as I walked away from them I realized I hadn't secured his participation. But I was relentless in my pursuit of goals. I was going to corner him somewhere he couldn't hide. And I was going to get him to agree to being tutored by me, no matter what it took.

Sawyer Logan was going to be my ticket to college.

watch out Sawyer, Rory's intense mode has activated and you're the target of her hunt