His Puppy

The bus hissed to a stop and I grabbed my duffel from the overhead rack, nearly braining myself with the weight of everything I owned in the world.

Six hours on a Greyhound with a broken AC had left my tank top stuck to my back and my dark hair frizzing in the humidity, but I didn’t care because I was here.

Harrington Elite Academy rose in front of me like a gothic fever dream, all stone towers and ivy-choked walls that probably cost more per square foot than every foster home I’d ever crashed in combined.

I shouldered my bag and started up the cobblestone path, my thighs burning from the incline, my Converse with the Sharpie-colored holes slapping against the expensive stone.

Groups of students milled around with parents wearing sunglasses that cost more than my monthly stipend, unloading SUVs with lacrosse sticks and designer luggage, and I felt their eyes on me immediately.

Not the good kind.

The cataloguing kind.

The she doesn’t belong here kind.

Some blonde girl in heels that sank into the grass shouldered past me, her designer bag knocking my hip. “Move it, scholarship,” she muttered, not even bothering to look back.

I flipped her off behind her back because I might be poor but I wasn’t pathetic, and kept walking. My heart was hammering against my ribs, not from the walk but from the reality of it all. I’d eaten ramen for two years to afford the SAT prep book. I’d worked double shifts at the diner until my feet bled.

I’d left the Thompsons, the only people who’d ever actually wanted me, standing on their porch crying while I climbed onto that bus with two hundred dollars pressed into my palm that I knew they couldn’t afford.

I was here.

Full ride.

Academic excellence.

Please report to administration.

The admin building was freezing, air conditioning blasting so hard it gave me goosebumps on my arms, and the marble floors clicked under my shoes as I shifted from foot to foot at the reception desk. The girl in front of me was Facetiming someone about her summer in the Hamptons, twirling perfect blonde hair that had never seen a box dye from CVS.

When it was my turn, the clerk didn’t smile. He took my name, Remi Thompson, and typed it into his computer with fingers that were soft and manicured, nothing like my hands which still had calluses from bussing tables.

“Thompson. Remi. Scholarship housing,” he said to the monitor, not to me. “Suite 4A, Harrington Hall. Key card and orientation packet.”

He slid them across the counter and I grabbed them before he could change his mind. “Thanks,” I said, but he was already looking past me to some guy with a lacrosse stick who smelled like money.

Suite 4A.

That sounded wrong.

Too fancy.

Scholarship kids were supposed to be in the basics, the cinderblock dorms on the east side of campus, not Harrington Hall which I’d read was reserved for the elites. But I wasn’t going to argue.

I’d slept in car backseats.

I’d shared a cot in a group home with a broken window that let in November wind. If they’d accidentally put me in a suite, I’d take the suite.

I followed the signs, weaving through statues of Greek gods and manicured lawns that probably required a special password just to look at. My duffel banged against my hip and my backpack dug into my shoulders, but I kept my chin up, ignoring the side-eyes from girls in sundresses who looked at my Target t-shirt and clearance jeans like I was carrying a disease.

Harrington Hall was quieter than the main quad, secluded behind a garden path that screamed keep out, poor people.

The doors were heavy oak with brass handles, and I had to swipe my card three times before the light turned green.

The hallway inside was carpeted.

Actual carpet.

Not linoleum.

The lights were recessed and warm instead of fluorescent and buzzing, and my stomach did a weird flip as I checked the numbers. 1A, 2A, 3A. I stopped at 4A.

This was it.

The start of everything.

The reason I’d stayed up until three AM studying on a borrowed laptop with a cracked screen. I thought about the fragmented memories I had from before age seven, the ones that came in broken pieces, cold floors, strange voices, the feeling of being invisible.

I’d been determined my whole life to become something that mattered, to build a life so solid that nobody could throw me away again.

My hand was shaking when I lifted the key card. I swiped it.

The lock clicked.

I pushed the door open and stepped inside, and the first thing I saw was skin.

Specifically, a broad, muscular back glistening with sweat, attached to shoulders that looked like they could bench press my body weight without trying.

The guy was doing push-ups in the middle of the living room, his dirty blonde hair darkened with moisture, his arms braced on the hardwood in a position that showed off every ridge of muscle and the V-cut of his hips disappearing into low-slung gym shorts.

He heard the door and pushed up in one smooth motion, turning his head, and I froze because nobody had warned me that people looked like this in real life.

Not just hot, hot was common enough, but magnetic in a way that made the air feel thinner. He had a strong jaw dusted with stubble, and when his eyes met mine, they were a blue so sharp they looked fake.

He stood up slowly, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand, and his gaze traveled down my body with a laziness that made my skin feel too tight. My tank top was stuck to my stomach, my hair was a disaster, and I knew exactly what he was seeing.

Thick thighs.

Soft stomach.

Cheap clothes.

Everything he’d been taught to look down on.

Then he smirked, a slow, arrogant curve of his mouth that made my belly flutter even as I wanted to slap it off his face.

“Well,” he said, his voice rough and deep and dripping with the kind of entitlement that came from never being told no. “You’re early. And you’re definitely not the usual type they send up here, but I’m not complaining about the view.”

I opened my mouth to tell him exactly where he could put his view, but my brain short-circuited when he took a step closer. All six-foot-plus of him radiated heat and danger, and something in the way he looked at me, like he already owned the room and was considering owning me too, made my breath catch in my throat.

I was so screwed.