Chapter Text
Sophie folded her late pass in one of her hands, speeding down the staircase. Her History teacher knew she kept her through most of passing time and gave her the pass as a precaution, but hopefully she wouldn’t need to use it. She hated walking into calculus late, even with a pass. Her calculus teacher had a way of making every absence and tardiness feel unexcused, even if it wasn’t, and she hated it. It was monumentally uncomfortable.
She was on track to make it, too, when she reached the bottom of the stairwell. But then Someone grabbed her hand and spun her off to the side, hiding her between the side of the stairwell and the wall. For a moment, she was startled, but then she realized who it was.
Keefe.
Then she was just annoyed.
“What are you doing?!” she hissed. “I’m already going to be late for calculus.”
“Looks like that doesn’t matter much,” Keefe said with a knowing smirk, nodding towards her hand that held the late pass.
“You don’t have one.”
“I don’t care,” Keefe said, and yeah, that was a fair point.
“Why are you making me late?!” Sophie snapped, though her wildly thumping heart clearly already knew why. Keefe knew she knew, too—all he did to reply was snake one of his hands around to her back, pulling her closer to him and smirking at her with that infuriating glint in his eyes that did her in every single time.
“I missed you.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re a bad liar, Foster.” Keefe pressed his lips to hers, and it was all over.
No more talking, no more banter. Just this stupid thing they had going on. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t want it, either. She was tired of the effect he had on her. When had it gotten so bad that he was able to get her to consent to missing the beginning of class in favor of this?
“I hate you,” Sophie whispered against his mouth.
“Sure you do,” Keefe breathed before closing the distance once again. Sophie wanted to argue, but couldn’t do so without breaking the kiss, which she was not about to do. Not when it felt so annoyingly good.
When had she gotten so addicted to this feeling? To him?
—
It’s fine, Tam texted Linh. I have a pass. We have the same next class. You can just share mine.
Thank God, Linh replied. I swear, I would have been fine if there wasn’t a group of like seven girls vaping in the bathroom!
Yeah, you have a valid excuse, even if Mr. Conley might not get it. I’ll just add your name to the pass. Tam checked the letter by the staircase before he started descending it. Meet me by stairwell B, okay?
Approximately twenty seconds later, he frantically texted, nevramind sdo nost meet me ate stairwell b, sending it as quickly as he could without checking for spelling errors.
Everyone knew whatever Sophie Foster and Keefe Sencen had going on was not loathing, no matter how much they called it so. But there was a difference between knowing they were about five seconds from making out and actually catching them making out.
“I hate you,” Sophie whispered while her hands were literally under his top.
“Sure you do.”
Tam was taking Keefe’s side on this one.
He backtracked his steps, hoping neither of them would notice him, though that wouldn’t be too hard. Everything would be better for everyone if no one knew he ever saw Sophie and Keefe… like that. He could just forget it! Wipe his memory! Gaslight himself into thinking it never happened!
Once he was back at the top of the staircase, he started walking to the other side of the hallway. Meet me at stairwell c.
What happened in stairwell b? Linh asked. Did you catch people kissing or something?
Something like that.
Was it Sophie and Keefe?
Since when is twin telepathy a real thing?
Linh’s next few texts came in rapid fire:
NO WAY
IT WAS?
I MEAN I WAS HOPING IT WAS
BUT I DIDN’T THINK IT ACTUALLY WAS
THIS IS AMAZING
PLEASE TELL ME YOU GOT EVIDENCE
I NEED TO MAKE FUN OF SOPHIE FOR THIS LATER
Tam physically shook his head as he typed, nope. We are pretending this did not happen. It did not happen what are you talking about.
You’re no fun, Linh complained. Tam could hear her tone in his head, and he ignored it.
Nope. I am not reliving that.
—
Sophie didn’t register that Keefe was backing her up until her back hit the wall. She also didn’t register that she’d at some point snaked her hands beneath his shirt until her pesky, persistent inner voice demanded she take it off of him, which she was absolutely not doing in the school.
She felt like she was blinking in and out of reality as his lips traveled down her neck. He’d already been unfairly good at that the first time she’d let him, and now he knew her well enough that it was even easier for him to drive her crazy. It was one of the most irritating and frustrating things about him and she hated it.
Just because she hated it didn’t mean she wanted it to stop, though.
But they needed to, or she was going to tear his clothes off in a school hallway, which was something both of them would regret for many reasons. “Keefe,” she said, squeezing his sides slightly to alert him. “Keefe.”
Keefe pulled back immediately, and how dare he suddenly be some caring, gentlemanly person now? “We need to stop this.”
Keefe sighed. “Yeah, probably.” He ran his hand through his hair, trying and failing pathetically to compose himself quickly. “I don’t want to go to calculus, though.”
“Then don’t.” Sophie attempted to take deep breaths. Her next sentence was fabulously snarky, and she needed it to come out without being broken up by her heavy breathing, especially since Keefe knew he was the reason for that. Once she was reasonably sure she’d be able to speak without sounding like a mess, she said, “I’ll go and you’ll stay here, I’ll get a higher grade than you on the next test, and I’ll look you straight in the eye in June when I deliver my valedictorian speech.”
“In your dreams, Foster,” Keefe said, officially composed enough to throw his irritating smirk in her direction. “Between dreams of us doing what we were just doing.”
“I hate you.”
“I completely believe you.”