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“You’re kidding,” Raine said flatly, staring Imtura down from across the table they’d stolen away at in the corner of the dining hall for breakfast. Her expression was unimpressed over her plate of yorba eggs.
“I’m not,” she insisted, “Tyril heard it from Kaya who saw the file in Admissions herself. Mal Volari transferred in over the summer. He’s dorming in the East Residence. Probably moving in right now while we sit here talking shit.”
“But why,” she whined, prodding miserably at her food, “Didn’t he have the cushiest athletic scholarship ever at Gildegraive? What could he possibly get out of transferring here?”
“A new set of romantic prospects?” Imtura suggested, leaning over to snag one of the dragon links off of Raine’s plate with a shrug. “Either way, you should prepare yourself for Thief tryouts. You know that’s the first place he’s headed.”
Her stomach sank further as she considered the inevitability of Imtura’s words. Of course he was going to want to play Thief. He was the best player Gildegraive’d had in centuries. He’d expect to walk on to the varsity team at Penderghast and would, doubtlessly, probably without even having to try out.
“Just kill me,” she muttered, “I can’t possibly play my last season on the same team as Mal Volari. Imtura, he’s insufferable.”
“He’s talented,” her friend shrugged, “You’ll get over it. Maybe it’ll be nice to be playing with him instead of against him, for once.”
“Nice isn’t the word I’d use,” Raine grumbled, mind suddenly flashing through the last three years of Thief matches against Gildegraive in quick succession, recalling Volari’s arrogant smirk and endless taunting, the whips of flames that always followed him around the stadium. “I give it four days before we kill each other.”
“That’s generous,” Imtura scoffed, finishing off the last of Raine’s dragon links in two quick bites, “My bet’s on serious tragedy striking after practice today.”
*
It didn’t help that most of campus was acting like they suddenly had a celebrity attending school with them. Mal was in her first class of the day and so were the whispers that followed him, her classmates’ gaping so prevalent that she and Nia were the only ones who actually managed to complete the spell they were supposed to be working on in Advanced Spellwork for Seniors.
The one silver lining of it all was that Nia seemed to see through his charm, too. “What are we missing?” She whispered to Raine, as Mal ran a hand through his hair to the tune of excited giggling from the girls in the last row of the room, grinning to himself as he did so. “He’s just a student like everyone else.”
“Worse,” Raine returned, comforting herself by imagining the look on Volari’s smug face when she’d drenched his stupid fireballs in water and plucked his flag from his belt in the championship game at the end of last year. He was furious and soaking wet when they popped back into the stadium and the rest of the Dryxmars had hoisted her up into their arms, and stomped off into the stands like the sore loser he was so his admirers could start to lick his wounds. “I can’t even stand the sight of him.”
Nia looked at her warily, concern pinching her face. From a glance at her expression alone, Raine realized how hard she was glaring across the room, and sighed as she slowly schooled her face back into something neutral and unclenched her fists, turning her gaze back to the plant on her desk she was meant to be taking through its life cycle, from sprout to blossom to apple tree and back again.
“You should ignore him, if he isn’t going to be nice to you,” Nia murmured comfortingly, easily coaxing a bright red, shiny apple to form through the blossom of her tree’s flower, “It’s our senior year. We shouldn’t have to worry about anything.”
“That’s a nice thought,” Raine sighed, blinking in pleasant surprise as her anger seemed to push forth a burst of magic that had five or six blossoms sprouting in her tree all at once, “But if he’s going to insist on playing Thief with us i don’t know how possible ignoring him is going to be.”
They both fell silent as Professor Johnstone slowed to a stop in front of their desks. “Ms. Nightbloom, Ms. Ellarious. Excellent spellwork. Your plants could be an example for everyone else in class.”
As if on cue, the rest of the students turned to look their way. Raine felt her face grow hot as her eyes met Mal’s across the rows of desks. He looked surprised to see her sitting there, which made her mouth twist with annoyance again.
Her tree wobbled, and one of the apples dropped off the leaves and into Professor Johnstone’s outstretched hand. Raine looked up sheepishly, an apology on the tip of her tongue, but their professor only spun the fruit around for observation before lifting it to his lips to take a bite, chewing thoughtfully before nodding his approval. “Amazing, Ms. Nightbloom, truly. Top marks for today. For the rest of you, I expect to see thirty perfect trees when we meet again on Friday.”
She and Nia walked outside together, their steps slow as they turned in the direction of the Sun-Att classroom. “We’re still meeting in Penn Square later, right?” Raine asked, assuming she’d need the distraction after what was bound to be a disastrous Thief practice.
“Of course,” Nia answered with a smile, “You know how much it’d upset Tyril if we eschewed tradition.”
“Aww, I like our annual stroll through the rose garden just as much,” Raine laughed, “It really sets the tone for the semester.”
“I agree,” Nia said, “And I think –”
“Oi, Nightbloom!”
She and Nia stilled as a loud voice interrupted their conversation, and she only had a moment to feel horror take her over completely as Nia stifled a smile before the sound of Mal Volari jogging through the grass and stopping beside them reached her ears. He flicked his head to the side to push his hair out of his face and smiled charmingly at her. “Raine, hey. Long time no see.”
Raine blinked at him, glancing at Nia as she tried to process what in the six hells he was doing, running to catch up with her. “Hi?”
“Hi,” he echoed, the expression on his face stretching into a grin. Of course his teeth were white, shiny and straight, like something out of a newspaper advert. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
There was a prolonged beat of silence before Nia interjected, “I’m Nia, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Mal agreed, finally tearing his eyes away from her to shake Nia’s hand. “Are you an Earth-Att? That tree you made was amazing.”
“Sun, actually,” Nia said, so humbly she didn’t even give Mal a chance to be impressed, “My secondary attunement is water, like Raine’s. We were planning to spend our free period in the Sun-Att classroom, if you wanted to…”
She trailed off, teeth biting at her bottom lip as Raine widened her eyes at her, as though silently demanding, What do you think you’re doing?
From her left, Mal shrugged, completely unbothered. His winning smile didn’t falter for even a moment. “Oh, no, that’s alright. I was sort of hoping to have a moment to talk to Raine, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Nia shook her head good-naturedly even as Raine narrowed her eyes. “And what about if Raine would mind?” she demanded, folding her arms across her chest, “That doesn’t matter as much?”
“I’ll catch up with you in Elemental Manipulation, Raine,” Nia cut in, waving at the both of them before turning on the lawn so quickly her skirt whipped around to follow her stride across campus.
She huffed. Now that they were alone, Mal certainly wasn’t smiling, anymore. The rest of the students in the quad were openly staring at the both of them, gossiping behind their backs. “Did you need something?”
“Well – I wanted to talk to you about Thief, I guess,” he said, lifting a hand to scratch at the stubble lining his jaw. For the first time in as long as she’d known him, he seemed unsure. “I know you and I don’t have the most positive track record.”
“And whose fault is that?” she shot back, suddenly seething, her annoyance made worse by the fact that she had to tip her chin up to look him in the eye. “You’ve been a massive dick to me since freshman year. You’ve always played dirty, always been a sore loser and always talked trash behind my back. The only thing I want from you this year is to stay out of my way.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme?” he asked, seemingly surprised by her outburst. Gods, the arrogance of this man. “Sure, we’ve had a bit of a rivalry, but –”
“A rivalry I’ve never been interested in and certainly don’t care about now. It’s my senior year just as much as yours. I don’t need you making things difficult for me.”
Mal’s expression darkened, but she hardly gave him the chance to sneak another word in. Before he could open his mouth to bite back at her, she turned and stomped off after Nia, as quickly as she could with the rest of the student body still whispering about her as she zipped past.
*
Thief tryouts were as much of a disaster as she’d predicted they’d be.
Her co-captain was nauseatingly enamored by Mal and waved him onto the team at the start of practice without a single question. He hardly spared her a glance as he got himself a jersey and pulled it on, either completely shameless or oblivious to the way the rest of the team gaped at his bare chest while he changed on the pitch.
It wasn’t like she could do anything about any of it. The rest of the team would stage a mutiny if she tried to stop Volari from joining. Her hands were tied.
But she had to draw the line somewhere, and felt herself reach her breaking point when one of the juniors on the team stumbled into one of their own traps because they’d been watching Mal work, tangling herself up in thorny vines Raine had to come over and cut her out of.
“For fuck’s sake,” she snapped, as the girl dropped back onto the stadium’s pitch with a sigh, “He’s just a regular person. Either pay attention to practice or get out.”
The most annoying part was that he was good. She knew that, objectively, from years of playing against him, but watching Mal up close, without the distraction of a game to win in the way, was like watching art. Infuriatingly, she spent most of practice trying not to get caught looking his way instead of checking up on how the rest of the team had progressed over the summer.
The fact that she couldn’t find a single fault in his form was maddening. His spellwork was flawless, his technique was perfect, his athleticism was superior. Already he was stronger, faster and smarter than ninety percent of the team.
What a dick.
Jesse, one of the other seniors on the team and her best offensive forward, sauntered over to the side of the stadium she was doing her best not to outright drown while she focused her magic into creating a trap that looked like a puddle with the depth of an ocean. “You look like you swallowed a lemon.”
“I just need five minutes where I don’t have to look at his stupid face,” she muttered, hand held aloft in front of her as the puddle between them rippled and expanded, swirling with an angry current a puddle of water shouldn’t be able to have.
“I get that,” Jesse answered, and she blinked, surprised by his understanding. “It must be weird for you, having to just… get along with him, now.”
“Everyone expects me to just get over it,” she bit out, water splashing up out of the puddle at her feet and onto the grass, spreading out to widen the distance between them. “But why should I have to be the one who plays nice? Why should I have to be the one who doesn’t get to enjoy senior year because I have to babysit some stuck-up, egotistical, glory hungry shampoo model? Why?”
They both fell silent as the water surged up suddenly and a wave crashed over the empty stands, soaking the bleachers. To her surprise, a fish flopped out of the puddle she’d created and thrashed on the grass until Jesse banished it with a sigh.
The entire team was looking at them now. She could feel everyone’s eyes on her back and read their stares in Jesse’s expression, which was pitying and concerned in equal measures. “I need some air,” Raine said, dashing out of the stadium without waiting for a response.
The sun was starting to set as she made her way onto the bridge. Raine stopped to lean out over the side and squint up into the hazy colors the clouds were turning, pushing her hands through her hair in frustration that only mounted when a hesitant set of footfalls paused a few feet away from her.
She looked down, saw a pair of familiar boots and groaned.
Of course it was Mal.
“Are you alright?” he asked, somehow managing to make his voice sound genuine. Evidently he’d been practicing, since that afternoon.
“Are you not able to just leave me alone?” she countered, “I feel like I’ve made myself pretty clear.”
“Well – I wish you wouldn’t.” Raine tuned her head to the side and found him frowning at her, his dark eyebrows pinched together. “I don’t know why you’re so set on avoiding me.”
She scoffed, turning away. “Guess.”
“Look.” That tightness from the courtyard was back in his voice as he stepped up beside her on the bridge, moving in closer. “I’d really prefer not to spend the entire term bickering. I want to play Thief and enjoy my last year, same as you. It’d be a lot easier to do that if you and I could get along. Can you give me a break?”
“You’ve been a thorn in my side for three years; we’re not going to be best friends overnight,” she snapped, grateful for the encroaching darkness of twilight as she could feel her face start to flush. “Especially not with you being so – you.”
Mal pursed his lips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, Thea Collins almost gave herself a season-ending injury at practice because she was too busy staring at you. I mean the flexing and the hair-flipping and the smirking – you’re distracting people.”
That made him grin. “Am I distracting you?”
“Not on your life,” she laughed, “But I can’t have my best defense benched because some guy winked at her. If you want me to think of you being on the team as tolerable, you’re going to have to tone it down.”
“For the record, I didn’t wink at her,” Mal argued, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t think I even know who you’re talking about.”
“Right.” All the anger deflated out of her suddenly, making her shoulders droop. “Well – whatever you did, just don’t do it again.”
“I’m not sure I know how to suppress my natural charisma,” Mal said innocently, in a way that had her rolling her eyes with force. “I don’t intend to be charming.”
“You don’t succeed at it, either,” she quipped, biting down on the inside of her cheek to stop her lips from twitching upwards when the comment made Mal’s head tip back with a loud peal of laughter.
“Fair enough,” he murmured, and then they both turned on the bridge in unison to head back to the stadium, the tension between them momentarily dissolved. As they walked off, flames danced in Mal’s palms to light their way back through the dirt path. Show off. After only a beat of silence, he cleared his throat and said, “So, you were talking to that guy for kind of a long time. Number eleven.”
“Jesse?” she clarified, eyebrows arching. “He plays offense with me. He’s one of the best on the team. I think he was trying to make sure I wasn’t drowning the poor grass.”
Mal didn’t say anything, only sort of exhaled in acknowledgment of her answer. She snuck a glance at him and saw the flames from his hands reflected in his eyes, dancing along warm brown irises and dilated pupils. “I remember that trap,” he said finally, breaking the awkward silence, “The one you were practicing. Sophomore year quarter-finals, yeah?”
Raine blinked. He was right. “Yeah,” she answered, “You didn’t fall for it, though. Jumped right over it like it wasn’t even there.”
They’d lost that year, making last year’s victory all the sweeter. But their triumph as juniors didn’t make remembering the loss to Gildegraive smart any less, and she still had a scar on her arm from where one of Mal’s party tricks had gotten too close and burned her, fire incinerating the sleeve of her jersey clear off.
“Adrenaline,” Mal murmured by way of explanation, like he was thinking about the burn, too, and the way she’d screwed her face up tight to stifle the angry tears of pain that threatened while the healers patched her up. “Sometimes I don’t even realize what’s happening, while I’m out there.”
“Well, that’s not going to fly on my team,” she instructed, as they reentered the stadium to come face-to-face with twenty-four players doing their best to pretend to be busy. “So, like I said… tone it down.”
They both seemed to notice the two girls staring and whispering from across the field at the same time. Mal smiled, and in their rush to turn away now that he’d made eye contact with them they tripped over each other, tumbling down onto the grass.
He held up his hands when she turned her glare on him. “Hey, I’ll try.”
*
Because practice ran over she was late to Penn Square, sweaty as she raced over to the rose garden. Predictably, she was the last of her friends to arrive.
“You’re late,” said Tyril, frowning down at her windswept hair. “And causing a stir, it seems.”
Raine doubled over, trying to catch her breath. She turned her questioning gaze first on Nia, and then on Imtura, who grinned crookedly at Raine and helpfully said, “I heard from, like, twelve different people that you and Mal Volari were flirting in the courtyard.”
She reached out to shove Imtura, for all the good it did. Her eyes snapped incredulously back up to Tyril. “You heard that?”
From beside him, Kaya laughed warmly. “That’s how you know word’s gotten around.”
“Great,” Raine sighed, tipping her face up to squint at the stars now blanketing the sky. “So, I’m dropping out, then.”
Nia gasped, shaking her head. “You can’t drop out, Raine! Not so close to graduation.”
With a groan, she stood up to her full height, arching her back to stretch her spine. “Fine, I’ll stay. But only for you.”
Nia smiled brightly at her, stepping up to link their arms together. “Come on. I’ve still got to study when we get back later.”
They strolled into the garden, the rest of their friends following behind. Raine was quiet as Nia started gushing over a new patch of blooms that had been installed over the summer, staring unseeingly at the rows of roses swaying in the breeze before them, winking through a cycle of pastel colors.
Her mind was still back in the Thief stadium, thinking about her conversation with Mal. Was it really possible for them, to have a fresh start? Could she pretend like three years of history never happened, and put it all behind her in the interest of, what? Getting to know him better? Being friends?
Imtura’s shoulder bumped roughly into hers, jostling her from behind. “Earth to Raine. What’s wrong with you?”
“Huh?” she asked, tearing her gaze away only to find that everyone was suddenly staring at her, “Oh, nothing. Just tired. Practice ran long – there was a whole thing.”
“Is Volari any good, at least?” Imtura asked, arching her eyebrows. Raine could see Kaya tune into their conversation while Tyril rolled his eyes from beside her, muttering to himself as he walked on ahead to look at the other roses in the garden. “He didn’t forget how to play over the summer?”
“He’s perfect,” Raine huffed, “Of course. He doesn’t even have to try, it’s nauseating. Most of the team thinks he’s the gods’ gift to this school. They were tripping over each other just to get a glimpse of him. It was like trying to coach a group of overexcited toads.”
“I hope you’ll be able to find a way to get along, Raine,” Nia interjected as Imtura snorted with laughter, a worried frown fixed on her face. “It’s not right that the rest of the school is talking about you.”
“It’s fine,” she dismissed. It’d hardly be the first time. The rest of her class had only just moved past her incident with the Dean’s daughter freshman year. “Let’s go let Tyril teach us about roses before he has an aneurism.”
“I heard that,” Tyril said calmly, but as they stepped up beside him he did start explaining the significance of the new roses and the enchantment they’d been given to make them change colors, so she figured that was a win.
*
Mal sat with them at breakfast the next morning.
As in – he physically put his body into the open chair at their table, leaving Imtura blinking at her in surprise and Nia politely coughing into her hand, as though to suggest that Raine should rearrange the look on her face from horrified confusion into something more acceptable for company.
“Morning,” he grinned brightly, like Raine wasn’t gaping at him like he was something that had crawled out of the lake, “Happy second day of term.”
“Uh, what are you doing?” she asked, emboldened by the fact that Tyril wasn’t there to kick her under the table for being rude.
“Eating breakfast,” Mal answered innocently, as though they were friends now, or something. There was a plate piled high with eggs and toast in front of him.
“But why are you eating it here?”
“Raine,” Nia cut in, “Stop it, of course Mal can sit with us.” She lifted her head and shot Mal a sunny smile while Raine turned towards Imtura and rolled her eyes. “How are you liking Penderghast so far?”
“It’s different,” he said, “The food’s a lot better than at Gildegraive.”
Raine stared down at her cereal while he and Imtura introduced themselves from either side of her. Her Prophecy O’s were still whizzing around in the bowl she’d snatched from the buffet nearly twenty minutes ago. She sighed, smacking the bowl with her spoon. “Cheap trick. At this rate we’ll miss the Potions seminar entirely.”
“Those things still spinning?” Imtura asked, leaning over to take a look into her bowl. “Maybe that means you’re going to have a really fucked up day.”
“I don’t need the cereal to tell me that,” she muttered, scowling when her answer triggered Mal’s warm laugh in response.
They all watched as her cereal slid to a stop abruptly. “Seize the day or be seized by the day?” Raine read aloud, her brow furrowed, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Sounds threatening,” Mal said, and she jumped as she realized how close he was to her, leaning over her shoulder to look into her bowl. Her face felt hot when she reached out for his shoulder and shoved him away.
“That’s Prophecy O’s for you,” Nia interjected sympathetically, “Woefully vague.”
Raine ignored her, stuffing a spoonful of cereal into her mouth. For some reason, she heard herself say to Mal, “You know the whole school’s gossiping about you, right?”
Evidently he didn’t know that. His eyebrows arched up almost to his hairline. “Really? Why?”
“Because of our argument in the courtyard,” she answered between bites, viciously swirling her spoon through the milk to scramble the letters away.
“Oh,” Mal said, recognition jumping into his gaze, “You mean they’re gossiping about us. I figured that would happen.”
She hardly noticed Nia and Imtura clear their plates and make their goodbyes with the way she was staring at Mal. “You did?”
“Sure.” His voice sounded as though it should have been obvious. “We’re the biggest names in the sport and now we’re at the same school. Can you blame people for being curious about what that means?”
“I think you’re oversimplifying it a little,” Raine said, because he was. “We basically made each other’s lives miserable for the last three years.”
“Well, yesterday you said it was just me ruining your life, so this feels like an improvement,” he grinned, nodding down at the large bowl of cereal she was still working her way through. “You do know there’s still two other meals today, yeah?”
“Shut up,” Raine said, without chewing or swallowing that time, because Nia was gone and he totally deserved it. “Some of us actually do magick here, so – we use energy. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“That hurts, Raine.” Mal laid a dramatic hand over his heart, very nearly pouting at her from his seat at the table. “I’m more than just a pretty face, you know.”
“You’re barely even that.” Around them, other students were staring as they milled around in the dining hall. The way the room was emptying out meant that she was probably going to be late for the Potions seminar they were both expected at. “We should probably get going.”
Mal shrugged, toast held aloft between two fingers. “Or we could ditch.”
Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Ditch class?”
He laughed, a grin springing onto his face. “Rich reaction, coming from the girl who got caught with the Dean’s daughter in the –”
“Okay, lower your voice,” she rushed to say, glancing around before shrugging carelessly. “I don’t care about ditching potions, but… what would we do instead?”
Mal flung the crust of his toast back onto his plate, dusting off his hands. “You have the keys to the stadium, right?” She did. His eyes glinted as his grin grew larger. “How about we play a little one-on-one?”
*
Not only did she have the keys to the stadium, but Raine was also experienced in programming the game simulator, which left her at an advantage as she picked the scenario they’d be playing in. She chose something that was sure to play to her skillset – a sprawling beach with a big, beautiful ocean, perfect for her to manipulate.
“You’re still not going to beat me,” Mal taunted, seated in the middle of the field and lacing up his shoes without touching them, magick crackling visibly in the air around him. “No matter how much you cheat.”
“Big talk coming from Gildegraive’s biggest cheater,” she returned calmly, shifting to tie back her hair. “When I beat you it’ll just be because I’m an all-around better player than you are, but it’s not surprising you’d want to allege cheating now to get in front of your loss.”
“Don’t think you’re going to confuse me by sounding smart.” He leapt to his feet, and she took notice of the white flag tied around his waist with a roll of her eyes.
“Sorry, I’m sure you’re confused enough just being yourself.”
“Exactly,” Mal said triumphantly, and then, as the stadium started to dissolve away around them, “Hey, that’s not what I –”
The sound of his voice faded in favor of the noise from the beach. As Raine crept silently along the sand, she could hear birds above and waves on the shore; in the distance, there were the beginnings of a boardwalk and a pier looking out over the water.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of cover. Eyes alert for Mal, she started off down the sand quickly, coming up to a short stop when the beach started to rumble beneath her feet, almost as if there was an earthquake incoming.
Her teeth bit at the inside of her cheek to stifle her grin. If there was one thing she’d learned playing against Mal for three years, it was that he wasn’t subtle.
She waited for him to bust up out of the sand before sending a wave from the ocean crashing down on the rocks that erupted beneath his feet, immediately extinguishing the fire that followed him wherever he went on the pitch.
If it was satisfying to watch as saltwater completely soaked every last inch of him, even ruining his pristine, fluffy hair, it was even more satisfying to grin in his face before she took off running, waiting for him to give chase.
Raine was almost to the pier when he caught up with her, and from there, their magick met in the middle, water and fire twisting around each other while they paced in circles on the sand. It was rare that she got to play against someone she was so evenly matched with, and she was thrilled to have a challenge after a summer spent messing around with her friends and taking things easy.
Mal had improved a bit since she’d beaten him at the end of last term, loathe as she was to admit it. At the very least, he’d been practicing being less predictable, something that was more than mildly irritating, given how much she relied on knowing all of his moves.
As she crashed another wave from the ocean down over his head, Raine realized she was going to have to do something unexpected, too, if she ever wanted to get his flag and shut him up for good. Before he could push his wet hair out of his face, she lunged forward and tackled him onto the sand, trying to pull his flag off his belt.
“What are you doing?” Mal demanded, reaching for her arms and wrestling them away, “This is cheating.”
“Not technically,” Raine reminded him, because it wasn’t. Thief wasn’t exactly a contact-free sport by any stretch of the definition.
And there wasn’t anyone around to moderate when you blew off your morning classes and snuck into the stadium, so as far as she was concerned – all bets were off.
“You’re such a brat,” he huffed, doing his best to roll them over and succeeding in shoving her onto her side while she wiggled around in his grip, “You can’t ever be wrong.”
“You’re the insufferable one,” she insisted, “Showing up here, acting like you want to be friends.”
Mal finally managed to shove her down that last inch, pressing her back flat into the sand. His hips held her down at the waist, but before he could go for her flag, he had to stop her arms from flailing, trying to rip his own off his belt. “I do want to be friends,” he grit out, wrenching one of her arms down, “Fucking hell, you make everything so difficult.”
“Me,” Raine scoffed, “Okay, sure. I make everything –”
The words died in her throat as Mal leaned down and kissed her, sealing his lips over hers. Her eyes went as wide as the sun, then slammed shut when he pressed in closer, gently moving his mouth against hers.
Of course he was a perfect kisser.
Her fingers pushed into his hair, damp and sticky from the saltwater, and she felt him settle over her more fully, skin warm from the sun. Her body sunk into the sand and though she knew she’d be shaking out her hair long after the illusion faded and they went back to the stadium, she couldn’t quite bring herself to care about anything other than the all-encompassing weight and breadth of him above her.
Mal made a soft noise in his throat that sent a shiver down her spine and she responded with an answering hum, arching up off the sand to get closer to him.
For a moment, it was easy to forget who and where they were. All thoughts of school and Thief and the pressure of making their senior year one to remember disappeared, replaced only with the peace of the waves and the dead silence that came with knowing they were completely alone.
Gradually, she became aware of how fast her heart was beating. Her brain suddenly reminded her that she was kissing Mal Volari, and awareness crept back in, overshadowing how nice it had felt to be in solitude together with panic.
Raine reached down and yanked Mal’s flag off his belt, ending the game. All at once the illusion around them shattered, yanking them rudely back to the stadium. In the confusion, she wriggled out from underneath his body, standing up to put some distance between them.
From the ground, Mal stared up at her in surprise. “Raine,” he started, voice low and hoarse, “I…”
“Still lost, even though you cheated?” She waved his flag around with more bravado than she felt, resting her free hand on her hip. “Yeah, you did.”
“I didn’t cheat,” he argued back, effortlessly taking the bait, “You were the one who gave up on the rules. And I didn’t – I wasn’t trying to distract you, fuck.”
The optimism she’d felt a moment earlier when she assumed she’d be able to argue him out of this conversation evaporated like smoke. “No?”
Mal rolled his eyes at her. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. An uncharacteristic shyness flickered over his expression. He rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck. “You know I like you.”
“Um, no I don’t,” she said dumbly, before she could stop herself. “I mean – what?”
He sighed, then rolled onto his feet, too. There was sand all over his arms – not that she was looking. “Look, if you want me to back off, I will. But, honestly… there’s not a single thing at this school that interests me except for getting to know you better.” Mal shrugged in a way that was hopelessly endearing, then admitted, “And Thief, I guess.”
“This is really weird.” The look on Mal’s face seemed to suggest that he thought so, too. But he didn’t say anything, so she continued, “But… I don’t want you to back off. I – um, I’d like to get to know you better, too.”
Mal smiled slowly at her, and she realized all at once that her pulse still hadn’t calmed from the frantic pounding it’d been doing back on the beach. She drew in a deep breath, hoping it’d help.
Instead of calming down, her stomach felt suddenly swarmed with butterflies, beating their wings inside her ribcage like a hurricane.
Still, it didn’t stop her from shifting on her toes so that some of the sand fell out of her clothes, and smiling back.
*
Despite the many, many times she’d practiced saying it that morning in the mirror, Raine knew her voice did not sound casual or nonchalant in the slightest when she told her friends, “I invited Mal to come to the solstice party with us this weekend.”
Predictably, each one of them stared at her as though she had completely lost her mind – even Nia. “Mal… Volari?” Imtura asked, voice measured.
Raine nodded, averting her eyes. It had been so much easier to pretend to be casual in her room in the mirror. “Yeah. He hadn’t heard about it so I said he could come with us.”
“But – why?” Imtura asked, frowning at her, “You said he was a tool.”
“Yeah.” She’d said much worse, too. She pushed her food around her plate without elaborating.
“I thought you two hated each other,” Kaya tried, though if the little smirk on her face was anything to go by, she didn’t really think that at all.
Raine shrugged. She looked up from her dinner just in time to catch sight of Mal making his way over to the buffet, and though she did her best to look away before she’d start to flush, she wasn’t quick enough to miss the once-over he gave her, or the genuine smile that followed it, something like affection in his gaze.
“Well – he’s not totally terrible,” she muttered, reaching for her glass while still doing her very best to keep her voice level. “It probably won’t be so bad.”
“I think it’s great,” Nia interjected brightly, “We could always use more friends.”
Casual, she reminded herself, For once in your life, act casual. “Sure – friends. Definitely.”
Imtura gaped at her. “Oh my god, you already hooked up with him.”
Kaya’s grin stretched a mile wide. She clapped her hands excitedly in front of her plate. “What?” Raine spluttered, stomach churning with a deep mix of embarrassment and dread – if she knew her friends as well as she thought she did, they were never going to let her hear the end of this. “I did not!”
“Okay, was it incredible?” Kaya asked, rolling her eyes at the look Tyril sent her way. “What? Don’t act like you’re not curious.”
“Oh my god, we just kissed,” she said, because the alternative to just admitting it was so much worse. “Can we please not talk about it anymore?”
“No need,” Imtura said, and Raine only had a split second to relax before she smirked and continued, “Here comes your boyfriend now.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, kicking her friend under the table before Mal dropped into the empty seat beside her with all the familiarity of someone who’d done so a thousand times before.
“Hey,” he said, like he had dinner with them every night, “How was class?”
“Oh, um – fine.” Raine returned to what was left of her dinner, back to pushing her food around. Silence settled over the table, heavy and oppressive.
Mal let it linger for a moment, then lifted his head and smiled at her friends. “It wasn’t really a big deal, we only made out.”
Raine groaned loudly enough to draw the attention of a few nearby tables, piquing the curiosity of the students around them who’d been doing their best to pretend like they weren’t already eavesdropping. “Please don’t encourage them.”
It was too late. Kaya was already bouncing in her seat, demanding every single detail – when, how, why and for what length of time and in what way – and even Imtura and Nia looked entertained.
Mal leaned in close while the rest of them bickered behind their backs. “Why not?” he whispered, the rough sound of his low voice in her ear making her nearly bite her tongue clean off mid-chew. “I think this semester’s going to be really fun.”
“I think it’s going to suck,” she said, once she’d very carefully swallowed and managed to get a grip on her even breathing again, “Because you suck, and are terrible.”
“That’s the spirit,” Mal said fondly, reaching out to sling an arm over the back of her chair.
Raine pursed her lips as whispers broke out from the nearby tables. She was halfway to turning around to give the nosy student body a piece of her mind before she saw the warmth in Mal’s eyes and gave up on pretending to be anything but happy, tilting into his hold and leaning into the open space at his side while they joined the argument with her friends, together.