“We’ll need to discredit the Trio.” Jaime said. “Their power is everything to them, but once that got stripped away, they would start to close off in their own little separate world.” He said, an idea came over him. He motioned for More to take over his glorious drying-shirt job, and then went to search the cupboards.

Toilet rolls, toilet rolls, toilet rolls. Toothpaste, economic pack. Some supplements. Nope, nope, nope.

“What are you doing?” More asked.

“Looking for something,” Jaime answered. He moved to the hanging cupboard above the toilet seat and exhaled a soft Bingo. His hands quickly swiped the colourful cosmetic bag out, gagging slightly at the excessive lavender scent. He unzipped the bag, dug out the lipstick, and soaked some towel and wiped it across the surface and the zipper, before putting the bag back in place.

“Put them in Passmore’s room. Under his bed or maybe in his cupboard. I don’t really care,” Wrapping his hand with paper, Jaime passed the lipstick to More.

More comically gingerly took it. “How did you know she would put it there?”

“It’s not superb detective work, More. It’s either in here or the bedroom, where else would a woman put her cosmetic?”

More made a face. “Anything else?”

Jaime shook his head. “Think of your alibi meanwhile. I’ll back you in case Reggie spilled the shit.” He couldn’t be sure how far the Headmaster would take this, but if the legal officers actually dig deep, they would find out More via Reggie Rat. Reggie was cunning as fuck and would know that if he revealed More’s identity, he himself and his customers would be gone in a snap. His hands would be tie, although that didn’t mean the probability of him indirectly hinting at More would be down to zero. “Buy as much as you can and what Reggie has. I’ll pay you back later, plus if he fucks you for discount.” More grunted. Jaime carried on. “Fishburne put his self-brewed piss-liquor behind the recycle bin in the kitchen. Last, small drawer by the fridge. Maybe you can put it there?”

“Roger.” More said, slipping out his phone and started texting. A few minutes later, after a series of rapid beeping, he looked up. “Reggie is got about five hundred pound.”

“A hundred. Maximum a hundred and fifty.”

More’s thumbs flying across the screen. Finally, More put his phone back in his pocket. Jaime took it as a success.

When they exited from the washroom together, Jaime with his still dampened shirt, More looked at him and pouted. Jaime caught Reggie lurking a few paces from them. Reggie Rat’s shocking platinum-blond mop practically put a marker on his every movement. They nodded when their eyes met.

Jaime casted flitting glares at the adolescents mulling around him. True to his predict, the amount of people had doubled over the span of thirty minutes, making personal space lost its meaning. The Attic was at its max capacity, it seemed.

“Do whatever you need to do.” Jaime shooed More off, humming at the back of his throat as he made his way back to Dal, Fishburne and Passmore.

፨

Jaime caught Passmore’s gaze trained on him from across the room, in a hard, obsessive way that made the hair on the back of his neck stood in alarmed. It wasn’t the careful observation a scientist reserved to see how an insect behave, more like a scientist being forced to watch his experimental was getting tampered by somebody else. Jaime scowled, and Passmore startled, his face automatically arranged in a sheepish smile.

“Sorry about that.” Passmore said when Jaime neared. “Ahmed is an idiot.”

“No big deal,” Jaime shrugged, frowning as he tuned into the current conversation topic.

It seemed like they had moved on from discussing Fishburne’s childhood to Fishburne’s sex life. Fishburne was in the middle of affirming that he knew more about a gun than a woman’s body, his arm draped around Dal’s narrow waist.

Jaime jumped in, saluted at them. “Did you and Dal know each other before all of this?”

“Oh hey, you’re back,” Dal shot him a grin, then elaborated. “Yeah. My father often comes to watch the rugby team plays, and he would always throw big parties at the end of each Semester for the jocks, you know. Olle was, like, his favourite guy, so us three talk a lot. So I and Olle kinda flirt with each other for two, three years before I came here.” Dal pointedly jabbed Passmore’s in his ribs. “Cassidy kept intervened ‘cause he thought I’d ruin Olle. Take that, Cass.”

Fishburne roared in laughter.

“It’s true,” Passmore protested. “You totally messed up his head, OK? Now he started asking me questions.”

“Shut up. You should have know that before you introduce him to me.” Dal said in a chirpy tone.

Dal and Passmore carried on their lively banter, and Jaime sipped his beer, did not miss the smirking exchanges between the party-goers and Fishburne’s attention skipping between at Dal’s easy, tipsy giggle and Passmore’s too-soft eyes. Jaime hid his smirk over the rim of his cup.

Keep digging your own grave, Passmore.

“Who said it first?” A female voice croaked suggestively. Drunk hoots erupted across.

Dal looked at the crowd, a teasing grin etched across her features. “Take a guess,”

“Fishburne!” The rugby jocks howled in unison, tipping their cups at Fishburne.

Dal scoffed.

“So it’s you?” A girl shrieked.

“Unexpectedly, isn’t it?” Dal grinned. “I’d prefer otherwise, but here we’re.”

“Well,” Jaime started, his voice a calm ripple lost amongst the crashing of disbelief shouts and laughter. It was true that Dal was the one who confessed was unexpected, but it was not shocking at all. “Fishburne did seem like the type that was too dense at romantic matters.” A roar of approval came, and Fishburne flustered, choking on his beer.

Dal gasped aloud in agreement. “Oh my God, I’ve to literally forgo any preamble and just straight up tell him ‘I really, really like you. And I really, really want to go out with you seriously.’” Dal said, waving her hand, a good-natured flush crept up her full cheeks after she gulped down some more Olle’s self-brewed liquor. “And you know what’s the worst thing? He just stood there dumbly, and then he was like, ‘Can I get back to you in a week? I need to think this through.’ Thank God he had the sense to reach out on the second day.” Dal laughed, and the crowd bursted out in a fit, too, echoing her Oh my God.

Notwithstanding though, who could blame Fishburne? He was uneducated at the lovey-dovey subject. Fishburne spent most of his first years either pitching quanco or sifting through a mountain of paperwork instead of out and flirting with girls like the rest of his mates. Girls had been hitting on him even before the day he became the Moor of Castleton, yet he naively insisted that the girls simply liked to cheer on the team, oblivious that the girls only batted their lashes and giggled a bit high-pitched around handsome, dark Fishburne. As far as Jaime concerned, all Fishburne knew about relationships came mostly from fantasies other boys poisoned him with, and the only—albeit useless—enlightenment Fishburne received was that “love consists of sex, sex and sex.”

Fishburne faked glares at Dal’s revealation and cupped the back of her head, pulling her roughly in, growling loud enough that he would make her scream his name so loud that she would want to take that back. Dal laughed harder, leaning in to kiss Fishburne deeply, and said I’ll look forward to that. The crowd went wild again. Guys threw in encourages and good-natured mockings.

Dal pulled back a bit to declare, “I love him for the danger he had passed, and he loves me for loving those ungodly parts of his. Forever and ever, we will complete each other. Like the moon and the sun.” Cheering swelled and swollen, feverish claps ensued as Fishburne and Dal embraced each other again, laughing and perfect for each other.

Jaime joined others in their clapping.

Fishburne might be great in bed in truth, however his inexperience would leave him vulnerable, forever in doubt of his ability to bring Dal’s greatest pleasure. With the right words, Fishburne would draw his own conclusions: maybe Dal’s first belong to him physically, her first true love was never his.

So let Fishburne enjoyed this blast while it lasted.

፨

More inserted himself smoothly next to Jaime, posture laxed and unnoticeable. In fact, it wasn’t until Passmore leaned over and peered over his shoulders to greet More that Jaime was aware that More was standing next by him.

“Reg discounted.” More said, one hand holding a cup, the other hand sloppily tucking the hem of his shirt into his jeans. Sweats beaded down his forehead, running channels down the slope of his nose. “So we’ve 200 for 150.” Jaime smirked, and More feigned a sigh. “I don’t necessarily miss blow-off-steam sex, but like, man, you and him would make a nice couple. Both of you are so rough and business-like.” Jaime scrunched his nose in disgust. He wouldn’t say it aloud, but he was more into short-but-tender sex. Rough sex reminded him of Welch. More glanced at him and cackled up like a chicken, carried on in a lower voice. Jaime leaned in closer to catch his words. “Ahmed and some other jocks took up the offer,” More said, tipping his solo cup at a corner of the room, where a bunch of boys huddled, heads converged at the spot where a faint curl of smoke snakes through thin air. “Also, the drinks are coked. I asked Reggie about it, and he said half of the stuffs should be fine, though it’s so little I’m not sure if the detectors would pick it up.”

Jaime’s eyes raked through the party-goers, pleased to see that people were knocking their drinks back between their laughter-fit. None of them looked high or acting weird, although he wouldn’t be too worry about it since Reggie was a professional, anyway. “Some kids are hypersensitive that their body react shortly after. But we don’t need all of them, we just need a few of them who drinks only Coke and somehow felt like they’re having shitty hangover.”

“Yeah, but what if it’s not enough to make them react?”

“Doesn’t matter. We’ve the jocks that are for sure high. And if you plant the goods, then we’re fine. Did you plan the things?”

More pulled at his bottom lip. “I kinda mentioned the spot you said to Reg and he decided he could help me plant me the stuffs since he figured the jocks would be coming for more, and it would be tiresome to run up and down the stairs to make a deal.”

Jaime’s eyebrows shot up.

“I didn’t tell him anything. I don’t think I slipped either.” More reassured him, then frowning as if he was treading back on his memory. “After Red handed me our 200, I just pointed out that it’s dumb taking people into his room every time they want some coke. If the cops break in, he would be catch red-handed. If he did it in Fishburne’s room, during this party, everything would be on Fishburne. I told him the spot, we checked it out, and Reg said OK.”

On cued, a few heads towing in row crossing toward a specific spot where a signature white hair was lolling at. Jaime tried to downturned his victorious grin, but failed. His mouth muscles twitching in excitement.

“Also, I’ll probably die tonight.”

Jaime’s smug almost dropped to the floor. “What?”

More looked at him and smirked. Then, discreetly, he turned and nodded at Passmore, whispering out the corner of his mouth. “That kid had been eyeing me since I got here.”

Jaime glanced at Passmore, bewildered. Passmore smiled at him and turned back to Fishburne and Dal’s story. “Maybe he was hitting on you,” Jaime said.

“Nuh-uh.” More shook his head, waggling his index finger. “That kid, he had been hitting on you since his Freshman year. And today, I’ve a feeling he’s gonna take you.” More gave him a solemn look, like a father who was about to educate his boy. Jaime did not bother to school his face at the implication. “Dude, like, did you ever notice he was everywhere around you?”

“You are literally everywhere around me.” Jaime pointed out.

“OK, fine. But did you ever notice that he only stumble and flush only around you?”

“Did you notice everybody do? Even Fishburne did the first time he met me.”

More groaned, then he suddenly raised his head with glee. “How about the apologize the other day, huh? Even if he’s an overly-polite kid as you said he’s, he shouldn’t feel obligated to run after you and sorry, right? After a fault that wasn’t even his own.”

Jaime quirked a brow. “More, that’s what overly-polite shit does.”

More released a dramatic sigh again and touched a fingertip delicately on his forehead. “See, you and Fishburne are equally dense in these matters.” More waved his hand. “I’d bet if you were to walk out of this room right now, he’d follow you.”

“As if.” Jaime rolled his eyes. More’s response was cut short when Jaime’s phone buzzed.

A phone call.

He felt a bucket of ice dumped on his head, reeled him emotionally and physically frozen. Time slowed and rushed and bent around him.

His hand inched down to his back pocket, the weight of his phone hovered but not fully registered on his fingers. He stared at the phone screen for a second, his breath catched. Clarity crashed through his senses. He abruptly peeled himself away from the drunken crowd, plastering a distracted smile as he bolted for the entrance, shoving people off when they grabbed him and exclaimed into his ears, Don’t you dare dream step out of this party if you’re still sober, asshole. The music gloated in a happy bumble, pounding and pounding and pounding, like the insignificant buzz clutched in his palm.

He thought of nothing but the sweltering body heat clung to him like a second skin, and how his feet hurted like hell because the hard soles of dress shoes blistered the calloused spots. He thought of nothing at all, powering down a short flight to a narrow passage of the Head Boy’s reserved staircase and escaped to the Main Stairs. He leaned heavily on the banister, didn’t trust his weakened knees to hold him up. The wood unmoveable under his weight. Acidic content clawing up his esophagus and he kept swallowing it down, choking at the darkness. His heart beating to the drum of war. His stomach coiled tightly into a wrecking ball of gash wires and bleeding heart. And he concentrated on the vibration he was holding, willing it to go away.

The phone stilled for a long moment. Then it was vibrating again.

His thumb shook as he Accepted the call, and he let his finger pressed flush against the smooth screen.

Screwing his eyes shut, collected himself, and raised the phone to his ears.

“Aunt Henna?”