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[A/N: Thank you so much to jodie157 for making this lovely banner. I absolutely love it :) Also, I want to thank you for being one of the first readers and still sticking around as the story continues to grow :P

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After Dakota led me to the spare room they used as a storage, I made sure to lock the door behind me because the look on his face told me that he still didn't have any intentions to go to school. A lot of me wanted to let him, but I knew I wouldn't get anything done by doing that. Our 'do-over' first kiss was surely going to be the only thing on my mind for this entire week.

I walked to the pile of clothes he had motioned to before I closed the door, lifting some of them up off the floor and on to the bare bed, stripped of any covers or pillows.

Most of them were either too tight or too large for me to put on without a belt. I saw a box at the left of me, near the tall, dusty lamp. I picked it up and looked through the clothes inside of it, quite liking the choices inside. There was a cute pink and black floral dress with a heart shaped neckline. Slipping it on, I was beyond satisfied to see that it fit like a glove. I twirled in front of the long mirror leaning against the wall.

As I peered closer at my reflection, I saw something unusual on me. My hand flew to the red patch on my neck. "Great. A hickey."

I rummaged through the box and found a scarf. It was the first week of September so wearing a scarf in Southern California was idiotic. I had no choice though. I didn't have any of my makeup on me to conceal it. Swinging it over my neck, I made sure that the hickey was covered.

I sighed. This was the best I could do. Flatting my hands one last time over the front of the dress, I unlocked the door and stepped out. Dakota was sitting on the couch. There were still pillows and a large duvet to show that he had indeed slept there.

"What do you think?" I spun around. "It's a lot nicer than what I expected to be in there. It's kind of has a vintage touch to it."

"Yeah, cause that's my mom's dress. She wore it back in high school." He stood up, digging his hands deep in his pocket. He wasn't directly look at my eyes, only look at the dress itself. "My sister found it about a year ago in the attic and did some work on it. She wore it a lot; it was one of her favorites. It was kind of her thing to sow and design clothes. You know, before she..." He gulped loudly.

He still hadn't quite looked at me yet. The playful grin on his lips was wiped clean. A bleak expression made it's home on his pale face.

"Oh. Uh, I'll wear something else then." I reached for the door knob, but he held on to my hand, stopping me.

"No, it's okay. You look good in it."

"I'll go change, Kota." I insisted.

"We're already extra late, you don't have to," he said firmly. He stalked to the couch, slung his backpack over his shoulder and grabbed the car keys off the coffee table. "We should get on our way."

. . . . . .

For most of the drive, I felt a tension between us. I wrapped my cardigan around my body, hoping that if he saw half of the dress it would be less of a burden. He turned on to a more familiar road. A sign to the left of us said Crescent Heights would be in the next mile and a half.

He took a slight turn, and right when he did that, he placed his hand on my knee. It was all I needed to confirm that we were okay. Reading Dakota was a challenge on its own so I needed to rely on his small movements to understand where we stood. It was a bit exhausting. I wished he would talk about how he felt, but I knew with guys like him that would be next to impossible.

When we got to the school parking lot and got out of the car, I could already feel the irritation of the scarf around my neck. The shining sun over my head wasn't making this wool around my neck feel any less awful.

Dakota hooked his finger into the scarf and dragged it down, revealing the bright hickey. He chuckled. The ass-hat was chuckling. "Is that my fault? It's some nice work."

I shoved him. "This isn't funny, Kota."

"Oh, really? Then why am I laughing? I think it's pretty funny." He pulled at it. "Aw, you've got two hickeys."

I slapped at his hands. "Stop that."

"You weren't telling me to stop when you were under me." He smirked, opening the glass school doors wide. The hallways were vacant, but I was still nervous with the way he was talking. "If anything, I've a feeling that you were closer to begging for more...Maybe beg for me to bring my head down between your thighs and-"

"Oh my God. Stop." My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets and my cheeks flushed, brighter than ever. I didn't know what else to say so I kept it at that, hoping he would drop it.

He laughed even louder at my silence. "I love how that makes you feel uncomfortable."

"Shut-up or I'm going to give you a hickey. Let's see how cute you'd look with a scarf around your neck in September heat."

"I'm sure I could pull it off. I've been told I look quite great in winter wear."

"Yeah, only cause that's the one season you can cover up this entire mess-" I motioned at his whole body - "from the public's eye."

He rolled his eyes. "Hey, you like this mess."

"Nah. I don't like you. I'm just using you for your body."

In one swift motion, he pulled me to the side and up against the school walls. I strained my neck up to look at him. His arms were firmly circled around me and his chest was pressed on to my chest. "Take that back."

"Or what?"

He flashed his eyes up at the clock across from us. We were only a feet away from the cafeteria. "Well, in about five minutes the bell for Lunch A is about to ring. Freshmen will be having lunch. A bunch of fourteen-year-olds will walk in here and see me, standing here with you. Pressed up against a wall."

I narrowed his eyes at him. "You wouldn't."

"Oh, you should know by now that I don't have much of a reputation to tarnish, doll."

A rebuttal was forming when I heard someone clear their throat. Dakota and I looked at the same time, both seeming displeased at who we saw.

"You better have something important to say, Betty." Dakota moved away from me.

I knew, for a fact, that he knew her name was Beth. He had even said her name in the car while driving to Pierson's house yesterday. Pissing people off was like a game to him.

"It's Bethany." She corrected him. "We've had the same classes since the second grade."

"You look more like a Betty." Dakota sighed and then turned to me. "I'm going to sign myself in to the office. I'll see you later."

He didn't go for a kiss, a peck on the cheek, or a hug. Instead, he resorted for a pat on the back and wandered down the hall. He had me pressed up against a wall and all he could give me before leaving was a pat. On the back. What the actual hell was up with him?

When Dakota was far enough, Beth started to talk. "So you guys are dating, huh?"

"I wouldn't really call it dating. I just hate him a little less."

"Sounds like dating to me," she said smugly.

"What is it you want to talk about?" I asked, irritated.

"I don't want to waste your time." She paused, closed her eyes, and took an extra step at me. After she flickered her eyes open, she inhaled slowly. "I had sex with Pierson last night."

"This is something you should be telling your gynecologist. I don't need to know if you had sex," I raised an eyebrow. "But other than the randomness of that, congrats I guess."

She exhaled. "You're not mad?"

"Beth, you've been in love with him for ages. Of course I'm not mad. I was never interested in him." I admitted. It wasn't a lie either. Sure, I thought Pierson was attractive, but I knew that I didn't get drawn to him like the other girls on campus did. "How did that work out though? At the party, he was kind of drunk by the time I saw him."

"I wasn't really in the right mind either," she confessed. "Frankly, it wasn't how I'd pictured sex with him. It was different. He was kind...you know, out of it and said some off things, but I tried to go with it."

"What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. I'm just glad my first time was with him."

"Wait, what?" I moved out of my relaxed stance. "You lost your virginity while you both were drunk? Are you stupid?"

She stepped back. "Why does that suddenly change things?"

"It changes everything. You're first time shouldn't be at some party, half-numb with toxins in your blood. You can't give consent ."

"It's not like he was some stranger I met the other day, Silvia. I've known him for four years." Her voice grew louder. The bell rang overhead. "See, this is why I didn't want to tell anyone in the first place."

"Beth, I didn't mean for you to take it the wrong way." I began to say, but I lost her in the rush of students that filled the hallways.

. . . .

It was very much established that simply because I'd kissed Dakota, not just once but twice, it didn't change how he acted around me at school. If anything, he was worse. He didn't say anything at all. At least before the kiss, he'd try to publically annoy me.

"I'm not really shocked. I expected him to not be the kind of guy who would hold hands in the hallway or show other public displays of affection. But oh my God, is it too much to ask for a hello." I ranted to Ronnie at lunch.

She turned to Finn. "If you pulled that kind of shit with me when we started dating, what do you think I would've done?"

"You would've neutered me. Then and there." He said without a pause.

"You know me too well," she said and pecked his cheek, brief and sweet. Ronnie faced me again, but stopped her next words. "You've got someone behind you."

Hoping for Dakota, I turned around and saw Pierson instead. He rubbed the back of his neck, missing my gaze. "Can I talk to you?"

I got up from my seat and followed him to a hallway. Without him even saying a word, I already had a feeling he'd talk about his rebound sex with Beth after Dakota dragged me out of the party, shouting at Pierson for trying to get me alone in his room while I was drunk.

"Are you feeling okay?" He placed his hand on my shoulder. "You know with what happened the other night."

I flinched from his touch, but he didn't move his hand. "I don't know what you're talking about. I left with Dakota almost two hours in the party. I saw you only once before I left."

"No, you didn't." He tilted his head, observing me even more. "We had sex last night."

At that point, I was positive that I had died.

I had died and returned back from the dead by the time I found words to speak. "You didn't have sex with me, Pierson. You did that with Beth."

"No, it was you. You even left your black skirt in my room."

I brought around a backpack Dakota was letting me borrow. I fished out what he was talking about. "You mean this black skirt? Yeah. I was wearing it when I woke up this morning."

He shook his head. "But...but you were responding to your name when I said it."

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Song for the chapter: Rebound by Rosie Valland.

This song is in French so I've no clue what she's saying. It's such a pretty song though. She could be cursing me out for all I know, but I wouldn't care 😊

https://youtu.be/2QqtuI-9gu8

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