Bargains, Bets, and Blackmail

Mashed Potatoes, Questions, and Memaws

Chapter 23: Mashed Potatoes, Questions, and Memaws

It was Wednesday morning and as far as Serena was concerned, Paul Archer was back with a vengeance.

If she was being honest, she wasn't sure she had ever seen quite this amount of petty childishness from him, even counting the Rabid Squirrel Incident of fourth grade (an event that neither side liked to bring up). It was as if a switch inside of him had been flipped, and he had reverted right back to the mean, angry boy she had known him as before the bet. Not that he wasn't the same way after the bet...but if she was being completely honest with herself, she had genuinely begun to think that she might have inspired some sort of change in him.

So much for wishful thinking, Serena thought drily as she pulled a clump of mashed potatoes out of her hair, which had been flicked at her at a surprisingly high velocity from across the cafeteria by the man in question. He hadn't been shy about abusing the powers of the bet either -- since Tuesday, the highlights had been making her have a sustained conversation about spoken-word poetry with the painfully dull Mr. Weinberg, forcing her to get up and dance every time the last school bell sounded, and making her wear a pair of old gym socks as mittens every time she went outside. She supposed it could be worse -- Archer wasn't exactly a creative spirit -- but she was beginning to realize that those first few days of the bet, he had gone easy on her.

What exactly had sparked this change, she really had no idea. Maybe his parents were getting to him worse than normal, or she had somehow inadvertently done something to piss him off. Or maybe -- and this was most likely -- he just suddenly felt like it.

The only bright spot on a suddenly dark week was the fact that this was the end of it. Thanksgiving was tomorrow, and Deerfield was blessedly freeing its students for a four day weekend because of it. She could only hope that Archer's parents were the kind to travel over breaks; she wasn't sure how much more of him she could take before she snapped and went on some kind of murderous, mashed potato-induced rampage.

She was leaving the bathroom, scrubbing furiously at a potato stain in her shirt, when she bumped into him.

At first she had had a mini heart attack when she looked up and saw blonde hair and sharp features -- Andrew Paisley hadn't bothered her since over a week ago, and she wasn't about to change that with her own clumsiness. But the hair was too blonde, the skin too tan. Her face immediately went tomato red as she realized it was none other than Kyle Hues.

"Distracted?" His lips quirked up into that telltale half-smirk, and for a moment her brain forgot how to formulate words.

"Er -- yeah," she stammered, hastily trying to collect herself. Get it together, Serena! "Just...potatoes." She gestured to her shirt and hair as if that explained everything. Potatoes, really? Her heart sunk. She honestly was no good with boys, was she?

Thankfully, Kyle seemed to understand her vague gibberish. "Hmmm, I saw Archer do that. He's acting like a misbehaving five year old hyped up on sugar, isn't he?"

Serena felt herself relax a little, and allowed him a small smile. "I'm surprised he was behaving so well before this week. I guess I should've expected this earlier."

Kyle gave a short laugh. "Don't worry about him. He's just having a temper tantrum."

"A temper tantrum?" Her brows creased. "Why?" She thought back to after school on Monday, when she had shown him the Facebook photos. Was that what had caused it? But even then, he had been strangely dismissive of her; he hadn't even tried to blame her at all.

She watched as Kyle's demeanor changed, almost imperceptibly. The proud tilt in his chin lowered, and he slouched back against the wall so that they were almost eye level. It was the closest she had ever been to him, and she had to admit that closer up, he was even more attractive. She felt nerves hit her, and she had to give herself a stern reminder that Kyle had no way of reading her mind. At least she was pretty sure he didn't...