Carter Ortese is Trouble - completed (The Boys #1)

Chapter 13: Carter

The final bells rings, and I snatch up my backpack, booking it back to my Pre-Calculus classroom. The sooner Dean Howard gives me the retake, the sooner I can leave. I need to catch the late bus, which leaves thirty minutes after the last bell for anyone who can't secure another ride home. Which, today, includes me.

When I get to the room, I sigh. I'm here before Meredith and the dean. I sit in the front row and toss my bag onto the floor, crossing my arms. If Meredith admits that she cheated, maybe I can catch my normal bus and make it to work on time.

I stare at the second hand on the clock as it ticks by. Two minutes later, I'm still alone. And people say I'm a bad influence.

After another minute, Dean Howard comes in and nods at me. He glances around for the obviously absent Meredith. Does she even care about her grade? Or maybe she's accepting failure, since there's no way she can pass without cheating.

It's pathetic, really. Who cheats off me and thinks they are going to get a good grade? I have a notoriously bad reputation in Pre-Calc. Okay, I have a terrible reputation everywhere, but Mrs. Everett hates me.

Maybe that's why Meredith thought she could get away with it. If it hadn't been for Dean Howard stepping in, I'd be suspended and she'd be the one with the A.

"I'll have the test to you in a minute, Carter. I want to give Meredith another—"

As if called in from the gods, Meredith walks into the room. Bubble gum pops out of her mouth, smearing across her matching pink-shaded lips. She stumbles across the room to a seat in the back, nearly missing the chair because she refuses to look up from her phone. She laughs at something, and her fingers click across the screen as she types out a reply.

"Put the phone away, Miss Keltz."

"It's after hours, Howard." She blows another bubble out of her mouth. "You have no jurisdiction over me."

"Then you fail. How's that?" Dean Howard shrugs, like Meredith's answer doesn't matter, but the skin behind his mustache reddens. The color is the only thing giving away how annoyed he is.

I'm with him. She's wasting our time.

Meredith pops her gum again and clicks the button on the top of her phone. Her eyes snap to ours, and her nose scrunches like she's smelled rotten eggs. "I don't get the point. It's obvious who cheated."

"That's what I thought too," I growl, turning around in my seat to watch her.

Everything about her is plastic, down to the turquoise nails she's pasted on. Her eyebrows are fake. Her face is coated in too much tanner and shadow. I'm not sure what Meredith really looks like underneath the blond extensions and toner she uses to mask her reality.

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Let's just take the test again."

"Admit it, Meredith. Admit it so I can go." I curl my fingers around the back of my chair, hoping that some miracle will happen and she'll actually confess. I know she won't. Meredith asked me for molly once, and when I didn't sell to her, she found someone else who would and has glared at me every single day since. To Meredith, it was an insult. She doesn't care that I have never sold drugs to anyone.

"Admit what, exactly?" She tosses her hair behind her shoulder. It's flat, straight, and perfectly shiny, like someone took shoe polish to it.

Dean Howard clears his throat and passes me a stack of paper. "I have the answer sheet, and I will grade you immediately after you finish. Give me your phones."

I pass mine over to him. Meredith holds up her finger to tell the dean to wait a second. She types out another text. The phone swishes as it sends.