Page 135 - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

Marie spoke up: “I do want us to do something. I have been waiting for a

chance to do something to the Bettencourt Society, ever since a Bettencourter
used me as a human shield on my very first Thursday at this university . . .” She
stared out of Day’s window and into the very moment of the incident. Her face
was transfigured with wrath.
“Another guy was chasing him,” Grainne whispered to Ed and Flor. “He said
he never thought the other guy would hit a girl . . .”
“So I am in favor of Dayang’s proposal,” Marie concluded. “All others in

favor of Dayang’s proposal, raise your hands.” Day raised her hand, as did Flor,
Grainne, Willa, and Theo. Theo said she was only coming along to make sure
they did it right.

—

DAY FOUND Hercules Demetriou sitting at her usual desk in the library. Rather
than talk to him she went to his usual desk, which was unoccupied, and set up
her laptop there. He looked over at her three times; she looked over at him once.
Just once, and he came over. Argh, was it that pitifully obvious?
He drew a chair up to her desk and leaned on the corner of it. Everything
about him was dark, delicious, fluid—that gaze especially. If she moved her arm
just a little it’d touch his. There was an envelope in his hand.

“Listen, I heard you like John Waters,” he said.
“I do,” she said. “So?”
His sister ran a cinema in Stockwell . . . he described it as “pocket-sized.” Big
Sis had given Hercules two tickets for a screening of Female Trouble, and . . .
“No.”
“Are you sure?”

“Are you finding it hard to believe that a girl wouldn’t want to go and see a
film with someone as amazing as you?”
He drew back, but didn’t retreat. Instead he subjected her to a deeper look.
The first to break the gaze would lose, so she didn’t blink. “I was just finding it
hard to believe that a John Waters fan wouldn’t want a ticket to Female
Trouble,” he said, then dropped his gaze, laughing a little. “Here. Take two.” He
put the envelope down in front of her and went back to his desk.

Then he came back: “Dayang, can I ask you something?”
Oh my God. “If you must.”
“Why did you come here?”
“Here?”