“My breath smelled fine before!”

It did—he pops Tic Tacs pretty constantly, I suspect to annoy people with the noise—but that isn’t the point. “Well, I bet your dental hygiene is better now, and you’re welcome for that.”

“You also took my weed and lighter, didn’t you.”

I did in fact sneak it out of his room on Saturday night; I’ve been wondering how long it would take him to figure that out. “I’m doing you a favor—now you can’t smoke and you won’t accidentally burn down the entire dorm because you were bored one night.”

I can’t make out any words in his grumbling of a response, but given there’s no fight about it, he seems to agree.

Or has more stashed somewhere.

“You can’t make me sound like some uptight pain in the ass when you asked for this,” I remind him firmly.

“Technically, I asked for someone to cover for me to keep me out of trouble. It was your idea to just … keep me out of trouble. And it’s making things very boring.”

“Boring is good when your idea of exciting is getting high in your principal’s office,” I counter as I hop up from the chair and head to the door, “but you don’t want my help? That’s fine. Something tells me I’ll be just fine without yours.” The whole idea was stupid anyway. It might’ve worked with Matt, but Salem was never gonna care about anyone other than himself.

Seems I suck just as much as ever at figuring out who actually deserves my cookies.

To his credit, the next morning, Salem seems to realize he’s being a dick. Fine, says the note that lands on my desk in English. I’ll help you.

Shortly after, a follow-up lands. Do you know how to do laundry?

I flash back to that first moment of Rumson orientation, that dickbag Duncan implying I was there to clean up after his loser ass. Do your own fucking laundry, I write in firm block letters before tossing it back.

He snorts, loudly enough that a couple of kids in front of us turn around, and then there’s the sound of a new paper tearing and a scratching as he ekes out another barely legible note.

I’m not asking you to do my laundry. I’m asking you to teach me how to do laundry.

I glance up to see him watching for my response, and raise an eyebrow.

More tearing. More scrawling. Even with him bent over the paper I can see his lips curving up as he writes and then tosses the paper on my desk like a Frisbee. Teach me how to be good, Peach.