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Selina slammed her hands down on the desk. ‘This is bullshit. I put the work in on that essay.’Professor Stevenson sneered at her. ‘Boo hoo. Did you take a few hours out of your vigorous beauty regime to scrawl down a few lines?’‘Did ya even read it, or didya hand it off to that TA you keep having take the class?’His eye twitched. ‘Now look…’‘You didn’t! Ha!’ Selina stabbed her finger towards him. ‘My mom pays a fuckload of tuition fees for you to teach me, not some random student you were able to trick into doing your work while you fuck out around doing whatever bullshit you deem research.’‘Mr Davison –’‘Is he even a graduate or are foisting it onto an undergrad?’ Selina’s nails clacked as she drummed her fingers on the desk. ‘My mom gave a substantial amount of money to this college –’‘All right!’ He snapped, slapping the desk. ‘You can submit the essay again. Hand it in tomorrow before five.’Selina straightened up. ‘Monday before nine.’A muscle twitched beneath his eye. ‘I will mark it personally. You will not find me generous.’‘Are you threatening me, Professor?’‘Just leave.’***Selina clambered up the steps of the house. Flakes of paint fell, and the soft wood gave slightly under her spiked heels. The front door was shut if one ignored the two-inch gap between the doorjamb and the door hinges. Selina had learned not to look through it. She saw too many things she struggled to forget.She slammed the knocked against the door. It fell off and landed by her foot. Jesus Christ.After a couple of minutes, she heard heavy footfalls. Something briefly darkened the gap between the doorjamb and the door. Selina flipped her hair back as the door was dragged open, the wood screaming in protest.‘Hey Chewbacca,’ she said, sauntering past the boy. ‘Is he in?’He grunted and slammed the door shut.‘Brought ya a treat,’ she said, waving a baggie at him.He grunted in acknowledgement. She thought that maybe under the mass of hair covering his entire face he might have smiled.Selina ignored the way that the carpet sucked at her shoes and the stair handrail rattled under fingers. The door that she wanted was at very top of the building. It tended to be the hottest part of the house when it was warm and the coolest part of the building when it was cold. It was a miserable house in a crappy part of town.And yet, here she was. Not for the first time or anything like it.‘Open the door, asshole,’ she said, kicking the door. It had been whitewashed recently. The underlay was visible through the thin carpet, but it was clean. Which was more than could be said for the majority of the house.The door was yanked over by a shirtless blond-haired young man with a telephone received pressed to his ear.‘This is a good start,’ Selina said. She walked past him into the room, stepping over the ridiculously long telephone cable, and kicked off her shoes.‘No, mom, I want to come I just don’t think I have the time.’ He shut the door and walked towards the tiny table-top fridge. ‘I have a project due and the senator has… I’m aware of that.’ He opened the fridge and took out some milk. He lowered his voice. ‘Please don’t worry, Mom.’Selina smiled as she sat down. It seemed like they had some variant of this conversation every other week.‘I have to go, Mom. No, not work. The friend I’m having casual sex with has arrived. Okay, I’ll call you on Tuesday. Love you, Mom.’‘The shit you say to your mom,’ Selina said, rolling a joint. ‘It’s in-fucking-spiring.’ ‘Coffee?’‘Yup. Joint?’He raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t want to share?’‘You always whine I don’t share enough. Too much puff puff and not enough pass. So, I brought enough for you to have your own.’He made the coffee. ‘Ah. I wondered if perhaps you thought I had cooties.’Selina snickered. ‘Too late to worry about that.’He brought the coffee over then sat in an armchair and pulled her feet up into his lap.‘You get off on foot rubs, Davison?’ she asked, rolling him a joint.‘Does that bother you?’Selina lit his joint and leaned forward to place it to his lips. ‘Please, it takes more than that weak sauce to bother me.’ She leaned back and sipped her coffee. ‘Barely even counts as kinky.’He paused to exhale a stream of smoke. ‘Sorry to disappoint.’‘It’s okay. You’ve got other uses.’ Selina wiggled her toes. ‘Your mom’s worrying?’‘The usual. She worries that I’m doing too much.’ He sighed slightly. ‘I’ve attempted to explain that my workload is quite normal. I suppose constant worrying is a part of parenthood.’Selina’s mouth twisted sourly. ‘Yeah, moms are great like that.’She didn’t look at him. She knew the expression of sadness and sympathy that would be etched on his face.‘I wasn’t thinking.’‘It is what it is,’ she said.‘Are you going back home for her birthday?’ he asked.She snorted. ‘Absolutely. The fact we barely speak is no fucking reason to be rude.’ She looked at him. ‘One must preserve the decencies, don’t ya know.’He shook his head. ‘I’ll never understand rich people.’Selina rubbed her toes into his thigh. ‘It’s not about being rich. It’s about your family being rich long enough that you think it makes you special.’ She blew out smoke. ‘My mom would call it “class” because that sounds better than snobbery.’‘You’ve told me this before,’ he said.‘Shut up, asshole, I’m venting.’Kent lowered her feet down onto the rug. ‘You want to do something fun?’‘Why the fuck else would I be here, your winning personality?’***Kent’s little room didn’t have space for a couch, so they curled up on top of the bed. Kent’s taste in music was eclectic but Selina didn’t care. She closed her eyes and lay against him as Jupiter Sunset wound around the room.‘Spoke to Stevenson,’ she muttered. ‘He’s given me until Monday to redo the essay.’‘Should’ve done a better job in the first place.’‘Be nice or I won’t blow you.’She knew from the way his voice changed that he’d turned his head to look at her.‘It’s not my birthday,’ he said.Selina shrugged. ‘I rode Stevenson pretty hard about all the work he’s got you doing so he’d let me redo the essay. I said I didn’t pay to get tutored and marked by some random undergrad.’‘That was pretty indefensible behaviour,’ he said mildly.Selina looked at him. ‘I feel shitty about it.’Kent twisted a lock of her hair around his finger. ‘Not bad enough you wouldn’t do it again.’‘I’m an ambitious bitch,’ she said. ‘You knew that.’‘I know that’s a poor excuse for terrible behaviour.’ He shook his head. ‘If we were dating I’d break up with you.’‘Yeah?’‘Absolutely.’‘Thank fuck we’re not dating then,’ she said. She shifted around to straddle him. ‘You’re more forgiving with your buddies than your girlfriends?’Kent unbuttoned his jeans. ‘Sure. They’re entirely different relationships. Romantic relationships demand more and forgive less.’Selina tied back her hair. ‘God knows I forgive Andrew enough.’‘You’re still dating him? Should we be doing… this?’ Kent asked.She rolled her eyes. ‘Like he’d care. He’s the “right kind of boy” for me to date from the “right kind of family.” That’s all that matters.’ ‘You make it sound like an arranged marriage.’ He touched her face. ‘You don’t have to date some guy just because he’s from the right people. You’re not nearly that important.’Selina sniggered. ‘Shut up, asshole, and get your dick out.’The End