03 | unintended benefits

When he first saw the girl, Llenwi Greanleefe knew she was completely out of his league.

He was helping his stepmother, Isolde, take her bags up to her new office. Generally, Greanleefes didn't get to have offices around important people like the High Lord Cielaré. But Isolde was talented and organized, and the High Lord had taken a liking to her, so exceptions had to be made. That's when he saw her, waiting for the elevator.

She was gorgeous. Long wavy red hair that went almost to her waist, big blue-green eyes, a tiny red mouth, freckled cheeks. She wasn't big, maybe 5"4, but she had the biggest tits and ass Llenwi had ever seen. Not grotesquely large, like some of those porn stars Llenwi had seen on the Internet, but proportional. Her stomach wasn't all the way flat and her legs were thick and heavy, but that didn't matter. She was perfect.

The girl was, unfortunately, not looking at him, but at the cellphone in her hand, texting someone expertly. Once in a while, she would his, "Shit!" or, "Come the FUCK on!" while glaring at the screen in a way that didn't make Llenwi envy whoever she was texting.

Eventually, she yelled aloud, "Goddamn it!" and dropped the phone, which fell to the ground with a clunk. Llenwi and her dived for it at the same time, fingers closing around opposite sides of its rubber blue case. They made eye contact, which she did so purposefully, Llenwi was pretty sure she was staring into his soul.

"If you don't mind-"

"No, not at all." he said awkwardly, releasing it. "Is it cracked?"

She turned it so he could see. The surface was still pristine. "Screen protector," she explained. Then, almost as an afterthought, "Thanks."

The elevator rumbled to a halt with a metallic screech. Llenwi winced, then got inside, pressing the silver 5. "Floor?" he asked the girl.

"Oh." Her eyes were unfocused, still fixed to the screen. "Seven."

They rode up in relative silence until the girl shoved her phone in the pocket of her jeans, and said, "Who are you?"

It was said with mild curiosity that may have come out horribly rude in someone else, but sounded like a normal question when she said it. "Oh, I'm Llenwi. Llenwi Greanleefe." He stuck out his hand, and she shook it. She had a good firm handshake. It suited her.

"Vielene Yvenneth. Vi, actually. Fifteen years of sorrow old. Hopeless romantic with a string of good-for-nothing fuckbois. Now there, you know everything there is to know about me."

Yvenneth?! The Yvenneths were an old House Onyx family, well-moneyed, the sort of people who didn't want anything to do with Greanleefes. But Vi seemed not to mind when she heard his name, and that comforted him. "Uh...I haven't-" He bit it off. Of course you haven't heard of her, idiot. Say something smarter. "Where do you go to school?"

"Kevin Academy. Not right now, of course, with my dad's job being here, but during the normal year...yeah." She grinned. "What's wrong? Haven't you heard of a rich kid going to public school?"

"Of course," he said, a little defensively. "I used to go to your school myself."

"You're lying."

"Am not!"

"Whatever. Who teaches seventh-year history, then?"

"Instructor Grey. He's a big bald guy. Lifts weights. Coaches the wrestling team."

She looked him up and down, appraisingly. "How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"And where do you go now?"

"Lus Prep."

Vi frowned. "I've never heard of it."

"Lots of people haven't, 'cause it's an, um, special needs school. Not that I'm retarded or something," he added quickly. "I have attention-deficit disorder." Great, now she thinks I'm a freak. Next time, Llenwi, don't start the conversation with a list of all your sexy mental illnesses. "We have a really great arts program," he said weakly.

"Cool." said Vi. Well, at least she's polite. "You act?"

"How'd you know?"

"Your shirt, genius."

He looked down, realized he was wearing his turquoise LUS PREP DRAMA CLUB shirt, and blushed. "Well, yes, but mostly I do set design. It's only this year I actually acted in a play. And I did mock trial for a year an a half so it's really not so different."

"Me too! That's how I met my boyfriend, actually."

Llenwi's heart sank. What? You didn't seriously expect a girl that hot to be single. "Oh. You guys must have a good thing going-team romance and all."

"Had," she corrected with a smile. "As we broke up five minutes ago. That's what I was cussing about. I haven't been single in a while, so that'll be different. What about you? Seeing anyone?"

"Uh...not lately." He'd had a girlfriend last year, from a different school. She'd been his first. Most started dating before, but Llenwi was different. He was tall for his age, and thin, with a sharp pointed chin, shoulder-length blonde hair, and bright blue eyes, not unattractive by any means. But he'd always been shy, not particularly athletic, with a tendency to stumble over his words. As such, he'd been a prime target for the local lowlifes-idiots with nothing better to do, he realized now, though at the time it had stung. Not like his parents had been much help. His dad, Trandello, had a drinking problem that had only gotten worse, and his mother...Llenwi's mother had committed suicide when he was six.

It was an all-too common story. Empress Cayrina IV, the ruler of the time, wanted to extend an olive branch to some of the less-respected families. So she had sent her niece, Maughin Tian, to marry Trandello Greanleefe. She didn't want to, but when one's aunt was the empress, such things did happen. The marriage had been turbulent and unhappy, and Maughin had handed herself from the balcony at their house.

She had been a very beautiful woman, but when they cut her body down she had been unrecognizable.

And then came Isolde. Determined, fierce powerful Isolde Mayhew, who met his dad online and in a month became his bride. Isolde brought something into his life he didn't realize he needed-consistency. She had made sure his sister, Oceania, the smart one, went to the best Valorian boarding schools, had checked their dad into a rehab center, and transferred him to Lus, where he had settled into a semblance of normalcy. Compared to his sister, an honors student who played three instruments and danced at a prestigious classical academy, he knew he was a disappointment. But Isolde had made him feel a little better about his prospects for the future, had actually talked to him about things. True, she was a little robotic and a little brusque. They didn't hug or kiss at all, and she could deliver searing lectures. But at least she cared, which was more than he could say for his "real" parents.

Things were better now. But growing up like that...it messed you up, made you think you weren't worth it. So it had come as a shock when girls started to pay attention to him, for the simple reason that Llenwi had never thought of himself as meriting much attention.

"You don't seem that mad about it." he observed.

"What? He was an ass anyways. Frees me up to meet new people. I will never understand," she said determinately, "why decent, nice people date complete and total assholes who don't deserve them."

"Do you?" he got the courage to ask.

She cocked her head, fixing him with those eyes. "I suppose."

"So you're trying to break a bad habit. That I can respect. But if you're just looking for another asshole to dump, then that's a little hypocritical."

She laughed. "You do have a point. I said I wouldn't before, but that's the thing about assholes. They're like roaches, you know? You think you've gotten rid of them, and then some super-roach comes along that's resistant to all pesticides."

"I wouldn't go out with a roach." Llenwi snickered.

"Fine, a chocolate-covered roach, then. You don't know it's a roach until you put in your mouth. Then the shit hits the fan." She winked. "Oops, that came out really wrong. Now might be an appropriate time for a 'that's what she said.' "

Llenwi snickered. "That's what she said." He couldn't remember feeling this good in weeks.

"But honestly," she continued, "I don't know. I have no idea what I want to do with my life. My whole family thinks I'm insane. I mean, I want to go to GCU, but that's 'cause all my siblings went there, you know? So that's not something I really want to do. I can't find out what I want to do with my life unless I try a bunch of things. Hence-"

"Dating all those assholes, yes." He understood, but he couldn't say anything else. What she had said was so complete, embodied everything that he himself had been thinking, there was nothing else to say.

They rode up in relative silence until the elevator beeped for five. "That was a good conversation." she told him. "Here." And before he could say anything her hand was on his arm, with a bright red marker in one hand, scrawling large, purposeful letters on his arm.

Vi Yvenneth

(453)700-666

The Gardens Apt. 34

And then, towards the end:

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID! 

Llenwi smirked, pulling the suitcase out of the elevator. By the time he turned around, the elevator doors had closed, taking her with them. But the slowly drying red ink on his forearm remained, a secret part of her just for him.