Harvard Hottie Read Free

floor and hurled it in his direction. I had wicked aim and it nailed him right in the head. He pulled it from his face, looking pissed off. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped. “You know, I could get you in a lot of trouble for that, Twelve Fingers.”
    “My name is Ellie,” I said through my teeth. “And it’s your goddamn towel, douchebag.”
    “Actually, it’s Steve’s towel,” Luke said. “He’s the slob around here.”
    “Sure, whatever you say.”
    Luke watched me for a second. The towel had mussed his yellow hair and as much as I hated to admit it, he looked very sexy like that. It was frustrating that someone I hated so much could be so physically attractive.
    “So tell me, Ellie,” he said. “What’s the trick to getting a toilet so spotless and clean?”
    “Go to hell,” I replied.
    “If you’re not going to tell me,” he said, “maybe I should watch.”
    The thought of Luke watching me clean his bathroom was almost too humiliating for words.
    “You can’t watch me,” I said.
    “Then how will I know you didn’t dunk my toothbrush in the toilet?” he said.
    “I would never do that!” I was totally planning to do that.
    “I bet you wish you had kept those other fingers,” he mused. “You’d probably be much faster at scrubbing toilets.”
    That did it. I struggled to my feet, using the toilet brush for support. I poked him in the chest with the brush. Hard. “Hey!” he cried, looking down at the splotch the brush left on his chest. “You got toilet water on my shirt!”
    “Listen, Thayer House,” I said. “You can’t talk to me that way, just because your great-great-great-grandfather was some rich asshole who gave the college a bunch of money.”
    “Geez, you’re touchy, Twelve Fingers,” he said. “Are you on your period or something?”
    I swear to god, I nearly decked him. “That’s it!” I snapped. “You can clean your own goddamn toilets!” And I stormed out in a huff. Unfortunately, I left all my cleaning supplies behind and had to sneak back later and get them.
    ***
    A week later, we got our grades back from our first paper. Dr. Cole handed them out in the last five minutes of class, and I was horrified to find a big red B on the top.
    I never got Bs in high school. Never. Maybe an A-, if I’d been battling the flu or something. But a B? How could I get a B? My paper was brilliant! I could argue any point expertly—didn’t Dr. Cole know that I was captain of the debate team?
    I felt something kick me in the ankle. Hard. I looked up and saw Luke’s brown eyes staring into mine. “Hey, Twelve Fingers,” he said. “What did you get?”
    “None of your business,” I snapped at him. I eyed the paper in his hands. “What did you get?”
    He turned his paper over to show me the red A at the top. Even though I tried to check my reaction, I have to admit that my jaw dropped open. This was patently unfair. Luke wasn’t even smart! He was just a jerk with a big mouth. There was no way his paper was better than mine.
    “You could read it if you’d like,” he said, grinning as he slid the paper towards me. “Maybe you could learn something for your next assignment.”
    I really wanted to punch him in his smug face. Instead, I yanked the paper out of his hand, and actually read a few paragraphs of it. And just as I thought—it was awful.
    Well, not completely awful. He wasn’t entirely illiterate. And he did make some good points about Raymond Carver. But it wasn’t better than mine. Clearly Dr. Cole was blinded by his good looks and inflated his grade. That was the only thing I could think of.
    “Too bad they didn’t teach you to write back in Jersey,” Luke said, still grinning at me.
    I didn’t punch him, but I threw his essay back in his face. He blinked at me, surprised but still clearly very amused. “Violence is your answer to everything, isn’t it?” he said. He held up his hand and bent it into a fist. “Too bad you didn’t