Like, who comes into the shower to read and eat apples?
I double, triple, and quadruple check to make sure the door is locked behind me, hang the tiny key on the hook nearby, and get naked.
The walls on the changing stall and shower are a good twelve feet high, but there's no ceiling per se. I can hear the sound of a door opening and closing as the toothbrush boy leaves the room, and then nothing.
Pure silence.
Sighing blissfully, I push past the curtain into the tiled area and stop with one hand still clinging to the fabric.
Right.
“Rich dickheads,” I repeat as I look around at the marble floors, walls, and shower stall. It's got a glass half-door and like four shower heads with some sort of fancy command center. On the wall next to me, there's a sound system that I scroll through, selecting a classic piano song that filters lightly through the speakers.
There are shelves on one wall stocked with shampoo, conditioner, fresh bars of soap wrapped in paper wrappers, brand-new loofahs, scrub brushes, towels, and more. I'm pretty blown away.
“Please take all used items back to your dorm room in a shower caddy. Any used items left will be discarded. Thanks. -Adamson Academy staff.” I glance down and find a row of wooden shower caddies on the bottom shelf, selecting one and setting it aside. Then I take my sweet time picking out my soaps and body washes.
“This shit is so luxe,” I grumble, thinking about how much the lilac and rosemary scented shampoo I'm holding would cost in a salon. And it's just sitting here, free for anyone to take?
Then, of course, I realize how stupid that sounds. Tuition money for a year at Adamson is literally double the yearly wage my father made at his last job. There's only maybe three high schools in the entire country that cost more, and they're all snobby prep schools like Burberry Academy. Gross.
The students here are so rich that stealing something as stupid as a bar of fifty dollar soap (yeah, it's a thing, I know) doesn't actually occur to them.
I take a very, very, very generous amount of items and stuff them into my bag. When I go back to California, I'm taking it all with me. Actually, this weekend, I might go into town and mail Monica and Cody some of this stuff. Monica is pretty wealthy, but nothing like the guys that go here. Not even in the same league.
My fingers trail across the porcelain edge of the giant soaker tub, and I can't stop myself from fantasizing about using it later. Maybe I can treat my weeks here as a vacation or something? Yeah, yeah, just like a spa getaway. It'll all be over before you know it, I promise myself, starting the shower and then spending a good five minutes trying to figure out how it works before I actually climb in.
Tilting my head back, I revel in the hot water, closing my eyes and letting the steam overwhelm me.
The sound of the bathroom door opening barely registers past the sound of the running water and the classical music I selected. But then the shouting and roughhousing starts, and my nostrils flare as a surge of anger overtakes me.
“Micah!” a voice shouts, and then there's laughter and scrambling. The shower stall next to mine opens, and I hear more fighting. “Screw you, you fucking prick!”
“No, screw you. I'm going to poison your coffee.”
“Hah. You would die without me, you codependent asshole.”
“Please. You're like a growth I can't seem to get rid of. A tumor, hitching a ride on my ass so you can spend your whole day kissing it.”
There's some more fighting, and I swear, it continues into the shower stall next to mine.
“Pervert. Trying to shower with your older brother.”
“Older by precisely eight minutes. Get out. I was in here first.”
Based on the sound of the voices, I can only figure the two arguing boys are the twins from yesterday. Great. My hands are all prune-y, but now I'm going to have to wait them out. Either that, or beat them out …
I turn the shower off and scramble for my towel.
“You're being rude to our shower guest,” one of the voices says, moving from the stall on my left over to the one on the right. “You okay in there, dude?”
Dude. Hilarious.
I ignore him, and slip into the changing room to put my uniform on, taking time to bind my breasts. It's a freaking process, and I'm already cursing in pain before it's over.
When I'm done, I grab my duffel, my shower caddy, and throw the door open.
The twins are there waiting for me, standing on either side, their elbows up on the doorjamb.
I'm officially blocked in.
I start to scramble back into the waiting room when one of them grabs my tie and jerks me out.
