Chapter 3

“Oh.”

She blinked, and cocked her head. “Oh,” she said. “Did you come from a shitty school where I wouldn’t say that?”

“Yeah,” Anton said meaningfully, and she winced.

“Well, I don’t know about the other years, but this one’s okay. They might sound like a bunch of immature pricks, but they’re generally okay. How do you spell bisexual anyway, is it an ‘i’ or a ‘y’?”

Anton let himself relax fractionally, spelling it out as Emma scribbled, and cast a wary glance across the room to where the rat-faced Walsh was flicking paper balls at the redheaded Kalinowski, and scruffy Larimer was sniggering into his sleeve. Emma seemed…confident enough. And Kalinowski had just laughed at the Polack jokes. Maybe she was right—

“Fuck off, you bender!”

“Larimer!”

—or maybe not.

* * * *