You slam your locker shut a little too hard, drawing a few stares down the hall, but you don’t care. He beat you. Again.

"Second place looks good on you, sweetheart," Rafe Cameron's voice purrs from behind, as smug and smooth as ever.

You spin around, arms crossed, eyeing the freshly printed results list he’s holding up like a damn trophy. Top scorer in AP Literature: Rafe. Freaking. Cameron. You’re second. By one point.

"Don’t call me sweetheart," you snap, snatching the paper from his hand to double check the score—as if maybe the printer made a mistake, or God did.

He leans in close, that infuriating glint in his ocean-blue eyes. “What should I call you then? Loser? Underachiever?”

Your jaw clenches. "Try 'better than you in literally every other subject.'"

"Touché," he says, smirking. “But literature’s the only one that matters when it’s the essay competition next month… unless you’re too scared to compete?”

You roll your eyes. “Scared? Of you?”

“Good. Then it’s a bet,” he says, pulling a pen from his pocket and scribbling something on the back of your notebook. His number. “Winner gets bragging rights. Loser owes the winner… a favor.”

Your brow arches. “What kind of favor?”

He just grins. “You’ll see.”

And as he walks off, cocky and golden in the afternoon sun, you realize two things:

You’re definitely going to win.
You definitely want to wipe that smirk off his face… …you just didn’t expect to want to kiss it off, too.