"What about that girl?" Avery pointed to the brunette crossing the lacrosse pitch, handling the stick so expertly that a few passing boys stared. Her hair was long and the way her uniform shirt rode up her tight regular clothes were visible.
"Never," Jack said, and took a drag on her cigarette. "Girls you can't come on to. They come to me if they want to."
"Want to come, you mean," Avery said, enjoying the way that Jack immediately choked. She used it as an excuse to take Jack's cigarette away, put it out, and toss the vile thing into a rubbish bin. "Okay, I get it. But that hasn't stopped you."
"I'd thought it beneath you to gossip." The boys who'd been eyeing the Griffith girl walked by, having given up, and looked at them. One blushed hotly, seeing Jack, and Jack scowled at her empty hands.
"I've been assured that everything--" Avery paused to watch Jack press a pen with leaking ink to her shoe and dye a patch black, "--is true."
Jack lifted her hands up and squinted, wondering how she'd managed to ink herself more than the shoe. Her lips went up when Avery spoke, but she wasn't smiling. "I suppose it's still beneath you then." She'd give anything to be beneath Avery. On a bed.
"I'd better go," Avery said, looking at her watch. Jack thought she saw diamonds. "Ballet. I'm practising for a solo."
Jack felt flattered, somehow, at being told. Images of Avery stretching came to mind, Jack shrugged them off, though, and peeked at Avery. "I could go," she said. "Unless, you know, you don't want me to..."
Avery's okay was sweeter than any note Jack had ever heard her sing.