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Logan climbed the North Tower stairs wearily. Only their second day and already he had a ton of English homework, plus a Chemistry test scheduled for the following afternoon .
He didn’t look around as he trudged through the common room until he heard his name being called.
“Logan?”
He looked back in surprise. Was Wendy now acknowledging him? She was sat on the sofa where she had been the night before, and held up something small, pink and fluffy.
“I’ve found your pen.” She barely contained her smirk.
“That’s not mine, but thanks anyway,” he called back, not going over to her.
Wendy used the pen to draw a line across the back of her hand. “It’s blue,” she said, before twisting it slightly to look at something printed on the side. “And it says Property of Logan Moss on it.”
Logan went over for a better look, confusion on his face.
As he took the pen from Wendy and examined it, the penny dropped in his brain. It was the most feminine pen he’d ever seen, with sparkly kisses and tiny heart stickers decorating it, not to mention the pink feathers glued all around the top. His name was clearly visible too, in bold black lettering.
He took in Wendy’s smirk and refused to give her the satisfaction she clearly craved of embarrassing him.
“Oh yes, this is mine,” he said. “A token of gratitude from a girl I kissed.” He winked at the boys in her group and they chuckled in return.
The frustrated look on Wendy’s face was priceless as Logan turned and walked away. He mentally chalked the air as a point to himself against her. This was obviously supposed to be retaliation for the hat, but she was going to have to try a lot harder than that if she hoped to beat him.
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IT TOOK HER TWO DAYS to get him. He was sitting on his bed when one of his roommates, Cal, came in with two packages.
“I’ve just been to collect the post and I thought I'd bring yours up for you. What on earth is this one?”
He held up a long tube and Logan took it, his brow creased in confusion.
It was a poster. He tipped it out and then stood to unroll it. It dropped right down to his feet.
“Who is that?” Cal tipped his head to view the girl on the poster.
For a moment Logan had an urge to scrunch up the poster or claim he didn’t know, but then he decided to ride it out. “It’s Lah, from the Combat Slam game. She’s kind of a fox, don’t you think?”
Cal looked at it doubtfully. “More scary than anything. She looks like she’s about to rip your head off.”
Logan grinned at the girl in the picture, “Yup, it’s part of her appeal.”
“If that’s what turns you on. Each to their own,” Cal said.
“You’re a fine one to talk.” Logan gave Cal a smirk, as it was known between them that Cal’s own preferences ran in the opposite direction from girls of any kind.
Logan looked again at the poster. He could deface it, give it a witch’s hat, some pink hair, and perhaps a moustache before returning it personally to the sender, or he could keep it. In the end he tacked it up next to his bed. He wondered if he was crazy to keep such a blatant reminder so visible. He wanted to forget the girl and move on, not think about her every day when he opened his eyes. On the other hand, it was also a perfect prompt to remember they were locked in combat, not a relationship.
But he didn’t doubt for a second that he was going to take some flack when his other two roommates saw it. Oh well, there were worse things than a little teasing from your mates.
He opened the second package, and found a book: How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.
Heck, she should have sent that one to herself. But it gave him an idea.
“I’ll be back in ten,” he called out to Cal, before jogging down the stairs to the school library. The library was the only place he could get Internet access, and he needed it for a little shopping of his own.
Logan spent a few minutes scanning various book sites, until he found one that specialised in erotic romance: the kind that had a lot of man-chest on the front covers. Then he gleefully purchased a bunch of them in Wendy’s name. The more cheesy-looking the better. It would take several days for the first book to arrive, but then she was going to receive one a week for the next two months, whether she liked it or not.
“Game on,” he said, as he made his way back upstairs.