The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 181

Chapter 181: 181 | Side Quest: Prove Your Devotion

The elevator ride to the third floor felt longer than it should have given the building was only five stories tall. Sloane kept her grip on my wrist the entire time, her fingers warm against my skin and tight enough to leave marks if she wanted to. She didn’t look at me. She stared at the brushed steel doors with the focused intensity of someone who had committed to a plan and refused to acknowledge any potential complications.

Like the fact that we were in the middle of a residential building filled with her classmates on a Friday morning during move-in weekend.

"Sloane."

"Don’t."

"There are people in the hallway."

"I don’t care."

"You will care when someone from Class 1-A sees you dragging me into your room at nine in the morning."

"Then they’ll learn to mind their business."

The elevator doors opened. The hallway was mercifully empty, though I could hear voices coming from one of the rooms further down. Sloane pulled me out of the elevator and toward her door with the kind of single-minded purpose that made arguing pointless.

Her room looked different than it had Tuesday night. The mattress plastic was gone, replaced by dark grey sheets that she’d probably picked because they matched her aesthetic rather than any practical consideration. The garment bags still hung in the closet but everything else had been unpacked and arranged with the same aggressive organization she applied to her training schedule. Even her protein powder containers were lined up by flavor on the small shelf above the mini fridge.

She shut the door behind us and locked it. The click of the deadbolt sounded louder than it should have in the quiet room.

"Shower," she said. Not a question. A command.

"Sloane."

"You smell like her perfume. Vanilla and flowers and whatever expensive nonsense she sprays on herself to smell approachable." She finally turned to face me, her blue eyes burning with something that wasn’t quite anger. "You’re going to wash it off. All of it. Right now."

"She hugged me once."

"Once is enough. Once means her scent is on your clothes and your skin and probably in your hair because she’s tall enough to reach." Sloane’s jaw tightened. "I can smell it from here. It’s sweet. Too sweet. Like she rolled around in a bakery before coming to school."

"That’s a slight exaggeration."

"Is it though?"

She stepped closer. Her hands found the hem of my hoodie and tugged upward without asking permission. I raised my arms because fighting her on this would only make things worse and also because part of me found her possessiveness deeply attractive in ways I wasn’t going to examine too closely.

The hoodie came off. She threw it in the direction of her laundry basket without looking, her eyes fixed on my chest with an expression that combined appreciation and irritation in equal measure.

"Shirt too."

"I can undress myself."

"Not fast enough." Her fingers worked the buttons of my flannel with an efficiency born of practice. We’d done this enough times over the past two months that she knew exactly how my clothes worked, which buttons stuck and which ones slid free easily. The flannel joined the hoodie in the basket. "Better. But I can still smell it."

"That’s probably psychological."

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