What is Oli’s problem? All he has to do is keep his cocky mouth shut and let me get through this semester without scaring away the new kid, and he cannot even last one evening.

As soon as we disappear under the tree, to sit in shadow from the bright, setting sun, I pin Oli right against the trunk and get right up in that pretty face of his.

“What is your deal?” I ask with a growl in my voice. Confrontational isn’t my typical state, but when it comes out, so do several years of being influenced by my father’s strict rule. “You know I need him to stick around. You scare him off, you are as good as killing me.”

“You’re always so dramatic, Your Highness,” Oli says with his eyelids hung low in a squint and poison in the title. He knows how much I hate my friends calling me that. “I’m just roughin’ him up a bit. He ought to know what’s expected of him.”

I hardly open my mouth as I say through my teeth, “I would prefer it if you used a little more caution. I need him.”

“Aww. Already so protective of your new baby.”

Oli puts his hand on my shoulder. I knock it off almost immediately and pull even closer to his face.

“You know what—”

“Boys, boys. You’re both pretty,” Fran sticks her long, slender arms between us and attempts, in vain, to pry us apart. “Can you both sit down and enjoy the few hours of the courtyard we get?”

“You are a prick, you know that?” I say to Oli as I let go of his shirt and back off.

“At least I don’t pretend not to be.” Oli straightens his top-tier, custom fit, Wizard Prep jacket before looking past the branches of the willow tree to where the new kid is still chatting with Ms. Maybe. “Does the guy even know you are using him? Or are you just fooling him into thinkin’ he’s somethin’ special and worthy of the attention of Sir Prince Rhett Starstorm.”

He bows to me in the most over-dramatic way. That’s Oli’s go-to way to piss me off. The more he acknowledges my status, the angrier I get.

School is where I get to pretend to be normal. Even he can’t ruin that.

I do my best not to let him get to me and absolutely refuse to look at the new guys. “Motivation is irrelevant. He is still being helped when there is no one else to help.”

“Looks like your best friend Maybe isn’t doing too bad of a job,” Alex says with a poorly suppressed chuckle.

I turn my sharp glare on him for all of a second before Oli rips back in.

“He’s gonna get attached, ya know. And either he ends up stalking you around school until graduation, or you break his weak little heart lettin’ him know he was never anythin’ special.” 

I do not mean to, but my eyes shift back to the new guy, standing still and confused while Ms. Maybe jumps around him explaining something she found incredibly exciting. But what does she not find exciting?

A twinge of guilt I do not expect fills my gut. He is so innocent. So unaware of what is to come. So… unprepared. 

And then something I had expected even less pops into my head: jealousy. Me? Jealous of a nobody like him?

But the more I think about it, the more obvious the feeling becomes. It is a sense of envy that he does not yet know what is expected of him. That he got to live sixteen years of his life with no expectations at all.

Even now, while expectations are higher than ever, and very well could mean my life, he does not have a clue. Ignorance truly is bliss.

I think about this for so long that all my friends stare at me, waiting for me to answer as I watch this unknowing student begin his journey out of the courtyard.

“That will not happen,” I say tall and finite, hoping to stop the conversation in its tracks.

Oli snickers as he falls into the grass next to Alex. “Just because you say it with that proper accent, doesn’t make it true.”

“He’s kind of right, Rhett,” Lissa pops in while she pulls her long blonde hair into a ponytail with the flick of her wand. “You do have a way of alluring people to you. He’s going to get attached.”

By this point, the new guy has disappeared through the door back to the main hall of Wizard Prep, yet I still find myself looking at the door for longer than I should.

“By the time that is important, it will not matter anymore,” I say and sit in the grass next to Fran. Lissa joins me shortly after.

“Whatever you say, man,” Oli says as he creates a ball of fire in his hand to practice. “I’m just saying, sometimes it’s better to let the prick out than hold it in. Maybe don’t be so nice to him. It’ll hurt less later.”

I don’t want to admit it, but Oli has a point. There is more to consider with this guy and my intentions to teach him. 

I may not be the most honorable man on the planet, but it is not, and never would be, my goal to hurt any innocent person. Especially not Allen Silverlake.