![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
abc prompts; k+s: role reversal
There were people in the world, Kirsten reflected, who had an uncanny talent for inspiring feelings of rage and loathing in everyone they met.
Then there were people — or one person, anyway — who had an uncanny talent for inspiring feelings of rage and loathing in her, while charming everyone else right out of their skin.
She gazed sullenly across the cafeteria as Shane Harper came in, flanked as always by the soccer team and its cheerleaders.
The soccer team at Bay District High had its own cheerleaders. Their season ran in the spring, and prom usually coincided with their final game. Shane was to blame for the way soccer had taken the spotlight; he'd been vice-captain of the team since he was a freshman, and captain since he was a sophomore. He was the one who'd started the movement to get them a cheerleading squad, acquired the funding to get their locker rooms renovated and equipment replaced, and coerced the superintendent into giving them their own bus. His team loved him and the girls adored him. He was congenial, charismatic and talented. He ran for class president this year and won by a landslide.
He was gorgeous, too, with the body of an athlete, delicately-tanned skin and pitch black hair, steel-grey eyes and a smile that was all perfect white teeth. Kirsten could look at him for centuries, but she hated his guts.
Shane threw his money around for things like getting the soccer team preferential treatment. The football and basketball teams didn't have brand new equipment every year. He drove a different car to school every day of the week. Sometimes he drove a different car every day for two weeks, and all of them vintage muscle cars in perfect condition. He was an arrogant, self-absorbed trust fund baby.
Kirsten's family had money — her parents were pro tennis players, and though they were retired from the sports scene (her father now a cop, her mother now a bail bondsman), they were more than comfortable. Her father wasn't frivolous with his money, though; Kirsten had to earn every penny of her allowance, and she and her parents and sister lived in a modest three-bedroom house in the suburbs.
She'd seen the Harper house. It was one of three in the states, with more overseas, and it was extravagant. Shane Harper was extravagant. Extravagantly rich, extravagantly attractive, and worse still, extravagantly talented.
He worked on his own cars, had already slain auto shop as an elective credit, and (so Kirsten had heard) could restore a car from little more than rust and bolts. If she had to guess — because she refused to ask and give him the satisfaction of being the subject of her interest, professional or otherwise — she'd wager he'd restored all of the classic cars he drove, which was infinitely more annoying than is daddy having bought them for him.
Equally as well-known was his aptitude as an artist. He had multiple scholarship offers on the table; his portfolio seemed to precede him in college applications. Kirsten had seen some of his work, and all of it, from idle sketches and short comics to massive canvasses with breathtaking life models and cityscapes, was beautiful. Kirsten could draw stick figures with moderate consistency.
And to top all of that off, Shane Harper, who could score a job at any auto shop or garage in the state or attend virtually any major university on the west coast for free, was almost guaranteed to become the CEO of his father's company, Harper Imports, and completely waste his talents.
Meanwhile, Kirsten was fighting her way through tutors and lessons, and while she was looking at a promising future in journalism, it hadn't come easily by any means.
Shane Harper, in all his extravagance, drove her absolutely insane.
Worse still, he knew it.
While she looked on, working herself into a silent fit of spite with nothing but her own thoughts, Shane broke off from the crowd and veered her way, coming to lean a hip against her table.
"Thompson," he greeted with a five-star smile. Kirsten dropped herself back into a slouch, instantly surly, and stared up at him.
"What the hell do you want?"
He swallowed his grin into a somber look. "I was just saying hi. Wondered if the Beacon was covering tonight's game."
"Chloe's going to be there. You know that." Kirsten drummed her fingers on the table. "If you're looking for an excuse to talk to me, find a better one, Harper."
This time, his smile was condescending. "I know Chloe was supposed to be there, but I also know she's home with a stomach bug. Guess she didn't call her editor yet."
Even as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, Kirsten knew she hadn't missed a text or call. "She's probably not even awake yet, if she's sick," she answered, frowning at it. "She'll call before lunch." If she knew what was good for her, anyway.
"So are you gonna step in for her, or... ?" Shane was raising his eyebrows at her, expectant. She was pretty sure he had them waxed or threaded. They were as perfect as the rest of him.
She had a history test to study for, but she'd have to put it off. Tonight's game was important; they were playing Bridge District Boys' Academy. "Of course I am." She dropped her phone on the table.
Shane's smile was back, slower and slyer than before. "I'll bring out my A-game for you." He had the nerve to shoot a wink at her as he turned to walk away.
Several hours later, she was fervently wishing she was at home studying for her history test.
She didn't even like history very much, but anything was preferable to sitting on the sidelines, close enough to see the glisten of sweat on Shane Harper's every ridge and valley of muscle when he ran by. The Beacon reported on every soccer game, but Kirsten delegated it to the sports columnists — despite her parents' backgrounds, she wasn't into athletics. She'd rather not even watch sports, especially when 'watching sports' kept morphing into 'watching Shane Harper.'
The boy was delicious. She'd be lying if she pretended he wasn't. On the soccer field, long legs flexing with every stride, love handles flashing when he lifted his shirt to wipe sweat from his face, he was attractive in a totally different way than usual. His smiles in the halls (and the tabloids) were polished, and the camera loved the angles of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbones and set of his shoulders. The afternoon sun loved the topography of his muscles, the veins in his forearms, and the heave of his chest as he caught his breath stirred something animal and frustrated inside of Kirsten.
It really was too bad he was such a douchebag.
She typed something about the captain and star player being 'a fucking dish,' and then deleted it. He made it hard to focus, even for her.
"You're down five points," she called as Shane jogged past. He wheeled around fairly instantly, surprising her; it was the first she'd seen of his own sharp focus being sidetracked since the match started. Looking up from her tablet, she asked, "Think you can pull it out?"
"You know, Chloe doesn't taunt me when we're behind," he remarked, dragging his shoulder against his cheek to dry it.
"Chloe's not here," she pointed out. "You're losing."
He came close, then, and picked up her water bottle from the bench beside her. She knew what he'd do, but instead of stopping him, she watched as he gulped down half the bottle — throat working, a bead of perspiration slowly trickling down the line of his jugular. She lifted her camera to snap a photo.
When he lowered the bottle, he said, "'Losing' implies we're headed toward a loss. We're headed toward a win. This is just a minor setback." He tossed the bottle to her and grinned when she caught it. She frowned. "We'll pull it out," he answered finally.
As she watched the boys swarm the field again, Kirsten mused over a caption for the photo she'd taken. 'What a dreamboat' was out of the question, not that anyone would disagree. Equally unacceptable were 'Sexy and he knows it' and 'Shane Harper: quenching your thirst and his own.' That exhausted her current bank of ideas, so she shoved her tablet aside to watch the game, instead.
He was right, in the end. She hated that. They pulled the game out in the last half, though it wasn't easy. The Boys' Academy fought them tooth and nail, and in the end, Shane and his team only won by two points.
Kirsten took rapid-fire pictures of their team as they surged together center-field, shouting and whooping. Shane was in the middle of the mess, the object of multiple rough hugs and backslaps.
The smile on his face was even worse than the raw magnetism he had on the field. There was something warm about it, something wild and boyish and totally different than the sparkling photo-op grins he offered to the paparazzi. Out there on the field, he wasn't the douchebag captain of the soccer team, the money-burning student council president or the tabloid star son of Henry Harper — he was just a boy playing a game that he loved.
It was an article that could write itself, if she let it: the other, sweeter, arrestingly charming side of superstar Shane Harper. Kirsten clamped firmly down on the idea and quashed it beneath more rehashings of the soccer match. No way was she writing a piece on Shane Harper. He'd never let her live it down if she did.
She considered not even congratulating him, but she wasn't willing to compromise the quality of her article just to make a point. As the stands started to empty out, she crossed the field.
Shane was absolutely aglow, between the soon-to-set sun, the sweat on his skin and the blinding smile he turned on her when she came close. Kirsten felt something flutter in her chest. She was pretty sure it was stupidity.
"Not bad," she said, and was relieved to see his grin give way to (extravagant) eyerolls. He snatched the water bottle (hers) that she offered him, but rather than drink it, he poured it over his head.
"'Not bad' doesn't win matches, Thompson," he rebuked. Water scattered in all directions as he shook his head. Kirsten shielded her tablet with a scowl. "We were fucking amazing."
"Is that your quote for the Beacon?" she asked dryly.
Shane laughed, twisting the empty bottle in his hands. "If you want it to be. Are you after a quote?"
"I didn't come out here to watch your impression of a golden retriever." She gave him a mocking smile. He rewarded her with a purse of his lips that she chose to read as mildly embarrassed. "So," she went on, lowering her tablet and poising her fingers over the screen, "another notch in BDH's belt. Feeling good about it?"
"Feeling fantastic about it," he clarified. "Bridge District Boys' Academy had a hot win record before they got here."
"You were worried?" She made sure the arch of her eyebrows was challenging. It worked.
He snorted. "Not worried. Prepared."
"For the possibility of losing?"
"To slaughter them."
"'To slaughter them,'" she echoed as she typed 'slaughter' with a flourish. After a moment, she added, "... BDH's soccer team captain said belligerently."
Shane made a scoffing sound, leaning close to try to see her tablet screen. She angled it away from him.
"I am not belligerent," he protested as he circled around behind her. She tilted the screen again. "Come on, you didn't seriously type that, did you?"
"Freedom of the press," she said simply, and smiled at him herself (satisfied, a little mocking) as she turned on her heel to walk away. His protests followed her until she was off the field.
Then there were people — or one person, anyway — who had an uncanny talent for inspiring feelings of rage and loathing in her, while charming everyone else right out of their skin.
She gazed sullenly across the cafeteria as Shane Harper came in, flanked as always by the soccer team and its cheerleaders.
The soccer team at Bay District High had its own cheerleaders. Their season ran in the spring, and prom usually coincided with their final game. Shane was to blame for the way soccer had taken the spotlight; he'd been vice-captain of the team since he was a freshman, and captain since he was a sophomore. He was the one who'd started the movement to get them a cheerleading squad, acquired the funding to get their locker rooms renovated and equipment replaced, and coerced the superintendent into giving them their own bus. His team loved him and the girls adored him. He was congenial, charismatic and talented. He ran for class president this year and won by a landslide.
He was gorgeous, too, with the body of an athlete, delicately-tanned skin and pitch black hair, steel-grey eyes and a smile that was all perfect white teeth. Kirsten could look at him for centuries, but she hated his guts.
Shane threw his money around for things like getting the soccer team preferential treatment. The football and basketball teams didn't have brand new equipment every year. He drove a different car to school every day of the week. Sometimes he drove a different car every day for two weeks, and all of them vintage muscle cars in perfect condition. He was an arrogant, self-absorbed trust fund baby.
Kirsten's family had money — her parents were pro tennis players, and though they were retired from the sports scene (her father now a cop, her mother now a bail bondsman), they were more than comfortable. Her father wasn't frivolous with his money, though; Kirsten had to earn every penny of her allowance, and she and her parents and sister lived in a modest three-bedroom house in the suburbs.
She'd seen the Harper house. It was one of three in the states, with more overseas, and it was extravagant. Shane Harper was extravagant. Extravagantly rich, extravagantly attractive, and worse still, extravagantly talented.
He worked on his own cars, had already slain auto shop as an elective credit, and (so Kirsten had heard) could restore a car from little more than rust and bolts. If she had to guess — because she refused to ask and give him the satisfaction of being the subject of her interest, professional or otherwise — she'd wager he'd restored all of the classic cars he drove, which was infinitely more annoying than is daddy having bought them for him.
Equally as well-known was his aptitude as an artist. He had multiple scholarship offers on the table; his portfolio seemed to precede him in college applications. Kirsten had seen some of his work, and all of it, from idle sketches and short comics to massive canvasses with breathtaking life models and cityscapes, was beautiful. Kirsten could draw stick figures with moderate consistency.
And to top all of that off, Shane Harper, who could score a job at any auto shop or garage in the state or attend virtually any major university on the west coast for free, was almost guaranteed to become the CEO of his father's company, Harper Imports, and completely waste his talents.
Meanwhile, Kirsten was fighting her way through tutors and lessons, and while she was looking at a promising future in journalism, it hadn't come easily by any means.
Shane Harper, in all his extravagance, drove her absolutely insane.
Worse still, he knew it.
While she looked on, working herself into a silent fit of spite with nothing but her own thoughts, Shane broke off from the crowd and veered her way, coming to lean a hip against her table.
"Thompson," he greeted with a five-star smile. Kirsten dropped herself back into a slouch, instantly surly, and stared up at him.
"What the hell do you want?"
He swallowed his grin into a somber look. "I was just saying hi. Wondered if the Beacon was covering tonight's game."
"Chloe's going to be there. You know that." Kirsten drummed her fingers on the table. "If you're looking for an excuse to talk to me, find a better one, Harper."
This time, his smile was condescending. "I know Chloe was supposed to be there, but I also know she's home with a stomach bug. Guess she didn't call her editor yet."
Even as she pulled her phone out of her pocket, Kirsten knew she hadn't missed a text or call. "She's probably not even awake yet, if she's sick," she answered, frowning at it. "She'll call before lunch." If she knew what was good for her, anyway.
"So are you gonna step in for her, or... ?" Shane was raising his eyebrows at her, expectant. She was pretty sure he had them waxed or threaded. They were as perfect as the rest of him.
She had a history test to study for, but she'd have to put it off. Tonight's game was important; they were playing Bridge District Boys' Academy. "Of course I am." She dropped her phone on the table.
Shane's smile was back, slower and slyer than before. "I'll bring out my A-game for you." He had the nerve to shoot a wink at her as he turned to walk away.
Several hours later, she was fervently wishing she was at home studying for her history test.
She didn't even like history very much, but anything was preferable to sitting on the sidelines, close enough to see the glisten of sweat on Shane Harper's every ridge and valley of muscle when he ran by. The Beacon reported on every soccer game, but Kirsten delegated it to the sports columnists — despite her parents' backgrounds, she wasn't into athletics. She'd rather not even watch sports, especially when 'watching sports' kept morphing into 'watching Shane Harper.'
The boy was delicious. She'd be lying if she pretended he wasn't. On the soccer field, long legs flexing with every stride, love handles flashing when he lifted his shirt to wipe sweat from his face, he was attractive in a totally different way than usual. His smiles in the halls (and the tabloids) were polished, and the camera loved the angles of his jaw, the cut of his cheekbones and set of his shoulders. The afternoon sun loved the topography of his muscles, the veins in his forearms, and the heave of his chest as he caught his breath stirred something animal and frustrated inside of Kirsten.
It really was too bad he was such a douchebag.
She typed something about the captain and star player being 'a fucking dish,' and then deleted it. He made it hard to focus, even for her.
"You're down five points," she called as Shane jogged past. He wheeled around fairly instantly, surprising her; it was the first she'd seen of his own sharp focus being sidetracked since the match started. Looking up from her tablet, she asked, "Think you can pull it out?"
"You know, Chloe doesn't taunt me when we're behind," he remarked, dragging his shoulder against his cheek to dry it.
"Chloe's not here," she pointed out. "You're losing."
He came close, then, and picked up her water bottle from the bench beside her. She knew what he'd do, but instead of stopping him, she watched as he gulped down half the bottle — throat working, a bead of perspiration slowly trickling down the line of his jugular. She lifted her camera to snap a photo.
When he lowered the bottle, he said, "'Losing' implies we're headed toward a loss. We're headed toward a win. This is just a minor setback." He tossed the bottle to her and grinned when she caught it. She frowned. "We'll pull it out," he answered finally.
As she watched the boys swarm the field again, Kirsten mused over a caption for the photo she'd taken. 'What a dreamboat' was out of the question, not that anyone would disagree. Equally unacceptable were 'Sexy and he knows it' and 'Shane Harper: quenching your thirst and his own.' That exhausted her current bank of ideas, so she shoved her tablet aside to watch the game, instead.
He was right, in the end. She hated that. They pulled the game out in the last half, though it wasn't easy. The Boys' Academy fought them tooth and nail, and in the end, Shane and his team only won by two points.
Kirsten took rapid-fire pictures of their team as they surged together center-field, shouting and whooping. Shane was in the middle of the mess, the object of multiple rough hugs and backslaps.
The smile on his face was even worse than the raw magnetism he had on the field. There was something warm about it, something wild and boyish and totally different than the sparkling photo-op grins he offered to the paparazzi. Out there on the field, he wasn't the douchebag captain of the soccer team, the money-burning student council president or the tabloid star son of Henry Harper — he was just a boy playing a game that he loved.
It was an article that could write itself, if she let it: the other, sweeter, arrestingly charming side of superstar Shane Harper. Kirsten clamped firmly down on the idea and quashed it beneath more rehashings of the soccer match. No way was she writing a piece on Shane Harper. He'd never let her live it down if she did.
She considered not even congratulating him, but she wasn't willing to compromise the quality of her article just to make a point. As the stands started to empty out, she crossed the field.
Shane was absolutely aglow, between the soon-to-set sun, the sweat on his skin and the blinding smile he turned on her when she came close. Kirsten felt something flutter in her chest. She was pretty sure it was stupidity.
"Not bad," she said, and was relieved to see his grin give way to (extravagant) eyerolls. He snatched the water bottle (hers) that she offered him, but rather than drink it, he poured it over his head.
"'Not bad' doesn't win matches, Thompson," he rebuked. Water scattered in all directions as he shook his head. Kirsten shielded her tablet with a scowl. "We were fucking amazing."
"Is that your quote for the Beacon?" she asked dryly.
Shane laughed, twisting the empty bottle in his hands. "If you want it to be. Are you after a quote?"
"I didn't come out here to watch your impression of a golden retriever." She gave him a mocking smile. He rewarded her with a purse of his lips that she chose to read as mildly embarrassed. "So," she went on, lowering her tablet and poising her fingers over the screen, "another notch in BDH's belt. Feeling good about it?"
"Feeling fantastic about it," he clarified. "Bridge District Boys' Academy had a hot win record before they got here."
"You were worried?" She made sure the arch of her eyebrows was challenging. It worked.
He snorted. "Not worried. Prepared."
"For the possibility of losing?"
"To slaughter them."
"'To slaughter them,'" she echoed as she typed 'slaughter' with a flourish. After a moment, she added, "... BDH's soccer team captain said belligerently."
Shane made a scoffing sound, leaning close to try to see her tablet screen. She angled it away from him.
"I am not belligerent," he protested as he circled around behind her. She tilted the screen again. "Come on, you didn't seriously type that, did you?"
"Freedom of the press," she said simply, and smiled at him herself (satisfied, a little mocking) as she turned on her heel to walk away. His protests followed her until she was off the field.