Love and Sacrifice by Chelsea Ballinger

steps.
                  “Hey,” he answers. “What are you doing here?”
                  “Waiting for you.”
                  “How long have you been here?”
                  “After you texted me back and told me that you were on your way home and didn’t feel like having company.”
                  “And I don’t,” he answers with an attitude.
                  “Yeah, and I took that as a let me stay away from the girl I like type of thing.”
                  “Listen Ella ─ ”
                  “See, I used to be a real bitch. Still can be sometimes, but I used to not care about the whole boyfriend thing.” I stand up and walk down the steps to him. “I have finally graduated high school and I am happy. I have great friends, great parents, and I’m happy. But when I got to know you, I realized that there is a missing piece. I’m not talking love or anything, but I really like you Tommy. And I want to explore that. And I can probably explore it with any other guy, but I want to explore it with you. I get that you have baggage, but don’t we all?” I shrug. “I just wanted to let you know that because after two weeks of knowing you, I already know how you kind of think.”
                  He shakes his head to himself and looks up at me. “So what are you asking me, Ella?”
                  “To go with the flow. What’s the worst that can happen?”
                  He arches his brow and smirks to himself.
                  “I also wanted to know if you wanted to go break into my high school with me?”
                  “You do know I went to prison, right?”
                  “Yes, but I swear, if we get close to getting caught, I will serve your time for you. So, come on.” I pat him on the chest, which feels nice and firm and walk over to my car, hoping he will follow.
    Tommy
                   “Go with the flow,” easy for her to say that. She doesn’t have any idea what the hell is going on.
                  We stop down the street from her high school and walk to the side door of the building.
                  “So, cat woman, what now?” I ask her. She bends down and removes a key from under a rock.
                  “One of the security guards is a frequent customer at my father’s casino. My dad doesn’t know this, but he asked me to put in a good word for him because he owed the casino a lot of money, so I had him make me a copy of the side door key in exchange.” She lets out a bright smile and opens the door. I follow her in.
                  “Why?”
                  “I was failing Algebra, so I would come here and steal the answers to the tests and have this kid, Ryan Wheeler, genius in math, take them for me so I could have the answers.”
                  I follow her through the hallway. “And here I thought you were an innocent human being.”
                  “I am my father’s child,” she says cheerfully.
                  “So, what are we doing here?”
                  “Going for a swim.” I stop in my tracks and stare at her, just to make sure I just heard her correctly. She turns around and smiles at me, only this time it’s a very seductive smile. Before I can take it in, she takes off her top, revealing a black bra.
                  Shit.
                  I follow her through the hallway, then to the gym. She leads me through the locker room and showers and pushes open a red door, revealing the inside pool. I’ve only swam in the city pools and they were never as big as these. The pool is so huge, I’m completely distracted by it so that I almost forgot Ella is undressing in front of me. I focus on her and there it is, that same bright smile. She