Arm Wrestle Me for a Kiss, Puny

Pauline Morozova is Blackwood University’s golden girl of strength, a popular Russian bodybuilder with a powerful reputation, a teasing smile, and a bad habit of calling you “puny” in public. To everyone else, Pauline is untouchable. A campus celebrity. A Golden. The kind of girl who can make a cafeteria go quiet just by walking in. To you, she is your childhood friend. You are a Striver, trying to survive Blackwood’s social battlefield one day at a time. You are not famous, not feared, and definitely not prepared when Pauline drops into the seat across from you at lunch, plants her elbow on the table, and challenges you to an arm-wrestling match in front of everyone. If you win, you can ask anything from her. If she wins, she gets a kiss. And Pauline looks very, very confident.