Stuck With The Four Hotties

Halloween is on a Thursday this year which makes partying difficult, especially with all the Bluebloods-and Zack-restricted to the Burberry Prep campus. According to school gossip, there’s going to be a party Friday night at the cemetery. Technically, that is on campus, so there’s less risk of being discovering.

“I’m over the ‘slutty’ theme,” Miranda says, flipping through a magazine as we sit in The Mess and binge on a colorful stack of macarons. “For Halloween, I mean. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just … feel like I’d rather go as a giant bowl of popcorn than a sexy kitty, sexy firefighter, sexy nurse, or sexy warthog.”

“Warthog?” I choke, pounding on my chest with a fist and raising a brow. Miranda throws her head back and laughs, the sound like the tinkling of bells. I notice Jessie Maker watching her and biting her lower lip. Those twoCòntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

… “Whoever dressed as a sexy warthog?”

“Academy legend says that in the nineties, when The Lion King first came out, that Ms. Felton came to school dressed as a sexy warthog, in furry panties, a furry bra, and tusks. The yearbook from that year is missing from the library which totally makes me think it’s true.” She stuffs a pink cookie in her mouth and presents me and Jessie with the glossy page of the magazine.

Ah, print is still alive and well on the Burberry Prep campus, particularly between Monday morning when we hand in our phones, and Friday evening

when we get them back. Of course, I snuck a burner phone in here by hiding it in a box of tampons (of which I carefully used glue to reseal the flap so it looked unopened). I’m sure I’m not the only student to have thought of that.

I examine the costume-it’s a giant bowl of popcorn made out of papier- mache that’s totally not going to work considering Halloween is tomorrow- but it’s cute.

“We could dress up as macarons,” I suggest, lifting one of the pretty cookies up to the light. “You know, put some of that temporary dye in our hair, wear matching dresses and heels.”

Miranda squeals and rises up from her seat, nearly knocking the macaron tower over as she throws her arms around my neck and practically strangles me in the name of hugging.

“That’s such a cute freaking idea!” she gushes, eyes sparkling. “And we all still have our off-campus privileges. We could go after school today, just run into town and grab a few things.” Miranda snaps her fingers as Andrew walks in, carrying his bookbag over his shoulder. He raises his eyebrows at her. “But only if you go in full drag.”

“Drag … for what?” Andrew asks suspiciously, and Miranda tosses him a yellow cookie which he just barely catches.

“Halloween. I’ll do your makeup, and we can get you a wig when we go out today. We’re dressing as macarons, like all colorful and cute. You’ll love it. Besides,” she waves her hand dismissively in his direction, totally lost in her own world, “you’ve been saying you wanted to try drag.”

“Um, try drag in private in a place my dad would never-” Andrew stops abruptly as the door to The Mess opens and Zack walks in. My heart flip- flops in my chest, and my throat closes up to the point that it’s hard to breathe. That kiss, that kiss, ah that fucking kiss … But I hate him. Piece of shit.

I focus on my cookie and stuff it into my mouth. Unfortunately, it tastes like cherries which just reminds me of the taste of Zack’s mouth.

“Zack, will you do drag with Andrew?” Miranda asks as he pauses far too close to me. I can smell his cologne, this musky, sporty mix of citrus, mint, and cedar that drives me nuts. “Like, full on makeup, wig, dress, heels.”

Zack shrugs his broad shoulders.

“Yeah, why not? What is Halloween for if not for girls in short skirts and dudes in drag? I was going to go as Russell Brand, a la Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but this sounds better.” I glance up at him

through the feather gold bangs that fall across my forehead. He looks back at me, and I have to hold back a sigh.

I might’ve gotten him good, but that doesn’t mean I forgive him. My revenge on Zack Brooks is satisfied for now, but that’s not going to magically clear the air between us. Not by a long shot.

He was this close to being expelled. This freaking close. Because the video was from middle school, the academy didn’t feel it had the grounds to take things quite so far, but Zack Brooks is on thin ice. Any grade less than a C or a scrap of proof that he’s bullying this year, and he’s out. As things stand, they took his letterman jacket away, kicked him off the varsity team, and gave him in-school suspension. He has no off-campus privileges, and Burberry Prep lost the game to Grenadine Heights. The entire football team hates Zack now, and my dad … Well, that was a tough one to deal with. I came too close to breaking those rules again. Scary close. I explained to my father that Zack and I had patched things up, but I’m not sure if they’ll be friends again. The way he looked at Zack after, that was almost punishment enough. I could see the pain in Zack’s eyes.

To distract myself from the hunky ex-football player beside me, I pull out my journal, unlock it, and start writing. The others have learned not to bother me when I’m penning my thoughts.

Zack and Andrew pull up chairs, and the others talk about their costumes as I write.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Creed shows up. He’s alone, but that doesn’t matter.

As soon as he sees Miranda with us, his ice-blue eyes narrow to slits. He saunters over to us with that lazy, rolling gait of his, like at any moment he might just lie down on the floor and take an angry nap. Yeah, I know, that doesn’t really make sense, but I swear, that’s what Creed looks like: a pissed-off narcoleptic.

“Miranda,” he says, and his sister stiffens up under his stare. “Can I speak with you for a moment?”

“No, you may not, Creed,” she snaps back, lifting angry eyes to her twin’s face. They’re so similar in appearance, it’s eerie. If I’d never seen them in the same room, I might believe that they were one person, a shapeshifter who could swap genders. I once read a book called He & She where a woman would change genders every time she had an orgasm. That could be Creed and Miranda, two sides of the same coin.