Miss Mayhem (Rebel Belle #2)(50)

I was smiling as I glanced over to where Amanda had gestured, only to feel my smile freeze when I saw who Abi was talking to.

Spencer. The frat guy who would, according to David’s vision, one day ruin her life. But we’d stopped her from hooking up with him. Ryan had even wiped her memory so that she didn’t remember meeting him. So what the heck was he doing here?

“Who’s that guy?” I asked Amanda, and she gave an extravagant eye roll. “Oh my God, the love of my sister’s life, apparently. Everything is all Spencer all the time with Abi.”

My stomach churning, I watched as Abi leaned closer, letting one hand rest on Spencer’s chest. He was grinning down at her, tucking her hair behind her ear, and while he didn’t look quite as gross as he had the night of the party—not having roughly a twelve-pack of beer in your system will do that to a guy, I guess—I still was not a fan.

Neither was Amanda, if the way she looked at them was anything to go by.

What if you can’t change the future, Pres? What if you’re only delaying it a little while?

David’s words echoed in my head, making me clench my jaw. That couldn’t be true. If you couldn’t change the future, what was the point of being able to see it?

From the front of the auditorium, Sara called, “Harper!”

Amanda grimaced in sympathy. “Seriously, some kind of mood stabilizer, right in her caramel Slim-Fast,” she said. “It’s happening.”

Sighing, I headed back out onstage. Sara was indeed drinking a Slim-Fast, with a bright green bendy straw poking out of the top of the can. “Can you do me a favor?” she asked. “Go and see if you can find some crepe paper. Pink, preferably. In the closet by the stairs.”

I wanted to tell her to get her own darn crepe paper, but instead, I gave a forced smile and said, “Sure thing!”

The closet by the stairs was in the back of the rec center, down one of the hallways underneath the stage, and I rolled my eyes as I made my way down there, still holding my baton.

Of course there would be crepe paper. Streamers, probably. Before you knew it, Sara would have a balloon arch up, and then my humiliation would be complete. I almost hoped whatever was going to happen would happen before the pageant got started, so no one would have to see me in this stupid leotard, twirling a baton under freaking crepe-paper streamers.

The supply closet was next to the staircase, and I saw the door was slightly ajar. My mind was still full of crepe-paper streamers, balloon arches, and the looks of horror sure to be on The Aunts’ faces, when I tugged the door all the way open.

But the closet wasn’t empty. There were people in there. Two of them, and I rolled my eyes, wondering who the heck would pick a supply closet in the rec center for romanc—

And then I saw the girl’s blond hair, saw the tall auburn-haired boy kissing her, and realized what I was looking at. Who I was looking at.

Bee and Ryan.





Chapter 25


FOR A LONG MOMENT, it was like my brain refused to process what it was seeing. Bee. Ryan. Bee and Ryan, their mouths pressed together, Bee’s hands clutching his shirt at his waist, Ryan holding the back of her head. I mean, I saw all of that, but it was like I kept trying to tell myself I wasn’t seeing what I was seeing. That she was, I don’t know, giving him mouth-to-mouth or something. That it wasn’t even Bee, but Mary Beth in a blond wig. That I had finally snapped and was having some kind of psychotic break.

But no. No, that was my best friend and my ex-boyfriend, and they were full on making out in the supply closet at the rec center.

I guess the natural thing to do would have been to freak out and start yelling like I was gunning for a spot on a tacky talk show, or maybe to quietly close the door and pretend I’d never seen anything, but I didn’t do either of those things.

Instead, I just stood there in my stupid leotard, hand on the doorknob, and said, “Oh.”

They broke apart, Bee’s Salmon Fantasy lip gloss smudged on both her mouth and Ryan’s, and if I hadn’t been busy trying to keep my stomach from plummeting to my feet, I guess there would have been something funny about the way they both gawked at me with big eyes and equally shocked expressions.

“Damn,” Ryan muttered, while Bee nearly leapt out of his arms.

“Harper,” she said, but I shook my head. My face hurt, and I realized it was because I was giving them another one of those big fake smiles I hated.

“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “So super fine. I mean, we’ve been broken up”—I waved my hand between me and Ryan—“and you and Brandon are broken up, and Ryan and Mary Beth are broken up, and wow, there has been a lot of breaking up going on lately, I just realized that. I guess that’s the perils of trying to date in the middle of a supernatural crisis, right? Right. Anyway, I’ll let y’all get back to . . . that.”

I shut the door with shaking hands and turned away, walking back toward the auditorium, my baton clenched tightly in one hand. My eyes were stinging, and I almost bumped into a Styrofoam tree propped against the wall. Dimly, I heard the door open from behind me, and Bee called my name again.

I didn’t stop walking, but when she caught my elbow, it wasn’t like I could shake her off. I turned to see her watching me with big eyes. She’d wiped some of the gloss off her mouth, but there was still a faint salmon smudge on her chin.