Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(16)

The high school is smack in the middle of town. Down the road is the middle school, and the elementary school sits at the end of Main Street like a hundred-year-old spooky remnant of ye olden days. I mean, the high school looks just as ancient, but at least it was built in the ’50s and has central AC. The elementary school still has window units. I shiver, remembering this past summer.

Barbaric, putting snot-nosed kids through the armpit of hell. As I recount last night, I honestly can’t believe it happened myself. It sounds like something out of a rom-com—and I guess it would be, if the hunk hiding out in the castle was anyone other than Vance Reigns.

“I can’t believe General Sond is here,” Annie mutters in disbelief. “Do you think I could get an autograph? A selfie? A letter from him to put on my stan Tumblr?”

“You still keep up with that thing?” Quinn asks, perplexed. “Even after he got into all that trouble?”

“Don’t police my morals!” Annie playfully elbows them in the side, and adds, “But seriously, can I get an autograph? I know the perfect fanart he can sign.”

“Not the one with the—”

“Oh yes, that one.”

I massage the bridge of my nose. Now I remember why, last night as I lay awake in bed, I debated on whether to tell my best friends, and how much to tell them. I turn into the school parking lot as Quinn tries to talk Annie out of getting Vance to sign that fanart (not like he’d sign anything, but I don’t want to ruin their fun yet), until Quinn pops up between the passenger and driver’s seat and says, “So, theoretically, you could still have that video.”

“Video?” I ask as I pull into my assigned parking spot.

“You know, if your phone still works.”

“Oh my God—the video! I’d die to see it. To see him in all of his bad-boy glory,” Annie adds with a heavenly sigh. “I wonder how sexy he is?”

Too sexy, I think, hesitating, before I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up the video. I hit play and hand it to them. The video goes through my adventure through the dark of the house, to the pool, and then—a little garbled since my phone is old, but still clear enough—I hear Vance say, “What are you doing here?” and then I shriek and make a run for it, and then he shouts, “Wait—stop!”

Right before I slam my elbow into his nose and take a dive into the pool.

The video ends there.

My best friends stare at my phone for a moment longer. Then Annie takes a sip of her caramel macchiato with soy and says, “Garrett’s going to lose his mind when he finds out.”

I quickly take the phone back. “He’s not going to. And you two can’t tell anyone!”

“But—” Annie begins.

“Promise? Pinky swear?” I add, lifting my pinky.

Grumbling, Annie hooks her pinky to mine, and then Quinn does. They’ve never tattled on any of my secrets before—not about Dad and me losing the house after Mom passed, or having to sell her Starfield collection to pay for the funeral costs, so I don’t think twice about them blabbing here. They’re not the type.

Even when it seems like it physically pains Annie to keep quiet.

“We better get going, Bob’s heading for us,” Quinn observes, glancing out the back windshield at the man in the golf cart weaving through lines of cars to get to us. His sole job is to write up anyone who tries to sneak out of school in the middle of the day, or students who come in tardy. His silence is easily bought with a breakfast sandwich, but I don’t have a peace offering today.

I grab my bookbag from the passenger seat as we hurry out of my car and make our way into the school through the breezeway. Homeroom’s already started and the hallways are almost entirely empty.

“Speaking of Garrett Taylor,” Quinn says, cocking their head up at one of the TVs in the lobby playing the morning announcement. Garrett Taylor is on-screen, and behind him is the theme for this year’s Homecoming dance.

GARDEN OF MEMORIES.

“And I’m announcing, along with these other fine students, I’ll be running for Homecoming King! And if I win, I’m taking Rosie Thorne to Homecoming with me! So c’mon, friends, help me make true love happen!”

I nearly drop my books out of my locker. “I never said yes to that!”

“Or better yet,” he adds, and leans in toward the camera, “write her in as my queen.”

I stare at the TV, my mouth agape, as I run through my conversation with him last night. Under no circumstances did I tell him that I’d go to Homecoming with him. There has to be some mistake. He can’t honestly think—why would he—why would he think I—

Quinn slides up beside me and says, “You said no, huh.”

I did, but I have the sinking feeling it no longer matters.





ONE MOMENT I’M ENJOYING a blissful nonexistence in a dreamless sleep, and the next a fifty-pound German shepherd somersaults onto my bed. She sticks her cold nose against the back of my neck—and starts nibbling on my hair.

“Oi, oi, not the hair,” I mumble, batting her away.

Sansa replies by flopping over on top of me.

“Gerroff.”

“Wuff!”

I give up and sigh into my pillow. “I hate you, you know that?”

She whines, knowing that I mean the exact opposite. I roll over and rub her around the ears, because she really is a good doggo—despite almost nailing me in the testicles a moment ago—and I know I don’t tell her that enough.