Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(38)



Oh.

My God.

His hair…his hair is…

He jabs a finger at me. “YOU!”

His hair is orange. Not like a nice rose-gold sort of orange, brassy with the softest hints of sunrise, but…like…

Orange.

“YOU DID THIS!”

No I didn’t, I think. But then, like a flashback reel in my head, I remember the exact moments leading up to this very scene. Me in the bathroom. Me dropping the vitamin C packet. Me using the orange towelette on the sink to mop it up.

I…definitely did it. By accident. Not that he’ll believe me. So, as a guilty party would do, I step behind the wingback chair to put some, um, distance between me and someone who definitely totally completely wants to murder me.

“I’m sorry!” I squeak.

Yep, definitely a confession.

“LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT MY HAIR!” he cries, rushing into the library. He pulls at his shoulder-length orange-pop hair. It’s like someone spilled an entire highlighter on his head. And I drank that? Oh yikes.

You can practically see him from space.

“It’s…uh…not that…bad?” I offer.

“It’s not that bad?” he howls, and covers his hands with his face. He falls into the wingback chair dramatically, and his towel slips a little. I quickly avert my gaze. “I’m hideous.”

“You’re not hideous.” Mr. Rodriguez tries to reason with him, following him into the library. He gives me a questioning look to see if yes, I am the perpetrator of this great and terrible sin. Yes, yes I am.

By absolute accident, mind you.

“No one will ever like me,” Vance goes on, his voice muffled by his hands.

“I like you,” his guardian says patiently.

“What’s the point if I can’t be beautiful?”

I squint at him. “Are you quoting Howl’s Moving Castle?”

In reply, he gives another anguished wail and flops half of himself over the side of the armrest. The towel is doing a very terrible job of covering anything up, and I gently pull it over his nether region so he won’t have to disgrace himself.

Mr. Rodriguez says, “It’ll be fine. Whatever happened, it can’t be permanent, and it doesn’t look terrible. Remember how cute that woman from that pop-punk band you like was with orange hair? Same thing.”

“It’s not,” he mumbles in reply.

A strange smokiness tinges my nose. “Mr. Rodriguez…is something burning?”

“My tamales!” he cries, then spins on his heel and darts out of the library and back into the kitchen.

After he’s gone, I hear Vance groan and lean back in the chair. “I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to my publicist.”

I don’t know, either, but I’m sure he doesn’t want my opinion.

The doorbell rings. It’s my dad, right on time. So I take my crutches, shove them under my arms, and begin to leave Vance dejected and alone with his orange hair in the library. I pause at the door, though, and glance back.

“If I told you it was an accident, would you believe me?” I ask.

In reply, he pointedly looks away.

No, I guess I wouldn’t believe me, either.





PART THREE


    FRIEND


Ambrose runs his fingers down the slender length of Amara’s neck. They are alone on the observation deck, and he watches as gooseflesh prickles over the princess’s soft skin.

“Do you really want to spend the rest of your life on that small little planet, ruling from a throne, watching the stars from a distance?” Ambrose asks softly. “Aren’t you going to miss this?”

This being the view from the observation deck. This being the countless stars spread across the sky. This being nights like tonight, when the skies are wide and the universe impossible.

This being alone together.

This being something that will never happen again.

Amara shrugs out of Ambrose’s grip. “The view is better on the south side of Metron,” she replies almost apologetically, but it’s all Ambrose needs to hear.

He looks away, trying to keep himself composed, pursing his lips tightly. He’s the Starbright General, after all, the slaughterer of legions, the hero of the Avaril Nebula, and the Noxian King’s greatest spy. For a moment he had forgotten that. “Very well, my princess.”

Then the princess curtsies, and leaves him on the observation deck with all of the stars in the sky—alone.

He’s meant to be alone, anyway.





SHE IS A DISASTER. That’s all there is to it.

At least she doesn’t come over on the weekends, and I can burrito myself onto the couch and fester in my cocoon of depression without her nosing through my entire life.

“Stop brooding and sit up,” Elias says with an exasperated sigh. Sansa starts sniffing at my face. I push her away, but she just sticks her nose right into my ear—and licks it.

“Argh,” I moan, pushing her away, and rub my hand against my ear.

Sansa sits down, her tail swishing back and forth like a duster, looking at me as though she had not just invaded my inner ear’s privacy. “I hate her,” I mumble.

“I know.”

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