Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(56)

Just a normal weekend, right?

“WHAT?” they both cry.

“Dish,” Annie orders.

“You can’t hold out on us,” Quinn adds.

So as I turn in to the school, I tell them what happened. All of it. All of the boring bits—staying at his house, him asking me to read to him, the Saturday morning my dad and I taught Mr. Rodriguez how to make chocolate murder pancakes, the quiet afternoons when Vance would find me in the library while Dad was at the apartment overseeing the maintenance work and ask if he could join, the silence that settled between us that was warm and comforting, the night he took me home and I saw him—the real him, the him I remembered since the night of the ExcelsiCon Ball.

There you are, I had said.

I don’t tell them that part. Partly because it’s private, and partly because I don’t know what I meant. Did I mean that he finally had that curious look in his eyes that he had the night we first met, that half-cocked smile resting on the edge of his lips, the comfort between us where there may have been masks, but there were no secrets.

There you are, I had said, but what I meant was, I found you, finally.

When I finish the story, we’re way late to class, but Quinn and Annie haven’t budged from my car, and the parking lot attendant is making a beeline for us in his off-white golf cart.

My friends exchange a look—the same look—as if they’re in agreement.

“You’ve got it bad.” Annie breaks the news to me.

A blush creeps across my face. “What? No, of course not. Why would I?—”

Quinn puts a hand on my shoulder. “You’ve got it really bad.”

My shoulders droop. “Oh balls. I do, don’t I?”

They nod severely. “And we need to get to class before we get written up again. I can’t go to Homecoming if I have after-school detention. Do you have the emergency bagel?”

“It’s a day old.” Annie nervously takes it out of her bookbag, but I grab it anyway.

A moment later, the parking lot attendant parks his golf cart beside my car, gets out, and knocks on the window. He’s stone-faced and regal, his graying hair gelled back and his shirt pressed beneath his too-loose football jacket.

“Miss Thorne,” he greets me as I slowly roll down the window. “You’re a little late.”

I give him an innocent smile and present him with the day-old breakfast bagel. “Umm, hungry?”

He shakes his head.

Ruh-roh.

“Break for it!” Annie roars, shoving open the passenger-side door. I quickly grab my bookbag, phone, and science notebook, which were strewn on the floorboard, and go scurrying over the middle console and out of the passenger door with her. Quinn vaults out of the back seat, and we haul ass across the parking lot before the attendant can get back into his golf cart and come after us. We don’t slow down until we’re through the breezeway and into the school.

I lead the charge, and turn the corner into C Hall when—

I collide with a brick wall.

Quinn and Annie catch me before I bite the dust, but the contents of my arms go everywhere. My science notebook, with all of its loose pages, poofs into the air.

“Watch where you’re—Rosie!” Garrett calls my name, surprised to see me.

The worst person I could run into right now.

“Sorry, Garrett, can’t stay and chat,” I reply, gathering up my science notes with the help of Annie and Quinn, and I hurry by him before he can stop me. I’m not all that worried about the parking lot attendant writing me up for being late, but Mrs. Angora in homeroom?

She has a penchant for making tardy students suffer.

Luckily, she’s lenient today and lets Annie and me sneak in about five minutes late, before the morning news begins. Quinn’s homeroom is one class down, but their teacher doesn’t care how late they are, which is lucky. We can’t afford to have Quinn ejected from the running this late in the game. The morning announcements ramble off the student festivities for Homecoming week—spirit days, the colors we’re supposed to wear to the game on Friday, the ticket price for the dance on Saturday, and worst of all, the people leading Homecoming King and Queen.

“For Homecoming Queen, it’s a tight race between Myrella Johnson and Ava Singh, but as for Homecoming King, Garrett Taylor is winning by at least thirty votes. You can vote every day during lunch in the cafeteria, and don’t forget to dress in school colors this week. Go Wildcats!” the news anchor says, signing off.

Great. Of course Garrett is officially winning.

It isn’t until halfway through second period that I realize I don’t have my phone. I must’ve left it in the car, though I could swear I grabbed it. I was in a hurry, though. Ugh, great. Today is already shaping up to be one hell of a terrible Monday, because after second period I find out why Garrett was out of class this morning, too.

He was hanging up a poster for Homecoming in the common room of the high school. A ten-foot-tall poster that says VOTE GARRETT TAYLOR AS YOUR KING! It towers over the entire student body every time class changes. You can’t miss it, and I certainly don’t.

My doom now looms over me as the bell rings every hour.



* * *



—

AS LUNCH WRAPS up, I steel my courage and walk up to the table selling Homecoming dance tickets. They’re beginning to pack up, locking the money box, when they see me standing at the other side of the table.