Bookish and the Beast (Once Upon a Con #3)(69)

And he gave me back a piece of my mother I thought was lost forever.

If this is where this chapter ends, I wouldn’t really mind, because now I know I have plenty more chapters to write. I thought my story ended when my mom died—because I didn’t think there was a book without her.

Because I know it was just the ending of a chapter. It was the close of part one. Even though Mom is gone, she’s still in every word of my story, because hers lives on in me. It lives on in the books that she read, and the ones she shared, and the people she met. Like mine will. There is a whole universe out there waiting to tell our stories. And for the first time since she left, life doesn’t feel like the end of a sentence. It feels like a prologue, and I have my two best friends beside me to follow wherever that adventure takes me.

And that, I decide, is what my college application essay will be about.

After the next song, the music quiets, and the principal climbs onto the stage with a bunch of note cards. She clears her throat and leans into the microphone. “Hello, students, I’m glad to see you all here tonight. Go, Wildcats!”

The student body cheers.

“Now’s the announcement you’ve all been waiting for—it’s time to announce our Homecoming King and Queen!”

Everyone cheers. I take Quinn by their hand and squeeze it tightly. They squeeze back. “Just so you know,” I whisper, “even if Garrett wins, you’re still Homecoming Overlord to me.”

The principal opens the letter. “And our Homecoming King and Queen are…”

Annie and I lean close to Quinn, hoping, praying—

“Garrett Taylor and Myrella Johnson!” she reads, and she sounds a little disappointed. My stomach feels like a lead rock in my toes. Somewhere in the crowd, I hear Garrett crow and make his way up to the stage.

Annie and I press our cheeks onto Quinn’s shoulders. They sigh. “Well, we tried.”

“I just want to thank you for voting for me,” Garrett says, before the Homecoming Queen takes the microphone out of his hands.

“This is a dream come true, thank you so much,” Myrella cries into the microphone, and honestly I’m relieved she won. “My mother took this crown, and I’m so happy that I get to have it, too. I can’t wait to tell her.” There is a commotion near the back of the gym, and I glance over my shoulder to see what’s wrong, but I’m cursed with shortness and I can’t see beyond the sea of heads. “And I just want to thank our King tonight, Garrett Taylor—”

“Congrats, you deserve it.” Garrett takes the microphone from her again, ignoring her professed love, which is a little awkward, honestly. He hops down off the stage and makes his way toward me. “Rosie, may I have this dance?” he asks, and outstretches his hand.

My skin prickles as all eyes turn to me.

No one else knows that he leaked that video of Vance from my phone, but I don’t think pointing that out will do anything. He just won’t quit, will he? I open my mouth to tell him just where he can shove that date of his—

“Thorne!”

The voice cuts through the crowd. I know it. Deep, crackly at the edges, with the softest hint of a British accent. No, it can’t be.

My heart slams against the side of my rib cage.

I turn around, and there he is in the sea of people, dressed in a blue tux that’s a little bit too small for him, but he makes it work in a way that makes my stomach twist. I swallow the knot in my throat. His hair is wild, pushed back out of his face, his tie loose and suit disheveled. His chest heaves, as if he ran to get here. I always thought he was beautiful, but it just now hits me—like a ton of bricks. It hits me after I resigned myself to never seeing him again in person, to him leaving on a jet plane back to his life, leaving me here in the middle of nowhere.

But here he is.

In nowhere.

For me.

“Vance Reigns?” Garrett laughs into the microphone.

“Vance Reigns?” someone else whispers.

“…the Vance Reigns?”

“Who the hell is he?”

“Isn’t that Sond?”

Garrett grins, and it’s the kind of shit-eating grin I want to punch off his smug face. “What are you doing here, buddy? Here to ruin our night, too?”

A dangerous look flickers across Vance’s cornflower eyes. He begins to roll up his sleeves. “I assume you’re Garrett?”

“Yeah, and you aren’t supposed to be here—aah!” He dodges the first swing and scurries away. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What I should’ve done back in the diner when I first met you,” he grinds out, trying to grapple for him again. Wait—at the diner? So they’ve met before? I stare, gape-mouthed, at them as they, well—I guess you would call it fighting? But this is less like a fight and more like…well. They’re trying to kick and punch each other but they don’t want to get hit so they’re definitely not landing any blows and it just looks very anticlimactic.

And kind of pathetic.

Two guys are fighting over me, and I’m not even impressed.

“All right, all right, just gimme a moment,” Garrett says, pushing Vance off him. Vance eases back a little, smoothing back his hair. “You know, you surprised me. I didn’t think you’d be here.”