Page 75 of The Secret Girl (Adamson All-Boys Academy 1)
“Told you he was onto you,” Tobias whispers, as they steer me aside, letting the crowd trickle in from the front door. Ranger seems determined to follow after us. That is, until the back door opens and girls begin to filter in.
And not just girls, but like a whole herd of supermodels.
My jaw drops, and my eyes get wide.
Holy. Shit.
My dad's standing near the back door, chatting with an older woman that I guess might be the headmistress of Everly Academy. He doesn't notice me over here, standing in the shadows, dressed in a huge baggy hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. Who would? I feel suddenly inadequate, and kind of nervous. My eyes flick between the two twins, standing tall over me, almost like guardians. I like that. But I'm also not under any illusion that they—or any other member of the Adamson Student Council—will be spending much time with me when there are all these gorgeous girls batting their eyelashes at them.
“Hi there.” A voice draws my attention around, and I come face to face with this curvy redhead, her brown eyes fixated on me. “I'm Aster. I don't remember seeing you here last year …?” she trails off, and smiles wickedly at me, reaching out to play with the flop of curly hair on my forehead.
“I just started at Adamson this year. I'm a junior, third year, whatever you want to call it.” I smile, and her cheeks flush with the color. Both the twins grin and exchange a look over the top of my head.
“Chuck is single,” they both say, turning to look at Aster. “Just broke up with his girlfriend.”
“Oh, really?” Aster chirps, brightening up substantially. Uh-oh. Oh no. No, no, no.
“I'm not really looking—” I start, but she's reaching out and grabbing my hand anyway, yanking me onto the dance floor with her. She giggles a lot as she drags us into the crowd that's just formed between the fireplace and the seating area. The music thumps loudly from the speakers, and Aster starts to gyrate all over me.
“I love nerdy boys,” she tells me, grinning as she puts her arms on my shoulders and curls her fingers together behind my neck. I decide to just roll with it—what's the harm?—and besides, maybe it'll throw Ranger off my case.
After a couple dances, Church beckons me from the back door with a crooked finger, and I follow him down a path, past a boathouse, and onto a dock that stretches into the still blackness of a small lake. The twins are already out there, along with Ranger and Spencer both.
There are a few girls, too.
My mouth purses into a thin line as we head down to where they're sitting and join them on some blankets that've been laid out. There's a bottle of alcohol making its way around, as well as a joint.
I sit down between the twins, and notice that all three girls sitting opposite me are staring.
“Do you go to Everly?” one of them asks, cocking her head to the side. “I've never seen you before.”
Now Ranger's really looking at me, and I feel all choked up. To distract him, I lean forward, crawling between his outstretched legs and grabbing the whiskey bottle from his hand. He stares at me, blinking hard, and then watches as I sit back and swig some of the alcohol. It burns going down, and I almost choke.
“He goes to school with us,” Spencer says, taking a long drag on the joint, the tip glowing a pretty bright orange color. “Sure, he's effeminate and ugly, but you don't have to take it that far.”
The girls exchange looks, and then this tall blond tosses back her honeyed hair and levels a cool glare on him.
“So saying your male friend looks like a girl is an insult? How about you go all the way to hell, Spencer Hargrove.” She sniffs and turns back to me, offering up a smile. “I'm Selena, by the way.” She holds out her hand, but I know she's not offering to shake—she wants the whiskey. I pass it over and she grins before taking a huge swig. The girl with the electric blue hair on her right is leaning into Ranger, pressing her breasts against his arm.
There's this strange feeling of discomfort inside of me that I can't place, like I'm trying to hang on to all these ropes, but they keep slipping out of my hands. It's because you don't want any of the Student Council boys hooking up tonight, huh? As soon as I identify the emotion, I get weird about it.
That's what it is though, isn't it? I mean, truly, I'm paranoid about the guys finding girls to … do whatever with tonight. And I don't even like any of them. What is freaking wrong with me?
