“When your father was writing me up and, might I add, tarnishing my perfect academic record, he made sure to let me know that if I laid a finger on you, he’d expel me, and that he didn’t care who my parents were.” Church’s mouth lifts into a smile. “He cares about you, you know that, right?”
“Then why is he such a goddamn dick all the time?” I groan, hiding my face in the pillow.
“He wants to protect you, but he doesn’t know how. And I don’t just mean with this cult thing, I mean in life.” Church sighs and scrubs a hand over his face as I look up, reaching out to pull the iPad toward me.
Next to the circled Libby, is the last name McConnell.
It’s a name I’m really, really starting to dislike hearing.
“Libby is Selena and Gareth’s sister?” I ask, switching the subject the way Church usually does, from personal to business. He glances over at the iPad and frowns, that ice creeping back into his expression again.
“She is.”
“So … could Selena be our female attacker then?” I venture, wondering if all the clues add up. “I mean, that’s a lot of coincidences—her brother running for Student Council, her sister being mentioned in the journal, and her showing up at the hot springs.”
“I’m leaning more toward Aster, to be honest with you.” Church sits up, crossing his legs in front of him. My eyes rove a bit past his ankle to the bit of calf muscle showing beneath his pants, making me feel like some sort of Victorian pervert. Dear me, I saw a flash of ankle! How scandalous. “But mostly because they’re both connected to Mark. The twins are right: he’s guilty.”
“Are we saying that because he’s a total waste of life? Or because you know something you’re not telling me?”
“It’s just a hunch,” Church says, reaching over and shutting the screen of the iPad off. After a brief pause, he leans in and brushes a gentle kiss across my forehead. “Now get to bed. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
I slink back to my own bed, but not without wondering what Church might do if I tried to crawl under the covers beside him.
I decide I’m too scared to risk rejection and end up falling asleep to dreams of amber eyes, aristocratic fingers, and smiles that are just for me.“Girl,” Ross starts, eyeing my costume with a twitching brow from his position on the other side of my phone screen. I decided after much thought that instead of going with the usual short skirt, crop top, racy Halloween garb I’ve worn in the past, that I’d rather go as Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher. Ross gestures up and down, indicating my padded shoulders, long gray wig, and faux beard with a quirked lip. “You had a dramatic coming out of the closet moment to go from boy to girl, and now you’re all dressed up as a man with a big dick?” Ross leans in and squints at the screen, pointing in the general direction of my crotch where, of course, I’ve stuffed the packer penis. We’re close now, me and this floppy silicone dick. “All I can say is—I approve.”
He leans back and smirks at me, lips curved up beneath the red-brown hairs of a faux mustache. Ross McCubbin, former assistant to the Adamson Student Council boys, rainbow unicorn extraordinaire, and surprising new friend of mine. He graduated last year and is now going to school in California while dating his new online love match, Andrew Payson (who’s actually still a senior in high school which totally makes Ross a perv).
They’re living it up in SoCal, dressed up as Darryl Whitefeather and Josh Wilson (aka White Josh) from the TV show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for Halloween. I accused Ross of making the costumes too easy—he’s essentially wearing a suit and his boyfriend Andrew has on a tank top, board shorts, and flip-flops for crap’s sake—but he shut me down quick and said their costumes were more about character than appearance.
“Right? I look hella badass, huh?” I say, flexing my fake biceps. “Toss a coin to your Witcher, peon!”
“Oh god, please stop, your Geralt voice is horrendous. You sound like you have strep throat or something. Don’t insult Henry Cavill like that. Speaking of hottie hot men with silver hair, how’s our Spencer doing?”
I roll my eyes at the insult and shrug one shoulder, glancing over to find Church sprawled on his bed, dressed as Fred Jones from Scooby-Doo. I won’t lie, he looks pretty damn hot with his hair coifed back like that, wearing blue jeans and a white shirt with an orange ascot tie. The guys have a theme going on here, dressing up like the full cast of mystery solving teens: Ranger is going as Daphne (I cannot wait to see this in person), Spencer as Velma (okay, also really excited to see this transformation), with the twins going as Shaggy and Scooby. I’m the only outlier, as per usual.
