“It’s fine,” she says, gesturing loosely in his direction. This time though, she finally lets him put his hands on her waist. “Next time I’m here, we’ll do it.”
“Yeah, we will, all night fucking long,” Mark growls into her ear, and I roll my eyes.
“We’re running out of time, Mark,” she says softly, her voice a deep melancholy.
“I know,” he says, as we slowly move away from the spot, their voices fading into whispers. “I know, but we’ll get her—I promise you.”It all started the morning of senior prom.
According to Adamson Academy tradition, Everly hosts the senior proms for both schools on odd years, and Adamson on even years. Well, since this year is an even year, we’re having it here, in the big old stuffy ballroom where the academy hosts its fancy-schmancy parent dinner parties and galas. I mean, you have to give them something considering the staggering cost of tuition to go here.
As the Student Council—yay, I’m so excited I still get to say that!—we were in charge of not only the theme, but also essentially acting as a prom committee.
Which, you know, being surrounded by rich assholes makes it super easy since they hired everything out. Need food? Cater it. Want music? Hire a band. Décor? Get an event planner.
“I feel like we’re missing out somehow, you know? Like we should be making paper signs and hanging streamers, and struggling to procure some two-bit loser band from the boardwalk.”
Spencer gives me a weird look.
“You like doing poor people stuff?” he asks me as my eye twitches in irritation.
“Peasants have their own customs, don’t judge,” Tobias adds, nodding his head, and crossing his arms over his chest. But it’s a judge-y head nod and arm crossing, so I smack him in the arm with my phone. “What? That wasn’t even an insult.”
“Also, please stop buying me bras and underwear. I have plenty of it,” I say, giving both twins and Spencer a look.
“Oh, that’s not because you’re poor, that’s because we like buying you bras and underwear,” Micah adds with a loose shrug of his shoulders, looking up at the glittering chandeliers above our heads, and the flower garlands made of real flowers. Each one of those probably costs a small fortune, and there are dozens of them. It looks more like a wedding in here than a prom, to be honest.
The colors are based on the Adamson Academy crest—navy-blue and champagne—and the round room is divided into sections. There are tables to the left of the door, with vases bursting with floral arrangements, tealights waiting to be lit, and plush chairs wrapped with large navy ribbons that hang from the backs.
“You know, since there’s only going to be one of me, and five of you tonight,” I start as Spencer lifts a questioning brow in my direction. Church is busy sweeping the room with the event planner and discussing small details, while Ranger discusses the arrangement of sweets that we’ve baked just for tonight’s occasion. “If you want to dance with any other girls, that’s okay.”
“That’s okay?” Spencer echoes, looking at the twins, and then putting a palm on the top of my head. “Are you nuts? It might be okay with you, but it’s not okay with me. I don’t want to dance with any other girls.”
“Yeah, but,” I start, and the twins smack their hands over my mouth, one twin’s on top of the other.
“Nope,” they say together as Micah leans in to look at me.
“You don’t get to make all the rules. We get some say.” They let go of my mouth as I glare at them. “First rule, you don’t date other boys. Second rule, we don’t date other girls. Third rule, we do this until it stops working for us. Weren’t you there on your birthday when we discussed all of this? Or do you have another secret you want to tell us? Perhaps an identical twin hidden out there somewhere in the woods?”
“Oh,” Tobias says, snapping his fingers and gesturing excitedly. “That’d be a good plot twist—a secret identical twin, living in the tunnels beneath the school, who leads the entire cult after Charlotte, so she can kill her and claim her life.”
“And then one day, we wake up and the snarky Charlotte we know’s been replaced with this weird, uptight, stone-faced girl—like a female Church—and one by one, we slowly go missing—”
I cut Micah off before they can get too deep into their ridiculous plotting.
“No talk of cults tonight, we promised,” I say, looking up at the glossy banner that’s being hung across the back of the stage, with the academy logo and the year of our graduating class.
Jesus, I’m like, not ready.
My hands fist together in my skirts, but Spencer stops my nervous fidgeting with a hand over mine.
“You okay, Chuck-let?” he asks, and I glance his way, letting the passion in his eyes calm me down. The year is flying by, but I have a lot to look forward to. I’m just … nervous about the change is all. And I know we still have three months of school left, but senior prom is sort of a big deal. We’ve just finished midterms, the quarter is over, and I’ve somehow managed not to get anything less than a B.
