Taking The Reins (The Rosewoods Book 1) (20 page)

Maybe he really isn’t coming
, I thought. But just then the door opened and the two of them came rushing in. That they were laughing sort of grated on my nerves.

I was a bit angry and disappointed, but I held my tongue—I was still the new girl here and didn’t want to make waves. And, even if it didn’t seem like it on the outside, I was still feeling weird about having danced with Dave last weekend. Emmie seemed to be over finding out I’d gotten a crush on her boyfriend when I’d first met him (like Kaylee had said, he was just about the hottest guy at Westwood, so who could blame me?), but it still felt awkward, if only in my head.

And no one wants to be the bitchy girl, either. Plus, if I was being honest with myself, if I’d had a boyfriend I’d rather spend time kissing him in the library stacks than let him go to a boring party planning meeting.

I glanced at Dave and then quickly back at the clock, because I had to look
somewhere
. I couldn’t focus on him, no matter how good he looked. Actually, the better he looked, the
more
I shouldn’t look at him, deathly afraid I was going to get some sort of swoony teenager look stuck on my face that Emmie was going to notice.

“Brooklyn!” she exclaimed, dropping Dave’s hand and pulling me up and out of my chair into one of her signature hugs. “I’m so sorry we’re late and left you sitting here waiting so long. I promise we have a good excuse.”

The two of them had matching pairs of swollen lips, so kissing had definitely been involved, but still I looked at her, waiting for her excuse. I’d only known her for a few weeks, but one thing I knew about my roommate for sure: she was full of surprises. I was almost looking forward to her story.

But then as I dropped back into my chair and she stood there, staring at me, her smile dissolved and then she rolled her eyes. “Okay, we actually don’t have a good excuse, but we did bring you a hot chocolate!”

As she said it, Dave was sliding a to-go cup across the table. He smiled and pulled out the chair across from me to sit down.

“Forgive us?” Emmie pleaded.

I nodded toward the cup. “Whipped cream?”

She pressed her hand dramatically over her heart. “Of course, Brooklyn! We’re not animals.”

I giggled. It was near impossible to stay mad at Emmie. I nodded toward the chair next to her boyfriend, hoping she’d stick around to help.

Dave craned his neck to look at my notebook. “What have you got there?”

“Just the list of all the events.”

He reached across the table and grabbed the notebook with a couple of fingers, turning it toward himself.

After a moment, he exhaled. “This is a lot of work.”

The way he said it made me think he didn’t realize what he’d signed up for. It made me wonder if he’d only signed up because of Emmie. A pang of guilt washed over me. Emmie had traded assignments with me so I could be on the equestrian team; she was now stuck doing laundry in the mornings while I went to equestrian practice and also got to meet with her boyfriend at least once a week, more if we were close to an event.

“I can do most of it,” I blurted out, feeling like I owed her, and by extension, him.

Dave looked up at me, frowning. “We’re a team. We work together. But I guess we should start with the October dance, since that’s the first one.”

That made sense. “So should we talk about decorations and Halloween-themed food? Do you know what you’re going to dress up as?”

I thought about the dance last weekend—it had been in the gym of the boys’ school and all they’d put up were posters of our school crests. I realized the committee didn’t have a lot of notice to get ready since school had just started, but it still felt like a pretty weak attempt. Of course, that meant it would be easier for me (and Dave) to pull off something really amazing.

Since the schools alternated, the October dance would be here on the Rosewood campus, making it that much easier to plan. And I had lots of great decorating and snack ideas that I’d found on Pinterest: eyeballs in the punchbowl, ladyfingers that looked like actual fingers, cobweb cupcakes.

Emmie looked at me blankly and then shook her head. “I keep forgetting you’re new.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

She glanced at Dave and then at me. “No costumes.”

“What?” I looked to Dave for confirmation; he was nodding.

“For a couple of years now,” Emmie said. “There was an issue with a few too many slutty costumes, you know: naughty nurse, slutty cop, naughty librarian. I think what threw the dean over the edge was the slutty nun. Someone posted some pictures online and a pissed-off parent freaked out about her daughter going to some sacrilegious dance.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s ridiculous, but we’re not allowed to do costumes anymore.”

A Halloween dance with no costumes? “But you called it a Halloween dance. When you said you told your mother to send gowns.”

She shrugged. “Because it’s at Halloween time. But didn’t it strike you as odd that I asked for gowns and not costumes?”

“I thought you were telling her you were going to be an actress or a princess or something.”

Emmie just shook her head, giving me a sad look.

“Well that sucks,” I said, feeling suddenly deflated.

“No kidding,” Dave said.

Emmie smacked his arm half-heartedly. “You just miss all the slutty costumes.”

“I think I can speak for all Westwood students,” he began in a very huffy voice. “When I say that we miss women being represented in fine professions like nursing, policing and the library sciences. Please, Emmeline. I am a feminist.”

I had to give him credit, his face was absolutely deadpan when he said it.

“Right,” she said, rolling her eyes. “What about the nuns?”

He grimaced. “I can’t support a job that relies so heavily on virtue.”

Emmie smacked him again, but I caught her blush. I knew she and Dave hadn’t gone all the way yet, although she did tell me that
he
wasn’t a virgin. She still was, though. At least,
mostly
, she’d said that night when she’d confided in me. I had no idea what ‘mostly’ meant, and I didn’t dare ask her. We didn’t quite know each other that well yet.

“So we can’t dress up at all?” I said, trying to break the sudden awkwardness in the room.

She and Dave both shook their heads.

“So what’s the point of even having a Halloween dance?”

“It’s an
October
dance, not a
Halloween
dance.” She said and then her eyes widened. “Don’t even think of getting it canceled.”

Not that I ever would; with Rosewood being an all-girls’ school, our opportunities to hang out with the Westwood boys were few and far between. I was well aware that if I even mentioned the idea of canceling the dance in public, I’d probably be stoned out on the front lawn of the school.

“No, of course not. It just seems pointless to make it a Halloween dance.”

“You can still probably do your themed food and stuff,” Emmie said, yawning.

That would seem stupid. I wanted to do something special, fun. Memorable. “We have to come up with something.” I looked to her for suggestions.

“Well, good luck with that,” Emmie said, suddenly standing up. “You know what? I’m bagged, I’m going to bed.”

I swallowed and tried to give her a casual look when I said, “Are you sure you don’t want to stay and help? I’m sure you have lots of great ideas.”

“Nope, I have no ideas. My brain is fried; you two are on your own. I must have loaded eight thousand pounds of sheets this morning. This laundry maid needs her sleep.” It was funny that Emmie, maybe one of the wealthiest kids here at Rosewood, did laundry in the bowels of the building every morning. The weirdest part was that she didn’t even seem to mind.

She gave me a smile and then turned toward Dave, who stood up to say goodbye to her.

I slid my notebook back across the desk for something to do while she threw her arms around him. Steeling myself to hear
way
too much and wishing it wasn’t too awkward to cover up my ears and sing a couple bars of Happy Birthday to drown it out, I drew big loopy circles in the margin of my book, concentrating on my breathing.

He muttered something at her and she responded with loudly and, I’m sure, completely for my benefit: “No tongue, Dave. You know how I feel about juicy PDAs. And anyway, I don’t need Brooklyn critiquing my kissing technique.”

I smiled, keeping my eyes down on my book, not touching that comment with a ten foot pole.

It was awkward as hell, but no, I couldn’t possibly stay mad at Emmie.

~♥~

D
ave returned to the study room after walking Emmie out, closing the door behind him.

I took a sip of the hot chocolate (more like
cold
chocolate by this point) to buy myself a few moments without it being completely awkward. Yeah, that didn’t really work.

“So,” I said, “I can’t believe we aren’t allowed to do a costume dance. Is there some other way we can make it fun?”

He dropped into the chair across from me and shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s too early for Christmas and a Thanksgiving theme isn’t really something anyone’s going to be interested in. Pilgrim chic isn’t really a thing, is it?”

“Sadly, no,” I laughed.

“What about some sort of non-holiday theme?”

I exhaled. It was disappointing that the best holiday of the year was going to be kiboshed by school administrators, just because of a few slutty apples.

“There’s something special about Halloween,” I mused. “Dressing up and being someone else for the night—that’s the best part.”

“Who do you want to be?” Dave asked quietly.

“Huh?” I looked up at him.

His amazingly blue eyes were boring into mine, looking right inside me. I couldn’t look away even if I’d wanted to.“If you could dress up and be someone else for the night. Who would you want to be?”

My face heated up and I couldn’t look at him anymore, because I was sure he knew I wasn’t talking about just wanting to wear a costume. My eyes lowered to my notebook where I resumed doodling. “I don’t know. Katniss, maybe.”

He was quiet for so long, I had to look up at him again, thinking I’d done something wrong. His head was tilted, curious, and I think he’d been waiting for me to lift my eyes to his before he spoke again. “Why?”

I had an easy out so I took it. “People say I look like her. Jennifer Lawrence, I mean.”

Dave sat back in his chair, his eyes moving around my face, taking me in. “You kind of do.”

Seeing another opportunity to deflect, I said, “I’m good at archery, too.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

I nodded. “My secret talent.”

He leaned his chair back onto two legs and gave me a cocky look.“Not so secret anymore.”

I smiled. “Not if you’re going to tell everyone, no, I guess not.”

“Maybe I will,” he threatened, making me laugh again. “Though I suppose if I did, you’d want revenge and I’d have to watch out for wayward arrows on campus.”

“Sir,” I said, teasing. “My arrows are
never
wayward.”

“Ah,” he said, dipping his head in deference. “Touché, ma’am.”

Despite the awkwardness (which maybe was only in my head) he really was easy to talk to. He and Emmie made a good couple and even without the fact that he was movie-star good-looking, he was a great catch. He kind of acted like he didn’t know how amazing-looking he was, which of course made him that much more attractive.

As I took another sip of my ice-cold chocolate, Dave lifted his arms over his head for a stretch, his Westwood hoodie riding up his body as he reached his fingertips toward the ceiling.

My eyes were drawn to that strip of flesh above his jeans. Something about that narrow line of hair that started at his belly button and disappeared into his pants...

Realizing I needed to totally
not
look there, I lifted my eyes to his. He wasn’t smiling anymore, but was watching me oddly. The slight color in his cheeks that hadn’t been there a moment before, told me maybe he’d
seen
me looking. And that maybe he thought I was looking even lower than at his stomach.

Nooooooo.

With a sputter, I choked on the liquid in my mouth, spraying it all over the table and my notebook.

And, more than likely, him.

“Oh my God,” I said through coughs. “I’m so sorry!” Which just made me choke more. I dissolved into a total hacking fit.

“Are you okay?”

No, I’m not okay
, I thought. I kind of wanted to die in that moment. No, I
definitely
wanted to die.
Ugh.

He got up to come around the table. “Brooklyn? You okay?” he asked again, giving me a sharp smack on the back. And then another as I continued to cough.

I managed to gasp out, “I’m fine.” Which wasn’t all that convincing.

He must have realized there wasn’t anything more he could do because he returned to the other side of the table, but he stood there at attention, waiting.

“You sure? Need me to get you some water or something?”

Holding my hand up, I shook my head, heaved through a few more coughs and prayed for the floor to open up under me.

On the plus side, my tomato-red face could no longer be
just
from embarrassment over getting caught looking at his belly.

After another moment, he sat in his chair; I could feel his eyes trained on me, but I didn’t dare look at him.

Finally, when I was mostly back to normal, I reached into my backpack and pulled out some Kleenex. I took a tissue out to wipe my watering eyes and then another to try to clean the hot chocolate off the table.

“You okay?” Dave asked again, suddenly making me
really
want to use him for archery practice.

“Peachy,” I said, my voice raspy. I finally forced myself to look at him to see the damage. His navy blue hoodie seemed fine, but then my eyes rose to his face.

God
, there was a drop of hot chocolate on his cheek. I handed him a Kleenex. “Sorry. I got you.” I pointed at the place on my own face corresponding to his.