by Zara Rivas
© 2019 Zara Arrivas
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
High School Romance Bundle includes:
A Kiss at Midnight
Prom King
Under My Skin
A Kiss At Midnight
Prologue
Ladies and gentlemen, students of Carroway High, the crackling voice over the intercom announced. I glanced up from my last-minute government homework, smiling slightly at Avery Montgomery, my chipper best friend. She stuck her tongue out at me and flicked a paper ball off the edge of the table. The low hum of students' conversations drifted lazily across the cafeteria as people milled about waiting for the beginning of the class day, and I tuned out the world, concentrating on not failing my latest assignment.
We interrupt this programming to ask for information regarding property stolen from one Xavier Sinclair, the announcements continued, and I stilled. Xavier Sinclair…why was that name familiar? Avery saw my puzzled expression and smirked, her mischievous emerald eyes dancing with laughter that, for some reason, was at my expense. I rolled my eyes and looked back down at my paper, answering some question about World War II that I vaguely paid attention to. Come to think of it, the voice on the intercom sounded familiar….
The item in question is approximately a quarter of an inch in diameter, white with blue speckles and pleasantly springy with a slight scent of peppermint—I froze. My pen scratched a rut in my homework and my eyes shot up to meet Avery's. All the confirmation I needed was on her face, and suddenly my memory shot back three weeks, to New Year's Eve. A brief jumble of images flashed through my mind, mostly of exhilaration and a stairwell and mussed black hair and a ridiculously arrogant grin. If you have any leads on the item in question and its present whereabouts, please contact Xavier directly or the school office. Thank you. Oh yeah. And his tongue in my mouth.
Well, at least he hadn't mentioned my name. That would have made it so much worse. My face carefully blank, I ignored the prank announcement given by, you guessed it, Xavier Sinclair himself. But dammit, I could feel Avery's grin boring into me like a drill into my skull, and it was nothing if not distracting. I knew this silence from her wouldn't last long.
"Oh, Sloane," she sang. Point made.
I made a noncommittal noise in the back of my throat, ignoring her in favor of filling out my last answer. When I finished, I lazily closed my notebook and took my time packing my things back into my bag. After doing an extremely thorough job of making sure every buckle was secure and every pen in place, I finally looked up at her. Grinning, she pushed a lock of dark red hair behind her ear and clicked her tongue at me expectantly.
"Well?" she said, impatience getting the best of her.
"Well what?"
"Aren't you going to, you know," the sly smile widened, "give him his gum back?"
"Hey, if Sinclair wants his gum back, he can feel free to go through a few weeks worth of garbage," I said breezily. "I'm not stopping him."
Avery looked disappointed. She opened her mouth to say something but the intercom clicked on again.
We apologize for the second interruption, but a crucial piece of information was left out that may be helpful in your investigation. The item in question was last seen in the mouth of one Sloane Lexington.
A few people whooped at the ridiculous announcement, staring blatantly over at where I sat, fastidiously ignoring them all.
My eyes narrowed and I knew a visit to a certain arrogant prick was in order.
He was so dead.
Chapter One
"Dude, you're certifiably insane," Christian Sommers laughed, slapping his best friend on the back. "It takes guts to call Sloane out like that, especially in front of the entire school." He shook his head, golden blonde hair falling into his dark blue eyes.
"Oh really? I don't see what the big deal is," Xavier grinned, leaning further back into his seat. Their second-hour English teacher ignored them, continuing to scrawl out the page numbers of their homework onto the whiteboard. In all likelihood he couldn't hear the pair anyway, considering they sat in the very back of the classroom, blatantly ignoring the stares of their classmates. "I just wish I could have seen the look on her face when she heard it." Just a bit of good fun, he thought.
Christian chuckled. "I forgot, man, you haven't been here all that long. You should know you're in deep shit now, though. You shouldn't have picked a fight with Sloane Lexington, of all people. Especially since you're new."
"What's so special about her?" Xavier raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about her like the sun shines out of her ass."
"Here, it does."
A slow smirk spread across Xavier's face. "Oh yeah? You're gonna have to fill me in on this."
oOoOo
Okay. Here's how the story went.
You remember how when you were in early grade school, and the teachers used to let you clean the desks with shaving cream? Well, I was a firm believer that they should continue that tradition all the way up through high school. I mean, it was ridiculously silly and fun for some reason, and hey, free janitorial services from your slave labor students. Anyways, when I was in first grade, some stupid boy named Christian Sommers decided it would be funny to take a huge handful of shaving cream and throw it with a splat! into my tablemate's face. Completely shocked, she froze up and looked like she was going to cry, so I clenched my fist, drew my arm back and slugged him one. Hard. And right in the eye. And then the shocked girl with the faceful of white cream decided to scrape it all off her face and rub it into his hair, impressing me with her moxy. Ladies and gentlemen, give a hand to the hilarious Avery Montgomery, whose sense of timing never fails.
Well, long story short, we got sent home for the day but the bond had already been made. Alexa and I were inseparable from that point on, and she had some sort of mortal-enemies rivalry with Sommers after that. I thought it was kind of cute—anyone who took a look at their arguments could see the underlying, shall we say, sexual tension. Sometime around sophomore year, when Christian made it back from some bogus boarding school his parents shipped him off to for a year, those two finally got together, and I really doubted that they would ever break up. Storybook perfect, really, but hey. She deserved it.
"He's the one, right?" Avery said, smacking her bubble gum as she dumped her bookbag on the lunch table. Speak of the devil.
I lazily turned a page in my Art History textbook and didn't bother looking up. "The one what?" Ooh, architectural sketches of the Sistine Chapel. Very nice.
"Don't play coy, Sloane," she sighed. "Xavier. The guy from the announcements. He was the one mauling your face on New Year's Eve."
I barked a laugh. "You put it so eloquently, darling, how can I resist responding. Yes, he was the one mauling my face."
"So what's he doing here?" Avery demanded. When I made no sign of intending to respond, she lunged towards me, reaching out and snatching the book from my fingers. I glared at her. She just smiled mischievously, dangling the book over the garbage can next to our table.
"Avery Isabelle Montgomery, if you dump my textbook in the garbage I will throw you in after it," I hissed, eyes narrowed.
She simply tilted her head. "If you tell me what happened, I'll give you the book back."
"You manipulative little bitch." I relaxed, sitting back in my chair while eying my book again.
"Yup," she chirped happily, settling in
to hear the story.
I sighed. "He's just some guy from New Year's. I don't even remember half of it, you know that."
"So tell me the half you do remember!"
"Half she remembers of what?" Our friend Torrance said, dropping her things next to Avery's and eying the textbook hostage situation. Torrance was the blunt one of the group, bordering on harshness, but we all loved her. She had chin-length chestnut brown hair, hazel eyes, and an attitude to match her tiny stature. Our friend Adrian trailed behind her, sat down next to me and said nothing. Her white-blonde hair was the subject of a lot of envy, and her light gray eyes did nothing to get rid of the impression that someone had taken a china doll and made it come to life. She didn't talk much, but when she did her mischievous nature really surprised people.
"Sloane won't tell me about Xavier," Avery whined, and Torrance smirked.
"Ah yeah, I heard about mystery boy and the announcements." She pulled a bag of chips out of her backpack and started crunching on them. "Is he hot?"
"I only saw the back of his head," Avery supplied, and everyone at the table pointedly looked at me. Avery didn't like my smirk, so she lowered my book into the trashcan a little and I almost growled at her.
"He's hot," I confirmed.
"Details. Now."
"Whatever. It was at Sommers' New Year's party." I waved my hand and glanced at Torrance. She hadn't been there, instead having to attend her parents' party, but Avery and I had filled her in on most of it. "He was just some guy. It was almost midnight, and we'd been chatting. I don't have any idea who he is, he must've known someone there but I'd never seen him around before. So the countdown started and he just gave me this look, yanked me into the stairwell and kissed me at midnight. Nothing else to tell."
Torrance eyed me flatly, then turned to Avery and said dryly, "Since Sloane just gave us that utterly soulless recap of what happened, care to fill anything in?"
She shrugged. "From what I saw, that was pretty much it. That was one fucking hot kiss, though, Sloane. You shouldn't gloss over that."
"Cheeky, cheeky," I muttered. She was right, though. Whoever this Xavier guy was, he was a good kisser. I tried to remember his features. I definitely remembered the jet-black hair that curled around his ears in a slight wave and brushed the nape of his neck. He had a good jawline, too, was taller than me by quite a few inches, and had a really, really nice mouth. I couldn't remember the exact shade of his eyes, though.
Avery gave me an odd look. I raised my eyebrow in a silent question and it disappeared from her face, but she took a breath and smiled.
"So, why do you think he pulled that stunt about his gum?" She slid my textbook across the table, deal complete.
"Hell if I know." I tossed it carelessly into my bag, concentrating on devouring my french fries before they got cold. The cafeteria food at Carroway was pretty good—though considering a bunch of trust fund babies attended the private institution, it wasn't really a surprise.
"What are you going to do about it?" Adrian asked. "Are you going to give him some gum like he asked?" She smiled.
"Fuck no," I laughed, "like I told Avery, he wants his gum back, he can go digging through the garbage to get it."
Someone gripped the back of my chair suddenly with one hand and leaned over my shoulder, putting their lips next to my ear. Avery was sitting in a silent fit of giggles across from me, and I knew my expression told her I was going to strangle her later for not warning me.
"Now that's not very nice, Lexington," a deep voice drawled into my ear.
"Sinclair."
He drew back and stood up straight, and I turned slightly to stare at him. Christian was slightly behind him, grinning at Avery. Good God, it's like a silent high five.
Xavier was watching me with an arrogant smile on his face, and I'm sure mine matched his. My memories from New Year's were a bit vague, but he was definitely as handsome as I remembered. Impressively enough, he was more handsome than I thought, and sitting at my lunch table talking to my friends, I was one hundred percent sober.
"Need something, Sinclair?" I asked innocently, consuming another french fry nonchalantly.
"As a matter of fact I do. I believe you already know what it is, though."
"I'm afraid you're not getting your gum back."
"How rude," he said. The smirk was starting to infuriate me. "I thought not returning something you stole would be beneath you, Lexington."
"I hardly stole it. You gave it to me, if anything."
He leaned in close again. "I hardly heard you complaining."
I laughed lightly. "Touche."
"Although I think that means you owe me something now, don't you?" Startled, I watched him slowly move closer, and realized his eyes were a strange shade of green and gold you couldn't quite put a name to. The smile fell slightly from my face and I may have stopped breathing. "How about…a french fry?"
"Surely you don't think I'll give you a french fry through the same methods you surrendered your gum," I said.
He reached out towards me with one hand, brushing my chocolate brown hair off my shoulder, away from my neck and I swallowed. He straightened again and tossed one of my fries in his mouth with laughter in his eyes.
"Of course not. French fries get soggy, gum doesn't."
He turned and started walking away. Christian turned and walked after him, heading out of the cafeteria, but Sinclair stopped just before he was out of earshot.
"Lexington," he nodded in way of farewell.
That smug bastard.
I turned back towards the table only to find my friends staring at me.
"What?" I said irritably.
"That was hot!" Avery said, mouth gaping.
"Definitely some chemistry there," Torrance nodded. Adrian's smile told me she agreed with the other two, and I had to internally agree. There's no way I would admit to them that he had any effect on me, though.
I chewed on a fry slowly, the gears turning in my head. Avery's mouth twisted in recognition of the look on my face, and she wasn't surprised when my chair screeched closer to the table and I leaned in secretively. They all mimicked my movements, interested.
"Ladies, I think we need to inform him of who's in charge here."
I quietly told them my plan, and when the bell rang, we all went our separate ways with devious grins.
oOoOo
I absentmindedly flipped my phone open and closed, open and closed, open and closed. A few people in the classroom looked over at me, but stopped after the hundredth time I did it. It was just a habit for me when I waited for a text message. The room I sat in was one of the most unusual in the school: instead of desks there were groups of bean bag chairs, couches, and armchairs bunched around the room, all in bright colors. Paintings and sketches covered the walls from floor to ceiling, save for one wall which was one giant glass panel, and our teacher's desk was glass instead of the usual metal and fake-wood affair.
The effect of the room was striking. Art class was never one to be dreaded, and it made for an instant cure for a bad day. Amy, the teacher, usually gave us a concept to work on for the day, but if we chose to do something different but still artistically productive, she never took points away. In her early twenties, she was very perceptive and a genuinely happy person, so she felt more like a friend than a teacher to us.
Finally the impatience got the best of me, and I started typing out a message to Torrance.
Get any info yet?
Xavier Sinclair. The unknown in this situation. I wasn't fond of the way he decided to announce my business to the entire student body. I didn't even care why he did it; I just wanted him to learn his place. And that little stunt at lunch didn't help his predicament at all, considering he'd earned himself my full attention.
The screen on my phone lit up with a new message. 1 New Message, Torrance Brighton, the label read. I clicked on it to open it and grinned.
Jackpot! Your boy's in the system. Locker 204, combination 24 13 32.
Torrance was privy to certain confidential information as the editor of the school newspaper, and we regularly used it for our own misadventures and rule-breaking. It was quite useful. I tapped out a reply, earning a curious look from Amy as she worked at her desk. I shrugged and smiled, sinking further into the couch cushions.
You're the best! Fwd this to A&A. My house apres class.
This time her response was almost instantaneous.
Done. Who picks up supplies?
Avery and I will, I typed, and the conversation was done.
I looked at the sketchpad on my lap and saw the results of an hour's worth of doodling. Sighing, I stood up as the bell rang and walked to Amy's desk, showing her the paper and giving her a half-smile.
