3 Book High School Romance Bundle: A Kiss at Midnight & Prom King & Under My Skin

by Zara Rivas

  "Geez, can't relax around here for two seconds," I complained, dumping my coat on the marble floor in the foyer and grinning at him. "This is the thanks I get for making sure you woke up this morning?"

  "You didn't wa—oh. I forgot to set my alarm, didn't I?"

  "Si, Senor," I confirmed, meandering through the house and shucking various items, leaving a trail. I pushed the school keys into my backpack and made a mental note to text Finn my thanks later.

  "And hurricane Sloane passes through the Lexington home," Dominic said dryly, surveying the damage. "Thanks for waking me up, I guess."

  "Pas de probleme," I chirped, walking into the hall bathroom.

  "Can't you settle on one language?" he called after me.

  "Nein!" I closed the door.

  When I came out, Dominic was already cooking dinner. I raised an eyebrow and watched him chop up some onions, tossing them in a skillet with olive oil. Dominic, a fantastic cook, never failed to make food that I would have no problems fighting a bear for. Well, maybe that was a bit dramatic, but you catch my drift.

  "Dinner? Why so early?"

  He glanced up from pulling some spices off the spice rack and said, "It's not early. It's just lasagna, I want it to sit for a while before we eat it. Makes it better."

  "You are officially my hero," I said, snatching an apple from the refrigerator and crunching on it. "We haven't had lasagna in ages. How'd your date go?"

  He shrugged. "It was good."

  I stared him down until he finally said, "What?"

  Loftily, I decided it was time to inform him: "No no, that's not what you say. You don't say 'it was good'. You say 'dearest sister, I would love to sit down and give you a complete recap of my date, including this girl's name, phone number, email address, social security number, lineage, and life plans'."

  He ruffled my hair and I ducked out of his reach.

  "Going to do a background check, hmm?"

  "You bet. You didn't do anything boring, like take her out for coffee, did you?"

  "Go on, Sloane, tell me how you really feel."

  I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean. Now dish."

  "No, I didn't take her out for coffee." He pulled a few cans of tomato sauce out of the pantry and remained silent. He knew that drove me crazy. Dammit.

  I sat down on the barstool at the counter and folded my arms across my chest, crossing my legs and jiggling my foot impatiently. This backfired when my ballet flat slipped off my foot and fell to the floor, and Dominic reached down to pick it up and shove it back on my foot.

  "Well?" I burst out, and he chuckled.

  "Knew you wouldn't be able to handle it for long. Fine," he conceded, and I whooped. "I didn't take her for coffee. I took her for dessert at Fours, and then we played a few rounds of laser tag."

  "Laser tag?" I asked skeptically. "Did she like it? That seems kinda juvenile for a first date."

  "Au contraire, dear sister. It was perfect. She said in passing a while back that she used to love playing and hadn't done it in so long it made her sad." He added the sauce to the sauteed vegetables on the stove and turned the flame on the burner down.

  My eyes lit up. "What's this? Not casual dating?"

  "No, it is," he corrected. "We were just friends before, so we know each other better than 'hey we're strangers let's date' and all that."

  "Name," I demanded.

  "Persistent tonight, aren't you?" He stirred the sauce, motioning for me to hand him the box of pasta on the island.

  "Always."

  "Emma." Uh oh.

  "Not Emma Sinclair?" I said with dread. He looked confused.

  "Yeah, why?"

  I groaned and buried my head in my hands, elbows on the countertop. He nudged me with a wooden spoon and I uncovered one eye, watching him.

  "You know the moronic guy who's been convincing random guys to ask me to be their Valentine, then making some sort of reference to him?"

  Dominic nodded, understanding what was about to come.

  "That's not even the half of it, this morning I went to my locker and he had the school choir singing some ridiculous Britney Spears song for me," I grumbled, and Dominic stared at me incredulously.

  "Sounds like an interesting one you've gotten hold of."

  "You have no idea. His name is Xavier Sinclair. Finn told me he had an older sister named Emma."

  Dominic laughed, pointing at me with the spoon. "My date is your loverboy's sister!"

  "Well spotted, Einstein," I said. "And he is not my 'loverboy'."

  He shot me a skeptical look and I flipped him off.

  "I'm going to go finish my homework."

  He grinned. "Go think about loverboy, more like."

  "Oh ha ha," I said in a monotone. "You're so sharp, don't cut yourself."

  oOoOo

  Dominic leaned against the wall with his arms folded and watched Avery, Torrance and me do a final run-through of our breaking and entering plans for that night. We all dressed in entirely black clothing: black long-sleeved shirts, black pants, black shoes, black caps covering our hair, black gloves. Torrance had a bit of black paint on her cheekbones, stating that if she was going to break the law, she would do it the right way, and that meant following every break-in she'd ever seen on television.

  "Okay, once we're in—Torrance, you're with me," I stated, the keys clutched in my hand, attached to my car key ring. "You take us all to the newspaper room, we upload the article from the flash drive, and you format it to print out on the newspaper. Then we start folding the papers and you," I gestured to Avery, "grab the first few and swipe some tape from the office, and post as many of these suckers in the hallway as we can get printed."

  Avery nodded, excited.

  "The rest," I finished, "we'll put on the newsstands and throw in the entrance hall, in random classrooms and in the cafeteria. We have to get enough that the staff can't clean them all up before we get there, because you can bet they'll be on cleanup."

  "Aye aye, cap'n!" Avery said, saluting. Torrance imitated her actions, and Dominic shook his head behind them.

  "You know," Torrance said, "life is never boring with you around, Sloane."

  "I do my best. Let's go!"

  "Don't get arrested," Dominic said. "I don't want to have to come get you from jail and have to explain this to anyone."

  "Righto, we'll be the definition of stealth."

  We left the house, making our way towards my car. I'd parked it in the circular driveway earlier in anticipation of Torrance and Avery showing up that night. Their cars were lined up in a pristine row behind mine. I slid into the driver's side and Avery climbed in the passenger side. Torrance took up the center seat in the back, and we were off.

  The school looked dark and ominous when we pulled up, careful to hide the presence of the car by parking it close to the school, behind one of the wraparound hedges that shielded the parking lot from view of the main road. We crept up to the back doors, and I carefully inserted the key into the lock. It clicked and I pushed the door open, sliding in. Torrance and Avery followed, and we locked the door behind us. Phase one: complete.

  Torrance led us up a flight of stairs and down the halls, turning left, right, right, left. She motioned for me to hand her the keys and she sorted through them, finding the one that would unlock the newspaper printing office, and we successfully made it in. Torrance booted up the computers while I dug for the flash drive, and Avery looked around the room in awe. Full of computers, it had a view that overlooked the school gardens and teachers' lounge area.

  Torrance tapped the main computer keys quickly, and the lights on the printer in the corner flared up and remained lit. She held out a hand for the flash drive and I tossed it to her.

  "I'm replacing the main story now," she narrated, "and Tara won't be too happy about it but I'll make it up to her with a five-page spread next time. I love being editor."

  "How many copies do you think we'll print?" Avery quizzed, checking the amount of paper i
n the printer.

  "Couple hundred, at least." Her eyebrows furrowed. "Nicely done, Sloane, your story length fits the format completely. I don't have to adjust any of the boundaries because of extra space."

  "Oh, I planned it that way," I said airily.

  "Right. Because you looked over Tara's shoulder all week and checked her word count," she said sarcastically.

  "Of course."

  The printer began humming gently, and copies slid out into the tray. Avery giggled uncontrollably when she once again read the headline, and my eyes flicked around the room until they landed on a full container of tape. Perfect.

  "Avery," I called, and when she looked up I held up the tape and waved it a little. I tossed it to her and she caught it deftly. "Time to go work your magic."

  "Oh man, you're going to make me put these up in all the halls." Her face fell slightly.

  "What's wrong? You were fine with it earlier."

  "I know, but it's dark. And these hallways are huge. And we're breaking and entering and it's like some stupid horror movie and I don't want to walk down the hallways alone," she rushed out. An embarrassed flush colored her cheeks and I felt bad for her.

  "It's no big deal, we can all go."

  She looked relieved. Torrance stood and went to the printer, grabbing the ones that printed already quickly and took them over to us. She reached over and grabbed one of the sophisticated digital cameras from a bookshelf on the wall, and adjusted the lens.

  "No big deal," she shrugged, "those won't be done printing for a while, and if we reach for them while the other copies are still printing we'll just end up getting a thousand paper cuts."

  "What's with the camera?" Avery asked, shifting the papers in her arms.

  "I want to chronicle this," Torrance said. "Lead on."

  We tiptoed down the hallway, despite knowing no one else was there to hear, stopping periodically to tape a newspaper page to a wall full of lockers or a classroom door. It was easier for one of us to hold it up and another to tape, so it was probably a good thing Avery didn't go alone. There was a slight balcony overlooking the main entrance hall to the school, and it had a wide ledge so I climbed up on top of it and called for Torrance and Avery.

  "Hey hey! It's like the Breakfast Club," I said gleefully, doing the weird side-shuffle dance they did in the film.

  "Get down before you kill yourself," Avery hissed, but Torrance laughed uproariously.

  "Oh, I want to do that," she said eagerly, climbing up beside me. Avery looked torn, and we encouraged her to come up with catcalls and bribes.

  "Wait wait," Torrance said, when Avery lurched forward a little like she wanted up with us. She pulled the camera off from where the strap rested around her neck and set it in a little alcove in the wall opposite the ledge. The alcove's purpose was to display sculpture and fragile pieces of art without being disturbed by the students, but Torrance's idea was preferable. She set the timer on the camera and hopped back up on the ledge, holding a hand down to Avery.

  "C'mon, we won't fall," she encouraged.

  "Yeah, and if we fall, we're taking you down with us," I winked.

  Avery hopped up on the ledge on my other side, so I was the middle-person in this little dance. We immediately started to do the side-shuffle dance again, and we giggled uncontrollably as the camera flash went off. We hopped down and grabbed the camera and the rest of the papers, continuing our escapade. We had to go back to the newsroom to grab more papers to do the downstairs, and by the time we finished it was nearly one in the morning. We stuffed some in a few of the lockers we knew the combinations to, and made our way to the cafeteria with the largest number yet, and threw them in the air. It was surreal to see so much floating paper, and we danced around and laughed raucously, taking photos and talking about what Sinclair would think when he saw this mess.

  Finally done, we carefully returned the camera to the journalism room after Torrance pulled the memory card from it, locked up the school and crept towards my car, much less seriously than before. We sped off from the school, Avery overcome by silent giggles, and Torrance high-fived both of us.

  Torrance used her laptop to upload the pictures and send them to me once we got back to my house, and I emailed the picture of the three of us dancing on the banister, and also one with a picture of the front page of the newspaper taped to a locker, to Finn. I was sure it would make his day when he saw it. I printed out a copy of the banister dance and slipped the side of it under the edge of my bulletin board. The three of us smiled down at me from over my desk and I grinned.

  "I'm going to class early in the morning," I announced, yawning. They looked up from where they sat on the couch in my bedroom, understanding.

  "Duh," they chorused. Avery held up a spare newspaper we'd taken as a memory. "We have to be there to see his face."

  "Exactly."

  oOoOo

  If it bothered my brother to have three giggling, excited girls in the kitchen at seven thirty in the morning, he hid his irritation well. Actually, he seemed quite entertained by the whole affair, and listened intently to us gush about how ridiculous Sinclair's reaction would be. Dominic sipped his coffee and observed us while we messed with each other's hair and makeup, wanting to look fantastic on the day of our triumph. They'd both insisted I dress up all punk-rocker-ish, being the rebel here and all. Melodramatic, I know, but I loved it all the same. So I stood in the kitchen, black shirt and skirt, black nails, black everything, with my favorite chucks to top it all off. Avery and Torrance went upstairs to grab their backpacks and meet me in the foyer to go to class.

  I tossed the school keys back to Dominic and he nearly spilled his coffee trying to catch them.

  I inclined my head. "Payback."

  He rolled his eyes.

  "Hold on to those for me, please," I nodded at the keys. "I have a feeling Hotchins will want a word or two with me before the day's out. Wouldn't want my secret escaping if he makes me turn my pockets out, now would I?"

  "What are you going to tell him? That you learned how to teleport?" he teased.

  I pulled a small box out of my backpack and held it up for him to see. "Nope." I opened the box and showed him the contents. "Lockpick set."

  "Where did you get that?" he sighed.

  "Where else? Finn."

  "I should have known." He set the keys on the counter. "Should I leave my phone on in anticipation for a phone call from your beloved principal?"

  "Probably," I admitted. "I'll show you the photos when I get sent home and you'll see why."

  "One of these days, I might try discipline," he said wearily.

  "You know perfectly well how to discipline me, Dominic," I said seriously. "You also know that I don't pull bullshit about things that are important."

  "You are good at distinguishing," he said. "Alright. I'll see you later, Sloane. Don't give Hotchins a heart attack."

  "He might've already had one when he saw the state of his school this morning," I grinned. "People will be talking about this one for years."

  "I don't doubt it."

  "Get your butt out here!" Avery yelled from the foyer.

  "Coming," I called back. I turned back to Dominic and gave him a hug. "Catch you on the flip side."

  oOoOo

  The school was in a state of mild chaos. Students ran around, tossing the papers gleefully in the air, evading the few teachers attempting to contain the mess. The three of us carefully turned corners and snuck around, not wanting to get caught by a teacher before we saw Xavier witness his demise. It would be no big secret who'd done this particular hack job on the halls, and I already knew Hotchins was going to lose his mind when he saw this.

  We stopped in the hallway leading to the main entrance. Torrance peered out the windows overlooking the parking lot and elbowed me hard in the ribs.

  "What the hell was that for?"

  "Xavier Sinclair, two o'clock," she pointed. I looked out the window, turning to the right slightly and saw him. Bingo. I tur
ned quickly, scoping out a good place to stand. I walked over and leaned casually against the lockers, right next to one of the newspapers.

  Torrance and Avery mimicked my movements on the other side of the hall, but the first person he would see when he walked in would be yours truly. He pushed the door open, digging around in his bag for something with one hand, and didn't notice the mess of a hallway at first. He looked up in triumph when he found what he'd been searching for, and immediately froze. I couldn't keep my face from spelling out satisfaction.

  oOoOo