by Box Set
I shrugged, hiding my awkwardness over him having my panties. I’d barely even been kissed by a guy and this guy was holding my most intimate piece of clothing. “You can keep them, if you want,” I said.
He shook his head. “That’s creepy. Like, old guy in a trench coat creepy. I’m not that guy. Don’t make me into that guy. Please, just take them.”
“Okay,” I said, laughing as I took the panties from him and stuffed them into my blazer pocket. “But you’re getting yours back, too.”
He looked surprised. “I thought someone bought them. Doesn’t that mean they get to keep them?”
“Someone did, but it was a token thing. She doesn’t actually want them. She doesn’t want to be that girl.” And anyway, she’d rather see them on you, I didn’t say. I shimmied out of his boxer-briefs and handed them to him. He shoved them into his back pocket.
“So,” he said, grinning. “How much were they worth?”
I shrugged, playing coy. Also, I didn’t really want to tell him. It had sounded great when Emmie’d announced how much we’d made off the auction, but what she didn’t say was that her opening (and winning) bid for Dave’s leopard-print bikinis had been a thousand dollars, thanks to her Gucci to Goats program.
“Brooklyn, come on.”
“Let’s just say the person who bought them was very motivated.”
“That’s good for the ego,” he said.
Speaking of ego, something nagged at me. The old Brooklyn would have let it go, but the new one wanted to know. “Tell me something,” I said.
“Mmhmm?”
“Did you end up with mine by accident?”
He dropped his eyes to his hands as he fidgeted his fingers. But I could still see the smile on his face; he was suddenly shy. Which felt weird for a guy who’d lived his life on TV and in the tabloids.
“Jared?”
He was quiet for a moment and I started to think he hadn’t heard me. “I like that you call me by my first name,” he finally said, still not looking at me. And then his knee nudged mine, the gentle pressure of him touching me feeling like more than just an accidental bump. “I like the way you say it with that hint of an accent.”
I didn’t say anything, waiting for him to answer, fearing that he was stalling because I was his booby prize.
A long moment passed and I began to fidget, thinking maybe I’d read him wrong.
But then he spoke. “No. It wasn’t an accident,” he said, finally looking up at me, his emerald green eyes finding mine and holding them, hypnotizing me. “I wasn’t the one to take them from your room, but when I saw you at the dance…”
My heart did a little jump then. My lips parted as my lungs suddenly required more air.
He edged closer, his knee pressing into mine. “And then I danced with you and you made me laugh.” He grinned. “I’m a sucker for a funny girl.”
I’d never been called a funny girl before, but something about being the new Brooklyn made me feel brave and fun. And obviously whatever it was, it was working.
“So I’m just a clown to you, then?” I looked around. “Where’s that rainbow wig?”
He grabbed my hand, dwarfing it in his, and tugged me toward him so our foreheads touched. “You’re not just a clown; you are the best goddamn looking clown, who can rock a pair of boxer-briefs like nobody’s business.”
The new Brooklyn threw back her head and laughed.
Jared rubbed my palm with his thumb and opened his mouth to say something more, but was interrupted by Emmie who suddenly stood up on the other side of the campfire circle. “Everyone, it’s getting kind of late and I think we need to shut this party down soon,” she paused as everyone booed and groaned. “I know, I know, but we need to put out this fire and get out of here before we attract the attention of security. But before we do, I just want to give a shout out to the newest addition to The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence.”
I gasped and glanced over at Jared as he squeezed my fingers. I looked back at Emmie; her eyes were on me.
“Brooklyn, we’ve only just met you, but already you’ve proven yourself to be a great roommate and an even greater friend. You didn’t even flinch when called to your initiation earlier today.”
What?
She smirked. “You didn’t even know that was your initiation, did you?”
I shook my head.
“Well you passed, with flying colors. You are definitely a Rosewood, through and through.” As cheers went up around the circle, she looked around. “Don’t we have anything to toast her with? God, you boys are so unprepared.”
“Toast her with a marshmallow,” Dave said.
Emmie rolled her eyes. “Fine.” She took the loaded stick Dave offered and set the marshmallow on fire, holding it up over her head like a torch. “To Brooklyn.”
Everyone else held their underwear over their head, which made me laugh, but was still kind of fitting. “Hear, hear,” they all said. “To Brooklyn.”
Jared pulled me into a hug, but over his shoulder, I saw all my new friends smiling and cheering me on.
And just like that, I officially became one of The Rosewoods.
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Thank you for reading TAKING THE REINS. I hope you enjoyed it!
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Reviews help other readers find books they might enjoy, so I hope you’ll consider reviewing this book at Amazon and Goodreads. I appreciate all reviews—positive and negative. This is the best way you can show your love to authors and help them keep writing stories.
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The Rosewoods Series
FRESH START (Series Prequel – Amazon Exclusive)
TAKING THE REINS
MASQUERADE
PLAYING THE PART
READING BETWEEN THE LINES
I’LL NEVER FORGET (Short Story)
THIS POINT FORWARD
RISKING IT ALL (Short Story)
MAKING RIPPLES
ACTING OUT
HITTING THE TARGET (August 2015)
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Find me online at http://katrinaabbott.com, follow me on Twitter @abbottkatrina and come check out my Pinterest board to see some of the inspirations behind the characters (girls and guys!) and the costumes for MASQUERADE.
xoxo
Katrina Abbott
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Masquerade
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Book 2
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of
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The Rosewoods
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Turn the page for an excerpt.
One Bad Apple
I glanced at the clock; Dave was late. It was our first meeting as school liaisons and we had plenty to go over, but so far I was on my own.
Not that I was surprised, since it had been five days since Emmie had seen him when the guys had snuck onto our campus, but my nerves were already raw. Every minute I sat there in the study room of the Somerville Library, waiting for Willmont Davidson, or Dave, as I now knew him, my dread over seeing him ratcheted up another notch. Or ten.
And it’s not because I didn’t like him. Quite the opposite. You see, Dave is the first guy I met when I arrived here at The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence just a few weeks ago. He’s also the first guy I got a huge crush on. And it turned out he just happens to be the boyfriend of my roommate, Emmeline Somerville.
Somerville. Yes, the library I was in was named after her family who’d donated it to this very posh and exclusive boarding school. And the reason I was sitting there by myself, in her library, was because she and Dave were off making out somewhere, even though he was supposed to be meeting with me. I think that qualifies as some kind of irony.
Letting out a sigh, I returned to my doodling. With Emmie’s help earlier (she’d handed over the job of the school liaison to me), I’d made a list of things Dave and I needed to discuss about our joint
school events. And there were a lot of events, way more than I’d realized when I’d taken on this job.
The next dance, the Thanksgiving food drive, the Santa Hop and toy drive, and the inter-school mini Olympics. Not to mention the dances that took place next term—it seemed that, to keep the natives happy about Rosewood being an all-girls school, they compensated by having a joint dance with the Westwood boys at least once a month.
I appreciated that as much as the next girl but I had a feeling I was going to need all the help I could get in planning, especially from Emmie who was just about the world’s best planner. But if she was going to constantly take off with my school liaison counterpart, this was not going to work.
Finishing up my Jack-O-Lantern doodle beside where I’d written Halloween Dance and a bunch of ideas to go with it, I looked up at the big ticking clock on the wall: almost eight o’clock. Not even counting the fifteen minutes I’d come early, I’d been waiting almost an hour.
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, yawn
ing.
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.
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