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

by Zara Rivas

  "Anytime," she said nonchalantly, but I got the feeling that she was one of those people who really meant it when she made promises like that. I just nodded, throat tight from fatigue and being a little overwhelmed.

  We followed her back to the front door and I glanced inquisitively at the bag in Xavier's hands but he didn't answer my look. Dominic walked her to her car, coming in a few minutes later, and shook his head at my devious grin.

  "Mind out of the gutter, Sloane," he said. "I'm going to go to sleep."

  "Good night, brother dearest," I teased, and he gave me a hug. A real hug, not a halfhearted good night hug that's more habit than meaning. He wrapped his arms tight around me, and the feeling in my throat only got worse. I clutched at him, never wanting to stop, but he pulled away and gave me a crooked smile, and then nodded at Sinclair and walked off.

  We went back upstairs to my room, where a bunch of my friends were grouped around. Adrian had reappeared. I guessed she was in the bathroom or something when we were looking for her.

  Avery and Christian cleared off, Avery looking a bit better than she had before. Torrance glared after them disapprovingly, and if looks could kill Christian would have been a little pile of ashes fighting to get away from her. Adrian shook her head and gave me a smile with a glint in her eyes, nodding her head at Torrance. I raised my eyes skyward and smirked back at her.

  "Well, I guess I'm outta here," Torrance said abruptly, hopping out of the room. I hoped she didn't trip Christian on the stairs.

  "Me too," Adrian said, gracefully padding past us. "Good night, guys."

  "Night," I said, and Xavier raised a hand in farewell.

  "Okay, dish," I said once she was out of the room. "What's going on there?"

  Xavier explained the whole situation to me and I shook my head at the end of it, sighing.

  "That girl really needs to learn when to interfere and when to just leave it alone."

  "She seemed to think she was really looking out for me by telling me you were a little shit of a human being," Xavier remarked.

  "Yeah, well, logic doesn't always play around in friendship, does it?"

  He tossed the bag down on the bed and started digging through it.

  "What's in there?" I asked curiously, foregoing the topic of Adrian.

  "Change of clothes, some stuff for tomorrow," he said, pulling out a t-shirt and showing it to me. "When I called Emma I asked her to bring some stuff over for tonight."

  "You don't have to stay," I said, confused. "I mean, I'm fine. Really." I realized that might sound like I was trying to get rid of him when I most certainly was not. "I mean, you can stay if you want, I don't want you to feel like—"

  His warm finger pressed against my lips, shutting me up quite effectively.

  "Sloane," he said slowly, as though spelling something out for a particularly dense child, "I am not leaving you alone tonight. Your tires were slashed. Granted, a lot of people knew you were going to be at that party, but if they know your whereabouts outside of school they probably know where you live."

  A flash of warmth went through me when he gently brushed his hand from my mouth to the back of my neck. He drew me forward and pressed a soft kiss to my temple.

  oOoOo

  "This is starting to become a habit," I mused out loud when I woke up the next morning. Sinclair's hand was brushing up and down my side in a comforting gesture under the blankets, occasionally catching at the hem of my tank top and pulling it up a little. The sensation of his rough hand against my skin tingled a bit.

  "Is that a bad thing?" he said, and I could feel the rumble of his voice through where his chest met my spine. The sensation made me smile.

  "No," I said, "but it is different." I rolled over to face him, ignoring the sunshine streaming weakly through the curtains onto my bed. "Good morning."

  He smiled. "Good morning."

  I started to shift around with intentions of crawling out of bed and hunting down some breakfast, but Xavier tightened his arms around me and wouldn't let me leave. I laughed a little and struggled futilely against him, but he didn't let go.

  "Just a minute," he said, and I stopped struggling. He didn't release me even then, though.

  "What is it?" I asked, resting my head back against the pillow and looking at him. He was beautiful, with his sleepy eyes looking at me and hair all messy and strewn over the pillow: completely disorderly and absolutely perfect.

  "I wanted to ask you something."

  "Shoot." I smiled, looking at him expectantly, then sensed something was weird about this conversation. He was staring at me too intensely to be asking me 'would you get your leg off mine please? It's going numb' so I paid attention a little bit more. My eyes searched his but he didn't relax.

  "Seems like kind of a juvenile question," he admitted seriously, "but it's one I really want an answer to."

  "Go ahead," I said, eyebrows furrowed.

  "Will you be my girlfriend?"

  Surprise rippled through me, and a small grin played at the corners of my mouth. I could feel him relax next to me at my nonverbal response.

  "Funny that you should ask me that while you're half naked in my bed," I teased. He snorted.

  "Just answer the question," he said dryly.

  "Yes, Sinclair, I'll be your girlfriend," I smiled, and he leaned in to press his lips against mine. What was that phrase? 'Seal it with a kiss'? I guess we really did.

  "Would it kill you to call me by my first name, Lexington?"

  I smacked him with a pillow.

  oOoOo

  "And then you guys had lots of hot, dirty sex," Torrance finished my story for me, shoveling a spoonful of ice cream in her mouth and watching me while Avery choked with laughter. "Right?"

  "Nope," I said, daintily licking my own ice cream cone. Screw the weather, who cared if it was forty degrees outside? Sometimes you just felt like having ice cream. "Then we went downstairs where Finn was making waffles, got mercilessly teased, and had a nerf gun war in the back yard with my brothers."

  "God, you're a little tease," Torrance announced. A few other patrons of the ice cream shop looked up with interested faces at this loud remark. "He's probably getting all good and frustrated."

  "He's not the only one, I bet," Avery piped up. I mock-glared at her and scooped a fingerful of chocolate fudge out of her sundae, much to her chagrin.

  "I just feel weird about that," I said, licking my finger clean. "You know, sex when my brothers are home? That's not exactly an aphrodisiac."

  "Mm," Avery agreed, mouth full.

  "Shouldn't be a problem. Dominic usually uses Spring Break as a chance to go see Blake, and Finn will be cavorting around with college friends most likely." I rounded in on Avery. "Your turn. You promised to tell us what happened if I told you my story."

  She immediately flushed bright red, struggling to choke down the huge spoonful of ice cream she'd gotten, and then set her spoon down.

  "I heard your mood swing comment last night," she grinned. "Exactly right. So he takes me back to his house, where his parents are apparently on a business trip, and we get into a huge fight. It wasn't exactly a good way for me to vent, either, because I was still half-drunk and not very coherent, but he seemed to get the gist of most of it. So then we just keep fighting and then he starts apologizing and acting really sweet, and then…well…." Cue grin from Avery.

  "At least somebody got some last night," Torrance grumbled, stabbing her spoon into the double chocolate scoop she'd gotten. Avery looked a little surprised at this and turned towards me.

  "Avery, darling, I think somebody is living vicariously through our sex lives," I said, affecting Torrance's way of saying 'somebody' just to annoy her.

  "What's wrong, Tor? Don't have any prospects?" Avery asked, ignoring her own food in favor of watching Torrance's face.

  "It's not that I don't have any prospects, it's just…" she trailed off, at a loss for words.

  "None you want?" I volunteered.

 
"More like, if I want someone I can't have them, and if I can have them I'm not interested," she said in a rush.

  "Too easy to catch?" I asked knowingly.

  She nodded, staring morosely at the table.

  "God, aren't we just a pile of interesting emotions today," I said cheerily, tossing a cherry in her direction. I hated them, but I knew they were Torrance's favorite. She snatched it up with a grin, popping it in her mouth.

  "Do we need to start a new project?" I joked. "Get Torrance laid?"

  Avery muffled her laughter in her hands so she didn't spit out pieces of banana, and I lazily grinned across the table while Torrance glared daggers.

  "No we do not," she said acidly. She threw the cherry stem she'd tied into a knot with her tongue at my head. It bounced off my forehead and I picked it up casually, flicking it back into her lap.

  "We haven't played a prank in a long time," Avery said wistfully after a moment of silence. "I actually kind of miss them."

  Torrance and I seized the new topic with enthusiasm, and for a while we distracted ourselves with the thought of throwing chaos into the school somehow.

  oOoOo

  "This one seems good," Finn said, handing me a sheet of paper.

  "I know, all these seem pretty good," I said, indicating the stack of papers I'd shunted off next to the couch. "That's the problem. I don't know which one to pick. I mean, Sinclair and I have complete freedom with the focus piece, but it's always tied into the main project so I want it to this time as well."

  I leaned back against the bottom of the couch, staring at the carpet and thinking.

  "I think the problem is that I honestly don't know him as well as I want to," I admitted, looking up to meet Finn's eyes. One of those deep-down truths you don't really like hearing, much less saying. "My interpretation of him right now is a giant question mark. I don't know what to do to describe him, especially not in a work of art."

  "So go find out all that juicy information about your boyfriend," Finn said, prodding me in the side with a finger. "And in the meantime try not to get yourself killed by the tire-slashing psychopath."

  "I'll do my best," I said sardonically. I gathered up the papers and Finn walked with me up the stairs. "I want to redo the blue in my hair."

  "The hairstylist gave me the extra dye when she did our hair," he said, holding up a finger and bouncing into his bedroom. He came back thirty seconds later, producing a bottle of electric blue hair dye, and waggled it in front of my face. "Voila! Magic."

  "You are my hero," I announced.

  Thirty minutes later, we lounged around the living room watching The Lion King with foil in our hair, smelling like vinegar and munching down potato chips because the smell kind of made us crave them. Dominic walked in and nearly died laughing at the sight of us, then decided he might as well join and nudged his way between us on the couch.

  "Go get your own," I complained when he filched the bag of potato chips, but he just ignored me and insolently popped a chip in his mouth, crunching it down while I looked on disapprovingly.

  "Stealing yours is more fun," he said matter-of-factly.

  "I don't doubt it. I'll just say that the next time you decide to go and get your favorite candy and I eat it all," I said lightly, plucking the bag from his fingers.

  "You wouldn't do that," he said, sounding quite certain.

  "That's bullshit," Finn interjected, and it took me a moment to realize he was talking to the television. "All those strong she-lions would've killed the fuck out of Scar way before he let it get to that point."

  "It's a disney movie," I said dryly.

  "Yeah, well it's still bullshit," he whined. The doorbell rang, distracting us all. I stood up, taking the bag of chips with me, and shoved a few in my mouth. Much to Dominic's chagrin, I spoke with my mouth full and it's a miracle I didn't spray him with chips. "Got it."

  I must've been a funny sight to behold, wandering down the hallway in pajama pants and a spaghetti strap shirt, hair full of tin foil and mouth packed full of chips.

  I pulled open the front door and my mind didn't even register what was going on before I was bowled over in the foyer, making a complete mess of the floor with chip crumbs, and blinded by a full head of hair and a squealing mass of person.

  Standing there looking down at me was a satisfied Logan, with a peculiar smile on his face. The overexcited squeaky toy on top of me was none other than my rambunctious (and heavy, ouch) sister, Daphne.

  My first thought was that with all the bullshit going on, this was the worst possible time for my baby sister to be showing up.

  My second thought was that her elbow had landed on my esophagus and was doing its best to strangle me with glee.

  I choked on a chip.

  Xavier Chapter Eighteen

  A smile curled at my lips as I turned around and saw Xavier standing there in front of Savant.

  "Hey," he smiled, walking over and brushing a strand of hair back from my shoulder. "Redid the blue, huh?"

  "I did," I said, and the smile didn't leave my face as I watched him.

  "What's up? I was kind of surprised when you said you wanted to meet me here. I thought you had to work today." That last part was more like a question than a statement and I decided to oblige him by answering it.

  "I got the day off," I started, the smile growing. "Want to guess why?"

  He gave me a puzzled look and scrutinized my face, then shrugged. "Why?"

  I looked over my shoulder and made a waving motion with my hand, and my baby sister hopped right up next to me on the sidewalk and grinned cheekily at Xavier.

  "Whoa," he said, "family resemblance."

  My sister not-so-subtly leaned in towards me and whispered, "Torrance was right, he is really hot!"

  I couldn't help it—I snorted. Xavier raised an eyebrow at her and I had no doubt in my mind that he heard exactly what she said, but tactfully decided to ignore it. He held out a hand and smiled charmingly at her while she blushed three different kinds of red. She held out her hand a little bit shyly.

  "Yeah I know he's hot," I drawled so they could both hear. Daphne reached over and punched my arm lightly in protest of my public declaration, but I ignored her.

  "So, boyfriend, meet little sister," I continued, "little sister, boyfriend."

  "Nice to meet you, little sister," Xavier said a little sarcastically. I rolled my eyes at him but Daphne snickered at this.

  "Nice to meet you, boyfriend," she shot back.

  "When did this happen?" he asked, directing his question at me. I pretended to think about it for a moment before answering.

  "Oh, you know, she's fifteen, so a little under sixteen years ago, give or take a couple of months." I turned to Daphne. "You weren't a preemie, were you?"

  "I really don't want to think about Dad and Mom doing it," Daphne said, scrunching her nose in distaste.

  "Agreed," Sinclair said. "I don't want to think about this either."

  "Well, what ever are we going to do then?" I asked sweetly, my demeanor full of mirth.

  "How about we go inside and find something to eat," Sinclair suggested, looping his right arm through mine. He offered his other arm to Daphne and she didn't even hesitate this time before she took it. "I kind of feel like I have a harem right now."

  "Careful," I said dryly. "You can't even really handle one Lexington girl. Don't want to get in over your head with two now, do you?"

  Two large pizzas and a few massive chocolate chip cookies later, we were lounging around on the patio of Savant. I was relaxing in one of the chairs while watching Daphne and Xavier flicking straw wrappers at each other and laughing.

  I was pleased that they got along so well—but then, Daphne had so much of my sarcastic personality mixed in with her own innate sweetness (probably a trait she inherited with my mother), and the end result was the kind of charisma few people could resist.

  I thought about the moment she showed up at the front door and shook my head while my boyfriend an
d sister continued to tussle.

  As I slowly watched my life flash before my eyes while the chip worked its way through my esophagus, three things registered in my mind.

  One, Logan had actually done something for me. Something I'd asked him to do—something I'd needed him to do. Two, that my baby sister, who was currently crushing my lungs with her weight, had her arms wrapped tightly around my neck and even if I was dying it was still the best feeling in the world. Three, I was a complete and total mess. The foil was still in my hair along with the blue hair dye, I was wearing pajamas, laying on tile full of chip crumbs.