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

by Zara Rivas

  "I must've missed that particular etiquette lesson," he replied, pulling out a skillet and setting it on the stove. "French toast or pancakes?"

  "My heart always belongs to french toast, you heathen," I scolded. "You should know that."

  "How are you, Emma?" I asked her.

  She laughed at the pair of us and said, "I can't complain either. I have to get going, though, or I'm going to be late for school."

  I mock-saluted her and went back to peeling the sticker off of my apple. I didn't notice until she'd been gone for at least a minute that Sinclair was standing directly in front of me with a glint in his eyes.

  "What?" I asked warily.

  "You promised that we'd 'get up to no good' later," he pointed out.

  "You're bringing this up now?" I asked incredulously. "We slept squished together the entire night and you just now want to get it on?"

  "Maybe."

  "Were you dropped on your head as a child?" I asked him seriously. "Because honestly, if you were, there are ways we can get you help. Neurologists we can consult. Psychotherapists. Doctors. Brain scans. I promise, we can get you back to norma—"

  His lips cut me off mid-tirade and I made a muffled noise of protest before just giving up and leaning into the kiss.

  "That always works," he breathed when he pulled away for a second, and I glared at him.

  "You should know, if you plan on using that as a way to shut me up all the time it's going to backfire someday."

  "How's that?" he asked, his lips coming dangerously close again. His hand slid into my hair and I caught a bit of movement out of my peripheral vision. I froze but he kept going, pressing light kisses to my lips and smirking at me.

  He caught the expression on my face and turned around, and then we both froze.

  "Mom," he said, startled.

  Why was it, I asked myself, that every time somebody important decided to make an entrance, I was always a complete mess?

  Chapter Nineteen

  Welcome to Awkward City, population: three.

  Sinclair's mother stood there in the kitchen doorway with a semi-thunderstruck, semi-confused expression on her face and a briefcase in her hands. I hopped off of the kitchen stool and shoved Sinclair off me, trying to surreptitiously straighten my clothing (well, Sinclair's clothing) without it being too obvious. Xavier seemed at a loss for words, which was pretty inconvenient considering his mother's expression was slowly ebbing into "what the hell is going on here" territory.

  "Mom," he said again, sounding just as startled as the first time. "I thought you were on a business trip."

  "Clearly," she said, her eyes roving over me while she moved slowly into the kitchen. Her voice was tinged with exhaustion. "I just got back from the airport."

  I moved slowly towards the kitchen counter, keeping her in my line of sight. It was almost like one of those Discovery channel shows about lionesses and their cubs—you don't want to get too close or you end up getting eviscerated and exsanguinating on the kitchen floor—I mean, in the savannah. Right. She didn't have claws. Okay. I could handle this.

  "Mother," Xavier said, finally seeming to get some sort of internal resolve together, "this is Sloane. My girlfriend."

  It still felt weird for him to refer to me that way, but I supposed that it felt just as odd for him to hear the word "boyfriend" pass my lips. Not that I'd introduced him to anyone in that particular way yet.

  "You're the Lexington girl, aren't you?" Mrs. Sinclair asked, and I still got the feeling that I was being assessed somehow. She couldn't have been getting a very good impression.

  "One of them," I said, looking her straight in the eye.

  She tilted her head a little and her grey eyes bored into my skull, but I held my ground. Raising her hand unexpectedly, she held it out to me. I grasped it quickly and a hint of a smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.

  "Well, you're not jumpy at least," she said. "I was wondering when I would get to meet one of Logan's children."

  "You know my father?"

  "Know of him, really." She dropped her hand and set her briefcase on the counter. "I have another plane to be catching soon, so if you'll excuse me I'm going to go back. Xavier." She nodded at him and left the kitchen, leaving silence in her wake.

  I turned to Sinclair and raised an eyebrow.

  "That was…cordial," I said, giving him a not-so-subtle hint that I wanted information.

  "Welcome to the Sinclair family," he shrugged, and headed back over to the stove. "That's about as warm as it gets around here, and that includes Christmas."

  "Geez, and I thought I had it bad with Logan. He's just gone all the time, but when he's here he always wants to be buddy-buddy."

  I decided it was time to finally heed his irritated voicemail and head home after breakfast, so I left Xavier's house with a promise that I'd call him soon or see him in school and left for the Lexington mansion.

  Logan was there, arms folded, in the den when I entered the house. Nic passed me in the hallway and shot me a wry smile and jerked his head to say silently that there was nothing he could do, but I wasn't worried about the interaction to come. Logan didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to parenting decisions in my life, and I wasn't going to cut him any slack if he tried to shred me for doing something that I was accustomed to anyway.

  "I suppose you got my message?" he said by way of greeting, and I nodded.

  "Well, then," he continued, "I wanted to talk to you about something last night, but seeing as I never saw you…I'll just say it now." He sighed, running a hand through his hair and gesturing at the couch, silently asking me to sit down. Startled at the lack of reprimanding for staying out all night, I complied.

  He sat down across from me in one of the armchairs and regarded me seriously. For once I didn't feel like I was about to get in trouble on the other end of that gaze. I just felt like I would be…disappointed.

  "You only have three more days with Daphne before I have to take her back to school," he said bluntly, and I felt like he'd just punched me in the stomach. He held up a hand when I opened my mouth to protest and the expression on his face was so grave that for once I shut my mouth without questioning him.

  "You asked me to bring her here, and I did," he continued, voice still serious, "but the fact of the matter is that Daphne has a life. She has her own school, her own friends, she has a home where we live, and it wouldn't be fair to her to bring her back here when she's so established where she's at. Of course it would probably be better for her to be with her whole family, but it's just not possible right now. There has to be some sort of fair transition so she's not left without any friends.

  "I understand," he said quietly, "that you're quite popular at your own school and that would probably help her out, but I can't take that chance."

  "Why didn't you warn us?" I asked hollowly, the punch-in-the-gut feeling slowly dissolving and being replaced by something infinitely more empty. "You didn't warn us when you showed up with her, you didn't warn us that you couldn't stay. I realized when you showed up here that we probably wouldn't get more than a day or two, but…it still doesn't change the fact that it doesn't make it any easier."

  Logan just watched me for a moment. I didn't think he was trying to figure out what to say; he was just watching me for the sake of having a conversation, an actual conversation with his oldest daughter where we weren't screaming at each other.

  "I didn't want you to be counting down towards the end of her visit," he said simply.

  "What do you mean by that?" I asked, slightly confused, although I thought I could vaguely see where he was going with that statement.

  "If you knew when she was leaving from the very beginning, all you would think about while she was here would have been how many days you had left with her. At least you got a few days where you could just enjoy it for the sake of having her around. I know it doesn't make much sense, but…."

  "It does. To some extent, it does," I said quietly. I smile
d wryly. "Hey, you've never given us any warning before. Why start now?"

  I didn't wait for an answer. Not that he would give me one anyway. A distinct feeling of immaturity saturated my mind as I stood up and walked out of the room, heading up the stairs. I heard Nic and Daphne laughing in one of the other rooms but I didn't seek them out. Instead, I went straight to my studio and locked the door behind me, drawing the curtain over it and sitting down on the floor. I didn't reach for any of my brushes or paints, I just sat there and stared at the drapes.

  oOoOo

  My car had been fixed, my old locker painted over, my brothers hovered protectively over me at every possible moment (and Sinclair hovered whenever there wasn't a possible moment), my sister had a couple of days left with my family, and still I found a way to get into trouble that Wednesday.

  I always did seem to find a way for precautionary measures to become completely useless around me.

  Tuesday night passed for me in a flash—I'd finally decided on what I wanted to do for the CAP regarding Sinclair, and once I set my mind to something it took something monumental to break my concentration, so I spent most of the afternoon and nearly all of the night (up until around four in the morning) diligently working on it.

  Daphne sat up and watched me work, occasionally making a suggestion or handing me brushes and paints whenever I needed them. We didn't talk much, but it was some much-needed bonding time and even time spent in silence isn't wasted if it isn't uncomfortable.

  My part of the project was nowhere near finished when we finally put down the materials and, exhausted, went to bed, but at least it was a good start.

  Wednesday morning dawned far, far too early for my liking but at least it had a good (traditional) start to it, complete with Dominic and I having breakfast and then me heading to school. I didn't want to skip, even while Daphne was there, because losing a week's worth of work would take a month's worth of effort to get all the backed up homework taken care of, unfortunately. I offered to let her come to classes with me (I was sure the headmaster wouldn't mind) but she declined, and I had no idea what she got up to on those few mornings. Probably sleeping in.

  Torrance caught up to me in the hallway as I headed to my first class. The crowd ebbed and flowed around us, people chattering about their night before and what they wanted to do for the weekend. I'd managed to forget to pass on the news about Henson's exclusive little Friday night bash to my friends, but I knew it wouldn't matter. They would either already know (even information that was supposed to be secret usually leaked around our regular group), or they would come anyway, even with last minute notice.

  "Hey Sloane, I have something to show you but it should probably wait until after school," Torrance said by way of greeting. I raised an eyebrow and she winked at me to diffuse the serious tone of her hello.

  "Sure, want to come over around ten or ten thirty? Or do you want to meet up somewhere else?" I asked, as Adrian and Avery came up to us and we all started the chorus of hellos again.

  Torrance turned back to me quickly after that and said, "Ten thirty at your place is fine, but I won't be able to stay too long. I kind of got in trouble with my mom for staying out too late the other night and I don't think she'll be too happy if I'm not home before midnight every day of the next couple of weeks."

  She tossed her head back and barked a nonchalant laugh, heading off down the hallway and raising her hand in a wave. "See you at lunch!"

  "What was that all about?" Avery asked curiously, and I shrugged.

  "She wants to show me something. No idea what it is though," I said, and we left it at that. "What's new with you?"

  "Nothing really," she said mischievously, "just thinking about when we should pull our next prank here."

  Adrian perked up at that, and we all laughed at the eager expressions on each others' faces.

  "I still haven't come up with any ideas worth executing," I confessed, "have you?"

  "Not really, but if it takes much more effort to come up with a scheme worth doing, we could always just ask Finn for ideas," Avery chirped, heading off down the hallway after Torrance. "I have to run, if I'm late for class one more time I'll probably get kicked out!"

  "Like anyone would kick her out of a class," Adrian said fondly, tossing her long hair over her shoulder.

  "Mmm," I agreed absentmindedly, digging through my bag for one of my notebooks.

  "Hey, Sloane, I…" Adrian started, and I looked up. She seemed uncertain, one of her hands reaching up tentatively towards me, but she let it fall again. She sighed, shaking her head. "Never mind, it's not important."

  And she followed the rest.

  I stood there in the hallway, frozen in confusion for a moment, before finally deciding I wasn't going to figure out what she wanted so I might as well get a move on. The hallways were quickly emptying and I knew I'd get reprimanded as well if I missed the first few minutes of class. Tentative Valedictorian or not, I wasn't exempt from the rules all of the time.

  I didn't quite reach my class before I felt hands grab me around the waist and swing me around, and a slow grin spread across my face because I knew exactly who it was.

  "Fancy seeing you here," I said when Sinclair set me down.

  "I know, I skip so much it's a miracle they don't put 'Missing' signs with my face on them on the milk cartons," he quipped, setting his bookbag down next to the lockers. "How do you feel about skipping first period?"

  "Not great," I admitted, "as much as I hate to say it, I really am attached to my grades."

  He rolled his eyes. "I should have known."

  I shoved Xavier's shoulder teasingly and thrust his bookbag back at him. "Hey, you could do amazing things at this school if you ever cracked a textbook."

  "I take offense to that," he said, feigning hurt. "I happen to like my lackadaisical lifestyle."

  "I'm sure you do," I laughed, backing down the hallway away from him. "I'll catch you later, I really have to run."

  And I went the same way as everyone else.

  A few hours later, I sat in my art class and watched Amy teaching us how to shadow things properly so that they didn't just get all smudged and gross-looking, like a little black cloud lurked under everything we wanted to add depth to. When she finally sat down and got on with letting us work/slack off, I stood up and pulled my notebook with me. I let it fall open on her desk and showed her the preliminary sketches for the work I'd done the night before, excited to hear what she had to say about them.

  She said absolutely nothing at first, not even by way of hello, but I didn't mind. She was too absorbed in picking up individual sheets of paper and turning them this way and that, examining the work I'd done from every angle.

  "I have to say, Sloane, I'm impressed," she said finally, setting the last page down gingerly on her desk. "Have you talked this over with Mr. Sinclair yet?"

  "I haven't," I said. "I wanted to show them to you and see what you thought. Plus, I…kind of want this to be a surprise. Although I don't know how I'm going to manage that, considering it's supposed to be a collaboration."

  "We'll think of something," she smiled, and stacked up my sketches again, handing them back to me. I nodded and went back to sit next to Tyler, not really caring if he saw my notebook. He picked up my papers instantly, oohing and aahing over all the effort I'd put into just the general outline.

  "Have you ever worked with glass before?" he asked curiously as he rotated one of the sheets and tried to imagine what it would look like moving.

  "No, I haven't." I plucked another sheet out of my bag and added it to the stack—the original idea page Sinclair had marked as his favorite. "I'll have to get Finn to help me. Maybe someone else who has more experience than both of us put together."

  Tyler paused when he saw the diagram I'd drawn of hundreds of abstract, twinkling glass mirrors all hanging by a precarious thread.

  "So when they all move, they're going to…" he waved his hand in a rhythmic motion.

  "Imitate t
he ocean, I hope," I finished for him.

  "That," he said, "is incredibly cool. How did you come up with the idea?"

  "I have no idea," I said honestly.

  oOoOo

  The day seemed to fly by, although whether that was due to sleep deprivation or just the fact that I was feeling good about the CAP and my own artistic abilities, I didn't know. I walked in the door after school, tossed my bookbag aside, and went in search of my baby sister. I found her in her bedroom, hanging around with Nic and Finn, playing a game of Uno.

  "Sloane!" Daph exclaimed when she saw me standing in the doorway, and I got tackled once more by her and both my brothers. Apparently having her around made us all a little more enthusiastic about life.