I know. That’s all he needed to say. Bree was so giddy she thought she might black out, so before she had the chance to, she kissed Zane the way she dreamed of kissing him all those other nights.
37
Maurice had pushed the two thickly padded chaise lounges on the balcony together to form a sort of regal outdoor bed. The streets below them were empty and lonely-looking, with only a few stray cars and cabs roaming around, their headlights still on in the gray early-morning air. It was chilly, and Crystal felt weary and exhausted, but she wasn’t about to head back inside for a nap. Instead, she curled under the velour blanket next to Maurice, with Jade huddled on the other side of him.
Crystal yawned and glanced at the other balconies on both sides of them—no one else seemed to think that a pre-dawn September morning was particularly romantic. She couldn’t blame them. Maurice finished his cigarette and tucked his hands under the blanket.
“Comfy, ladies?”
Jade, who had the blanket pulled up to her chin, slapped at one of Maurice’s hands that had strayed too far. “No,” she scolded him sternly. “You can only go where I tell you.” She reached for his hand beneath the blanket. “Like, here.”
“Oh my God.” Maurice’s eyes almost rolled back into his head. “I love this rule.”
Jealously, Crystal grabbed Maurice’s other hand. “Or here,” she announced, pressing Maurice’s sweaty palm onto her collarbone.
“You’re torturing me,” Maurice moaned, still with an ecstatic grin on his face. This was shaping up to be the best night of his life, Crystal noted. Thank God she had thought to kick his digital camera under the sofa—she didn’t want any pictures of this surfacing in the Atlanta newspapers.
“How’s this?” Jade’s eyes flashed wickedly as she moved Maurice’s hand somewhere else.
Crystal was about to do the same when she felt Maurice’s hand trying to slide its way down her body all on its own. Uh, no! Feeling his wiggling fingers was like a disgusting wake-up call—why the hell was she competing with Jade for Maurice Johnson? Why was she letting herself be groped by him? She didn’t even like him!
“Get off me, perv!” Crystal pushed Maurice’s wandering hands away and jumped out from under the blanket into the chilly morning air, feeling instantly triumphant. She was tired of trying to impress Jade. It was exhausting.
For a minute, Crystal forgot she was almost naked. Standing there, she felt her drunkenness slowly wear off as she gazed at the city of Boston. She felt almost queenly, goddesslike, as Amir liked to tell her. She’d go inside, take a shower to wash off all traces of Maurice’s hands, put on some clean pajamas, and fall into a deep, relaxing sleep.
Her thoughts were interrupted by an explosion of sound as the door to the neighboring balcony slid open and the air suddenly filled with the familiar voices of Good Morning America. Before Crystal could duck for cover, Dean Marymount stepped out, in a white fluffy robe exactly like the one Maurice had been wearing earlier.
His eyes fixed on Crystal, freezing her in place until a pair of vaguely familiar freckled arms wound around Marymount’s waist. Angelica Pardee stepped outside, wearing a matching Ritz bathrobe.
“Crystal!” She gasped in horror.
“Oh, fuck!” Crystal cried, then slapped her hand to her mouth. Maurice and Jade jumped up from the chaise, wrapped in the blanket, and turned to see what the problem was. Crystal darted beneath the blanket. Dean Marymount had seen her underwear!
But that didn’t seem like their biggest problem at the moment.
“This is a bit awkward,” Dean Marymount admitted dryly, unable to hide the irritation in his voice.
“I’ll say,” Maurice slurred.
“Wipe that smirk off your face, young man.” Maurice immediately stopped smiling. Marymount turned and whispered to Pardee, who disappeared inside. “Now, I don’t know what you three are doing in Boston when you should be back in your beds at Bridgeport. And I don’t want to know.”
“Dean Marymount, I can explain.” Jade’s voice was innocent and persuasive, but even she knew that crouched there on the balcony at the Ritz, nearly naked beneath an overcrowded blanket, she had little to no credibility.
Marymount cut her off. “I’m sure you can. But I’m not interested.” Strangely enough, he looked far more regal and intimidating in his bathrobe than he ever did in a suit. Even with his thinning gray hair. Ew! “You are to get back to school. Now.” He glanced at his wrist before realizing he wasn’t wearing a watch. “And no one will say a word—about any of this.” He stared at each of them individually, threatening them with just a glance. It was an impressive performance, Crystal thought, considering he had just been caught messing around with someone else’s wife.
But best to be humble, apologize, and get the hell back to Bridgeport. “Yes, sir.” Jade hung her head. “We’re very sorry, sir. We’ll be on the next train” She couldn’t risk getting expelled again.
Marymount almost shouted. “Get moving! If you’re not back by nine A.M., I’ll have to call your parents.”
All three of them scrambled for the door in such a hurry that Maurice didn’t even notice Crystal toss his pants off the balcony.
38
Several minutes before nine, a silver Mercedes-Benz pulled to a stop in front of the Bridgeport gate. The rear doors opened, and three very disheveled owls tumbled out, their long night of drinking and debauchery obvious to all. Crystal and Jade’s faces were smeared with remnants of last night’s makeup.
“Run!” Jade ordered after tossing some large bills at the driver and slamming the door shut. She’d called a car service the second they’d gotten back inside the hotel room and left a note for the others saying that they were going for a ride around the city and would see them back at school. Crystal couldn’t think about anything except the fact that Dean Marymount had seen her practically naked. Gross. Thank God he hadn’t been naked!
Maurice took off, sprinting across campus with his black leather overnight bag thudding against his hip.
Crystal rolled her eyes as she and Jade jogged across the wet grass. “Loser.”
“At least he makes things interesting.” Jade paused for a moment to tug off her heels. She had to buy some more practical shoes. “Come on, Crys, speed it up. We’ve got, like, two minutes till nine.”
Crystal had stopped and was holding her hands to her stomach. It had been heaving the entire ride home, and now with the running, it was too much for it to handle. She leaned over one of the groomed flower beds and heaved.
“Shit.” Jade measured the distance they still had to cover to their dorm—there’s no way they were going to make it if they had to wait for Crystal to finish puking. Fuck.
Crystal wiped her mouth on the sleeve of her black tie-front sweater. Of course this was how it would end—her alone, facedown in her own vomit on the Bridgeport lawn for the entire campus to see. She wanted to die. “You go ahead.”
But Jade didn’t move. Instead, she unzipped her Prada nylon tote bag and dug through it until she pulled out a half-full bottle of water. “Here.” She handed it to Crystal. “Drink.”
Crystal’s eyes teared up. All right, so maybe Jade wasn’t a complete bitch.
Ten minutes later, when they tiptoed into Dumbarton, they thought they were home free. Until, that is, they passed the door to the common room and saw Dean Marymount, leaning against the fireplace, waiting.
“You’re late.” He sighed, clearly still pissed. He ran a hand over his graying comb-over.
“Like, five minutes!” Crystal cried, then clamped her mouth shut for fear of vomiting all over him.
Jade spoke up pleadingly. “Come on, do you have to punish us?”
“Unfortunately, I do.” Marymount straightened his maroon-and-navy tie—what was he doing wearing a tie on a Sunday morning, and how the hell had he gotten back to campus so quickly? “This institution has rules that must be upheld. However”—he looked at them pointedly—�
��because of extenuating circumstances, your punishment will be considerably lighter than it should be. Starting immediately, you two will no longer be allowed to live together. We’ve been able to do some rearranging, and a room on the first floor has opened up. Crystal and Bree Hargrove will remain in Dumbarton 303, while Jade and Naomi Peterson will move to Dumbarton 121.”
Jade’s mouth fell open. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” She and Naomi, alone? Talk about awkward. Maybe they could discuss Eric’s kissing techniques while they lay in bed at night. She almost snickered, it was so absurd. And Crystal and Bree? They could compare notes on Zane while painting each other’s toenails. Not. The administration really couldn’t have planned a more perfect punishment for any of them.
Marymount gave her a sharp look. “The room is vacant now. It shouldn’t take you too long to get resettled.” He headed toward the door. “The sooner you get started, the better.”
“That assjole!” Crystal muttered fiercely the second the door closed behind him. She bit at her fingernail in frustration. “How can I be expected to live with that little slut? She’ll probably sleep with Zane, like, every night.”
“Kind of like you never did?” Jade blew her a kiss. Crystal glared back at her, but Jade didn’t care. She felt strangely excited about the whole situation. Life was too boring if things like this didn’t happen every once in a while to shake it all up. “Come on, let’s go break the news.”
39
Twenty minutes later, Bree’s cell phone vibrated with an incoming call, jolting her awake. She had fallen asleep against Zane’s chest as the two of them cuddled on the bluffs, wrapped in several thick, scratchy horse blankets. They’d been too busy kissing to pay much attention to the sunrise and had dozed off in the dreamy yellow-and-purple dawn. Bree didn’t care. She had a feeling there would be more sunrises with Zane in her future.
“Hello?” Bree whispered, not wanting to awaken Zane, who was breathing softly.
“You are not going to believe this!” Naomi was practically shrieking. Bree sneaked out from under the blanket and took a few steps away from where Zane was still lying, her sneakers sliding a little on the dewy grass. “Crystal and Jade got caught in Boston. And guess what their punishment is?” Naomi paused for half a second, not giving Bree a chance to even guess. “They’re splitting them up.”
“What do you mean, splitting them up?” Bree asked, not comprehending. “How can they do that when we all…”
“They’re making Jade move to a different room with me!” Naomi was livid. “And you’re with Crystal.”
Bree was suddenly wide awake. “Can they do that? That’s so not fair!” Just when everything was starting to fall into place, Bridgeport was going to split up her and Naomi because Jade and Crystal had gotten caught? And leave her alone with Crystal Alexander, who hated Bree’s guts so much she could probably stab a nail file into her heart while she was sleeping and not think twice about it? “It’s not possible.”
“Well, it’s happening,” Naomi announced bitterly. “Jade just filled one of her Louis Vuitton bags with shoes and dragged it down the stairs. I’m supposed to start moving my stuff too. Where the hell are you, by the way?”
Bree smiled for the first time since Naomi had called. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Zane sitting up and stretching his long arms over his head, his curly hair sticking up in a million different directions. One cheek was covered with indentation marks from where he’d fallen asleep on the wool blanket. Bree could feel the dew seeping into her sneakers and the warmth of the morning sun on her face. “I am exactly where I want to be right now.”
“Good.” She could hear Naomi grinning through the phone. “Just come save me soon.”
“Something wrong?” Zane’s warm, sleepy voice murmured as Bree hung up the phone. She felt her heartbeat quicken and crawled back under the horse blankets for one last long kiss. So Dean Marymount was messing up their living arrangements. How bad could it be?
JadeCarmichael: I still can’t believe it. Where r u?
CrystalAlexander: Waiting 4 Bree to come out of hiding.
JadeCarmichael: God this is going to be fun!
CrystalAlexander: Ur cracy.
JadeCarmichael: Obviously.
CrystalAlexander: It’s good to have you back J.
JadeCarmichael: And I’m just getting started…
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