Stuck With The Four Hotties

I take a sip of the punch and then raise my eyebrows. It’s clearly spiked.

Setting it aside, I rise to my feet, palms on the table. “Do either of you want to dance with me?”

“I’m not drunk enough yet!” Miranda moans, and Andrew laughs as I yank her to her feet and drag her to the dance floor. Zayd’s already out there, grinding up against Anna. On the opposite side of the room, I see Tristan with his hands all over some third-year wearing a yellow dress. Creed is just lounging at one of the tables, but he’s got a captive audience all to himself.

I ignore them and try to have a good time with Miranda, even when Harper du Pont purposely moves over beside us so she can elbow me and whip me with her hair. Petty crap like that doesn’t bother me anymore. Between the essay and the butchering of my hair, I almost crumbled, but instead I stood tall. Something as silly as this means nothing.

After a while, I trade places with Andrew and grab a bottle of water from the cooler near the front door. That’s when I notice that Zayd, Tristan, Creed, Harper, Becky and Gena are all leaving with an entourage.

They must be off to the lake.

“We should go,” Miranda says, breathless as she comes to stand beside me, her glitter-covered skin soaked with sweat, hand clasped around Andrew’s. She grabs mine, too, and pulls me out into the cool October air before I get a chance to respond.

There are cars everywhere, and students are just piling into them at random. Miranda looks around carefully, and then selects one driven by a fourth-year girl that I don’t know. Smart choice. The girl looks at me and shrugs her shoulders, too close to graduation to care maybe. Either way, we get a ride up to the lake in her blue convertible, winding down the dirt road to a picnic area that’s already strung with lights, littered with kegs, and pounding with a strong bass beat.

Who set this up, I have no idea.

Tonight’s party is so much more colorful than usual, but it’s a little creepy too, with so many students in masks. There’s a graveyard nearby that I can just vaguely see through the trees. I know from the brochure that it’s a family plot for Lucas Burberry, the founder of Burberry Prep, and his descendants. Nobody’s been buried in there since the fifties, but it’s still eerie as hell, dressed in a blanket of salty fog off the bay.

Students are hanging out in there, too, balancing on graves, making out against the sides of mausoleums. Not my thing-though I can appreciate some of the architecture. My eyes wander away from the gothic eeriness of the graveyard, and over to the row of jack-o-lanterns burning on the shore of the lake. It looks dark and endless right now, like one wrong move and you’d go tumbling through the ice-cold depths forever.

A shiver takes over me just seconds before an arm wraps around my waist and yanks me close to a warm, sweaty body.

“You showed up at the after-party,” Zayd crows, clearly already on his way to being drunk. “You’ve got bigger balls than I thought.”

“I hope you didn’t actually think I had balls at all,” I counter, reaching up with a hand to push against his chest. It’s a mistake, putting my bare palm against those hard, inked muscles. My throat gets so tight it’s suddenly hard to breathe. “I have big ovaries, maybe.”

Zayd pauses for a minute, and I can feel his heartbeat underneath the wing tattoos that cover his chest. In the center, there’s a crest of some sort that reminds me vaguely of the Burberry Prep crest with the griffins on either side. And then he howls with laughter and scoops me up in his arms, like he did with Anna back in the gym.

Miranda’s eyes mirror my shock as Zayd carries me over to one of the kegs where Tristan and Creed are watching some of their Inner Circle buddies face off in chugging contests. When they see him holding me, they exchange a quick glance.

“Look who has big ass ovaries!” he shouts, hefting me up in his arms like I weigh nothing. I’m shocked, actually. I know I’m short, but I’m not exactly the thinnest girl in school. “Working Girl came to party.” He spins me around and I automatically reach up to put my arms around his neck, feeling the fine hairs at the base of his scalp tickle against my skin. “Do you dance, Working Girl?”

“Not really,” I reply, but I’m now surrounded by the Idols and their Inner Circle. I feel like I’ve just walked into a trap. Of course, it’s hard to be upset

with Zayd’s strong, inked arms under my thighs and around my waist. His body is rock-solid and piping hot. In all the places our bare skin touches, I burn. “I try, for fun, but it’s not pretty.”

“Kind of like you,” Harper interjects, dressed as a-and I don’t use this word lightly because there’s really nothing wrong with being a slut-slutty princess. She has a crown, a scepter, and a puffy skirt that just barely covers her underwear. The top is pink with a plunging neckline, and she’s covered head to toe in sparkles. I hate to admit it, but she looks good in the outfit.

Tristan stands beside her, dressed in a sharp as hell suit, all tailored lines and creases that could cut. I’m not sure what he’s supposed to be until he sees me looking at him and smiles, a slow awful parting of his lips that reveals two expertly placed fangs in his mouth. Vampire, how creative. Only

… the sight actually makes my heart palpate just a little.

Creed is dressed in a blood-red shirt, tight black pants, boots, and an eye patch. Pirate. I think the sword at his side might actually be real. He studies me like an insect that needs to be pinned, wings forever stilled, encased behind glass. Scary.

“I don’t remember you being invited to this party,” Becky spits out, dressed in a matching outfit to Gena Whitley. I think they’re both supposed to be genies, but all they’re wearing are see-through flowy pants, top knots, and bras covered in sequins, so I’m not sure. “Was she invited, Harper?”

“Everyone’s invited to this party,” Zayd shouts with a hoot, and half the crowd cheers along with him. I think most of the people here tonight are too drunk to hate me. Miranda and Andrew hover nearby, a part of the Inner Circle but this freaking close to being pushed out of it. “Everyone’s invited,” Zayd repeats, spinning me around, and then carrying me through the crowd, toward the bonfire and the dance party happening at its edges.

He sets me down and then stumbles a little, using my shoulder for leverage.

Zayd blinks green eyes up at me, and then squints.

“Do you want to go swimming?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for me to answer, raising his fist in the air with a shout that draws the other students in. He grabs my hand and takes off for the dock, but I pull away at the last second, watching in disbelief as he jumps in with a dozen other partygoers. My heart skips a few beats as I wait for them all to surface from the inky blackness, but they do, bobbing up like apples in a barrel.

Zayd pulls himself out of the water, soaking wet, his green hair plastered to either side of his face. He’s grinning as he stands up, towering over me with water dripping everywhere.

“You really are pretty with that red hair,” he says, and then he cups my face in two wet, cold hands and leans in, pressing his lips against mine. There’s the initial shock from the cold water, and then the strange realization that I’m kissing some guy I barely know, a guy that hasn’t been all that nice to me to begin with. But then his lips turn to ardent heat against mine, stirring up strange feelings in my belly.

For the briefest of instances, his tongue sweeps mine, and I feel like I’m melting.

But then someone pulls Zayd back and shoves him back into the water. He comes up laughing as I stand there with my lips parted, cheeks burning. I turn and make my retreat while Zayd’s friends splash him and pretend to push him under. Probably not the safest game drunk and in the dark, but there’s not a chance in hell that any one of them will listen to me.

“Did I just …” Miranda starts, and I grimace, noticing that Andrew’s also staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. “Did you just kiss Zayd Kaiser?”

“I … have no idea,” I whisper, but of course, I do. I can still feel the tip of his tongue, scalding as it slid against my own. “He’s drunk off his ass,” I add, but Miranda’s still staring at me like I’ve lost my mind.

“True,” she hedges, shrugging her thin shoulders. “Whatever. He does that to everyone when he’s plastered. I once saw him kiss John Hannibal on the lips after too many beers. Then they got into a fistfight and Tristan had to break them up.”

My heart sinks a bit, but I push the feeling away. Zayd didn’t kiss me because he has any feelings toward me. It’s just something he does when he’s drunk. Obviously. I mean, we don’t even get along. I didn’t even want to kiss him.

Miranda, Andrew, and I get sodas from the cooler next to the parking lot and carry them into the cemetery. Someone’s lit candles, and there’s a group gathered around the base of one of the graves. Tristan Vanderbilt sits on top of it with a girl in his lap, one arm around her waist, the other stroking her knee.

He’s telling a ghost story of some sort, his voice so low that I can’t quite make it out. We avoid their little group, which includes Harper and Becky,

and meander through the rest of the graveyard, fingers brushing across the worn tops of hThis belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.

eadstones as we read off names and dates.