Watercolour Smile (22 page)

“The Duchess strikes again…” She could barely get the words out through peals of laughter. “The looks on their faces!” She struggled into a sitting position, wiping tears from her eyes. “Ah, that was amazing.”

“Ooo-kay,” I said, patting her on the back until I was sure she was under control again. “So we’re going to Reds. What’s that?”

“Nightclub.” She frowned. “We’ll have to get you an ID.”

“How?”

“Leave it to me, Cabe’s looking for you.”

I glanced over my shoulder and saw Cabe in the open doorway of the practise room. He crooked his finger. I jumped up and walked into the room and he closed the door behind me.

“I saw that,” he said easily. Too easily.

Noah wasn’t playing the piano anymore; he was straddling the bench, watching us.

“I’m going to Reds on Saturday,” I told the ground.

“What a coincidence.” Noah sounded amused. “Cabe, you’d better find a date. This is about to turn into a family outing.”

“That’s why you’re still acting weird?” Cabe lifted my chin, forcing me to look into his warm eyes. “You’re worried about Saturday?”

“Yes.” I flicked my eyes to Noah.

“Feel better now?” Noah questioned.

“Yes.” I said again.

“I should have just cancelled.” Noah stood up and stretched, turning to look out the window.

Cabe frowned at the back of his head, but it was a concerned frown, and it made unease churn in the pit of my stomach. I moved to Noah’s side and touched his arm, causing him to turn. His beautiful face was etched in frustration. It hit me right in the gut like an actual physical blow. I couldn’t keep doing this to them. I stepped back from him and moved to the book bag slumped on the table in the corner of the room. I pulled out my sketchpad and flipped it open to the right page, slapping it down onto the desk. Noah and Cabe looked at the image and both of them jolted to attention, wearing identical masks of disbelief.

“Nope.” Noah shook his head. “No way. Not possible.”

“I knew you’d say that. That’s why I didn’t show you.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Noah rounded on me, curling his fist around the page until it tore from my book. “There’s no way that I would kiss Amber, or anyone else for that matter. Even if I closed my eyes and pretended it was you, it’d be like a cocaine-addict shooting up with water—”

“Super weird analogy,” Cabe interjected.

Noah relaxed his fist and the ruined sketch fell back to the table. He turned away and I shoved my stuff back into my bag to cover up my shock at what he had just said.

“I believe you,” I said carefully. “I thought maybe she caught you by surprise or something.”

“Yeah.” Noah’s voice was rough. “It doesn’t matter. This date just got a hell of a lot better, anyway. Now you’ll be there.”

“And me.” Cabe dropped an arm around my shoulders, soothing me by rubbing the top of my head with his jaw. He was more watchful than Noah—he had seen my reaction, I was sure. “We should make this a habit, crashing each other’s dates.”

“Not a bad idea actually.” Noah rolled his eyes. “The only thing stranger than us not dating at all is us only dating as a group.”

“You’re right.” Cabe chuckled against my hair. “That’s even weirder than that thing you just said about cocaine.”

“You’re not mad at me?” I asked Noah.

He smiled and sat back down on the piano bench. “If I said I was, what would you do to make it better?”

Cabe laughed and wrapped me into his arms, pretending to restrain me from going to Noah. “No way,” he protested. “You already got her in the janitor’s closet.”

The door handle to the music room turned and Cabe jumped away from me, sliding onto the desk as the door swung open, revealing Mrs. Valory.

“How are we going in here?” she asked.

“Perfect,” Noah said smoothly, cutting off what I was about to say, which was the exact opposite.

Mrs. Valory retreated, and Noah patted the stool beside him. By the end of the lesson I had a few bars of an original composition and it almost seemed like my previous day of anguish hadn’t happened at all.

My last class was Gym with Cabe and Poison. It was also the only class I shared with Clarin. The boys were over on the far side of the gymnasium hall while the girls played a half-court version of netball. Poison got herself out by dribbling the ball and attempting to slam-dunk it, and then I got out by simply walking off the court to sit by Poison. Our teacher, Miss Golding, didn’t much care what we did in class, unlike the boys’ teacher, Coach Grayson. Poison and I watched as the boys ran from one side of the court to the other with Grayson shouting at them every step of the way. When Cabe caught us watching he rolled his eyes, and we laughed. Clarin was running with Cabe, and they both seemed to be moving at a deliberately slow pace. Whenever Grayson yelled at them to hurry up, they complained about various imaginary aches and pains.

“I’ve got gout, Sir!” Clarin whined loud enough for his voice to carry to the other side of the gymnasium.

Poison snickered.

“I’ve no doubt that you’ve got any number of diseases, Mr. Jordan,” Grayson shouted back, “but gout isn’t one of them. Run faster! You too, Mr. Adair!”

“Oh,” Poison muttered, staring at her phone. “Mike just texted. He said they’ll pick us up from my house Saturday at seven. He sent Danny’s number, in case you want it.”

“I really don’t.”

“Hmm.” Poison looked back to her phone and then started typing out a message. “I’ll let him know it’s not a date. Just hanging out.”

“Thanks.” I brightened up at that prospect. “I told Danny I wasn’t asking him out anyway.”

“Er…” Poison dropped her phone into her lap and gave me an odd look. “How are we going out with them then?”

“He asked me, after I said I wasn’t asking him.”

Poison laughed. “Right. So tell me what happened with the PSS.”

“The PSS?”

“The Pom Skank Squad. Amber and her cronies.”

“I was in the gymnastics room while Tariq and the team were working out and they snuck in and stole my stuff. It doesn’t really make sense, since she’s trying to get with Noah. Shouldn’t she be trying to make nice with me instead of playing pranks on me? I’m supposed to be his sister.”

“She’s protecting her throne. She’s always been obsessed with Noah, but
nothing
is more important to her than being the Queen of the school. Her daddy is—”

Whatever Poison had been about to say was cut off as, across the court, Clarin yelled out something that sounded suspiciously like a battle-cry. The ball from our netball game had somehow gone astray, and it was in his hands now. He started to run toward our side of the court, side-stepping the girl that had run after the ball—though she didn’t look like she was going to try and wrestle it off him. She was mostly standing there with her mouth hanging open. Cabe took off after Clarin and yelled that he was
open
, while waving his arms around in an entirely exaggerated way. They passed the ball back and forth, pretending that the dumb-struck girls were actually putting up some kind of resistance by dodging to either side of their prone bodies. Eventually, Clarin dunked the ball, and Grayson dragged them back to the other side of the court.

“Anyway,” I finally said. “I don’t want to be popular. I’m no threat to Amber.”

“Whether you want to be popular or not, people are taking notice of you. She’s going to do her best to destroy your reputation even if it destroys her chances with Noah. Speaking of which, I’m guessing you haven’t told them it was her?”

“No, but they’ll probably find out sooner or later. I mean you found out, right?”

“Hawk was talking to Clarin about it at a party last night and Clarin texted me. I doubt anybody is stupid enough to rat Amber out to the Adairs.”

“This school is weird.”

“We’re Zevs. We have a secret monarchy within modern society, and we feed off status to know where we all stand within it. That’s why everyone calls you Duchess. You act like you’re above us all, and I
know
,” she held up a hand to cut off my protest, “that you’re nothing like that, but they don’t. You don’t go to parties, Noah and Cabe guard you like you’re a national secret, and you’ve been here for four months already and Danny is the only one who’s gone on a date with you. Plus, there’s a picture going around of your ass in a leotard, so I think that’s probably doing good things for your popularity status.”

“There’s
what
?” I screeched.

“Err, yeah.” Poison picked up her phone again and hunted through it for a moment before showing me the screen.

I stared at the picture, my mouth falling open. Someone had snuck up behind me and taken a picture while Hawk was stalling me in the weights room. The focus of the picture was pretty clear.

“Oh my god.” I stood, my eyes scanning the boys’ section of the hall for the football captain. He wasn’t in this class. “Where’s Hawk right now?” I asked Poison.

“He’s got Chemistry, I’ll find out what room,” she said, sending a text to someone. I waited until she had the room number and then I stormed out of the hall. Miss Golding didn’t even notice.

I ran through the halls and busted into the Chemistry lab. I didn’t recognise the teacher, but he scrambled up from his desk and fiddled with his tie.

“Miss Adair? Can I help you?” He seemed nervous, and for the first time, I noticed that Cabe and Noah’s name-power extended to me.

“Sorry for the interruption,” I said, searching the room for Hawk.

People were paired up at benches, frozen in their individual tasks. I found Hawk in the back, partnered with Amber of all people, and I stormed toward him. When I reached him I grabbed his shirt and pulled. He slid off his stool and allowed me to pull him out of the room, giving a little wave to the dumbstruck teacher as we passed.

“Be back in a second, Mr. Rowley! Duchess here has needs, apparently.”

A scattering of students laughed and Mr. Rowley was halfway through a stuttered protest when the door to the classroom fell shut. I kept walking, knowing that eventually Mr. Rowley would pick his jaw up off the ground and follow us. I turned a corner and pulled open the door to the janitor’s closet, shoving Hawk in before me and stepping in after him. I closed the door gently behind us.

“Are you going to take your clothes off or murder me?” he joked. “Because if it’s the second option I’d like to text my mom and tell her I love her one last time.” He pulled out his phone and tapped it against the palm of his hand. Even in the darkness I could see that he was smiling.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” I said, a little surprised.

“Well I could tell someone that you dragged me into a dark closet and I’m sure your brothers would gladly break both of my legs.”

“Ha,” I mumbled. “They’re not going to hurt you either.”

“So,” he slipped his phone away again, “you want to know who took the picture?”

“Of course.” I folded my arms, focussing on his shoes, because my face had suddenly gotten very hot. “I… can you make it go away? Whoever it was, they’re on your team.”

“I can figure out who took it and threaten to bench them if they send it to anyone else, but I’m afraid it’s already out there, Duchess. Not much anyone can do, unless you know any hackers.”

“I do, but they wouldn’t stop at getting rid of the picture. They don’t take well to people messing with me.”

I was barely paying attention to what came out of my mouth, my mind reeling with whether I should involve Silas in this or just allow the image to circulate and grow a backbone about it. When I realised that Hawk had gone quiet, I looked up, catching his astonished expression.

“Are you serious?” he asked.

I didn’t answer, because an object on the shelf behind his shoulder had just caught my attention. I reached out, snagging the phone from the shelf and turning it around. It had a shiny black case on it, which was what had caught my attention in the first place, but what held my interest now was the image on screen: a fuzzy outline of my chameleon sneakers in shadow. I shifted the phone, and the screen displayed the purple and white colours of Hawk’s jacket.

The phone was recording.

“Stephanie?” Hawk questioned. “Were you serious about the hackers?” He dismissed the phone in my hand, peering into my face with narrow-eyed suspicion.

“Yes?” My tone was questioning as I slipped the phone into my pocket, holding my finger over the power button until it vibrated in my hand. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“No reason.” He shook his head. “But this closet is feeling more dangerous by the second. Was that your phone?”

“Yeah, I left it in here by accident.” I stared at him, comprehension slowly dawning. “Are you…
scared
right now?”

“You’re a scary chick,” he replied defensively.

I couldn’t help it, I started laughing; I laughed until my stomach hurt and the door opened behind us. Cabe stepped in and closed it again.

“You’re clearly not getting it on,” he said lightly. “So what’s the issue?”

I managed to wipe the smile from my face. “How do you know we weren’t getting it on?”

“Seph,” Cabe warned, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. There really wasn’t much that he could say in this situation.

“Okay fine, don’t blow up or anything,” I said. “Someone on the football team took a picture of me in my leotard. I was asking Hawk if there was anything he could do about it, but unless I know any
hackers
, then it’s pretty much out there and I pretty much have to deal with it.”

“Oh yeah, you don’t want to get the hackers involved in this one.” Cabe supressed a fake shudder. “There’ll be nobody left on the football team to play this Friday.”

“Okay.” Hawk finally spoke up. “I’m officially scared for my life, and I’m getting out of this closet now.” He wedged past and opened the door.

Cabe muffled a laugh and pushed me gently so that I fell out after Hawk. Class must have ended because the hallway was teeming with bodies. Cabe waltzed out after us, a pissed-off expression twisting his dark features.

“If I ever find you hiding in the closet with my sister again, I’ll have your freaking head, Hawk!” he said loudly enough to attract even more attention.