Page 28 of Scarlett and the Kiss Thief

Chapter 8 – What. The. Actual. F Did You Do?

Friday

I wasn’t sure why RJ had given me the blueprints he’d unearthed. I seriously did not need them for anything “in the future”, as he put it. And the blueprints felt like contraband in my backpack. Maybe they came in handy for him, but it wasn’t like I could lay them out on my bed and study them. Our security team would see them on the cameras. I shouldn’t have let RJ convince me to take them. And I swear it was like my dad knew that I was planning on sneaking out. He kept glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“Pumpkin?” my dad said.

“Mhm?”

“I am sorry that you’re missing the party tonight. But like your mom said, there really will be other ones.”

“I know.”

“How about the four of us have a movie night? We haven’t done that in ages.”

Liam laughed. “You three have fun. I’m going to the party.”

My dad looked over at him as we pulled to a stop at a red light. “I thought it was just for upperclassmen?”

“It technically is.” Liam shrugged. “Wait, why do you know that?”

My dad laughed. “I may have been invited too.”

I groaned. “Gross. Who? Seriously, who? Which one of my classmates invited you?”

“A couple of them did actually.”

Liam laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I said. “It’s so messed up. Dad, really, why are you doing this to us? We hang out plenty. We don’t need to do it at school.”

“He’s not doing anything to me,” Liam said. “Because unlike a certain somebody, I follow the dress code.”

“Liam, you’re dressed like a slut.”

“Scarlett, that’s the second time this week that you’ve called your brother a slut. Enough, okay?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. Even though all I wanted to say was, “Then he should stop dressing like a slut.” Maybe I did use that term too much…

Liam turned around in the front seat to stare at me. “Yeah, how would you like it if I started calling you a cad?”

I just stared at him. “I wouldn’t mind it at all because no one knows what that means.”

“It’s a male slut, Scar,” he said.

“I know, I gathered that from the context.” I leaned forward and slapped his shoulder.

Liam laughed.

My dad shook his head. “Both of you stop calling each other derogatory things.”

It wasn’t a big deal. He knew we were both joking. But I wasn’t a slut or a cad. Because even though Axel had held my hand yesterday morning, he’d basically ignored me ever since. I’d been on top of the world. And now I just felt like an underground troll.

My dad cleared his throat. “Well, I guess it’s just the three of us tonight then, Scar. You can pick the movie.” He pulled into the parking garage under our apartment building.

I sighed. If I was stuck watching a movie tonight, I’d be so late to the party. Not that I knew how I was escaping yet. RJ refused to tell me his master plan until the “appropriate time.” I thought lunchtime was an appropriate time, but apparently he did not.

But I’d overheard him mentioning a saw? I feel like I probably misheard that. “Can we get takeout for dinner and watch while we eat?”

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