Mr. Beauty Queen And Me

The Party Outsider

By the time, my sisters and Mom came sauntering through the door, Sam was long gone. I practiced walking for over an hour and it still wasn't anywhere close to where I needed to be, according to Sam. We hadn't gotten to any of his tutoring or piano practice quite yet, but one of those was the objective for the next session.

"Lu! We're home!" my mother called from the first floor. I was sitting on my bed working on homework when they arrived.

"Hey!" I greeted from my room, not bothering to get up from my comfortable position. All of my work was carefully spread out on my covers, organized into neat stacks.

Two pairs of feet came trumping up the stairs. The lighter pair ran off down the hall and the heavier set came towards my door. My door was partially ajar since no one had been in the house to bother me earlier. A hand knocked on the door regardless before pushing it all the way open. Caroline came in without any more invitation. She was dressed in a silky, striped skirt that ended two inches above her knee, a white scoopneck tank top, and a thin baby blue sweater. She yanked off the brown wedges on her feet, leaving them scattered on the floor.

Caroline collapsed into the butterfly chair I had in the corner of my room and finally glanced up at me. "I hate those stupid lunch-ins," she complained. Her right arm was thrown over her head dramatically to hide her face.

"That bad?" I questioned, keeping my eyes on the government homework in front of me.

She only groaned in response. I chuckled at her over exaggeration, throughly doubting it was "that bad."

"What'd you do while we were gone?" she asked, pulling her arm away and brushing a curled tendril of hair out of her face.

I swallowed to calm myself before answering. After Sam had left, I had gone around the house looking for any signs of another person being there. I straightened out all the pillows, scrubbed the kitchen, and had taken air freshener to all the rooms, so there would be no lingering scent of Sam's cologne. I'll admit it was a nice smelling cologne, but my mother has a keen nose and would figure out there was a boy in the house very quickly.

I had also mentally prepared myself for my family asking what I had been up to. My mouth went dry still at the question, but my tongue eventually figured out how to work again. "Oh, you know... I made some pancakes for myself and worked on homework." Although I trailed off towards the beginning, there wasn't a stutter the rest of the way.

"Wow, sounds like an exciting morning. No secret parties or visits from boys, Lulu?" Caroline teased. She was of course only kidding, but I still sucked in a sharp breath at the mention.

"No of course not. W-why would you think that?" I immediately defended; my body going stiff at the mention of a boy visiting.

Caroline laughed. "I was only kidding. Chill. No need to get defensive."

I bit my lip to keep quiet and went back to answering the questions on the worksheet. Could you be any more obvious, you idiot?

"Honestly, you're so lucky that you don't have to go to those brunches," Caroline huffed, returning to her original complaint. "Mrs. Reeves was there and Mom and her were practically going at it about the last pageant. Thank God, Sam wasn't there."

I snapped to attention at the mention of Sam's name. "Oh really? Why wasn't he there?" I prodded gently, wondering what my sister knew about his absences. I didn't look up from the question I was currently on to feign indifference.

"He almost never comes to the brunch-ins, which I don't mind at all. His mother is always there though. The few times I have seen him there, he looks more miserable than the rest of us. I can't blame the guy for that. Half the girls cannot leave him alone, especially Thalia. I don't know how many times I've told her he's a jackass, but she still won't listen to me after who knows how long." The mention of Thalia's constant flirting with Sam left my sister exasperated; she fanned herself with her hand and blew out a sigh.