Prince Charmings (BOOK ONE)

37

I. MALT (9:37 AM): ARE YOU SHA-SHA-SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS YET??? BECAUSE I AM.

I didn't reply, just slipped my phone away and edged toward the stairs. Dad didn't look up. I wasn't expecting him to call me back over but a pang of something still rumbled in my chest at his feigned blasé attitude. Gripping my cup tight, I turned, left the kitchen, and headed to April's room.

I took the steps two at a time in a bid to give my heart something else to pound erratically about. Thomas's bedroom door was locked shut, though I noted the sunlight that slid through the slitted gap underneath when I walked past. I could hear the clapping of his blinds, thin white metal ones that'd been up since before I was even born. He'd left his window open, again. I shook my head. His desk probably now a dewy mess from the earlier morning rain.

April let out a huff when I entered her room, even though I knocked harshly before bursting through. She was at her vanity, still dressed in her pyjamas, and lining her eyes with silver eyeliner. Her roots were showing, dark against the honey blonde from weeks earlier. I liked it, it reminded me of the snot-nosed kid I'd grown up with. Let me think of her as my little sister again, one that barely grazed my knees and cried over melted ice blocks not boys. On impulse, I grabbed an elastic band lying at her elbow and picked up a few strands of her hair, loosely braiding them into some semblance of a fishtail.

"You haven't done my hair since I was in middle school," she mused, face eerily still as she concentrated on keeping her lines straight. They weren't anywhere close to even. The right eye thicker, wing more rounded. I thought it suited her, but she scowled, wiped her face clean, and started again.

"Am I still as bad as you remember?" I asked, crossing the strands carefully, then lifted my gaze up to meet her own in the mirror. The gold in hers was alight as she grinned and shrugged lazily.

"Worse," she teased, cackling when I jabbed her shoulder.

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" I asked, gently laying her hair back down, untied. I snapped the elastic around my wrist, pulling off a few stray hairs with a wrinkled nose, and walked over to her bed. Her black duvet was a twisted mess at the end of the mattress, three pillows lying on the floor. I grabbed one, edges lined with tacky silver tassels, holding it to my chest as I rested against the headboard. I dangled my feet over the edge before April could snap at me for potentially ruining her sheets. "Never pegged you as a follower of the 'fashionably late' trend."

April grunted, tilting her head from side to side. She uncapped a tube of clear gloss that perfumed the air with artificial peppermint, and coated her lips quickly. Satisfied, she smacked them together then pointed at the dressed sundress hanging from her closet door. "Mom said I couldn't wear jeans."

"Glad I'm not suffering alone," I said, brushing a hand down my dress pants. They were a standard black, one of the few non-hand-me-down pieces of formal wear I owned, and just barely covered my ankles. I hoped my graduation robe would be long enough to hide the disaster. "I swear I haven't worn these things since my freshmen year Decades Dance."

"It shows. I could hear the fabric chaffing from halfway down the hall," April taunted, going as far as to slide her dry palms together in auditory mimicry of my thighs.

I threw the pillow at her. It bounced off her forehead, landing with an underwhelming thud onto the ground. "Asshole."

"Rude," she tutted back. "Mind respecting someone else property for once, Bow-Bow?"

"Aunt Jenny warned me that she has a fresh roll of film with her." I turned onto my side, ignoring April's snipe in favour of running a finger along her nightstand. I frowned at the dust, at the general uncharacteristic messiness of my sister's room. "Make sure to keep a smile plastered on your face at all times."