As I sit with my blush brush held up to my cheek in one hand, I frown at what Ivy is saying. As always, she is the rational one, but I happen to agree with Harlow, my other sister. This has gone on long enough, and something needs to be done about Jeremy.
The nerve of that egotistical bastard. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be sitting here trying to use makeup I had little interest in and thinking about what could be done about the cocky male. Just because his father runs this town doesn't give him the right to be an absolute asshole.
I grumble a little, agreeing with Low's vehement diatribe that Jeremy is going to get what's coming to him, even if we have to take drastic measures.
"...I say we take a baseball bat to his precious Mercedes and let the blows fall where they may," Harlow says as she beats a fist against the top of my dresser, making the contents tremble and a stuffed beanie baby to fall over onto its side. She looks quite pleased with herself, though I'm not certain if Ivy will care to listen for much longer. Usually, she lets Low have her say for a bit and then cuts her off to give her version of "sound advice". I am not surprised when I hear Ivy take a deep sigh, which makes me certain she is winding up for a long-winded speech.
I immediately tune out as I know how it's going to go. The same motherly advice she would give Low all the time when she has a new, more-involved harebrained scheme. Thinking back to the start of the whole situation, though, I can't help but think, this is worth it.
And since we are identical triplets, the idea Harlow places before us is almost certain to work.
Ivy is the responsible one--the one that takes little to no chances. Harlow is mischievous and sneaky. Although the oldest, I sort of fit somewhere in the middle. I don't look for trouble, but I don't sidestep it when it comes my way either.
Enter Jeremy Sinclair, the mayor's son and basketball star at our high school. The boy thinks he's King Shit of Turd Hill, and his loyal subjects must listen and bow down to his every whim.
Sickening. Honestly, the longer I think about it, the more I come down on Harlow's side with her meanderings on grave injustice and letting the chips fall where they may.
And at least it would be entertaining to watch.
Always the flightier one of the bunch, I let Low ramble on as my mind wanders, thinking about how life was so different, so much stabler for humans hundreds of years ago. That was when no one knew about supernaturals and we thought humans were the most dangerous beings on the planet. Next we'll be invaded by aliens, I suppose, or maybe the zombie apocalypse will happen like people have been predicting for centuries.
A little less than two hundred years ago, a video came out on the internet. At first, people thought it was all a joke, albeit an elaborate, very convincing one. It showed a man shifting into a wolf-type creature on two legs, and the beast appeared to almost rip off the head of a man who had been arguing with him, blood splashing everywhere.
It was an internet sensation, the media latching onto it first, and even the president at the time took interest and had it analyzed by experts from all around the world. The consensus was the same everywhere: it wasn't fake, and things beyond our limited comprehension truly did exist.
After that, the different supernaturals came out of the woodwork and admitted that, yes, they did indeed exist, but assured the humans they meant us no harm. It was like aliens had beamed themselves down and had thrown down the gauntlet. People were scared, and war between humans and the supernaturals--whom many call supes--rained down on all the world. It was brief but bloody, and in the end, the supes won. They allied themselves together, and with the likes of the fae and witches, who could have predicted anything other than a supernatural world where humans were now the lower-ranked intelligent species?
If you ask me, I would have told you it wasn't smart to tempt fate with a life form you knew little to nothing about. But I wasn't even a gleam in my father's eye in 2130, so there was no one to ask Genevieve Collier what she had to say about waging war on an unknown and powerful race of sentient creatures.
Wolves, lycans, witches, vampires, the fae--you name it and it existed. Still exist actually, though the most powerful are the fae with their completely magical bodies, the lycans with their powerfully muscular physiques, and the vampires with their faster than lightning reflexes and fierce grips. They could toss a car across a parking lot and act like it was simply a banana peel they had thrown away instead of a two-ton heap of metal. I was in awe of them the most, although Low fancied herself to catch a lycan mate for whatever reason. I think she just read too many fantasy novels, which ironically can no longer be shunted into that category at the local library. Fantasy was, ironically, the new reality and had been for 170 years.
How do humans fare in the present year of 2300? Well, not as badly as you might think. We still have the same laws and same rights as we did in the 20th and 21st centuries, only we do not have the same rulers. There is no president, no prime ministers, each of the supernatural species having their own ruling monarchy. Kings and queens, which kind of sounds silly in some instances, though not all supernatural creatures keep to that particular model.
It seems that storybooks were true all along regarding things like mates and the bond between soulmates. If it wasn't already shocking enough to know that the things of nightmares--or in Low's case, wet dreams--exist, I would have been bowled over with an excess of information.
Does not compute.
Or something like that.
Though our small town of Lakeview, Illinois is mostly human, the rare--at least to Lakeview--supernatural sightings can be heard about every few months. We may not see much of them as we aren't exactly a tourist trap, but there is the occasional whisper of a vampire or faerie being seen. Low constantly complains about this as she is fascinated with them, and often bothers our parents to go and visit our Uncle Stephen, who happens to be mated to a vampire named Elise who lives in Imperium in the Napa Valley region of the state. Although she is the principal of the local supernatural high school, she also dabbles in wine and owns a mid-sized but prestigious vineyard there.
Can vampires drink wine? I almost want to jump on Harlow's bandwagon and request a visit there just to find out.
"I just think my idea's better," Low is saying as I'm pulled out of musings when she slams her curled up fist against the top of my dresser. This time it knocks off my hairbrush, a couple of small but well-loved stuffed animals, and a tube of lipstick.
"Let's just stick to the date," Ivy says. If I didn't know any better, I would think that she's silently vowing, for now, and that Low almost has her convinced. I'm sure if our first idea falls through, it won't be that difficult to bully her into taking part in Low's devious scheme.
"I don't see why we have to take part in it at all," I say, airing my own lackadaisical opinion. I'm merely playing devil's advocate to see where they both land. "Jeremy's hardly worth it, and it's not like he's worth the effort we'd have to make to get revenge on him asking us all out on Valentine's Day. I'm sure he's merely made a bet with someone and we're playing into his hands perfectly if we go through with our dates tomorrow."
"Oh, Vee, I thought you'd come up on my side at least this once," Low whined. "You know he has a competitive streak, and here he is trying to convince us all to date and probably sleep with him."
She somehow thinks I'm always against her brilliant ideas, but I usually follow along, so I'm not sure where she gets the idea that I hardly ever side with her. It's maddening.
I give her a look to let her know how disgusted I am by the notion of sleeping with Jeremy, and her lips quirk up to show the bit of playfulness that's always just beneath the surface. Since her date is first tomorrow, I know she's chomping at the bit to see the culmination of her so-called date with the popular jock.
I couldn't care less. I wouldn't sleep with the asshole if he had the only available dick in town and my choices were to either screw him or become a lesbian. Or a nun. Yeah, I think I'd prefer that over taking his tiny dick inside me or eating pussy.
"If it was up to me, I would've said no altogether," I tell her. "As in no, thank you. I'd rather copulate with a flatulent rhinoceros kind of way."
Her nose crinkles up and I want to laugh. Since we look identical--except for me preferring to put my long brown hair up in a messy bun all the time--it's always odd to see her doing something that I can't say I'm feeling at the moment.
When I look in the mirror, I see the same, long, straight, chestnut-colored hair as my sisters, the same sparkling green eyes, Low's rimmed with charcoal-colored liner more often than not. We've been told we were quite pretty, and we share the same hourglass figures and flat tummies. I wish I could say my ass was a bit bigger, but I still fill out a bikini quite nicely, so I'm not going to complain.
While I have a tendency to put my hair up in a bun or ponytail, both Low and Ivy keep their long tresses free of the confinement of a scrunchie, but I'll have to tamp down the urge tomorrow if Low's idea about the dates works. I have a tendency to push my hair behind my ears. I hate having it fly into my face.
"Gross, Vee." She looks disapproving, but it slides off my back just as it always does.
"So what do you want to do?" I ask, placing my brush down with only half my face made up. "I've been on very few dates, unlike you, you blowjob hussy." I narrow my eyes at her, but I'm only kidding.
"That was one time!" she refutes, her face flushing an angry red as her posture stiffens. "And you know it was a dare!"
Poor Harlow. She hates losing, even if it's only a dare or a bet.
The one time she went down on a guy was at a party where they played Truth or Dare. She was dared to give this guy a blowjob, and being the good girl she is, they all thought she wouldn't go through with it. When she did, it blew their minds.
Uhm--pun intended, of course.
"Whatever, you had dick breath for a week afterwards." I smirk, unable to help myself. "Anyway, what is the plan? Cocktease, or do we play the demure little female who's never even been kissed?"
While I hadn't dated much, I had kissed a few guys, mostly at parties when I'd had a bit of alcohol. I wasn't a big fan of the stuff, but beer just tasted bitter, and I'd had no clue that the punch had been spiked.
"I say we get him so damn horny that he has to beat off in between dates." Low's smile is absolutely malicious, and I almost feel bad for Jeremy.
Okay, that is a lie. And I kind of like her idea.
"Kissing or no?" I ask.
"At the end of the date."
"I'm scrubbing my mouth out with Listerine if I'm kissing him after he kisses you," Ivy states, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
"Never said there had to be tongue," Low quips before moving on.
"No fondling." I'm strict on that. I'm not touching his tiny prick even if he was suited up like an eskimo. I'd have to chop off my hands as they would never feel completely clean again.
"Okay, but can he touch us?" Low seems to be thinking about it deeply when Ivy and I exclaim "no!" at the same exact time.
"Fine, fine," she mutters and starts to pace the carpeted floor of the room. When she stops after a few moments, it's like a lightbulb goes off over her head.
Oh, God, no.
She has that look. The look that she has a brilliant idea and I'm not going to like it one bit. It will probably be evil and sinister and all the other words I usually save to describe Satanists and murderers and those people that try to get you to convert to their religion by going door to door dressed in suits and their Sunday best.
"Ivy..." I'm afraid to move. "She's got that look again."
"Run?"
I shake my head.
Too late.