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The next morning while I'm brushing my hair in front of the mirror, I notice Amber's reflection jumping onto my bed and asking me excitedly, "Ashley, have you seen what Alfie gave me for my birthday lately? It's gorgeous, isn't it?"
I set my hairbrush down, turning to look at her. She's gazing at the clunky bracelet with a lot of admiration. "You've showed it to me twenty times since he gave it to you," I remind her with a chuckle. "So I take you're not mad at him anymore about the bacon flavored dental floss?" Amber doesn't give any acknowledgement she heard me, just keeps staring at the bracelet. "Amber. Hey, earth to Amber!"
Amber barely manages to dodge the makeup brush I throw at her to get her attention. "You don't have to throw things at me, you know."
"That bracelet is not pretty enough for you to zone out while I'm talking to you."
She gasps dramatically and throws the makeup brush back at me. Fortunately, I manage to catch it before it hits my head. She puts her hand—the one that's got the bracelet—over her heart. "Ashley Adams, how dare you?" She puts emphasis on the last three words, taking breaths in between.
I smile widely at her before deciding to change the subject. "So, have you figured out who Mara's mystery boyfriend is? It's really strange she won't tell us his name."
Amber nods. "It is. She refuses to tell me. I'm really offended by it. I mean, I'm a great matchmaker. I've match-made her before. Why won't she say anything?"
"Who knows? But she did say he goes to the school, which ought to narrow it down a bit. So maybe we'll be able to figure it out if we catch her giving stolen glances to some boy who is actually her new boyfriend."
"Stolen glances, how romantic," Amber muses. She gets up from my bed and grabs her blazer from the end of hers. "I'm going down to breakfast."
"I'll be down in a minute," I reply. Amber nods and happily leaves the room, still admiring that new bracelet of hers. I really need to figure out where Alfie got it from, because it doesn't look like something you'd find at your local shopping center. And it looks really old, too. There are two knocks on the door as I stand, and Joy comes into the room. "Oh, hey, Joy."
"Hey, Ash," Joy greets. "I've got something for you."
"Is it chocolate? Tell me it's chocolate."
Joy blankly stares at me. "No." She hands me the paper in her hands. "As you well know, Fabian needs us right now, and us girls need to look out for him. So, I drew up a rotor. That's yours."
I raise an eyebrow at her, scanning the words on the paper. Leave it to Joy Mercer. "Why do 'us girls' need to look out for him? What about the boys?"
"Do you really expect the boys to do anything on that list?"
"Good point," I concede, glancing back to the paper. "'Make sure he gets a healthy breakfast?' Does Trudy ever make breakfast anything less than healthy?"
"That one's on all of our lists," she informs me. "Yours is pretty much the same as mine, except you've got 'keep going insane with heartbreak' and I don't. I do have 'make sure Fabian stays happy' on mine. You don't have that."
"What's the difference?"
"You keep him distracted, I keep him happy. It's simple."
"You gave one of these to the other girls?"
Joy nods. "Everyone except for KT. I figured since she's new here and doesn't know him well, it wouldn't be the best idea. Hey—actually, you've been close with her. Any idea why she would ask if Victor gives things he's confiscated from us back? Did he take something from her?"
I shrug. "Don't know."
She hums and grabs my arm. "Well, let's get started on the rotor, shall we? Down to breakfast before Fabes is." I quickly grab my bag before she drags me out of my bedroom, linking her arm with mine. "Oh, and did you know that Patricia dumped Eddie and not the other way around?"
"Yeah. I mean, Eddie tried to act all cool about it like he was the one who broke it off, but it was really obvious it wasn't him. He was trying to act too cool."
"Do you know why she dumped him?"
"He didn't say, I didn't ask."
By now we've entered the dining room for breakfast. We're about two seconds late to making it down here before Fabian because we actually saw him come in before us. Alfie and Amber are both here as well, both already seated. I take my seat at the end of the table, glancing to what used to be Nina's chair. Probably KT's now.
Amber looks at Fabian with sympathetic eyes. "Are you feeling okay today, Fabian?"
Patricia enters, and Joy instructs, "Amber, he'll have a warm croissant and some jam. Patricia, get him some juice."
As the aforementioned pair do what they were told, Fabian protests, "No, Patricia, no, no, Joy, really. I'm okay."
"Is he sick or something?" Alfie questions.
"Alfie," Joy berates, giving him a look. "Don't be so insensitive."
"What?" Alfie says again. Patricia mouths Nina's name to him and only now does he seem to finally understand what's going on. "Oh! Look, Fabian, I've got the perfect thing to take your mind off Nina." I physically face-palm while Joy tells him to stop mentioning Nina. "No, look, here it is." He take some paper out of his blazer pocket, offering it to Fabian. "It's, like, a coded message or something."
If it piques my interest, then it definitely should pique Fabian's. But as Joy happily takes it and offers it to Fabian, he scrunches his nose up and declines, "Oh, Alfie, not now."
Joy frowns, handing it back to Alfie as he asks, "You sure? It seems like the kind of thing Sibuna should be on the case for."
She beams and takes the coded message back, turning back to our nerdy, heartbroken friend we seem to be failing to help. "Fabian!"
Amber has been in the kitchen and tells her over the counter, "Joy, you know, technically speaking, you're not actually a Sibuna."
"Technically, Amber," Joy retorts, "I think you'll find I am."
I open my mouth to point out to Amber how much Joy helped us with the giant senet game in the tunnels last year and how she is sort of a Sibuna (uninitiated, but still) now, but Fabian states decisively before I get a chance to, "No. How many more times? There is no Sibuna without Nina."
"Fabian, I know you feel like this now, but give it some time."
"In the meantime," I add, and Joy nods at me encouragingly, "maybe we should check out that coded message. Sounds curious, doesn't it, Fabian?"
Fabian shakes his head, and I slouch back. A phone starts to ring in the room and Amber, still in the kitchen, asks, "Alfie, can you get that for me?"
Alfie reaches across the table to grab her phone. He hits the answer button and puts it to his ear, greeting whoever's on the other end in a slightly stuck-up tone, "Hello, Amber Millington's phone. Alfred speaking." I chuckle to myself. Alfie's faux voice drops as he adds, more serious, "Um, I say, the signal's not too great in here. Let me just move to another room." He stands and tells Amber, "It's all right, it's just business stuff. You don't need to worry about it."
A bit odd, but it's Alfie. I shrug to myself as Alfie steps out into the hall. KT enters through the kitchen door about a minute later, glancing around. She comes through to the table and asks Fabian, "Hey, have you seen Eddie?"
"Last time I saw him," Fabian answers, "he was heading to the bathroom."
From her end of the table, Patricia remarks dryly, "I wouldn't hang around Eddie so much if I were you."
"Yeah, I'm beginning to realize that," KT replies as she sits in the chair beside mine.
"Why, why, what's he done now?" Patricia inquires. I think the easier question would be what hasn't he done, given that he's Eddie. "Has he asked you out? 'Cause if so, be careful. He's a rat."
KT responds without missing a beat, "FYI, I know that he's your ex, and this is bound to be awkward, but I'm not even remotely interested in Eddie."
"I never even said you were interested. But even if you were, it wouldn't bother me."
At this point of the conversation, Joy, Fabian, Amber, and I are looking between the two of them like it's some kind of tennis match. KT doesn't seem very caught off guard by Patricia. If only we had popcorn.
"Good to know," KT says quietly, something of a glare in her brown eyes.
A tense silence falls, and I break it with a clearing of my throat. "Well, uh," I start, raising my eyebrows, "now that that's done, let's play a new game called: let's stay away from that conversation."
Luckily for the purposes of staying away from that conversation, which seems like it probably would have escalated if it had continued, Alfie comes back in humming with his arms held in front of him like he's Frankenstein's Monster. Jerome follows him in, giving him a weird look, and pauses to kiss the top of my head—therefore causing me to smile—and sitting down in his usual seat.
"Where have you been?" Amber asks Alfie. "Who was it?"
"It was a wrong number," Alfie answers shortly.
Again, a bit odd. But he definitely seems off now, like something happened between his answering Amber's phone for her to right now to upset him. Is it just me or there a lot going on in the house this morning? Mara walks in, heading straight into the kitchen.
Eddie comes in a few seconds later, greeting, "Morning."
KT stands immediately. "We need to talk."
Okay, what happened last night? What did I miss?
"Oh, and she says she's not interested," Patricia snarks.
I smile mockingly at her, waving at her. "How's the green-eyed-monster doing this morning, Trixie? Are you feeding it enough vitamin c?" As expected, Patricia ignores me, and the only one who actually acknowledges the remark is Jerome, who throws me a half-sarcastic, half-sincere thumbs-up.
KT asks her, "Excuse me?"
"Eh, I'm just saying you should be careful, that's all," Patricia replies.
"And why is that?"
"Because Eddie is the kind of guy that writes fake breakup letters from ex-girlfriends and passes them off to his best mate," Patricia states. As everyone else gives Eddie inquisitive looks, I sigh lightly and shake my head. I swear, of every stupid thing Eddie's ever done, that's got to be way up there. "That's why."
"Okay, Patricia, cool it, all right?" Eddie retorts. "She already knows about the letter. Plus, I mean, she sort of helped me write it, so..."
"Oh, 'cause that's the best thing to say right now," I mutter. Definitely the stupidest thing he's ever done.
KT's eyebrows raise at Eddie's admission, which put her in the spotlight. Both Patricia and Joy ask, "What?" and Patricia stands, now very obviously mad as her eyes narrow at the new girl. "You pretended to be Nina?"
"No, of course not," KT denies.
"No, Patricia, it wasn't like that," Eddie insists.
But Patricia continues, "Do you get a kick out of upsetting people or something?"
KT's much calmer than Patricia as she tries to defuse the situation, "I have no idea what you're talking about, but please back off."
Then Patricia's intentions immediately become clear as she picks up her glass of orange juice. You know, I don't know why I would have expected anything different from her, because the girl's definitely got a reputation for this by now.
"Oh, no," I mumble with a shake of my head, jumping up from my chair (which is right beside the target of the orange juice). The others make similar statements as we all try to find a way to protect ourselves from the oncoming pouring. My solution, as previously mentioned, is getting up and directly taking myself out of the line of fire.
"Take cover, Patricia's getting riled!" Alfie exclaims, pulling his blazer over his head.
"Too early for this," Jerome adds, slouching in his seat.
Patricia walks down to KT's end of the table. "What kind of snake does that type of thing? Who do you think you are?"
"You need to leave me alone," KT tells her. "Please."
That's when Patricia throws the contents of the cup at her. Yeah, this is definitely a pattern now. Orange juice is now covering KT's uniform, face, and hair, and Patricia looks pleased. Well... at least it's over now and can't really get any worse.
"Yeah, she does that," Joy informs.
"And I," KT picks up her bowl of cereal, "do that!"
With that, KT throws the cereal in the bowl at Patricia. My mouth drops open at the display, trying to hold back a shocked laugh. KT storms out, taking Eddie with her by grabbing his arm. Oh, my God. Oh. My. God!
"That was brilliant," Jerome comments, suitably impressed.
What just happened?
—
"I'm designing a wedding dress and outfits for an underwater ceremony for fifteen scuba divers," Amber tells Mara and me in our room as we all sit beside each other on Amber's bed. She's telling us about her summer at fashion school in New York. She certainly had a fun time there. "It wasn't exactly easy."
"I can imagine," Mara remarks, glancing around her to me. I shrug.
"But I managed it, and they loved it."
"Fashion school sounds amazing, Amber."
The door suddenly slams open and Alfie comes in, exclaiming, "No, it doesn't! It sounds awful! What are you playing at, Mara, filling her impressionable head with your pro-fashion school poison? And you, Ashley, encouraging Mara filling her impressionable-head with her pro-fashion school poison?"
I raise an eyebrow at him. Amber asks, "Were you listening at the door?"
"A little bit," Alfie confirms. The three of us share matching eye-rolls as we stand from the bed. We should probably be getting off to school now unless we want to be late. "Amber, I need to talk to you...in private."
Mara and I exchange a look before we leave the room together. She closes the door behind us so Amber and Alfie can chat in private and remarks, "He's acting weird."
"It's Alfie," I point out. "When isn't he?"
"I know, but still."
I shrug again as we leave the girls' corridor and head down the stairs together. Jerome is coming out of the kitchen and suddenly has a wide smile on his face as he greets us, "Mara, do you mind if I steal my girlfriend?" Without waiting for an answer from her (not that I think he would've listened), he pulls me away by wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
"I do mind!" Mara calls as Jerome pulls me out of the house. "But it's fine, I'll just walk to school alone."
A laugh falls out of my mouth. By now, he's taken me around the house rather than the actual path to school. "That was kind of mean, Jerome."
"Oh, she'll recover," Jerome replies.
He grabs my face and presses his lips against mine in a hard kiss, while at the same time pressing me against the side of the house. Caught by surprise, but entirely welcoming it, I return it and grab the front of his blazer, drawing him closer to me. But like I've said—interruptions seem to be par for the course here.
"Hey!"
"Oh, don't be for us, don't be for us..." I mutter against his lips, trailing off as Jerome pulls back to see. I open my eyes and lean my head against the brick, letting out a soft sigh.
Jerome shakes his head. "Not for us. Mara and some guy." Some guy—more like secret boyfriend! He makes a move to kiss me again, but I duck out of the way and look around the corner of the building to see this guy. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out who Mara's new boyfriend is," I retort. "Telling me you're not at all curious about the mystery guy Mara didn't even tell Patricia or Joy about? Come on, where's the nosy Jerome Clarke I know and love?"
"Currently distracted by his insanely beautiful girlfriend."
Ignoring the light heat I feel on my face (seriously, how is he the only person who has ever managed to get me to blush like this?!), I turn my eyes back to the front of the house. Jerome sighs and looks as well, one hand on my shoulder and the other on my waist. We watch as the new guy, whoever he is, picks Mara up and spins her around right before giving her a sweet kiss. When they pull apart, I can see his face clearly enough to recognize him.
"Is that—"
"Atticus Monroe? I'm pretty sure."
Atticus Monroe is one of the most popular (and admittedly one of the hottest, but Jerome's definitely hotter—don't tell him I said that, you'll never get his ego back to normal) boys in school. He also happens to be one of the resident troublemakers. I'm still surprised he hasn't been expelled yet. He's in Hathor House and most definitely isn't someone I would have ever pictured Mara with.
"Mara's dating Atticus Monroe," Jerome states with raised eyebrows. I nod, looking back to the unexpected couple. Wow. He's the guy she described as really sweet? Atticus Monroe?! "That's...not what I would have expected from her. Let's get to school."
( right so this atticus monroe character's the person who's taking jerome's place in the cheating storyline — which i still don't really get?? but that's another thing — bc like i said i didn't want to take it out entirely and obviously it wasn't gonna happen with jashley. he's more mentioned than seen within the fic but there is a Fun Recurring Gag imo that happens the few times he does show up and interact with ash sdhfgkjl )