Blue Bloods (Blue Bloods 1)

"Schuyler Van Alen?" Schuyler replied. Why did she do that? Why couldn't she be more confident? "I mean, I'm Schuyler," she said, frantically brushing her bangs away from her eyes.

"Are you interested in modeling?"

"Her - a model?" Mimi spat from the sidelines where she was filling out the Farnsworth client contract. She eyed Schuyler balefully.

"Shhh," Bliss said, embarrassed enough to elbow Mimi for once.

Schuyler overheard them. She looked down at what she was wearing torn black stockings with ladders in both knees (already rating her a dress code demerit), a loose-fitting floral granny-dress with a drop waist, chunky gray socks because she couldn't find her black ones, her duct-taped sneakers, and a pair of half-moon glasses. Plus, she hadn't washed her hair in weeks. It's not like she would even want to be a model, so Mimi had nothing to worry about. A secret part of her was desperately flattered, although she tried not to be overly vain about her looks.

"No, I don't think so," Schuyler replied, smiling apologetically.

"But you have the look of a young Kate Moss!" Linda Farnsworth argued. "Can I take a Polaroid?"

Linda took a photo with her camera before Schuyler could protest.

Schuyler shielded her eyes. "Okay ..."

"Write your number down here. You don't need to sign, but if we find a designer who wants to use you, I'll call you, is that all right?"

"I guess." She agreed, scribbling her number down without a second thought. "Look, I really have to go."

Mimi glared at Schuyler and stalked off, her nose in the air. Bliss hung back and caught Schuyler's eye. "Congrats, by the way," Bliss said quietly. "I got picked, too."

"Uh, yeah, thanks, I guess," Schuyler said, shocked that anyone who hung around Mimi Force would even talk to her.

"Are you headed to art?" Bliss asked in a friendly way.

"Er ..." Schuyler hesitated, not sure what the Texan girl wanted. To her relief, she noticed Oliver by the water fountain and turned away from Bliss without giving her a second thought.

"Hey there," she said.

"Oh, hey, Sky," he greeted her, looping an arm around her thin shoulders. They walked up the back stairs hidden in the administration corridor to the garret room for art class. Dylan was already there and grinning at them from behind his potters' wheel. He had an apron around his waist and his hands were covered in mud up to his elbows.

"Don't you just love getting dirty?" he asked.

They snickered approvingly and took a seat on each side of him. Schuyler set up her easel and Oliver took out his woodcuts. Neither of them noticed Bliss Llewellyn across the room, watching the three of them intensely.

In between brushstrokes, Schuyler happened to look up and saw Jack Force leaning over Kitty Mullins's table, admiring her sculpture of a Siamese cat. She noticed a telltale hickey on Kitty's neck.

She wasn't the only one who saw them. Oliver raised his eyebrows but made no comment, and she was glad. She guessed Jack had found a girlfriend. Schuyler wondered if he was passing her oblique notes in class. Huh. That sure hadn't taken him long. She felt a wave of irritation prickling at her consciousness, but she brushed it away.

Oliver mimed hacking at Jack's back with an invisible axe. She smothered a laugh and put Jack Force out of her mind once and for all.

CHAPTER 14

Bliss looked up from her canvas. Their art teacher was gesturing effusively over her landscape, but she wasn't listening. Her gaze kept drifting across the room, to where Dylan was sitting.

He hadn't even made any indication that he noticed her. Sure, he was perfectly friendly whenever they bumped into each other. And that was the problem - he was simply friendly. Maybe they hadn't even kissed at the Met that afternoon after all. Maybe nothing had happened. Maybe he'd lost interest, which was a blow to her ego as well as her psyche.

It was just so unfair, especially since she was now totally obsessed with him. She was starting to think about him way too much for just a casual friend-who-wasn't-even-in-her-clique. The actor had called, the model had begged for a date, but all she could think about was the way Dylan's dark sideburns curled around his ears, and the way he'd looked at her with his big, sad eyes. She could tell he was the kind of boy who broke the rules and let anything happen, and she liked that about him. It excited her.

She watched him interact with his friends - that goth girl who'd just been chosen as a model, and that cute, skinny guy with the shaggy hair - and felt a pang of jealousy. Dylan was clowning around, throwing mud at them, but they didn't seem to mind. The three of them seemed to be having a lot of fun.

When class was over, there was a bottleneck at the door - since the stairway was so narrow, everyone had to go single file. Bliss found herself standing right next to Dylan. She smiled at him tentatively. "Hey."

"Apr��s vous, Madame," he said gallantly, offering her the way.

She nodded her thanks, lingering to see if he would say anything else - maybe even ask her out again. But he didn't say a word. She walked down the stairs alone while he waited for his friends. She felt defeated.