Very Bad Things (Briarwood Academy 1)

“Sweet,” Sebastian said, whistling as he let me in. “Got a hot date tonight?”

I wiggled my eyebrows like he always did. “I might get lucky.”

“Mm-hmm,” he said, watching me with an interesting expression. I started to ask him what that look meant . . .

Just then the buzzer rang.

“That’ll be Mila,” I said eagerly. Since I’d been leaving school early, we hadn’t had a chance to catch up.

She bounced in, and I swear she looked like a teenage Laura Bush, wearing pearls, a pink velveteen tailored jacket and a pleated chiffon skirt. She’d flung a pink Coach bag over her arm, and I wanted to hug her she was so cute.

I introduced them and her eyes widened, taking in Sebastian’s tall form and blue eyes.

Wait until she met the full-sized version.

“Alrighty then, let’s head up to the loft. Leo’s date brought appetizers for us to try, and he wants to meet Mila,” he said. I noticed when he had said date, his eyes had locked on mine, like he was assessing my reaction.

“You didn’t mention how frickin’ hot Sebastian is. I’m pissed I don’t have any classes with him. By the way, your hair is sweet. So glad you went the Monte Carlo Red and not the blue,” Mila whispered to me as we followed Sebastian up the stairs.

“It was called Midnight Indigo.”

She scrunched her nose. “Whatever. Blue hair is strange.”

When we walked in the spacious kitchen, Leo was laughing down at the petite twenty-something-year-old that had been with him at the park. Up close, I could see she was pretty in polished, confident way, with lots of make-up and manicured nails. She looked relatively normal, too; I couldn’t compete with that.

I watched them, remembering how he didn’t want me. Even though he wasn’t mine, I wanted to pummel her with my fists; I wanted to rip out all her long dark hair. Which looked like extensions.

I stood there uncomfortably until Sebastian eased up beside me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I leaned back against him.

Leo saw us, stiffened, and quickly looked away. I wondered if it was going to be weird between us. It’d been a week since our movie. I’d seen him a couple of times, once when I’d dropped off Sebastian from eating out and once when I’d come to deliver some muffins he’d ordered from Aunt Portia’s. He’d been cordial then, yet detached, his eyes looking everywhere except at me.

He sat down his bottle of Corona. “Guys, this is Tiffany. She works for the catering company that’s doing the food for the grand opening,” he said. “Tiffany, this is Nora and her friend . . . Mila?”

Mila nodded, a dazed and goofy expression on her face. I wasn’t surprised my normally loquacious friend was suddenly struck quiet. Leo could do that.

“They’re both attending Briarcrest Academy with Sebastian.”

Tiffany smiled at us, showing her super white teeth. She raked her gaze over me and Mila, and I assumed mentally dismissed us as no competition. “Oh, really! How charming!” she exclaimed in a true, slow-talking Texas drawl.

Charming. Seriously, do people in their twenties use that word in conversation? I mean, I had a large vocabulary and used words no one else did, but charming just seemed pretentious. I cocked my head and studied her, trying to see what he saw in her.

She kept talking in her dulcet tones. “By the way, it’s Tiffani-with-an-i,” she said, giving us a smile that showcased her dimples. Gag.

As she chatted about her own years in high school, I did the calculations in my head and figured she was only three or four years older than me. I glared at Leo. This was the kind of girl he went for: fake with big tits?

He finally glanced at me, his eyes scanning over my skimpy dress and when he raked both hands through his blond hair furiously, I knew he was fuming about something. I shrugged and took a page from the stupid girl book and flicked my hair over my shoulder.

“Leo,” Tiffani-with-an-i purred, running her hand possessively across his shoulder and down to his bicep, “you’ve got to tell me what machines you use to get this defined. You feel so hard,” she told him teasingly and glanced over at me with a smug look. I looked back in confusion, not understanding her sudden animosity.

She pouted at Leo. “But I only want you to show me how to use them, not one of those mean trainers I’ve seen,” she said, shuddering theatrically.

“Tiffani here is a big fan of astrology,” Sebastian stated suddenly, his mouth twitching. “She’s getting an online license to be an accredited astrological consultant.”

“What like a psychic?” Mila scoffed. “Is that a real thing?”

Tiffani-with-an-i sniffed. “For your information, tarot cards are a science, and I can tell the future.”

“All for nineteen ninety-nine per minute,” Sebastian muttered under his breath, and I covered my laugh with a cough. Mila patted me on the back.

“Hey, aren’t you Ellen Blakely’s daughter, from Good Morning, Dallas?” she asked, her eyes squinting at me.

I stiffened. “Yes.”

“I knew it! I worked with your mother once when she did a cooking segment, and I got to make my spinach quiches on her show! She’s classy, absolutely divine.” She smirked, her eyes flashing over my dress. “Funny that you look nothing like her.”

“Yes.” Thank God.

“You were there that day,” she said as she shook her finger at me, “but I almost didn’t recognize you with the red hair. And, wow, you were a bit of a chunk then, no offense. How much weight did you lose?”