Page 44 of On His Schedule
“Come on,” Gianna begs.
“Okay,” I mutter.
“Yes!” Gianna grabs my wrist and pulls me toward my bedroom. “We’re picking your outfit.”
“I have to put eyeliner on you,” Mara says.
“I haven’t even showered.”
Gianna says, “Take the quickest shower of your life.”
Twelve minutes later, I stand in front of the mirror in my bedroom. I’m in my dark jeans and the black top Gianna made me buy in July that I haven’t ever worn. My hair is down and a little damp. Mara applied eyeliner on me like she’s been doing everyone’s eyeliner since high school. My cheeks are pink, probably from all that crying.
“Ready?”
I look at her in the mirror. Her mascara is fixed now. She has on the silver hoops she always wears when she’s going out. “I don’t know.”
“It’ll be okay.”
I look down, feeling a bit emotionally numb now that the tears have subsided.
Mara jumps up from my bed. “Let’s go.”
I pick up my phone off the dresser, put it in my back pocket, and follow them out the door.
Chapter 9
Benson
Ihitprint.Theprinter wheezes once and starts sliding it out — twenty by thirty, in the bright red Blue wanted, with the words across it in a font we picked because it looked the most like an actual house rule someone would type up unironically.
HAWTHORNE HOUSE RULES1. NO FALLING IN LOVE BEFORE THE DRAFT— per Stanley J. Ermington, August 26. Ratified by majority vote.
Blue picks it up off the printer tray and holds it up at arm’s length.
“That’s the one.”
I nod, staring at it. “That’s the one.”
“This is going to piss him off.”
I press my lips together. “Or make him laugh.”
From the dining room, in a neutral voice, Percy adds, “I bet he’s secretly in love with a girl, so he’s going to lose his mind when he sees it.” He’s at the table with our largest punchbowl in front of him. He has a handle of rum, a handle of vodka, three two-liter bottles of Sprite, a bag of frozen mango chunks, and a single cut lime.
“That’s thepoint,Pers,” Blue says, walking the poster over to the laminator.
“Mm.”
Rowan comes through the back door with a case of beer on each shoulder and stops, looks at the poster, looks at me, looks at Blue. “Boys.”
“Yeah?” I mutter.
Rowan says, staring at the poster, “I want it noted, on the record, that I think this is going to backfire on you both.”
“Noted, Laurens.”
Blue, sliding the poster into the laminator. “Rowan. Take the W.”
