Bookish and the Beast - Ashley Poston Page 0,22

made everything worse.

I always make everything worse.

THE DISMISSAL BELL SHRILLS and I slam closed my notebook and shove it into my bag. Miss Rayna bookmarks our spot in Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and shouts at us to finish the novel. A few students grumble about having to read about sparkly vampires, but the teacher quickly tells them, “As if a ring of invisibility is any more believable—there’ll be a quiz tomorrow on the differing mythos between Dracula and Twilight!”

That was met with even more groans. I’d already read both books, so I just needed a refresher course in Dracula. Maybe I could rent the 1992 movie tonight. I always did fancy Keanu Reeves…

Pulling my bag over my shoulder, I hurry out of the classroom to meet Annie and Quinn.

“I can’t believe you get to read Twilight in honors class while I had to suffer through Huck Finn,” Quinn says as they meticulously file down their beautiful clawlike nails, leaning beside Annie’s locker. “It’s honestly not fair.”

“We also had to read Dracula, though,” I point out as I jerk open my locker, “which is drier than my love life.”

Annie and I have had lockers beside each other since middle school. It’s the curse of having T names—Thorne and Trout. Annie says, “Well, there are some one-hander bodice-rippers I can lend you for that.”

“Oh, gross.” Quinn wrinkles their nose.

Annie shrugs. “Just saying.” She takes out her book and closes her locker. “Okay, so I have a crazy idea and I need you both to be super-ultra-supportive of it.”

Quinn and I both eye her hesitantly. The last time Annie had an idea we had to be supportive of, she shaved off her brother’s arm hair and it never grew back right. Quinn finally says, “Okay, let’s hear it.”

So Annie flips open her notebook and presents us with a list titled HOW TO BECOME HOMECOMING ROYALTY.

“Oh no,” Quinn whispers as I look around for somewhere—anywhere—to hide.

“Quinn will become Homecoming royalty instead, preventing one Garrett Taylor from becoming Homecoming King and guilt-tripping you into becoming his date. It’s a bulletproof plan,” Annie says triumphantly. Then she tears out the list, and I realize she’s written it down three times. She hands each of us a sheet and pushes up her glasses, like the nerdy hero of her own rom-com. “Operation Royally Screwed is a go!”

I scan down the list. “This is a terrible idea.”

“Who says I even want to be Homecoming King?” Quinn says, closing the locker door. “It’s sexist.”

“Then who better to be crowned than our favorite nonbinary Overlord?”

Annie has a good point, one that I don’t really like, but Quinn seems to have taken the bait. “Overlord, you say?”

“And you get a crown.”

“I always did like overthrowing the patriarchy,” they muse. “Okay, I’m in. This calls for a trip to the library, I believe.”

Annie nods gravely. “We need the help of Space Dad.”

I grimace and shove Twilight and my calculus book into my bookbag. “Why do we need my dad’s help? And can you please stop calling him that? It’s weird,” I add as we melt into the steady stream of students leaving the school.

“Look,” Annie says, putting a hand on my shoulder, “he’s so beautiful that his beauty is out of this world, so thus—”

“Space Dad,” Quinn agrees. “Besides, he loves those trashy sci-fi books so it fits.”

I sigh. “I’m never going to win this, am I?”

“Nope,” both Quinn and Annie reply in unison.

Of course not. I toss my keys into the air and catch them. “Okay, library it is. Only until four, though. I have a date with a few hundred books after that.”

“And Vance Reigns,” Quinn replies with a wiggle of their eyebrows.

My cheeks warm, but before either of them can notice, I push open the door to the school courtyard. Students slowly trickle out of the breezeway toward their cars in the almost-empty parking lot. I can hear the sound of some sportsball playing in the field behind the school, followed by the out-of-tune howl of the trombones over on the marching band field.

Someone bumps into my shoulder, muttering, “I can’t believe Garrett’s taking you.”

I glance back, but whoever it was gets lost in the crowd of students behind us. That was odd. It’s not like I want Garrett to take me. I told him no, after all.

But that makes me think of something more concerning—how many people think that? That I’m stealing Garrett Taylor away from them? I mean, Garrett is popular, but it’s only because he has