The Midnight Beast in NYC: The Sequel

Chapter 7

Friday Afternoon

Jaina

"No, stahhhhhhppp, Stefan!" I screech/whine at him through the connecting door to Vera and Hallie's room. Me, Vera, Kimbra, and Hallie were getting ready in my room and had made the boys stay away. Only, Stefan kept trying to sneak back in.

"Oh my God," Vera says, "Stefan leave her alone, she sounds like she's in middle school with her first crush." And then to me as Stefan starts laughing on the other side of the door, "I swear, girl, if your voice gets any higher, only dogs are going to hear it. Now shut up and paint my nails."

"Fine," I huff, walking away from the door and typing away on my phone. "But if they come in here, it's your fault."

Vera rolls her eyes at me and shakes a thing of pink nail polish at me. I walk over to the desk and grab my chair to pull up to Kimbra's, where Vera's sitting, not so patiently, waiting for me to do her nails. Hallie is kneeling on my bed twisting Kimbra's hair up into some sort of updo on top of her head. I throw my phone and it sails right over the two of them to land squarely on my pillow. I do a little happy dance about my perfect aim and then sit down and start painting Vera's nails with a sigh.

"I still don't know which dress to wear tonight," Kimbra says, "I was going to wear the black and gold but Ash says he only brought gray pants and a vest. Soooo..." she trails off.

I glance at her and then at the two dresses she has hanging off her closet door. One is spaghetti straps with a choppy bottom that hits around her knees. It has gold leaf outlines floating from the bodice all the way down. The other is a red, slinky, one shoulder number that is all kinds of bedazzled.

"I still think you should go with the black and gold. Who cares if you guys don't match exactly," I say. Vera nods and waves her left hand around in the air to dry. Hallie has a mouth full of bobby pins and doesn't do anything.

"Yeah, I guess. You guys are all wearing black too, right?" Kimbra asks. I start to nod and say yes but Vera interrupts me.

"Nah, girl. I'm wearing the one with the black and white cheetah print top half with the electric blue flowy skirt," she says. Vera always has to make a statement. And while the dress might sound like it doesn't go together, man, does she make it work.

I finish Vera's nails and jump up, heading over to the full length mirror. I pull the towel off my head and start shaking out my hair. It's ridiculously curly, as usual, and I grab some gel and start scrunching in an attempt to control it. I rarely wear it down but felt like making it look special tonight. I still couldn't believe that I not only had a date for Fall Ball tonight, but that it was Stefan Abingdon AND that I'd been making out with him last night. I smirked in the mirror and tried to stop thinking about his hands on me so I wouldn't turn red and give myself away to my girls behind me.

As I turn away from the mirror, my phone pings on my pillow with a twitter notification. I go to grab it but of course Kimbra snatches it first.

"Ohhh jeez, I AM sorry," she says tossing the phone to me and rolling her eyes.

"Gahhhh, what happened now?" I say typing in my passcode.

"Your boy, Frank is on top of your stupid cutesy selfie tweet to your REAL boy," she answers.

I look at my twitter feed and as I'm reading what stupid Frank wrote, I get another notification. And immediately start smiling like an idiot.

"Oh Gawdddddd," Vera whines, seeing my face. I know that look and do NOT want to know what prompted it." I punch her in the arm as Hallie leans next to me to read over my shoulder.