How To Rule Your High School

Chapter 7: Foiled by Casanova

 The next morning dawned the same as any other school day morning. Having fallen asleep way too late after painstakingly finishing my lab report, I woke up almost too exhausted for the 1 hour daily beauty routine. Almost. By the time I was showered, dried, primped, and polished, my mom was calling from downstairs for breakfast. And as usual, I skipped the veggie omelette and went to Starbucks. Luckily enough for me I had that extra money from last night to foot my coffee bill for the next few weeks - my mom would flip if I asked her for money to buy one of "those insanely fatty, exorbitantly sugary, instant-weight-gain-in-a-cup" Starbucks drinks.

Pulling into my customary spot in the parking lot a few minutes early, I took five minutes to check my phone messages. Half of them being group texts from Tierra and Katie with more juicy (and probably fictitious) gossip about Dakota, I deleted them without pausing to read the details. One string of texts was from Brett asking if I'd seen his wallet (which he found by the door halfway through the seven messages in which he threatened to disown me as a sister, only to say 'nvm, got it') and another string was from Deanna inviting me to a party that Saturday. Party being code word for a get together in order to plot Dakota Schneider's downfall. The last thing I checked was the snapchat I actually listened to - it was a video from Tyler.

"Hey Maddie darling," came his voice from my phone, his face dark and blurry and nearly cut off as he was clearly walking somewhere last night. A subconscious smile slipped onto my lips, "Thanks for having me over tonight, I had an awesome time...especially our little adventure at the beach. Yeah, I definitely owe you lunch and a coffee for that one, so if you wanna do something this weekend, give me a call. Or talk to me tomorrow. Or leave me a sexy love letter in my locker, whatever works. See ya tomorrow!"

Like hell he owes me a lunch, I thought, he owes me a gourmet dinner for throwing me in the ocean!

"Put that thing away and get your butt outta the car girl!" shouted someone from beside me. I jumped and almost dropped my Starbucks all over myself as Courtney leaned on the window.

"Geez, don't do that!" I laughed, starting to flip the roof up then climbing out.

"I tried calling you like 5 times last night, where were you?" she asked, as we headed for the picnic benches.

"I was, uh, busy," I said with a little smirk. Courtney's eyebrows shot up.

"Oh really?" she asked, glancing at me sidelong through her Ray-Bans.

"Long story, but Tyler was over yesterday," I said, grinning as I reminisced.

"Oooh!" Courtney squealed, "Did anything happen?!"

"Almost...I think. Brett and Brandon interrupted though," I said. Courtney made a disappointed "hmm" sound as she patted me on the back.

"Well at least something almost happened," she said.

"How come you called?" I asked, refusing to get lost in disappointed thoughts about what could have happened if my idiot brother hadn't stormed into the basement.

"I think I might break up with Olivier," she said simply, her face suddenly tightening.

"What! Why?" I demanded, stopping in my tracks. We weren't very far from the picnic tables and I wanted to hear the full version before she had to censor it too keep the juicier bits from Katie's eager ears.

"Well you know when that new jerk dissed me yesterday? Olivier was driving me home and I started going off about it. He was good about it at first, but when I started asking him whether he thought I was a 'hothead' or whatever, he said 'Well, you can have your moments...' so I just went all batshit at him and he went all French-swearing at me because I was so mad." Courtney said really quickly, as if relieved to finally get it all out.