Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 665(@200wpm)___ 532(@250wpm)___ 443(@300wpm)
She clicks her mic. “Frog to Donnelly. I have a female bodyguard emergency that involves a sudden period. Have to go use the ladies’ restroom to stop the flow, you know? Could use a tap out, thanks.”
I break into a big smile. Yep, she’s solidifying herself as my all-time favorite bodyguard. Akara better not take his cousin away from me.
Frog grins as Donnelly ditches his post by the bleaches. “Easy peasy,” Frog says. “Boys don’t even question periods. They’re like allergic to them.”
That’s what she thinks. But as soon as Donnelly is at the snack table beside us, he saunters over with a cool easy gait. He runs a hand through his hair and asks her, “You need me to get you a tampon or something?”
Frog looks both shocked and horrified that she has to entertain this conversation. “I’m good. You just…wait here.” She gives me a look like what the hell?
I really, really like him, unearthly reader. And a part of me will always hate how much I do. Longing for things beyond my reach seems to be the saddest routine for me.
Frog dashes away to the bathroom but not before grabbing two frosted cookies on her way out. Donnelly watches skeptically. “What’s she doing with cookies in the bathroom?”
“Periods give you the munchies.”
He nods like that makes sense and then he looks me up and down. “Jellyfish?”
I grin. “I’m a Jellyfish-erone. The cool kinda chaperone.”
“Does the Jellyfish-erone need a break holding her mushroom cap?” he asks.
My arm is a little sore from hoisting the umbrella. “Sure.”
He grips the handle and holds it above my head but joins me underneath. My heart skips again. Fairy lights cascade around us in our own cove, and Donnelly glows more beneath the umbrella’s luminescence. I wonder if I look the same to him.
He smiles at me as a new song starts playing.
“You know this song too?” I ask him.
“The Cure,” he answers, his grin radiant beneath the light. “This Homecoming already beats mine back in the day.”
“I was gonna ask if you ever went to yours.”
“Just one before I dropped out. Made a short appearance and left after two songs.” He surveys the dance floor, spotting Xander who’s still head-bobbing, then glances to me. “It was just missing some things to make it worth staying.”
“Good music,” I nod.
“And good people.”
I stare ahead, remembering mine back in the day, too. “Yeah, I get that.”
Donnelly studies me for a beat. I know he’s going to ask before he does. “You went to yours?”
“Uh-huh. Just the one when I was seventeen.”
It dawns on him, realization all over his eyes. He was a bodyguard to Beckett at the time, and I’m sure security talked. So he knows.
But he lets me share the story. “The theme lured me in. It was Under the Stars. I even went to the mall with my mom to pick out my dress. Shimmery floor-length fabric with jewels like stars. Midnight-blue. I felt like a sparkly Ravenclaw, even though I’m a Hufflepuff.” I smile sadly. “It was really pretty, and then during the dance, one of Jeffra’s friends stepped on the back of my dress. It ripped up to my belly button. I think most people saw my thong, but Tom was right there and tied his jacket around my waist. I left after that.”
His fingers softly graze my elbow, then along my lower back. Sparks tingle my body, and our gazes latch for a tender moment. “It’s not that we’re not Homecoming material,” Donnelly tells me. “It’s that Homecoming can’t contain us.”
“We’re just too shimmery.” I sway my lit-up dress.
“Too much light,” he nods. “Can’t stop us. Won’t stop us.”
Someone is stopping us. A strong force. My dad’s Force. The dark side of the Force—no, I still don’t want to believe he’s bad.
Donnelly trains his eyes on Xander while he speaks. “A lot of things tick me off. Wawa haters. Philly haters. More Wawa haters.”
I laugh.
“And bullies,” he concludes. “Hate ‘em. Can’t stand ‘em. Maybe that’s why I’m a bodyguard…I dunno.” He digs in his pocket but then stops short. I think he was reaching for cigarettes. He can’t smoke in the gym.
My gaze falls to his House Stark tee. “How come you’re wearing Xander’s shirt?”
“It’s a long story.” His chest tightens and then he drops his blue eyes onto mine. “You have time?”
“The aliens haven’t beamed me up yet. So until they’re ready for me, I have basically all night.”
“They better take me with you.”
It swells inside me.
I try to answer back with, I hope they do. But the words get lodged in my throat.
Donnelly blinks a few times, thinking about the thing he wants to share. “I, uh…” He swallows hard. “I went to somewhere earlier today.” He lowers his voice, talking more hushed, so he shifts closer to me under the umbrella. His waist melds into my hip, and the heat of his body feels soothing. Like a safe place meant to sink into.