“I doubt I would say a bad word about your lips.”

“Although it doesn’t really sound like a bad word. Isn’t that something religious? Oh, wait, I’ll look it up on my phone.” I pull my phone out of my bag and click on a French translator app. I’m frustrated that I can’t come up with a simple word.

Miss Praline says, “Keatyn, you know the rules. No phones during school.”

“I’m looking up a French word in French class. This is research.”

“Give me your phone,” she says, walking up to my desk with her hand held out.

“Merde,” I mutter, not quite under my breath.

“You just cursed in French, Miss Monroe. What’s wrong with you today? I’m taking your phone and giving you a thirty minute detention.”

This pisses me off.

“Seal,” I say.

“What?” Miss Praline asks.

I talk louder. I’m pissed. “I said seal.”

“Why?”

“What’s the French word for seal, Miss P?”

“Phoque.”

The class laughs.

I grin at her. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

Her face looks shocked at me, her perfect little French student. “Miss Monroe! Make that two thirty minute detentions!”

Aiden decides to get into the mix for some reason. He’s still laughing. “Wait, so the French word for seal is phoque? Like fuck?”

“Aiden! You’re in detention too!” Miss Praline yells.

He looks all innocent, but I know he’s doing this on purpose. He’s standing up for me. And it makes me want to kiss him.

“Why?” he says. “Surely you can’t give me a detention for speaking French in French class. That doesn’t make sense.”

She gives him the squintiest, maddest eyes she can make and says, “Thirty minutes, Aiden. Now, does anyone else want in today?”

I seriously don’t know what is up all my teachers’ butts today. I don’t know if they got yelled at this morning, or are hung over, or what, but they are all crabby and piling on the homework all at once. We already have that group project Riley and I have to do for History. In Math, we have fifty problems to do, plus a new book to read for English. I seriously do not have time for all this.

As we’re walking out of class, Aiden says, “So I guess we can do tutoring in detention?”

“Guess so.”

“See ya, Boots.”

In jail together.

3:15pm

I’m sitting in detention next to Aiden. He leans toward me and whispers, “So did you figure it out yet?”

He is dying for me to know what my lips are.

“No, I can’t get my phone back until after detention. I guess it’s in some kind of phone jail. I’m pissed. I was using it as an educational tool. It’s ridiculous. If I get on Student Council that will be my first issue.”

He hands me his phone. “Here, you can use mine.”

“You really want me to know what you said, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Your lips are my something, right?”

He says it again in French, and he can’t speak French worth a shit, but this he says beautifully, almost poetically.

I grab his phone, start to type into Google.

The detention teacher, who has been completely ignoring us up until this point, chooses this moment to look at me. “No phones during class time or detention. Give me your phone, Miss Monroe.”

“Um, first off, it’s not my phone, and secondly, he was letting me borrow it to look up a French word for class.”

“I don’t care. Rules are rules. Give it to me.”

“No offense, but this is bullshit. Aren’t we supposed to be able to do our homework in here, and isn’t technology part of our world?”

“You just earned yourself another thirty minutes, missy.”

I sigh as he takes Aiden’s phone from my hands.

Aiden grins at me. “You’re feisty today.” Then he laughs. “Our phones are in jail together.”

“Yeah, well, when you get out of here, you can go rescue them. I’ll be here until next week.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. You have to pay twenty dollars to get your phone out of jail. Twenty per phone. So you’re gonna owe me forty bucks. But maybe we can work out a deal where you can pay it off in dances.”

“I owe twenty, yes. But it’s your fault your phone got sent to jail. You wanted me to know what it was so bad. Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Well you’re supposed to try and be a little sneaky when you use it in class: hide it under your desk or something, not just hold it up and show the teacher you’re using it.”

“Shut up and do some homework. Oh, and write down your email for me. I want you to read what I sent Brad about ideas for the first themed weekend, so you’ll be prepared for the meeting in the morning.”

“I already had Brad forward me your email. But, you don’t have to pretend to want me involved. I know you just wanted me on the committee so you can hang out with me without your boyfriend around.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re so right. I’m dating a gorgeous senior who is crazy about me, and I’m trying to figure out ways to spend time with you.”

Happy endings.

6pm

When I go to get my phone out of jail, it has already closed. I am so pissed because now I won’t be able to get it out until tomorrow morning.

But when I get back to my dorm, it is lying on my bed surrounded by a whole bunch of little purple wrapped candies. Chocolate candies with the words Hershey’s Bliss on the front. I take one out and pop it in my mouth, letting the chocolate melt on my tongue. Yum.

Then I look at my phone, which has a bunch of texts from today. I reply to a few, touch up my makeup, put on some perfume, grab my speech notecards, and hurry to the library.

Dawson is sitting at a table, waiting for me.

I give him a head nod, then walk up to the librarian, and ask to sign in for one of the private study rooms.

She asks me, “Purpose of the room.”

I hold up my notecards and tell her to practice my speech for Student Council. She asks who will be in the room with me. I point to Dawson, and she narrows her eyes at me. I can tell she is wondering.

So I pretend to look around the library. “Hey, it’s not very busy in here, maybe when I’m done with him, you could listen to my speech too. Maybe give me some pointers.” Then I pour it on. “You know I’m new here, and I’m, like, really nervous about it. I can’t believe I got talked into running, so the more people I can get to listen to my speech the better. I’d really love some feedback from you on it.”

I can tell by the look on her face that this does not sound fun to her.

She glances at her watch. “Uh, I’d really love to.” She looks up at the sky, obviously trying to come up with an excuse. “But I have some things to do. New books to catalog and things.”

The librarian is a bad actress.

But I know that now she will not want me to finish with Dawson quickly. And also will not be checking to see if we are done because she knows if she does, I will make her listen. It should insure almost total privacy.

She hands me a key. “Room seven.”

I wave for Dawson to follow me.

We get into the room, and he pins me against the wall, kissing me. I make him stop. He’s still leaning up against me and unbuttoning my blouse as I start reading loudly off my note cards. “HI, I’M KEATYN MONROE, AND I’M RUNNING FOR STUDENT COUNCIL AND I WOULD LOVE YOUR VOTE. SOME ISSUES I THINK THAT NEED TO BE . . .”

I hear a bit of movement outside the door and know she was listening, got bored, and went back to the Lean Cuisine I could smell when we walked in.

“So, I’m supposed to talk to you about some fines?” Dawson grins.

I grin back at him. Then I pull the pins out of my bun, shake my long hair out, and finish unbuttoning my blouse. I’m wearing a new black lace push-up bra.

He leans down and kisses all around the bra.

I pull his head up and say, “Oh, no. You were bad. You didn’t return your library books and you haven’t paid your fines.”

“I’m really sorry,” he says, but he is so grinning. “What can I do about it?”

I pull his tie, making him come closer to me. “Well, the truth is, I kinda like rebels.”

“Oh really?” he says, as I push him up against the door, kneel, and unzip his shorts.

“Oh, god, I love the library,” he moans.

“You should. At the library we love stories with, uh, happy endings.”

And then I proceed to give him a happy ending of his own.

Stop gossiping.

6:30pm

After our fun at the library, Dawson does act like he practically worships me. He keeps rubbing my back with his hand and gazing into my eyes during dinner.

Riley and Dallas sit with us and are talking to me about possible Student Council issues, but Riley keeps looking at us funny.

I go up to grab some more ketchup, and Riley follows me. “What did you do to my brother?”

“What?”

“He’s all, like, I don’t know, girly-acting.”

“Girly?”

“Yeah, like all lovey dovey.”

“So? I think it’s cute.”

“You were late for dinner. Dawson’s always here right at six because he’s starving after football.”

“He met me in the library for a few minutes. I wanted him to hear my speech for tomorrow, critique it for me.”

“Your shirt’s still unbuttoned.”

I look down, and it’s not. It’s buttoned just fine. I look up at Riley, who grins at me. “Caught ya.”

“Shut up. We were at the library. Ask Dawes.”

“I just might.”

I walk over to the dessert line and look longingly at it. I probably shouldn’t have any since I missed dance today. And I have so much homework tonight, no way I will have time to work out.

Aiden strolls up behind me.

“Hey, Boots.”

“Hey, thanks for getting my phone out of jail. Oh, and for the candy. It’s really good.”

“Yeah, it is.” He has puzzled look on his face. “So did you get it?”

“Get my phone? Yeah, I just told you . . .”

“No. The candy. The name of the candy.”

“Uh . . . ?” I give him a blank look.

“Did you look up the French word yet? Your lips are my . . . what?”

“Oh, no, uh, not yet.”

He looks a little hurt and he sighs. “Oh, well, just tell me when you do, I guess.”

I decide to forgo dessert and carry the ketchup to the hungry boys. Riley has stolen my spot next to Dawson. He, Jake, and Ace are having a conversation about me, I think. Because it gets very quiet when I sit down on Dawson’s lap.

“What were you just talking about?”

Riley says, “Your speech. I was just asking Dawson what you say in it.”

That boy is too tricky for his own good.

Riley continues. “You told me you went to the library and did your speech for him. But it seems he doesn’t really know much about the speech.” He smirks at me.

He is such a shit.

“Add that to the fact that you look like a naughty librarian today and, I don’t know, it’s just kinda adding up.”

“I did do some of the speech,” I say to Dawson.

He tries to contain his smile. “I know, but you took out your bun. I wasn’t really listening.”

“See,” I say to Riley. “He just wasn’t focused. Obviously, I need to rework my speech. I gotta go campaign. Talk to some people. Hand out candy.”

Dawson gets up, grabs me, and whispers in my ear. “I haven’t said a word, but I can’t freaking stop grinning. And he kinda tricked me on the speech thing.”

“So, you liked?”

“Uh, liked is an understatement.”

“Good. Hey, just text me tonight. I really do have a ton of homework. And tell your brother to stop gossiping and get to work on our History project.”

Bliss.

9pm

I get back to my room. Katie is with Jordan “studying” English, and I, excitingly, have the room to myself. I’m going to get so much done. I move all the candy off my bed and remember I still need to look up the word. Your lips are my something.

I grab my phone, put in the word béatitude into my translation app, and up pops a word.

BLISS.

Oh. My. Gosh.

He thinks my lips are his bliss?! And he left me Hershey’s Bliss candies. That is sooooo freaking adorable. I might cry, it’s so adorable.

Me: Bliss, huh? The Keats quote. The candies? Pretty clever of you.

Hottie God: About time you figured it out. So?

Me: So what?

Hottie God: Are my lips YOUR bliss?

Me: Of course not.

Hottie God: You’re lying to yourself, Boots.

Me: Maybe you’re lying to yourself.

Hottie God: We’ll table that discussion for now. So I was looking over these ideas you sent Brad. They’re good. But there’s one I’m especially excited about.

Me: Which one?

Hottie God: You’ll find out tomorrow. I’m busy doing a little campaigning of my own tonight.

Me: Idk what that means exactly, but okay. Bright and early :/

Hottie God: No :/ Now it’s :D Because you get to see me.

I don’t respond, but I can’t help but smile as I finish my homework.

Tuesday, September 13th

Outlined by golden rays.