Read Under the Rose for Free Online

him. “Really? Jeez, what did he do over the summer? Take up bodybuilding?”
    “Don’t know, don’t care. He should have spent the time getting a personality.”
    “He’s got a personality,” Thorndike interrupted from the chair next to mine. Her artist gave her a warning glance and gestured dangerously with the palette knife. “It’s just not a pleasant one.”
    The girls all laughed, and I noted Poe shrugging into his robe in the opposite corner of the kitchen, back turned. He hunched his shoulders at the sound. Oh, damn.
    Whatever, Amy. He’s a jerk. Save your sympathy for someone else.
    Lucky dropped by as I was tying the hood on my robe. “Hey, Bugaboo, I already talked to Soze, but I wanted to tell you that my—um, friend…he didn’t mean what he said at the bazaar. It just came out wrong.” She looked down at her hands. “He sometimes doesn’t realize how it sounds. I hope you don’t think I—”
    I put my hand over hers, my earlier annoyance for her lack of commitment vanishing. “Of course I don’t. You’re one of us. I trust you. And we can talk about it more if you want.” I checked the swiftly emptying kitchen. “After the initiation.” She was always so much friendlier inside the tomb than when I saw her in the barbarian world. Better take advantage of it while I could.
    Half an hour later, we were at “places,” waiting for the show to start, which meant I was back to crouching in a dusty corner with my bag o’ glitter, wishing I’d done more thigh workouts at the gym.
    “Yo, ’boo,” Puck whispered across the way. “See anything yet?” He’d had been given the role of Quetzalcoatl in the festivities, proving perhaps that Lil’ Demon’s true talent lay in casting choices, because the shirtless-loincloth outfit was an excellent look for the boy. Feathered headdress, scale makeup, and all.
    “No,” I whispered back.
    “Good.” He slithered over to my side of the hallway (and I say that literally, as those FX guys had somehow applied a long tail to his outfit—which was, no, still not a turnoff ) and slid down the wall next to me, crossing his legs beneath him. I spotted gym shorts beneath the loincloth. Damn. “About last night—”
    Oh, no, please don’t ask about Brandon! “Yeah?”
    “I wanted to apologize.”
    Huh?
    “For my mom. She’s not usually like that.” He fiddled with some of the beading on his ceremonial bracelets.
    “Oh. That’s okay.” I cocked my head to one side. Was that the chanting in the Firefly Room starting up?
    “We got some news.” He took a deep breath. “My dad’s pregnant. I mean, his wife. They’re having a baby. And let’s just say he’s known for a lot longer than he’s been acting like it where my mom’s concerned.”
    I couldn’t even work up a token expression of surprise. Disdain, however, was available in surplus.
    “Romantic, huh?” Puck said.
    “Depends on your definition of romance.”
    “I try not to have one.” He leaned into me, and let his voice drop to a low, husky timbre. “I find it’s better for everyone involved if I keep myself open to…new interpretations.”
    “How magnanimous,” I said. “And kind of kinky.” Which would have sounded a lot smoother if my hands hadn’t gotten all clammy at the thought and dropped the bag of phosphorescent dust.
    He looked down at the glitter scattered across the floor, then at me. “Slick move, Amy.”
    “Ooh, best stick with ’boo, at least in the tomb. That will be two dollars.”
    “Stupid fines,” he whispered against my hood.
    I shifted my face ever so slightly toward his. “Tell you what, I’ll say ‘George’ and then we’ll be even.” But then neither of us said much of anything, what with the fact that our mouths were busy and all.
    Now, you’d think cold tomb floors are not the most pleasant place to lie, but if you’ve got George Harrison Prescott—I mean, Puck—on top of you, you’d be wrong. Even with the random jabs and pokes