Bookishly Ever After by Isabel Bandeira Read Free Book Online Page A

my nose at her and flipped open my history book. “Why are you letting Em push you around, too?”
    “Because she doesn’t know her eyeliner from mascara. I do.” She shrugged. “It might be fun, and a little bit of change never hurt anyone. Besides, unlike either of you, I can tell whether a girl is hot enough to date.” She winked at me.
    I tried not to feel too insulted by that. “Won’t Leia get jealous of you making me ‘hot’?” I joked. “I hear those Haddontowne Academy girls are really possessive.”
    “You’ll never be that hot. Trust me.” She pulled out a pink plaid notebook and matching pen. “So, Sunday? I promise to make it as painless as possible.”
    “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
    “Look, I really don’t give a crap if you date Dev or Kris or Em, for that matter, but I think you probably
could
use some girly pampering time that doesn’t have anything to do with bubble baths and books. Or yarn. Or Em shoving guys at you.” She held up her hand to keep me from talking, “It’s less about how you look and more about giving you sometime away from your everyday stuff. We get to hang out and talk. And if you learn a little bit about how to make the perfect cat’s eye in the process, that’s just a bonus.”
    I reached over and hugged Grace quickly before our history teacher started the class. “Thanks. I’ll skip the makeover, but I’ll take the Grace time.”
    “If I were you, I’d at least consider a tiny something. Step one would be to get your hair back to one color so it stops looking like you painted red camoflauge spots on your head.”
    “I hate you.”
    “Shh, class is about to start.” Grace sat up straight, pen poised over her notebook, and stared at the board like a perfect blonde angel.

7
    I loved new books. The crisp pages, the smell, and the sense of potential as I carefully broke in the spine made getting them one of the best feelings in the world. Getting one at a book launch with the actual author—an even better feeling. Getting one at a book launch with the actual author when the author is a rock star flying around the country to release the third book in her four book series and has a crowd of fans sitting outside the bookstore and waiting for hours to meet her? Electric.
    “The final battle outfit. Awesome,” someone said as they passed me. I proudly looked up from my page for a second to smile at the two girls who passed me on their way to the back of the line. They were wearing homemade t-shirts scrawled with all of the best Maeve quotes and clutching fresh copies of
Gilded,
the third book in the
Golden
series.
    I tugged at the corset, readjusting the fake leather so it would stop digging into my ribs. The costume might be perfect, but Trixie had built it for looks, not for waiting on line for hours at the mall. At least Maeve wore leggings when she fought. I couldn’t imagine sitting on this floor in a skirt. Semi-comfortable again, I dove back in to the book.If I read fast enough, I might get a third of the way through before the bookstore let us inside.
    A pair of beat-up sneakers stopped right next to me, the Sharpie doodles of skulls and crossbones playing in my peripheral vision. “Phoebe? What are you wearing?”
    I groaned when I followed those sneakers up to find Dev looking down at me. Of course he’d pick the one day I was in costume to run into me at the mall. I wanted to melt into the concrete wall behind me.
    “I’m here for the launch party.” I followed his eyes back to the corset and puffy shirt I was wearing. “And there’s a costume contest.” Warmth crept over my cheeks and I tilted my head forward so my hair hid my face. Dressing up for a costumed dance was one thing, but I hadn’t expected anyone from school to be at the mall this early.
    “You should have worn that green dress. It was pretty epic.”
    A little part of me that wasn’t dying of mortification warmed at the thought that he remembered my homecoming