Prep School Confidential (A Prep School Confidential Novel) by Kara Taylor Read Free Book Online

are parked on the two lounge couches, surrounded by stacks of pink and red construction paper and enough glitter to stock a gay rave in New York for a year. As president of the Resident Council, Alexis is in charge of decorating the dorm, as she loudly explained during calculus this afternoon.
    “Hi, ladies.” She looks up when she sees us, her coral mouth twisted into a sneer. “Sorry we kind of took over here.”
    Obviously what she really means is Try to sit here with us and I’ll end you, but I return her syrupy smile. I feel Isabella stiffen beside me.
    “No problem,” I say. “We’ll go to the third-floor lounge.”
    We have to stop off at the room so I can get my laptop, anyway. The fact I don’t bring it to class completely baffles Isabella, who keeps her MacBook in a vinyl case plastered to her side all day.
    There’s a hot-pink Post-it note waiting for us on the door. Or waiting for me, since my name is scrawled in bubbly script at the top.
    Anne,
    Mini-coffeemakers aren’t allowed. Please get rid of it before Darlene sees.
    And at the bottom, there’s a heart drawn in sparkly gel pen.
    “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
    It’s the first time I’ve heard Isabella curse. She rips the note off the door and squashes it in one motion. “Welcome to Alexis’s sticky-note club.”
    Maybe it’s the thought of not being able to make chai lattes in the morning, or that stupid, mocking heart, but the note really pisses me off. Alexis is not only a bitch, but a passive-aggressive, Post-it-note-leaving bitch. She had a million opportunities to tell me about the coffeemaker today, but instead she left me a nasty little note for everyone to see.
    Isabella seems even more livid than I am as we settle into a table in the empty upstairs lounge. “We’re not getting rid of that coffeemaker. Darlene wouldn’t care, if she knew. And I don’t want to go back to drinking the rat pee from the cafeteria.”
    This gets a small smile out of me, even though there’s a pit in the bottom of my stomach. A hot-pink, Post-it-note-sized pit. “Are you sure? I don’t want to get us in trouble.”
    “Trust me. If she pushes it, I’ll tell Darlene about how Alexis has an illegal power strip in her room just so she can plug in all of her hair-torture devices. Seriously, I’m so sick of her crap.”
    This new layer of venom to Isabella’s voice shocks me a little. “So why do you hate her so much?”
    “Do I need a reason? She’s just … she’s the worst of any of them.”
    We let her words hang in the air between us for a minute. I think about Isabella’s Old Navy weekend wardrobe and her dinged-up computer. It hits me what she really meant when she said any of them.
    She doesn’t consider herself one of them. And I’m betting that whatever Isabella’s father does, he’s not a senator.

 
    CHAPTER
    SIX
     
    Friday is the only day this week Brent isn’t late to English. The seat next to me is still open when he walks in. I pretend to be immersed in scrolling through the e-mails on my phone as he slides in next to me. When I don’t look up, he pokes my side.
    “Oh, hey.” I put my phone down. “No grand entrance today?”
    “I like to mix it up. Keep things interesting.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me.
    I don’t say anything, because it sounds like something I’d say, and I don’t like when people take my lines.
    Fowler, our instructor, tells us to turn to Book 4 of Paradise Lost. I’m rifling through the tissue-paper-thin pages of my literature anthology when Brent nudges me again.
    He leans into me so he doesn’t have to whisper. “I have to ask you something after class.”
    “Why can’t you ask me now?”
    Fowler looks at me and repeats for us to turn to Book 4. Loudly.
    I’m not going to let Brent see how much I’m dying for class to be over now. I’m not going to be distracted by the incredibly realistic doodle of Fowler in Brent’s notebook—complete with nose hairs and an