They both stare at Peyton in confusion. Like she spoke to them in a different language.

“Both of you, go,” Peyton says. Then she looks at Minion #1.

Minion #1 doesn’t even give her the chance to speak. “I don’t think Keatyn is a tramp. I think she’s very nice.”

Her two friends stomp their way over to sit with Rachel at the end of a table full of awkward sophomore boys.

Jake laughs. “They’re dropping like flies. Pretty soon it’ll be just me and you, Monroe.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Whitney says with an air of superiority.

“I’m just teasing, baby,” he replies.

All hot and sweaty.

6:50pm

After dinner, Dawson walks me to rehearsal and kisses me up against the side of the building.

“You know, you could come sit inside with me. I’m only up on stage when my scenes are up. The whole rest of the time I’m just sitting around doing homework.”

“A bunch of guys are having a pickup basketball game tonight. You could skip and come watch. I’ll be all hot and sweaty.” He leans down and kisses up my neck. “Or you could just come to my room and get me all hot and sweaty yourself.”

“Hmmm, I’m pretty sure I got you all hot and sweaty before dinner.”

He runs his fingers through my hair and kisses my cheek. “You own me. You know that, right? Totally and completely own me.”

“You’re my sex slave,” I tease.

“I could skip the game. We could lie around naked in my room for the next three hours.”

“We couldn’t lie in your room for three hours naked and you know it. We’d get caught.”

“Hmm, maybe. So this weekend, when we visit your parents. Are we going to have some time alone?”

“After we put them to bed, I’m sure I’ll be sneaking you into my room. Then you can have me naked all night long.”

My phone beeps. “Shit, Dawson, it’s after seven. I’m supposed to be in there!”

I start to pull away from him, but he pulls me back in for one more long, steamy kiss.

“I love you,” he tells me, then holds the door to the auditorium open for me.

I run into the auditorium, set my bag down, and am immediately called onto the stage.

I do a scene where all the bachelorettes are getting ready for the contest together. In this scene, the audience sees the true personality of each contestant. The contestants are pretty clichéd. The sweet girl (me), the slutty girl, the stuck up debutante, and the girl from the wrong side of the tracks. I nail my lines, not having to refer to my script once.

Then I walk off the stage and look for Aiden so we can do our French homework.

He’s in his usual spot in the back.

When I sit down next to him he says, “So, I’m doing a survey for health class. I’m going to need you to answer a few questions for me.”

“About what?”

He leans close to me. Does that thing where he lets his lips just barely touch my ear and says in French, “Sexe.”

I pull away and roll my eyes at him. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He rubs his hand across his seemingly perpetual stubble. “Of course, all your answers will be kept in confidence.”

“Do you ever shave anymore?”

He leans back toward me and rubs his stubble up the side of my face. It’s a total Cush move. One that makes me smile remembering how I told him I had Cushburn. Aiden misinterprets my smile as confirmation that I like what he just did.

“Girls say they love stubble. For specific reasons,” he says with all sorts of swagger and confidence in his voice, leaving me no doubt that’s exactly what girls have been telling him. And probably why he hasn’t shaved.

I pull my hair behind my ear, fully exposing my cheek. “Is my cheek red?”

He studies it for a second, then replies, “No.”

“That’s because you have a baby face with soft stubble. It does make you look older, though.” And hotter too, if that’s even possible, but I don’t tell him that. “Girls like rough stubble.” I give him a smirk and then add, “For those specific reasons.”

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Kind of like my mom does when she’s about ready to lose it and is trying not to.

“So, let’s start with the questions. How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“Wow. That’s kind of personal.”

“The questions are about sex. They’re all personal.”

“I was sixteen. How old were you?”

“I’m not answering the survey.”

“Neither am I, if you don’t answer my question.”

He sighs again. “I was fifteen, if you must know. Next question. How long had you been dating the guy you lost your virginity to?”

“Uh.” I think back. I dated Cush for, what was it, a day? I can’t answer that question. I’d sound like a slut. “No comment.”

He tilts his head at me. “That’s not an answer.”

I grab his little notebook, write No Comment on it, and hand it back to him. “It is now.”

“How long?” he asks again sternly.

“I didn’t expect to do it with him, okay? It just kind of happened.”

“Kind of happened?”

“Yes. It was spontaneous.”

“So it was just a hookup?’

I scowl at him. “No, it wasn’t just a hookup.”

“You’re used to getting what you want when you want it.”

“No! I don’t get what I want.” I put on my pout face. Just so he knows that I’m serious about it.

Aiden flicks my pouty bottom lip with his finger. “Come on. Look at you. You flash that little pout and boys fall at your feet.”

“They do not!”

“Okay, how long did you date Dawson before you had sex?”

“One. That is not one of your questions. And, two. It’s none of your business.”

“Fine. How about the Keats guy?”

“That one I will answer. I knew him for almost two years before we did.”

“That wasn’t the question. Once you got together, how long did you wait?”

Shit. He made me wait. All of about 8 days.

“Eight days.”

“And the virginity friend?”

“That doesn’t matter. I dated a guy for a year and a half before him and we never did it!”

“Was he gay?”

Shit! How the hell did he guess that? Has the stubble on his face added to his power? Has he mastered mind reading?

I try to clear my mind of all thoughts.

He grins at me. “I can tell by your face the answer is yes.”

“No, he just wanted to wait until he was married.”

“Bullshit.”

“Fine. He may have been gay but I didn't know it.”

Aiden bumps my elbow with his. “I bet that drove you nuts. Did you try and get him to?”

“Yes. And it sucked. Being turned down after a year of dating someone sucks.”

“What did you do to try and seduce him?”

“Lingerie.”

Aiden leans his chin on his hand on top of the armrest separating us. “What did it look like?”

I push his elbow off the armrest, completely catching him off guard and causing his chin to drop down.

Cheerleader Bachelorette. Bad Prince. You’re up.

I give him a smirk, set my homework on the floor, and go up on stage.

The Bad Prince, Logan, and I run through our lines. He tells me that he’s a prince and about the contest. What he fails to tell me is that he has a brother who happens to be the guy I had the most amazing date ever with. He tells me it will be good for my career. That reality shows are all scripted anyway. That even if I’m not chosen to be the princess, I’ll get lots of jobs from the show. I decide to do it. Then he kisses me. And, tonight, Logan actually takes me completely by surprise and kisses me. Wraps his arm around my waist, pulls me in tight, and lays a fat kiss on my lips.

I manage to stay in character. And my character likes his kiss. He’s handsome, and, come on, he’s a freaking prince! Of course I’m going to be fine with a kiss. Even though it’s not a true love kiss—but, then again, the true love kiss guy still hasn’t called.

“Ok,” the director says. “Let’s try that kiss again. Keatyn, I think I’d like to see a little more body language from you. This guy is a prince. I’d like you to lean your body into him. We want this kiss to be very different, visually, from the sweet kiss you had with the Good Prince.”

I nod my head. “Got it.”

Logan says his last line. Then he grabs my waist. This time, I don’t fight it. I push my body into his, slide my hand around the back of his neck, and pull his face toward mine as I kiss him.

“Yes! I like that! That will really make the audience question your intentions. Is she a scheming slut or the sweet true love girl? Love it.”

“Thanks,” I say to the director. To Logan, who still doesn’t really seem to like me much, I ask, “What do you think?”

He grins at me for the first time ever and replies, “I think we could do better than that with a little more practice.”

I walk off the stage and sit back down in my seat. Aiden isn’t here, but his backpack is sitting on the floor. I’m still trying to figure out what Logan meant by that. Does he really want to practice for the play’s sake?

I will admit, he makes a really good Bad Prince. The girls in makeup decided to add a dark henna tattoo across his back for the play. And we all know that he has a damn good back. Honestly, the way the makeup girls were giggling, I think the tattoo is as much for them as it is for the audience. Either way, the audience will get to see his shirtless back when he gets down and dirty with the slutty bachelorette in a hot tub scene. She is the one who just wants him for his money.

Aiden sits back down next to me.

“Where were you?”

“I’ve been surveying some of the other cast members and talking to Logan.”

“Learn anything exciting?”

“Not yet. You need to finish telling me about trying to seduce the gay guy.”

“What else is there to tell? It didn’t work. But he was a great boyfriend. Never looked at another girl. Treated me like a princess. And he was my favorite person to shop with.”

“You haven’t shopped with me yet. And don’t worry, I’m definitely not gay.”

“I liked the shoes you had on at the dance. They were different. You’d be fun to dress.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You kind of look like a life-sized Ken doll. All blond and lean. You wear clothes well.”

“Thank you. I think when the play is over and you have a free weekend, we should go shopping together.”

“We could stay at my loft. I have extra bedrooms.”

“I heard about your loft.”

“From who?”

“Peyton.”

“What did she say?”

“She said it’s you. Over the top cool but completely casual and comfortable. She said you must have the coolest parents ever.”

I smile. What she said almost makes me want to cry.

Aiden studies me. “Your eyes are all shiny. Did I say something wrong?”

“No, that's just exactly how I hoped it would be.”

“Being here without your family is hard on you, isn't it?”

“Yeah, but at the same time it's like I'm able to grow up. Like I've had to grow up. Do things on my own. I picked the place out completely by myself, bought it, and had it furnished.”

“You bought it? Not your parents?”

I lean closer to him and speak softly. “No one knows this. But when my parents moved it created some problems. Like, they couldn't just sign school notes every day.”

“That’s understandable.”

“So I had to get emancipated. Legally, I’m an adult. And my grandpa gave me my trust fund early. The loft was one of my first purchases.”

“Peyton said that place had to cost $20 million.”

I raise my eyebrows and shrug my shoulders. “It's a really nice trust fund. But I haven't gone crazy. My car and the loft are the only things I've bought. And Grandpa always told me real estate is a good investment.”

“You respect your grandpa. Is he the one that gave you the boots you wore the day you did your speech?”

“Yeah, he is. He lives on a simple ranch. Lots of land and a nice home, but compared to his net worth, very simple.”

“That's how the place in Napa is. Lots of land. The house is big. But it's very causal and comfortable.”

“I love places like that.”

“You’re an interesting girl. Like, the more I find out about you, the more I want to know. And I need to know more in order to finish the sex survey.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re done with the sex survey.”

“No, we’re not. There are questions you didn’t respond to.” He flips back a couple pages in his notebook. “Okay, so the Keats guy you knew for two years, but once you got together, you waited eight days. What about the virginity guy?”

I close my eyes. “A day. But there were extenuating circumstances.”

“Such as?”

I hang my head. “The Keats guy upset me. And . . .”

Aiden’s hand brushes my knee as he leans across me.

I look up at him. I expect to see judgmental eyes, but I don’t. They are soft and caring. Like he wants to know.