#Scandal Read Online Free Page A

idea.
    23

    I rearrange my face into something like this: Cole? Adorable? Whatev. “True,” I say. “Yet irrelevant.”
    “I have a theory about you two.” Griff scopes out the buzzing phone, but when I still don’t answer it, she continues. “It’s not like anyone would find out if you . . . you know. Fulfilled Ellie’s postprom duties.” I slip and nearly blind myself with kohl. “What is wrong with you?”
    “Whoa, girl. I’m kidding. Obviously.” Griff watches me a second longer in the mirror and narrows her eyes. “I know that look.”
    “There’s no look.”
    “You like him!”
    My face burns. “Are you drunk already?”
    “Luce. You’re getting a little—”
    “I’m getting a little nothing, because I don’t like him.
    And please stop documenting everything I say. It’s creepy.”
    “Having closeted sexy-time thoughts about your best friend’s boyfriend is creepy. Just be honest for once. It’s so obvious .”
    I go to smack her arm, but she dodges, still wielding her phone like the paparazzi. It almost makes me feel sorry for Jayla Heart, whose Hollywood shenanigans grace the gossip rags weekly. “Turn it off.”
    “These are the moments of your life, Lucy Vacarro.
    24

    You should thank me for documenting them.” Griff has the movie announcer voice going, free hand framing my face, like, Action! “If it’s not on Facebook, it didn’t happen. You know that, right?”
    “You’re so gross right now. You know that, right?” I leap on the subject change. “They’re a corporation. They’re probably tracking us.”
    “Now you sound like (e)VIL.” Griff scrunches up her nose, same face she made at dinner when Paul explained where veal comes from. “Those people have no lives. It’s sad, really. Even sadder than your gamer marathons.” Griff turns her phone into a mock controller, frantically thumb-ing buttons.
    Securely off the Cole innuendos, I return to my eyelining. “You’d so lose your life in the zombie apocalypse, blondie.”
    “At least I have a life to lose. Did you see mermaid chick—”
    “They have no Facebook ,” I say. Kiara, an antitechnology mermaid with a secret tech life? That has to count for something . “For all we know, their lives are fascinating.” Griff snorts. “Their idea of fun is reading old newspapers and looking for codes.”
    “And your idea of fun is sleeping with half the school and getting on Miss D’s scandal page. So?” 25

    Her smile drops down the sink, and my heart follows.
    “Sorry. I didn’t . . . That came out wrong.” I don’t know why I’m all defensive about (e)VIL. Before tonight, I never talked to any of them. And it’s not like Kiara and I are suddenly making plans to search for extraterrestrial life together.
    This whole unrequited Cole thing is fracking my brain.
    I shouldn’t even be here. It’s obvious Ellie didn’t want me to come to the party, and I’d rather not spend the night dis-proving Griff’s little theories—they’re not exactly wrong.
    I meet her eyes in the mirror. “Griffin, seriously. I don’t know why I said that. I’m sorry. It’s—”
    “Whatev. Not like you’re lying.” She slips the devil horns from her head and sets them on the sink with a casual shrug. Something wounded flashes across her face, but then it’s gone, replaced by her cool, sexy confidence. “I’m hot.
    What can I say? And I do loves me some boys.” I conjure up a smile to match, but it’s not about her hotness or how many people she hooks up with. When it comes to Griffin’s conquests, the tally is her business. I just hate how it changes her, how her revolving bedroom door is a constant topic for the fans congregating on Miss Demeanor’s page.
    Griff is like a piece of clay that never makes it to the kiln. Last week an ashtray, next week a vase, each new guy 26

    ushering in a personality and hairstyle to match. She’s been hanging out with me and Ellie for two years, but whenever we start to get close,