Taking The Reins (The Rosewoods Book 1) (17 page)

Then, during the deans’ closed door meeting in the Westwood offices, we’d steal the boys’ underwear while they were at dinner.

Simple.

Though simple didn’t mean completely bulletproof.

But like I said, I wasn’t about to chicken out, so two hours later and after some fancy talking by Emmie, we were in the dean’s nondescript sedan, driving over to Westwood.

Thankfully, Emmie sat in the front passenger seat and easily chatted with the dean about her summer in Europe.

I sat in the back, getting more and more nervous. No matter how many times I smoothed my sweaty palms over my kilt, they just got clammy again.

Until, “Ms. Prescott, I understand your dressage is coming along nicely.”

I glanced up at the rear view mirror; the dean’s eyes were on me. I nodded. “Yes, thank you. Coach Fleming has been really helpful.”

“I also saw you dancing with him last night.”

Okay.
“Yes, that’s right.”

“May I remind you he’s faculty.”

Huh?
“I beg your pardon?”

Her eyes darted up to the mirror again. “His coaching you is not an invitation to
hook up
, as you kids call it.”

There was no way to hide the blush on my cheeks. But I wasn’t sure if I was blushing because she was onto me or because she’d just mentioned a
hookup
. “No ma’am,” I choked out.

“And just to make sure, I’ve said as much to him. I don’t need my stables used as a brothel.”

Emmie snorted and then covered it up with a cough.

The dean looked over at her. “Something wrong, Ms. Somerville?”

“No, ma’am. Just a tickle in my throat.”

But wait, the dean had spoken to Brady? About us using the stables as a
brothel
? Oh my God, I was never going to be able to look him in the eye again. As though I hadn’t been humiliated enough by that almost kiss that was most definitely
not
an almost kiss.

I felt like I should say something, but my brain seemed to be uninterested in joining the conversation in any coherent way. And really, what could I possibly say?
Brothel?
Really?

“Ma’am,” Emmie said, coming to my rescue. “I can assure you that Brooklyn has not used the stables or any other location on the Rosewood grounds in any such way. Her relationship with Coach Fleming is strictly professional.”

“It’s true,” I said, thankful to Emmie for getting the ball rolling. “Our relationship is purely professional.”
Especially since he’s obviously not interested,
I didn’t say out loud
.
“When we danced last night, he was just being friendly.”

I kicked Emmie’s seat when she snorted again. At least this time, she was quieter about it.

I saw Dean Haywood’s knuckles begin to loosen up on the wheel; she must not have heard the snort. “Well that is what he said when I spoke with him last night, but I’m happy to hear the same from you as well.”

Ugh. So she had already spoken to him about this when we had our practice? No wonder he was so weird.
And maybe it explained why he’d seemed to lose his feelings for me.

If he ever had any in the first place.

As the conversation drifted to other topics (thank you again, Emmie) I looked out the window and tried to figure out what I could possibly say to Brady now that things were going to be so awkward between us.

A few minutes later, we pulled up to Westwood and the dean pulled into one of the marked visitors’ parking spots out front. I got out and looked up at the building that seemed so different than it had just last night. Amazing how much can change in one day.

“Let’s go, girls,” Dean Haywood said after she got out of her car. As we fell in line behind her, I looked at Emmie. She nodded back and I took it to mean something like
‘stay cool’
and
‘I’ve got this’
. At least, that’s what I
hoped
she meant. I was way out of my league on this underwear thieving expedition.

~♥~

E
ight minutes later, after some super-smooth talking from Emmie (she was so convincing,
I
almost believed her story) we were on our own, sneaking down some back service hallway of Westwood. I’d met Dean Peterson and then Emmie had told them we were off to meet up with Dave, so he and I could officially meet—although Dean Haywood had remembered quite clearly that I’d danced with Brady, she seemed not to have noticed that I’d also danced with Dave. Meeting with Dave was the weak link in our plan—he didn’t even know we were on campus. Emmie assured me it was a non-issue, but it felt like a dangerously loose thread to me.

“How do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

She shot me a look over her shoulder. “Please. When you are the liaison and you have a boyfriend here, you find the unused hallways.”

“For what?”

She rolled her eyes. “Um, making out?”

“Right,” I said, feeling stupid.

Emmie shrugged and kept walking. “It’s not like we can sneak up to his room. He has a roommate, and if we got caught with me up there...”

She didn’t need to finish her sentence; surely Westwood had strict rules about entertaining members of the opposite sex in dorm rooms. In a few minutes we got to a set of back stairs and started up them to the second floor. “Do you know where Dave’s room is, though?”

“Yeah, look,” she handed me a folded piece of paper from her pocket. It was a rough sketch of the building with stars in several locations—underwear targets, I figured. “They’re on the second floor.”

“You made a map?”

“Well, yeah. We don’t have a lot of time. And I really would rather get in and out and then just go hang out by the Dean’s office so the guys don’t see us up here.”

I wasn’t arguing. “No, I think it’s great. I’m totally impressed. So you’re sure they’re at dinner?”

She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen to wake it up. “Yeah. Dinner started like five minutes ago.”

We got up to the second floor and she peeked out through the small window in the fire door. “Looks clear,” she said, gently pushing the bar across the door to open it out to the hallway. We froze and listened, but the only sound was the buzz of the fluorescent overhead lights. And my blood rushing through my ears, but maybe only I could hear that.

“Let’s go,” she said, unnecessarily; I was eager to get this over with. Sure, it was exciting, but the idea of getting caught by a teacher, or maybe worse, one of the guys, was enough to get me into near panic mode. “We’ll start with Dave’s room—if we have to bolt, I want to make sure I at least have his.”

I followed her down the hall to the third door on the right. She grabbed the knob, but it didn’t budge: locked. I glanced at her face to see if this was going to be an impediment, but she just looked more focused as she dug around in her pants pocket and pulled out some sort of tiny screwdriver. She shoved it into the lock, jiggled it around and the next thing I knew, we were inside.

“You’re amazing,” I whispered, seriously impressed by my cat burglar of a roommate.

“I only use my powers for good.” She waggled her eyebrows at me and nodded toward a dresser. “You get from there, I’ll grab Dave’s.”

I glanced around the room, taking in the posters and other things that made the room feel very masculine. On the side where Emmie was focused hung posters of guitars and people playing them. In the corner was an actual guitar case. “Does he play?” I nodded toward the case.

“Yeah. He’s pretty good, actually. But come on, Brooklyn, focus.”

I took a last look at Dave’s nightstand and saw a framed photo of the two of them together. They looked really happy.
They
are
happy
, I said to myself. Turning away, I looked toward the other side of the room.

“Whose is this?” I asked, quickly opening the drawers in the dresser, looking for the underwear.

“Abe, the guy who had yours.”

“Well that’s convenient,” I muttered and looked up at the photos tacked on his wall. Upon closer inspection, I realized they were of him and other actors. And based on how young he looked, they were probably taken on the set of
Lady Parts
. Some of the photos were just of him.

Weird. “Kind of into himself, isn’t he?”

“What?” Emmie asked.

“All these pictures are of him. Kind of conceited, no?”

She shook her head. “He’s the least conceited guy I know. He hates those pictures, actually. He hates that time of his life.”

I glanced back at the photos, confused. “So why...”

“Dave says he’s writing his memoir and the pictures take him back to that place. He thought it was weird that he put up the pictures too, so he asked him about it. But seriously, we need to get out of here. Take a picture with your phone for later or something.”

I refocused on Jared’s underwear drawer “So what are we looking for, here? Tightie whities? Boxers, what?”

“You’re overthinking it, just grab a pair and let’s go.”

I scanned over the drawer full of...well, drawers and grabbed a black pair of boxer-briefs. Maybe the idea was to embarrass the guys, but there was very little about these that was embarrassing: this pair probably looked way sexy on Jared and just thinking about his muscular body in his underwear had me blushing fiercely.

“Ha, look at these!” Emmie said. I turned; she was holding up a pair of leopard-print bikinis.

“Oh my God. Does he wear those?” I asked, my face growing even hotter.

She shrugged. “I have no idea, but they’re hilarious. Turn around.” I did, offering my back to her, and handed her the pair of Jared’s so she could stuff both of them into the backpack over my shoulders.

Nodding at me, she said, “Come on, we have plenty more to get.”

With a grin, I nodded back and followed her to the next room.

W
e managed to collect fifteen pairs of underwear (Emmie took two from Phillip, “just because he was such a douche to Kaylee”) and get back down to the first floor completely undetected. We slipped into the women’s bathroom, the same one Kaylee and I had chatted in the night before, and Emmie texted Dave to come meet us in the hall.

Within moments, there was a soft knock at the door. “Em?”

We left the restroom and I was surprised to see Dave wasn’t alone: Jared was with him. And he was smiling down at me. His long hair was down around his shoulders and he wore a ‘Property of Westwood Athletics’ t-shirt that even had the size on the front: XXL. It was tight across his chest, but totally in a good way. He wore jeans, too; his outfit a stark contrast to the suit he’d been wearing the night before.

Thinking about what we’d just done, I looked away, terrified we’d be found out just by my guilty face. And then I suddenly wondered where my underwear was. I hadn’t thought to look for it in his room, but it obviously wasn’t out in the open. Maybe they were in one of his pockets...

Dave leaned down and wrapped his arms around Emmie, gathering her into a full frontal hug, “Hey,” he said softly before he gave her a kiss. I turned toward Jared to not gawk and give them some privacy.

“So, hi,” I said in as breezy a tone as I could muster, you know, as though I
didn’t
have his underwear in my backpack.

“What are you girls doing here?” Jared asked casually.

“Emmie’s showing me around since I’m taking over the school liaison thing next week.”

“Why didn’t you let me know,” Dave said from behind me. “I would have given you the grand tour.”

Emmie jumped in, “It was a last minute thing. We came over with the dean and just finished up meeting with her and Dean Peterson. Why don’t we show Brooklyn where the student council office is?”

But as I looked over at my roommate and took in the way she and Dave were looking at each other, I had a feeling maybe they wanted a few minutes alone. Or maybe I wanted to not be around them while they really started making out in the hallway: an event I felt was imminent.

“Hey,” I said to Jared. “Why don’t you show me?”

Jared glanced over at Dave and shrugged. “Sure. Come on.”

“Meet us at the front office in fifteen, Brooklyn,” Emmie said authoritatively, but her eyes said a quick
thank you
. I hoped she wasn’t going to spill the beans on what we’d just done, but just before I turned away, she gave me the tiniest of head shakes.
Don’t let on
, it said. I nodded back my understanding.

As I walked down the hall next to him, I thought about Jared and what Emmie had said about him hating his childhood and how he was now writing his memoir. I wondered if it was some sort of therapy for him. I also wondered how bad his childhood really was—there were plenty of horror stories about the lives of child actors out there, though I couldn’t remember hearing much specifically about him. Not that I was going to ask, but still...

“So,” he said. “That dance was sure fun, huh?”

I looked up at him. “Yeah.”

He exhaled and then pushed his fingers through his long hair. “Sorry.”

“What?”

“That was lame. Can we start again?”

I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so I nodded.

“Hi, Brooklyn,” he said, smiling. “It’s nice to see you again. I had a good time dancing with you last night.”

I was about to thank him and tell him I’d enjoyed dancing with him, too, just as polite conversation would dictate, when the new Brooklyn decided to take a different tack.

“It’s nice to see you, too. And I enjoyed dancing with you as well. Right up until I got back to my dorm and realized you’d stolen my underwear.”

“Oh, right. That.” 

I laughed. “That’s all you have to say?
Oh, right
?”

He gave me a sheepish smile. “It was a good ice-breaker, though.”

“So is,
‘hi, my name is Jared or Abe or whatever, would you like to dance?
’”

“True enough; point taken,” he said, laughing.

“You even could have led with that child actor thing; I’m sure that works on girls every time,” I blurted out. And was instantly sorry when his smile dissolved.
Nice going, Brooklyn
, I berated myself.
You know he’s sensitive about his childhood and there you go, throwing it in his face.