Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
“There’s no way in hell those skirts aren’t violating the dress code.”
“Look who’s concerned about rules all of a sudden,” Hannah murmurs.
I shoot her a look and she plays at innocence while Parker simply defends her position. “They’re definitely against dress code, but I’m basically a rich kid now. I can wear whatever I want, and no one will say anything about it,” she says haughtily.
“I will personally rip those clothes off your body if you don’t go change right now.”
She shakes her head, reaching into her bag and pulling out a clipboard. “Nope. I’m not changing until we’ve raised the money. If you’d like to help us collect donations, maybe we’ll get there faster, but—”
I grab the clipboard out of her hand. “Give me a pen.”
She reaches into her bag and hands over a pen.
I write my name in the first slot, then I jot down $5,000 under donation amount. “The pandas are saved,” I state, handing back the clipboard. “Now, go change your fucking clothes.”
Parker gapes at the clipboard, then her big doe eyes shoot back to me. “Is this a serious donation?”
“Sure is.”
“You have to actually pay this amount.”
“Is that how a donation works?”
She shoots me a look, but then she looks down at the clipboard and brightens. “Wow. Well, I guess we did it,” she says, looking over at Hannah.
Hannah tugs at the bottom of her tight skirt. “Great. I figured it would take all day, so I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
“At least it’s Halloween weekend,” I say.
“Do you want my clothes to change into?” Parker offers. “I can just steal clothes from Landon.”
Hannah shakes her head. “That’s okay. We went to all this trouble. I’ll just wear it. Maybe I’ll get more donations,” she says brightly.
“Save the pandas even harder.” Parker nods. “I like it.”
“Bring your clipboard by my table at lunch and you can easily double it if you’re wearing that,” I advise her. “Not you,” I tell Parker, pointing back at the bathroom. “You go put on something that won’t cause me to beat people up.”
“You know only you can cause you to beat people up, right?” Despite her words, she comes over to give me a kiss.
I glance down the hall, then back the other way. Since there’s no one around, I slide an arm around her and tug her in for a better kiss.
“I don’t know how good this lipstick is. I might get it all over you,” she murmurs, pulling back when her lips are inches from mine.
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I say before closing the distance.
“Mm. Do you like my sexy panda costume?” she teases, her lips still close enough to kiss.
Since my hand is resting on the soft fabric at the small of her back, I can tell it feels nice. “You can wear it for me later while the parents are at Fright Night.”
Sighing, she says, “I love when they have date nights.”
“I’m just glad I spent my time making panda sweaters for your benefit,” Hannah remarks with light amusement.
Parker pulls back, smiling faintly at her friend. “Hey, they did get the donation we needed, just not in the way we planned. They’re great sweaters, so soft and cozy. Maybe you could repurpose yours and wear it for Halloween.”
“Eh, maybe,” she says, but she doesn’t sound interested. “I was working on a different costume, but I haven’t had time to finish it. I suppose I could have spent the time I wasted making these on that, but I didn’t realize we could just threaten Landon with someone seeing your legs and he’d hand over a check. My mistake. I should have known that.”
Parker wraps a comforting arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “You just don’t possess the loan shark mentality required for brainstorming shakedowns.”
“If I had a dollar for every time that was a problem for me,” Hannah jokes.
___
Since Parker didn’t want Hannah to be a lonely panda, she kept the sweater on, but paired it with black leggings instead of the short skirt. She also left on the panda makeup since there wasn’t time to take it off before school started, so she and Hannah spend the rest of the school day canvasing for donations between classes.
Anae gets annoyed at lunch when she realizes she was left out of the panda prostitution ring, and even more annoyed when Arden pledges $10k after Parker strategically showed off my donation. The guy can’t be outdone.
Given Arden is her date to his Fright Fest afterparty tomorrow night, Anae is also enraged watching him not bother to hide his enjoyment of Hannah’s skimpy costume before coaxing her to come hold the clipboard for him while he jots down his donation.
Either unaware of or indifferent to Anae’s intensifying anger, when he hands the pen back to Hannah, he asks, “You’re coming to my party tomorrow night, right?”