Private School Playboys novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: September Ninth

The screen was as wide as a cinema's.

It hung over the stage behind the band, a white square lit with silver stars.

It went blue, then black.

Then words appeared, big enough for the back row to read.

THE PLAYBOYS. Group chat.

My stomach dropped.

I knew the name.

I knew it from the boathouse banner and Roisin's whisper and every strange look I'd had in November.

September 9, 11:42 p.m.

The first message was a line of white text on a dark bubble.

Jude: Bored. Fifty grand says nobody here can get Roberta Whittredge, the scholarship girl in AP Chem, to say I love you.

Jude: And be on his arm at the Winter Formal.

The ballroom was so quiet I heard the ice shift in a glass.

Under it came the replies, one at a time, each with a time stamp.

Brooks: Easy. I'm in.

The signet ring boy: In.

The bald boy: In. Who's holding the money?

Sheridan: I'll hold it. Winner takes all. Twelve and a half each. Don't be late, boys.

Then a last line from Brooks, September 17.

Brooks: She said it back. On the library steps. Tell Sheridan to start counting.

The screen held still.

I stood in the middle of the floor in my green velvet dress with three hundred people looking at me.

I couldn't feel my hands.

On the stage, Sheridan lowered the microphone and smiled, and her smile was horrible.

"Fifty thousand dollars," she said gently. "The pot is sitting in an account in my name. Brooks wins it tonight, if you're on his arm."

Nobody spoke.

"It was never a love story, Roberta," Sheridan said. "It was a bet."

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