Like a lightning bolt, I storm across my room to snatch the book from Ashton.
He looks surprised and a little annoyed too when I do that. But then he sees who dared to take the book from him and his expression neutralizes on his face instantly and turns to a smug one.
He readjusts his position against the headboard and crosses his arms. "C'mon Snow, I just got to the interesting part," a knowing smirk plays in the corner of his mouth.
I flush furiously knowing what he is referring to. I love Colleen Hoover, no offense, but she could've written that scene somewhere other than earlier chapters. Maybe in the last ones?
"I'm impressed that you have this kind of book in your collection," he continues. "What's the name of the book again? I think I'll buy it on my way home tonight."
I ignore him and turn around with the book still in my hand.
"What're you all doing here?" I ask. The whole press committee, minus Mrs. Roth, plus Ashton, is scattered around my room.
"We agreed to meet here to talk about the swapping, or did you forget already?" Jason says.
"We agreed?" I ask in confusion. I don't remember agreeing with any such thing. "When?"
"Actually, Ashton and I agreed. We wanted to talk about the ongoing case and your house seemed the best option because we all know it and it's kind of in the middle of all of our houses. I thought I told him to let you and Miles know about our arrangement."
I turn around to Ashton. His grace finally decides to get up from my bed. "I told Miles to tell you."
Miles, too occupied in typing away on his phone, probably playing some game he recently produced interest at. "Miles?"
He doesn't even turn his gaze away from the phone. "I forgot," he says.
"You could've told me about it when I gave you my keys after school."
He sighs and looks at me finally. "C'mon I'm telling you I forgot," he says. "I'm sorry."
I roll my eyes. Some best friends I have. I turn to others in my room. They made it feel like home already. Luca and Tristan are on my laptop (How did they even get my password?) Grace, Payton, and Promy are reading my magazines. Jason, the only quiet person, is doing what looks like his homework, using my desk. They turned my whole room into a mess.
Grace pats my shoulder. "I feel you," she says. Grace has three siblings, with one older and one younger brother who's friends trash their house every other weekend as her parents don't mind them crashing at their place.
I eye the empty soda cans. "I was about to say to make it feel like home but that'll be pointless cause you already did."
Ashton raises a hand. "To my defense, I did ask Miles before borrowing the book. He said it was cool and we can use anything from your room."
"Miles!" Let's just hope no one went through my closet.
"What?" He looks up from his phone. "I thought you don't mind if your friend uses your things."
"And we're friends too," Ashton adds excitedly.
"I thought we're allies," I deadpan.
"Wait when did that happen?" Grace asks. Clearly, I forgot to tell her and Miles the little details of my last weekend. They both are now giving me a wary look.
Drama queens.
Ashton ignores them and makes a crying face. "You don't want to be my friend?"
Now everyone turns their gaze on me.
I mentally groan at that man-child and close my eyes. Then inhale a deep breath. "Okay, okay. We're friends too." Ashton fist pumps (weirdo, I know). "So why are we all gathered here? Because I want it to be over as soon as possible."
"Where were you?" Ashton of course, the curious of all, asks.
"Derek and I went to Starbucks after school. He wanted to make up for the last week. He was quite held back because of the next match."
Ashton rolls his eyes and mutters something under this breath. Before I could ask him what it was about, Jason claps his hands together.
He has turned around in the chair and everyone gathers around him. I sit on my bed between Ashton and Grace.
Jason clears his throat after we're all seated. "Okay, first let's introduce Ashton to the team so he won't feel like an outsider."
I roll my eyes. He's capable of feeling anything but that.
"Well I'm Jason, the editor of the committee," Jason continues. "That's Tristan, our head photographer."
Tristan waves his hand.
"Luca is our tech guy." Luca bows his head. "Payton is our reporter and advisor," he points at the curly locked girl beside Luca. "Grace and Miles are in charge of our sports column. Grace takes care of the football, golf, and baseball columns but I'm sure you know that."
"How could I not? She has taken my interview more than dozens of times in the past one and a half years," Ashton says enthusiastically.
"And Miles takes care of the other teams like volleyball, basketball, and swimming."
For some yet-unknown reason, Ashton looks- quite interested in meeting the team. Maybe it's because he just likes to get to know new people.
But that's not the Ashton I've heard so much about.
Then again, I wish Derek was like him. He doesn't even know what half of the committee does though he's been eating lunch with us for two years now.
What has gotten into me? Am I seriously comparing Derek with Ashton? Ashton is nowhere near him. But still-
My thoughts were cut off by Jason's voice.
"And that's Promy and she's in charge of health and beauty stories." He nods towards the South Asian girl of our group.
"Hi, nice to officially meet you finally. I'm Promy," the long black hair girl sitting beside Payton introduces herself with a smile.
"Nice to meet you too," Ashton smiles.
"And finally that's Kiara, but you already know that. She's our co-photographer in charge of Week of the School, the very same column which is currently used for spreading rumors by who-knows-which-lunatic." But Ashton ignores the last part.
"I already love your committee, so nice to meet you all. I'm Ashton Fellan and just to let you know, I'm no manwhore."
I snort. Everyone turns their gaze on me. Ashton glares.
"What?" I ask. "Jason please continue."
Jason nods. "So as I was saying we all know about Ashton and Cora fiasco. First, we need to thank Ashton for what he has done for us today."
What has Ashton done now? Everyone turns to him.
"Ashton?" I ask. He scratches the side of his neck. "Well, it was nothing."
"Nothing to you maybe. But for us, you don't even know what you have done," Jason says.
"What has he done?" Payton asks, everyone's eyes still on Ashton.
But he doesn't say anything. Then I notice his ears have turned pink. Is he blushing?
"He saved our committee today," Jason continues. "Cora brought her parents to the Principal and after all evidence was verified, she started a huge drama and said we forced her to make that video for our column. Her parents were one step away to charge our committee." I pale. "They are one of the biggest donors of our school and are in the guidance committee. Principal Samantha was about to close the press committee but then Ashton stood up for us and talked her out of that decision."
I turn to Ashton. "What did you say? No seriously what have you done to change her mind?" She's really hard to convince. Not to mention he's not her most favorite person.
"I just told her the truth. And Mr. and Mrs. Clerk know my family well. They go way back. So it was easy to convince them."
"Also his father is a larger donor than Clerks. In fact, he's the one who invested in refurbishing the football field and bought all the new tools for the team. He also paid the total sum of the D building," Jason adds.
Everyone gasps. The redoing of the football field? Buying all the stuff for training?
And we know the D building is the largest one in our school. That's where our new labs are located. It can't be possible. I mean I heard he came from rich but no one can be that rich to donate a whole new building with labs, which have the newest instruments by the way.
But when I look at Ashton, I know it's not a lie. His cheeks turned to the brightest shade of red.
"You guys are exaggerating it," he mumbles dismissively. "I did what felt like the right thing to do."
I stare at him with my mouth open. He stood up for us today.
He's almost forcing me to change my opinion about him. The villain I planted on my mind is turning out to be the exact opposite.
"So what're we supposed to do now?" Grace asks after all of us wrap our minds around the new information. "If someone is messing up with us, it means they have some intentions and that won't be doing us any favor."
"You think it's Derek?" Luca asks. "We all know he and Ashton don't have the nicest history."
"It can't be Derek. Everyone turns their attention to me. "He-he doesn't like Ashton much, but he's not that aggressive."
If one thing I know about Derek after dating him for two years is that he's patient, and believes in hard work. He likes to earn everything he does, not-not steal them from someone wrongfully.
"I agree with Snow," Ashton says. "Not because-" he points a finger at me. "Of what she said. It's Because that would've been too obvious, regarding the relation between us."
"It makes sense now," Payton mumbles. "Derek doesn't like Ashton, Kiara doesn't like Cora and they're dating," she pauses. "It's a third person who's using them."
Ashton and I look at each other.
"I don't like the sound of it," I tell them.
"Me too," Ashton says.
Jason has been quiet the whole time. Finally, he says, "What if their goal isn't focused on Ashton or Cora? Maybe this person is using them as the bait."
"Or maybe not," Miles gets down from the window and hands me his phone. "Look."
It's the Facebook group of our newspaper committee. There's a new post that has been posted from our admin page. I scroll down and freeze.
It's another photo of Ashton making out with a girl. My eyes move to the surrounding of the photo, it looks like a party
'At least our golden boy isn't racist.'
Ashton reads the post from over my shoulder and grins. "Hey, I know I'm awesome," he says cockily.
"For once Ashton, be serious with your life." I glare at him. "How come everyone takes your photo of having sex without you knowing?"
He opens his mouth- "On the second thought, don't answer for the sake of my dinner." -and closes again.
It has over 2k hits with 709 comments and 1k+ share already.
Luca is in charge of running the Facebook page. Or anything that has something to do with electronics.
We all look at him.
"You have to be kidding me," he says. "I'm here with you for the last hour. And Tristan has access to the page too. She would've known if I did something."
"That's right," Tristan says and frowns. "But why aren't I getting any notifications of these? The account is logged in on my phone too." He shows us his phone's notifications.
"I didn't either." Luca shows us his phone too. Then he checks the settings of the app. "Oh shit! Look."
"What now?"
"Someone disabled the notification of the account," Promy says handing Tristan his phone back.
"Josh from my chem class texted me to check out our Facebook page five minutes ago. When I opened the tab, it popped up." Miles says.
"Does that mean-" I pause.
"Someone hacked our Facebook page too?" Jason completes it for me. "Hell Yeah!"
He runs a hand through his hair. Wow, never in my life I thought I would hear Jason of all people swear.
Then he looks at Ashton. "Congrats dude, you're famous again. Sorry, we couldn't stop it."
Ashton waves a hand. "Nah it's cool man, I already know you guys have nothing to do with it. Although now you see it wasn't just a one time joke?"
His question is directed at me. I look everywhere but in his eyes. "Yeah maybe, but we're not sure yet."
Hell, I would surrender to him!
"That's okay, you don't have to admit," Ashton says. "But I want one favor in return for all I'm doing for you."
"Doing for us?" I ask him.
"Yeah you know, helping you out instead of pressing charge?"
We all look at him horrifically. What would he ask from us? Or specifically me?
Money? Golds? Car? Mansion? Write his college application? Hand in marriage?
I try not to think of the worst possibilities.
"I want one thing that'll be the hardest for you to give," my breath sucks as we all stare at him to complete the sentence. He looks around amusedly. This boy loves attention. "I want you all to give me your trust and make me a part of your committee so I can help you all to investigate the case."
All of us groan.
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