1 CHAPTER ONE

BREAKING NEWS: CAMILLE CHANNING NOW ENGAGED TO EX-PORNSTAR BOYFRIEND

Written by Juliana Powell

Do you hear wedding bells? Because we do.

Camille Channing is engaged! The controversial star announced on Monday that she and her boyfriend of two months, ex-pornstar turned celebrity chef, Ferdinand Chance, have decided to tie the knot via an Instagram post with an adorable picture of the ring and a simple caption: 'Finally.'

(Link) RELATED CONTENT: HOTTEST MEN CAMILLE CHANNING HAS DATED

Within the first hour, the post garnered close to a million likes and a lot of congratulations from many other celebrities who were happy to hear the news.

Notably, at the time of this publication, both Robert King and Ben Oliver, Channing's ex-lovers and the fathers of her children have not publicly commented on the viral announcement.

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"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Huh?

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Wait a minute. A fight? Here? Just before first period? Not on my watch.

With my binder tucked underneath my arm, and armed with my abnormally sharp muscles, I power walk towards the source of the commotion. There's a crowd gathered in front of a classroom—and the closer I get, the more it looks like it's the same classroom I'm about to have my AP Calculus class in less than five minutes.

Oh, Sweet Baby Jesus, no. Not my classroom.

These hooligans are free to wrestle literally anywhere they want...just not on school grounds (as stated in the school handbook), and most especially not in the classroom my next class with the Earth's pettiest teacher is going to take place. It's been a rough couple of weeks; with my Mother's televised preparation to marry the current love of her life and having to surf the internet with a fake account—because, for some reason, people find it funny to send links, photos, and videos of Ferdinand's past endeavors to me—I haven't even had the energy to sleep, much less study—

But I digress.

Bottom line is, if a pop quiz comes out of nowhere because these nincompoops put Mr. Marsh in a bad mood, I'm going to fail because I haven't studied Calculus in a while, and if I fail, I'm going to...well, I better not find out what I'd do.

Steeling myself, I step forward and elbow people out of my way. "Coming through, student council secretary coming through!"

"Hey!" "Watch it!" "Ugh!" The nosy students move out of my way, but of course, not without calling me vulgar terms synonymous to 'party pooper' and whatnot. Whatever. I ignore the jabs and continue on my way to stop these fools from causing Mr. Marsh grief, which will, in turn, cause me grief.

Where's that stupid hall monitor when you need him?! Oh, so he only knows to appear when I'm running to the restroom to take a tinkle?!

I finally break to the front of the crowd and the spectacle makes me frown.

Of course, it's Mitch Kolby, my boneheaded seatmate. Why didn't I suspect it would be him causing this ruckus?

His back is facing me but I can see his neck is red (practically more veins than neck, to be honest), and he's practically strangling some guy who, for some reason, is sitting in my seat.

There are a lot of things wrong with this scenario. For one, a lot of my classmates are sitting at their desks, watching the conundrum with their phones in the air like they don't know it's their responsibility as students to help fellow students uphold the school rules to achieve a peaceful environment for learning. For another, why is this boy in my seat when;

(1) Everyone knows Mr. Marsh's uses the class register to alphabetically assign seats by surname? Meaning; it's pure fate and a stroke of bad luck straight from birth that my name follows Mitch Kolby's in the class register.

(2) No one wants to be Mitch Kolby's seatmate? If not for the fact I have to and breaking rules isn't something I aspire to do, I'd rather sit on the floor. Mitch smells like a toxic combination of some designer cologne, something awful I can't identify, and cigarettes. He's also rude and is always hell-bent on cheating on tests by trying to copy off my answers. It's not a fun experience, sitting with this guy, so again;

Why is this boy in my seat?

"Mitch!" I raise my voice above the chants, "leave him alone!" I pause. "And whoever you are, that's my seat! Return to yours immediately, thank you!"

Mitch throws me a look over his shoulder. "Back off, Oliver. I'm not in the mood."

"What's going on?" Instead of backing off, I step closer and hope I look as intimidating as I want to. "We have class in less than a minute, Mitch. If you must beat up anyone, you're going to do it far, far, far away from here, you hear me? I am not failing a pop quiz that you'll try picking answers off of because of your irrational need to pick on people smaller than you."

Mitch Kolby, standing at a height of 6'2 and weighing close to 193 lbs, doesn't seem to be intimidated by my 5'3, frustrated frame. "Shut up, Oliver."

I frown and glance down at my Swatch. Two minutes. I don't have time for words, it seems.

Taking a fortifying breath, I march towards them and smack Mitch's hand, ignoring the resulting boo's from the crowd of idiots. "Release him! Release!"

"What the fish?" Mitch says except it's Mitch so instead of 'fish', he says something far more vulgar that rhymes with suck. "Oliver—"

"Whatever he did, forgive him. And if you can't, then wait till later. After school, at a location that is not here or in this general vicinity, you boys can duke it out. Kill each other if you like, I don't care. But not here and not now. Class will begin in less than a minute so please, please, drop it."

As soon as I'm done talking, I notice the class is silent. No one is chanting and if I concentrate hard enough, I'm sure I can hear birds singing outside.

I don't take my eyes off Mitch though. I glare up at him, hard, and he returns the look. I don't waver. After all, I live with two of the scariest girls in school (three if you count Mother when she manages to make it for PTA meetings). A little glaring competition with people that can wipe the floor with me? Piece of cake. I've been doing it my whole life.

Finally, Mitch rolls his eyes and turns away from me. He makes his way towards the door. I blink after him, confused.

"Where are you going? Class begins in—"

"Oh, shut the fish up, Oliver!" He flips me off and the crowd at the door parts for him to pass. Also, in case it isn't obvious, he doesn't say fish.

Well. That's just rude. I just saved us both from a pop quiz and this is the gratitude I get? Heroes never win.

The bell rings and a good percentage of the spectators throw me dirty looks as they leave or make their way into class. I shake my head. So, actual classmates were in the stands and they just let it happen? They didn't even try to stop it? Why do I go to school with absolute nincompoops?

"Hi, Cheryl?" a voice says. "Thanks."

Oh, yeah. The boy I just saved from a trip to the school nurse. I forgot about the idiot.

I cast my gaze away from the empty doorway and return it to my seat where a boy my age...

My tongue shrivels. Sweat forms on my brow. My heartbeat accelerates.

Here's a random fact about me: I do not function well around good-looking members of the opposite sex.

And lucky me (note the sarcasm); there is a blond, handsome stranger looking up at me. This boy isn't a member of this class. It's the second month of school and I know for a fact that I've never seen his face in this class. Or...well, I've never seen this face before at all. I'd know if I've seen his face around. It's a pretty face.

So...he's a new student. That explains how he managed to plant his buttocks on my seat and somehow anger Mitch.

His hair is dark blond and is combed away from his face to expose his perfectly normal-sized forehead and thick, dark eyebrows. His eyes are brown, obscured by glasses (just like mine! We have something in common already), and his cheekbones are defined and his lips are thin but so very pink and surprisingly not chapped and—and I should stop admiring the shape of his lips, at this point shouldn't I?

The atmosphere is awkward as it tends to be whenever I'm in the midst of a boy I find attractive. My face flushes in embarrassment as I quickly break my gaze away from his lips. How long have I been silently staring at him like a buffoon??

He raises an eyebrow and in the next second, he's standing. I back away and blink up at his chin. Great, he's tall. I take a cautionary whiff of the air. And he doesn't smell like nicotine too!

"I'll see you around," he says. I watch, bemused, as he places a hand on my head. Before I can force my mouth to snap shut, he shoulders a backpack and walks out of class.

...Did he just pat me on the head? Like a dog?

"Huh?" I breathe. What the heck just happened?! Why did he do that?!

Mr. Marsh breezes in, looking, as per usual, like he just got in a fight with a raccoon and lost. He places his briefcase on his desk and casts me a dry look.

"Is there a reason you're standing, Ms. Oliver?"

"No, Mr. Marsh." Flustered, I sit on my seat and bury my cherry red face in my binder.

It's honestly as I said before. Heroes never win.

╏╏╏╏╏╏╏╏╏╏

Aph.Net is the consequence of going to a school that doesn't believe in the print media but believes in the creativity of its students without supervising said students.

Once upon a time, Aph.Net was a credible place to get news about the latest things happening in school. Changes made to the cafeteria menu, details on a new play being worked on by the drama department, news about the school's football team; these are the things that Aph.Net was originally made to broadcast.

So why, in the name of all things good, is an unflattering picture OF MY FACE posted on the stupid website with the headline '1/4 of the Oliver Quadruplets Saves New Kid From Getting Clobbered' like it's meant to be relevant news???

I'm scared for the future of journalism.

"Don't you want to, like, read the article?" Cree asks me as she bites into a strawberry. She waves her phone in front of my face. "Like, the picture is bad...but the article is really good!"

"Uh-huh," I mumble as I sip on my Sprite. "Thank you but no."

Because Cree has selective hearing, she begins to read anyway. "Cheryl Paris Oliver—1/4 of the Oliver Quadruplets and ranked 5th most annoying student at APH according to our recent poll—"

I shoot Cree a warning glance. Wisely, she skips ahead. "Most people would cower under the force of Mitch Kolby's glare but no—not Cheryl Oliver. Like a sword-wielding Athena, she charged into the fray and managed to save Jasper—"

"Jasper?" That's his name?

Cree gives me a look. "Yeah, Jasper Price? The guy you, uh, rescued? He's been around for close to two months now, I don't know why they're still calling him the new kid."

Jasper Price. Great, even his name is nice.

And he's been around that long? How come I never noticed him before?

Cree clears her throat. "Managed to save Jasper with nothing more than a few words and a light smack. At the time of publication, we weren't able to get comments from Cheryl, Jasper, and Mitch." With a sigh, Cree drops her phone on the table and picks up a strawberry.

I watch as she chews, lost in her world. "...That's it?"

"Yeah," Cree swallows. "Pretty cool, right?"

I'll say it again: I'm scared for the future of journalism.

Candy sets her tray next to mine and sits next to me. The overpowering scent of her perfume hits my nose and with a frown, I shuffle away to save my sinuses.

"Hey hoes," she greets offhandedly. Cree chirps a positive reply as Candy turns to send me a look. "I've seen the article. Can you, for once, try not to be embarrassing?"

I open my mouth to defend myself just as Chloe joins us. She sits next to Cree, diagonal to me, and sends me a look. "That picture is my new profile picture on Instagram."

So, is there a single person who hasn't seen this article?!

"Shut up," I mumble. Suddenly, my blueberry muffin doesn't look so appetizing anymore. I push it away and watch as Chloe casually picks it up. "Can we just have a normal lunch period where we don't talk about stupid articles and stupid boys and even stupider pictures taken in bad lighting? Thank you."

"Is stupider a word?" Cree mock-whispers. Chloe shrugs in reply as she devours my muffin. Suddenly, I want it back.

"Can't," Candy says in reply to me. She puts a forkful of salad in her mouth and I wait for her to finish, unimpressed. Finally, she swallows. "You're about to make headlines again."

"Huh?"

Cree giggles and even Chloe, who is always content to simply stay silent and observe, cracks a smile. "Yeah," Cree agrees. "Headlines."

"What the heck are you guys talking about?"

On my other side, someone sits next to me. I freeze.

Candy smirks. "Don't be shy," she whispers. "Turn around."

"Hey," a familiar voice says.

"Hey!" Cree beams. Beside her, Chloe nods without taking her eyes off her phone.

Something akin to dread pools in my tummy.

Ever since we started high school, it's been a sort of unspoken rule that no one sits with the Oliver Quadruplets during Lunch. Not because we're social pariahs (read: we are but that's not the reason...I think) or because there isn't enough space to accommodate more than four people at a table. There is. It's just, no one sits with us. It's just been that way for a long time, okay?

So obviously, there's only one person in the entire school who wouldn't be aware of this. Slowly, I turn to face the intruder.

"Hey," Jasper Price says again as our eyes meet. He smiles at me and I watch as a dimple magically appears on his left cheek.

Oh no, I can't deal with this. He's too pretty and I'm so nervous, I could puke.

Quickly, I push my chair away from the table and stand. "I've got, uh, something to do."

Cree frowns, concerned. "Do you need to pee? Want me to come with?"

Heat rushes straight to my cheeks. I love Cree, I do. Most times, she's my favorite sister because she's so nice and so Cree. But at this moment, I want to throttle her.

Without giving her an answer, I flee the cafeteria and hope I, at least, look good as I go. I don't need another unflattering picture getting published, thank you very much.