Perfect Cover (The Squad 1)

“Get lost,” I told him. “If we’re going to this thing, I need to get dressed.”

I was less than surprised a few minutes later when I abandoned my laptop and opened my closet door to find that at some point during the day, my outfit had been selected for me. Sometimes it seemed like there were four of the twins instead of two. Except for the time I’d spent in class and working on Operation Playboy, I’d been with them for most of the day, and yet somehow at least one of them had made it back here at some point to play personal stylist.

For the first time since I’d joined the Squad, the selected outfit wasn’t a skirt and a glitzy top—it was a pair of white jeans that looked dangerously low cut and uncomfortably tight. And a glitzy top. There was a note on the jeans (“wear thick blue belt with rhinestone buckle”), a note on the top (“wear with gel bra”), and a pair of high-heeled blue designer cowboy boots, with (shocker of shockers) a note attached. I read the last note and crumpled it. Apparently, the twins had decided that boots were my “trademark item” and they’d put out a fashion APB on new boot styles. They were expecting deliveries more or less daily.

Though I shuddered at a future filled with fashion boots, I couldn’t help but think that it could be worse. I mean, they could have decided that a Chihuahua was my trademark item, and then I’d be stuck carrying a rat-dog around all the time.

Pushing the thought out of my mind, I carried my clothes into the bathroom and stripped. I showered quickly, dried my hair with a supersonic blow dryer that had magically appeared in my bathroom, and tried to apply my foundation. After the tutorial I had been given, I couldn’t help but feel that one wrong move with one of these face sponge thingies, and I was going to somehow destroy the free world.

I skipped the mascara and eye gunk, but applied a small amount of lip gloss to minimize the chances of a drive-by glossing. Eyeing the white pants distrustfully, I began to put on the outfit: the glitzy turquoise thong I’d bought at Victoria’s Secret, the bewildering gel bra, the glitzy blue top, and finally, the white pants. They were made of a really thick denim that must have had at least some spandex in it, based on the way they stretched to grip my butt like a glove.

I checked my back half out in the mirror, just to make sure that the underwear wasn’t showing through, and not at all because I was interested in what my butt would look like in the aforementioned stretchy pants.

Moving made me realize that something was off, and when I wedged my hand into the right front pocket of the pants, I pulled out a small piece of paper and a white choker with a blue gem on the end. The piece of paper was completely blank, but when I dampened it with the edge of my towel, bubble letters appeared on the page.

Choker = video/audio feed.

Whichever twin had written that message had signed it simply with a heart. My eyes scanned to the bottom of the page, and I saw the postscript.

PS: Don’t worry—your underwear won’t show through. Special-issue fabric.

And below that:

PPS: Wear the sparkly thong anyway. We’ll know if you don’t.

And that was that. The paper dried, the words disappeared, and I tore it into pieces before tossing it into the trash.

I put the choker around my neck, parted my hair down the center, and forced my feet into the boots du jour.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, Noah was waiting for me. His collar had, without a doubt, been repopped within the last five minutes.

“You ready?” he asked, playing it cool.

I weighed the situation. I hadn’t managed to find out any information on Brooke and Zee, and I hadn’t heard a word from the rest of the Squad. I mentally prepared myself to push those thoughts down and concentrate on the task at hand. To that end, I glanced down at my body. A full two inches of my stomach was showing, my newly gel-enhanced boobs were actually noticeable, and the sparkle from the belt was so intense that I thought it was going to give me an aneurysm.

I turned back to Noah. “Ready.”

“You driving?” Noah asked.

At that exact moment, the doorbell rang, and I realized that when I’d made Noah the happiest goofy little freshman in the whole wide world, I’d forgotten one key detail about tonight’s party.

I wasn’t driving. Jack Peyton was.

CHAPTER 30

Code Word: Attraction

“You normally bring your little brother on dates with you?”

“Bite me. And watch the road.”

From the backseat, Noah watched the interplay between Jack and me, fascinated. How could I have forgotten that I’d sort of agreed to let John Peyton IV pick me up at seven? What kind of idiot was I?

“Whatever you say, Ev,” Jack said.

There it was again: the nickname, accompanied, as always, by the smirk.

“FYI, Smirk Boy, this isn’t a date,” I informed him tersely.

“You’re giving me a ride to the party. Once we’re there, if you’re lucky, you’ll be one of the less nauseating people to interact with, and maybe I’ll give you the time of day.”

“Oh, Ev, stop. You’re making me blush.”

I know, I know. I was supposed to be flirting with him. I wasn’t supposed to be trying to wipe the cocky smile off his face, but hey, it was my FT, and I’d do what I wanted to. Besides, he was just so…so…

“Great outfit, by the way. What? You didn’t have time to deface the belt buckle?” Jack took his eyes off the road just long enough to meet mine with a grin.

I could only hope that the sparkly buckle in question would give him the aneurysm and not me.

“It was a gift,” I said dryly.

“From the twins?” Jack asked.

I was a teensy bit surprised that he was observant enough to have figured out who won the Most Likely to Give Toby Hideously Girly Accessories competition.

Jack laughed at the look on my face. “Please,” he said. “This happens whenever anyone makes the Varsity Spirit Squad. The twins glitterfy them.”

The way he spoke about the squad and the way it worked was somewhat unsettling. It wasn’t that I expected the fact that I’d been majorly made over to go straight over everyone’s head; I just didn’t think that anyone would pinpoint the twins as the reason why, and I didn’t think anyone would remember enough about makeovers past to know that this was a pattern with them.

“They call it the God Squad for a reason,” Jack said. He shrugged and then glanced at me out of the side of his eyes.

“You enjoying your high school divinity?”