“Lilac!” I call to gain her attention. When her gaze lands on me, I ask, “How did everyone find out?”
“When you weren’t home to receive a package, your neighbor, Soleil, took it for you.” I find Soleil in the crowd. She blushes and avoids my gaze. I think I’m beginning to understand what happened.
“She noticed the package was a microphone and a pop filter. She asked Sage what you use a pop filter for and—”
I raise my hand to stop her. “I get it.”
“There’s more to the story,” Lilac insists because she believes you should have every single detail of a story before you can make a factual assessment. I don’t need to assess the story. I know what happened. The people of Winter Falls snooped until they figured out my secret. Typical really.
Aspen shoves a glass of wine in my hand. “You’re going to need this.”
I’m afraid to ask why. Instead, I gulp half the glass in one go. “Leave the bottle,” I tell her.
Aspen claps her hands. “The question-and-answer session will now begin.” Everyone starts shouting out questions at once until Aspen whistles for quiet. “Raise your hand if you have a question and I’ll call on you one by one.”
“You sound like Mom,” I grumble behind her. “Are you going to give out detention to those who don’t listen?”
Mom sniffs. “I don’t give out detention for students who don’t listen.” I widen my eyes at her obvious lie. “You got detention because you didn’t follow directions, not because you didn’t listen.”
I’m not clear on the distinction she’s making.
She crosses her arms over her chest. “I told you if you screamed ‘I volunteer as tribute’ one more time, I would give you detention.”
“I don’t understand why you got mad. I thought you’d be happy I was reading books. You’re an English teacher after all.”
She sniffs, and I raise my palm in her direction. “No. I don’t want to hear how The Hunger Games isn’t literature again. Let’s agree to disagree.”
“I’m still right,” she sings as she finds a seat.
And people say I’m stubborn.
Aspen fists her hands on her hips. “Are you two finished?”
“I don’t know. If I say I’m finished, are you going to let them,” I motion to the crowd, “circle me like they’re sharks and I’m bleeding from my foot?”
“Sharks don’t go crazy when they smell blood. It’s an urban myth,” Juniper explains.
“Really?” I ask as if I’m fascinated. I’m not. I’ve been forced to watch enough Shark Weeks on the Discovery Channel to fulfill all my non-existent interest in sharks. I didn’t learn anything other than swimming in the ocean is bad. I’ll stick to pools, thank you very much.
“First question?” Aspen says and points to Feather. I groan. Feather doesn’t know what a brain to filter is. Whatever pops into her brain shoots out of her mouth without any thought as to who her words might offend.
“Why porn?” Thanks for proving me right, Feather.
“Why porn what?” I ask in a delaying tactic I know will fail. At least, there’s wine.
Unfortunately, Feather takes my question seriously. “Why do you narrate porn? Why not some other genre?”
I huff out a breath of air. “First of all, I do not narrate porn. I narrate erotic romance.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Erotic romance is a romance story, despite the explicit sex. In fact, the sex is not an inherent part of the story. You can remove it without damaging the storyline.”
“Oh,” Feather says and flops back into her seat.
“But why erotic romance? Why not thrillers or mysteries or romance without sex?” Petal asks.
“Are you saying you’d read a romance story without sex in it?” I fire back at her.