Althena Book 2

22. Channel 11

I wake up to someone banging on the door. Then it opens and Drogon walks in. "GET UP."

I roll off Conner's back and stretch.

"Damn you are sexy."

Conner opens his eyes and looks at me. "I could watch her stretch like that forever. Get out though. I'm naked."

"Fine. But get up this time." Drogon shuts the door behind him.

I snuggle against Conner.

He checks his phone. "We need to get up. We're an hour late already. You worked me too hard last night, babygirl."

I giggle and jump up. "We're late for school?"

"No. Just waking up. Let's take a quick shower and go. We can eat on the way. The helicopter can take us."

And that's exactly what we do. The helicopter lands by the door with 3 minutes to spare. I go directly to my classroom and Conner runs for his.

The second I sit down, Akmae turns around. "You missed some drama this morning."

"What happened?"

"Amber went off on Lila. She's pissed you and her took Josh to the concert and not her."

"If she had been at your house, she could have gone too. It's not like we had any time to plan. She was the one who got mad at him, then tried to ruin your party."

"That's the same thing Josh and I told her. But Lila was about to cry."

"Open up your books to page 94. We are studying distant galaxies this week."

By the time I see Lila, she is not about to cry. She is pissed. Then it's time for lunch. This should be interesting.

Conner sits beside me, like always. I steal one of his fries and giggle. He smiles and kisses my cheek. "You are the sweetest, baby."

Lila sits across from me and glares at Amber. Amber sits all the way at the end of the table by herself. She looks like she's about to cry.

Akmae and Matt show up. They sit across from Conner. Josh is nowhere to be seen. The rest of the girls sit at our side of the table and won't even look at Amber.

"Oh, this is ridiculous." I pick up my tray and move beside Amber.

"You don't have to sit here."

"You're one of the first people I met here. I consider you my friend. I won't know what you're going through unless you talk to me. I wish you would. I know something is really bothering you."

"Why did you take him?"

"He was there. Akmae invited me and Lila to his house. He said you would be there but not to talk about it with anyone else. When we showed up, you weren't there, but it was a party. It was out of hand. Stuff was breaking. He wanted it to end. I had my guards end the party. Everyone ran away except him and Josh. Lila and I were trying to figure out something else to do. Then Clayton came in. I guess Akmae invited him at the hockey game. But Clayton was talking about the band. We had to leave right then. It was more Clayton's decision than ours. I think he's friends with Akmae now. But we wanted to see the band anyway. Why weren't you there? He said you were going to be there with Josh."

"We got into a fight. I blew off the party and told Jenna about it. I knew it would turn into a real party that way. I wanted to piss Josh off."

"Why?"

"He acts like I'm supposed to pay attention to him constantly, but if I ask him to show the slightest bit of interest in me, he acts like I'm asking for the world."

"I'm sorry he's ignoring you and expecting so much. That's not fair."

"I wanted a boyfriend, and now I'm not so sure. I thought it would be more fun than this. You and Conner have so much fun."

"He's not only my boyfriend. He's my soulmate. My king. My love. There really is a big difference. You'll never find a soulmate in a boyfriend. But you'll find a boyfriend in a soulmate. You'll find everything in your soulmate."

"WOMAN."

"What, Conner?"

"Did you take my ketchup?"

I roll my eyes and throw the packets at him.

Amber laughs. "Everything. Including the ketchup."

"That one loses weird s**t. Like, why the hell would he even put his ketchup on my tray?"

"I'm sorry I got so mad about you taking Josh. It felt like you 2 were picking him over me."

"Never. I think Clayton did though. Be mad at him. But we were rushed and never made a plan."

"I'm going to talk to Lila. I need to apologize to her too."

"She'll understand. I'm going back to Conner. He's having far too much fun without me."

Conner stops his fry hockey game with Akmae. "Did you get it worked out?"

"Yea. She's upset with Josh. It's ruining her whole day."

Lila gives me a dirty look. "She's ruining my day too. I'm going to post this underwater picture of us. Is that ok?"

"I don't care."

Conner takes her phone and checks it. "Yea. That's fine. You can post it."

I glare at him. "You don't get to tell us what we can post."

"Yes, I f*****g can, woman. You're in a bikini. That's why she asked to begin with. You have to check the photos. Make sure a boob isn't popping out or something. But you were underwater, the outfit was appropriate for that. A lot of people watch you. You have to be careful about what you put online. Once it's out there, it cannot be taken back."

Lauren nods. "Some people don't put swimsuit pictures online. I won't. It's a personal preference. But you were underwater scuba diving. It makes sense you would be in swimsuits for that."

"Why would it matter?"

"Some girls are whores." Lila pulls up someone's page. "Whores will make themselves half-naked for sexy pics. But it's not like we were trying to be sexy, we were swimming."

Conner cracks up, laughing. "Yea, sexy was not the look you were giving with all the gear on and the thing wrapped around your head." I poke him in the ribs. "Sorry, baby. You're sexy no matter what."

"That's what I thought you said."

"AMBER."

"WHAT, CONNER?" She's still by herself.

"How many cookies you have left to sell?"

"834 boxes."

"I need to buy donations with the money we made Friday. Drogon gave half to Penn. Or he thought it was half. I need the link."

She walks her phone over. Conner, Akmae, and Matt get the link.

"What the hell?" Lexi gives Matt and Akmae a dirty look.

Matt laughs. "I like cookies. Nobody asked me to buy some."

She rolls her eyes. "Yea. I'm done. They're too hard to sell. I only sold 300 or something like that. You better hurry though. We only have until Friday."

"I know. I'm trying. I'm getting closer."

"Conner deliver them to our house. We didn't get any house cookies."

"We don't need 100 boxes of cookies."

"You really made $500?"

"No. I'm rounding. I'm not working that out. Not worth it."

"Get some for the house please. I want to try the peanut butter kind."

"Amber, I need the link again. I need peanut butter house cookies."

She laughs and walks it back over.

"I'll get 2 boxes of each for the house."

"That's perfect. Thank you."

Akmae gives us a dirty look. "Why is shipping so much? I could get 4 boxes for the shipping cost."

"I've never seen a shipping charge. It's free shipping."

Amber nods. "If you buy 10 boxes the shipping is free."

"That's about dumb. I have 8 in the cart. I can add 2 more and save $10."

Matt laughs. "I did the same thing. Put 1 of each in the cart. That is stupid. Buy 8 and add $20 for shipping or buy 2 more and get $20 off shipping."

I smile. "And just like that, she sold an extra 4 boxes."

Conner puts his arm around me. "I need to go to work."

Akmae points. "Drogon's here."

"f**k, work came to me." He turns. "What?"

Drogon kisses my head. "I'm doing a follow-up on the food program. We're here for an hour. I wanted to catch you before you left."

Atlas walks up to us. "You're going to have to get my brothers. The lunch ladies are giving them a tour of the kitchen."

"Why?"

"This is not how we do lunch at our schools. They're very confused."

"How do you do them?"

"The kids get what the cooks make that day. And they have a choice of 1 or 2 things. This is a lot."

"That's the way my old school did it. But that was in Crystal Falls."

Conner nods. "Same."

"They can have a tour. Let's go find Penn again."

"If he's in a suit, he was trying to get them out of the kitchen."

Conner takes off. "Let's go tour the kitchen."

Drogon nods. "That's what I was thinking."

I roll my eyes. "I'm going. You have fun." I give Drogon a hug and he gives me a kiss. Then he pats my butt.

"DETENTION."

I laugh so damn hard. Lila laughs too. "You can't grab her ass."

The detention guy freezes solid. He doesn't move. All the color falls out of his face.

Drogon smirks. "I'm not going to make it to detention."

"Of course not, sir. I'll cross it off." He grabs it and runs away.

It takes me a full 3 minutes to stop laughing before I can go to my tutor. Akmae walks with me. "Why do you have a tutor every afternoon class?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I haven't been to school..."

"Queen Althena Sage. It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Christina. I am a co-anchor and investigative reporter for Channel 11 evening news." She is fancy and smiling in my face. "Would you be interested in sitting down for an interview?"

She seems nice. "Of..."

Akmae grabs my arm and pulls. "PENN. You need to contact the king, lady. PENN."

Crew runs out of the tutor office. "What is happening?"

"Channel 11 is soliciting for an interview on school grounds."

Crew guides me into the tutor room. "You know better than that."

"People have no idea who she is. She showed up one day as the princess. Now she's the queen. People want to learn about her. We know nothing. But you're right. I'm actually here for the new lunch program. Mr. Penn is expecting me. Will you give her my card, please?"

"No. Mr. Penn's office is down the hall and to the right."

"Of course."

Crew comes in with Akmae behind her. "Did you say anything to her?"

"No."

She nods. "Akmae, will you let Mr. Penn know I need to talk to him and the king. I'm not leaving her alone here."

"Sure."

We sit down and I get out my algebra book. "Letters and numbers mixed are stupid."

"You'll get it. Let's work on it."

10 minutes later, Penn, Drogon, and Akmae come in. "What happened?"

"She was asking a student for an interview in the hallway."

"This hallway?"

"Yes."

"Everything is recorded. I'll review the footage and file suit against Channel 11 if we can."

"You need to. She needs to be safe here."

"I know that, but if she was only introducing herself, we can't do anything. I will review the footage."

Akmae follows him out. "That lady asked for an interview."

"I'll review the footage right now." I can tell Penn is getting irritated.

I hug Drogon. "I want to do it."

"We'll talk about it, baby. You study for now."

"Ok. I love you."

"I love you too."

I plop down for the 3 hours of boredom.