In Love With My Bully Step-brother

Chapter 12 | Not Dressed for Fancy

Ashleigh’s POV

The first thing I noticed about the magazine society was that their members were handpicked. They were very few and everyone had a certain sophistication to them. Some fancy specs or hairdo and their manners…whoosh! I felt inadequate. But it seemed like they were also talented too.

Samantha had managed to put together a working team and the school seemed to be okay with their publications since she’d started the club when they entered high school.

There were a few junior students who were a part of the team. She was training them to take over once she graduated the next year. They were allowed to write pieces but never the front page news. Only she got to do that as the club lead —but, she was always open to suggestions.

I sat down quietly at the back of the room while I listened to her read the students reviews on last week’s publications —the two of them. It was a little awkward, given that I had made front page news for the both. I noticed the other members trying not to look at me and I felt like the room needed to be darker.

The lights had been turned off so that the projector screen remained clear. On it, the tech guy whose name I was yet to learn was displaying the slides which Samantha read from. People had left a lot of comments of the magazine’s social media pages and Samantha was reading them all.

“Looks like our newbie was a big hit,” Samantha laughed as she read the final comment.

The student wanted to know how he could personally thank the photographer for getting the dope shots that highlighted my embarrassing moments clearly. Oh, I wanted to know how too. See if I wouldn’t club his or her head in.

“Well guys, that tells us we would have to up our game this week because newbie is no longer game for front page news. She’s now a part of us.”

The rest of the team have a little cheer as the lights came on and my face became the centre of attention.

“Alright. That’s enough.”

The clapping stopped.

“You all can familiarize yourselves with her later. For now, we have business to attend to.”

Samantha began with distributing potential topics for the next week’s issues. After people voted and the major topics were picked, she then distributed the duties and asked everyone to have their reports turned in by latest Monday morning when they would go to print to be released Tuesday and Friday morning respectively.

Since I was new, I had been given the short story column. I was to come up with a fictional but interesting story that would take no more than a seven hundred words. It was a more difficult task than it sounded like but I knew just the perfect story to tell. Hopefully, I could fit it within the word count.

After school that day, I stepped outside to the shock of my mother leaning against her car while she waited for me. She looked stunning in an off-white jumpsuit and nude red bottoms which matched her hat. She had very little makeup on every other part of her face but her lips which shone a bright red.

Her hair cascaded down her back and the wind blew it around, finishing the “model” look she had going on. She waved excitedly when she saw me and I almost ran back into the school building.

“Dude is that your mom?” A guy asked.

“She’s freaking hot!” Another commented and the two slapped their backs as they continued on their way.

I slapped a hand over my face. Well, I might as well hurry to meet her before she embarrassed me even more.

“What are you doing here mom?” I asked when I got to the car.

“What? Can’t pick my own daughter up from school?”

She was still standing outside when I got into the front seat so, I waved her in. She’d already been seen by enough people. Anymore and I would definitely lose it.

“I’m trying to see…is Kane here?”

My eyes went wide. What did she want with Kane?

“I was hoping he could join us for lunch.”

There was no way that was happening. I wasn’t going to lunch with two people I felt strange around. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go to lunch with her but she’d driven all this way so…

“He probably has his own plans,” I told her. “And his own car too.”

“Oh wait, there, I see him.”

I was about to yell at my mother to stop but she was already calling out to him. He was walking past the car with the same group of guys I always saw him around and I buried my face behind my bag before any of them could see me.

Kane barely glanced at my mother as she called to him excitedly. Someone asked who she was and I watched with shock as he just shrugged.

“Oh, um, I guess he does have plans.”

I felt embarrassed for both myself and my mother as she got into the car. I didn’t know how to tell her that Kane didn’t want to be associated with me in school. She would have questions to which I didn’t have the answers.

“So, what do you feel like eating?“ my mother asked me as we drove out of the school.

I could tell she felt bad about being publicly ignored like that. So, I decided to be nice to her and suggest we go get some cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

“Hm. That’s not very fancy. You don’t want to try a restaurant?”

I looked at her outfit again then and realized she definitely hadn’t dressed up for some quaint diner. Had she even factored me in though? I was in my uniform. I sighed.

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go for something fancy.”

My mother cheered excitedly. She drove us to some French restaurant and ordered food I’d never heard of before.

“Reginald loves their bread here. Remind me to take some home for him.”

“Sure,” I told her, trying not to feel self-conscious about being in private school uniform in a restaurant as fancy as this one. Everyone else was so dressed up.

We were served some water and wine. My mother had made sure to specify they brought something non-alcoholic. I wanted to protest. It was Friday and I didn’t have school the next day but I knew it had more to do with my age than anything else.

“So,” my mother started after her first sip of the wine, “Tell me about your day.”

I shrugged. There wasn’t much to tell. Plus, my mother had never asked me about my day before. After the last time I’d been harsh toward her, we’d barely spoken to each other. So, all of this was a total surprise.

“Well,” I started. “I, um, joined a club today.”

“A club. Ooh! Which?”

Was she really interested in knowing that or she was just pretending? I didn’t know this side of Susie and it was really weird.

Just then, someone called her name and as soon as my mother spotted the other woman, I knew that whatever bonding she’d hoped to happen during this lunch was definitely not.

I ended up spending the rest of lunch listening to them giggle about random nothings. So much for lunch together.