Taking The Reins (The Rosewoods Book 1) by Katrina Abbott Page B

get ready.”
    I exhaled and forced myself to get out of bed and stumble toward the bathroom for a shower. Five minutes later, I was leaning against the tile, eyes closed and enjoying the soothing hot water in a near trance, when the spray turned ice cold. I screamed and opened my eyes to see my roommate standing beside the shower stall, a determined look on her face and a hand on the hot tap.
    “Let’s go!” she said.
    It appeared my roommate, the save-the-world poster child for altruism, had a take no prisoners attitude when it came to getting her roommate ready for a dance.
    I both loved and hated her for it.
    “I’m coming. I’ll be out in a few.”
    “No sleeping in the shower.”
    I shivered, turning the cold water off. “Yeah, not much chance of that happening now. I need to dry my hair and do my face.”
    She was finishing her makeup, leaning close to the mirror to do her mascara, her mouth agape as she concentrated on covering each lash. “It’ll be dark in the gym, so make sure you wear a bit more makeup than usual to be dramatic.”
    “How long do I have?”
    She glanced down at the phone on the counter. “Bus leaves for Westwood in a half-hour.”
    I cursed. That was barely enough time. I hadn’t even picked out anything to wear yet—not that I had a lot of outfits to choose from. We wore uniforms to classes and then most of the rest of my wardrobe was jeans and pajamas. I had exactly two dresses that my mother had sent me with, just in case. We hadn’t really thought about dances; who figures they need anything nice to wear at an all-girls school?
    “What are you wearing?” I asked, reaching for the towel and wrapping it around me.
    “The Fendi,” she said, as though I could identify parts of her wardrobe by designer.
    “Oh, God, that was pretentious,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. The black dress. The one with the lace on top.”
    “Hello?” Chelly called out from the door.
    “We’re in here,” Emmie called back.
    Chelly materialized in the bathroom doorway wearing a tight and curvy dress in fire-engine red, which should have looked gaudy with her red hair, but didn’t. She looked like a bombshell.
    “Wow,” I said, giving her the once over.
    “Right?” she said, her wide smile confident. I wished I had a quarter of her self-assurance. Hell, I bet any girl did—if you could bottle that stuff and sell it, you’d be an instant millionaire.
    Emmie turned away from the mirror and took in Chelly. “You look Ah-ma-zing!”
    “Thanks, girls. Brooklyn! You’re in a towel! Are you going to be ready in time?”
    “Yeah, sure,” I said. “As soon as I figure out what I’m going to wear.” It was a joke, since I had such a narrow choice.
    Emmie and Chelly exchanged a shocked look. “You don’t know what you’re wearing yet?” Chelly asked, scandalized. I suppose if I hadn’t been slaving in the laundry and working my ass off in the equestrian arena, maybe I would have put some more thought or care into tonight, but as it was, I was barely awake.
    “You should borrow my Stella McCartney,” Emmie announced. “You’ve got the body for it.”
    “No, it’s okay. I don’t need to borrow your clothes,” I was starting to feel anxious as it was; I didn’t need to worry about her très expensive wardrobe, too.
    Chelly disappeared and returned holding up a black dress with a black and white heart print on top. “This one?”
    Emmie nodded. “Yeah, it will look amazing on you, Brooklyn. Just try it on. But hurry up, we have eighteen minutes!”

On the Way to the Dance
    T he bus ride to Westwood was surreal. After two weeks of stewing in estrogen, save a few male teachers, the Rosewood girls were crazy excited to be going to the dance where they would experience, as Chelly put it, the Westwood Buffet. The buzz on the bus was palpable and I could only describe it as something like a shark feeding frenzy, where the sharks wore designer dresses and a lot of makeup and