Peony

“Don’t tell Axel or Zie,” I whisper to Kaiden. I don’t mean to ask him to keep secrets from his best friends but it just slips out before I can stop it.

“What has the piece of shit done now?” He growls, his temper immediately flaring to life.

“I don’t know! He sent me a message.”

“Saying? No, wait, how does that twatcicle even have your number? I’m getting it changed!”

“Look.” I sigh and pass Kaiden my phone and he stares down at the message from Joe – a boy in my class – and frowns.

“He wants you to meet him outside his house tonight?”

“Yeah…”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not going.”

“But—”

“No, Peony. I don’t like this at all, and you know Axel and Zie would say the same—”

“You promised!” I gasp.

“And I’ll keep that promise, but you know if they hear about this they’ll freak. And Axel will—”

“I know.”

“C’mere. The boys have practice tonight. Stay in with me and watch a film, yeah? Wanna watch something scary so we can snuggle?”