Holding Court Read Free

Grayson and castles? Number three, if I want to see the inside of Lunewood Castle all I have to do is buy a ticket to Tudor Times. And number four, I don’t think it’s possible for me to have cleavage regardless of what I’m wearing.”
    “Whatever. You know you want to see Grayson dressed up like a knight, looking all Prince Charming.” She gives me a wicked grin. “I bet he has a really big sword.”
    “Oh, shut up. I hate you.”
    “I believe my work here is done. I’m out. Don’t forget, one thirty. Say hello to Prince Charming for me!”
    “Well, that sounds promising, dear,” Gran says, looking up from her perusal of the red carpet trend report. “It’s about time you put your talents to good use. And I’m not talking about the cleavage.” She waggles her eyebrows at me.
    “Seriously? You think I should take a job giving fake fortunes to a bunch of tourists at a cheesy castle?”
    “Who says they have to be fake?”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t exactly have control over my ‘gift,’ Gran.”
    “No, you don’t have the ability to shut it off. You might be able to learn some control if you embraced your gift instead of trying so hard to tamp it down.”
    “Embrace what? All I ever do is blurt out ridiculous, meaningless, or crucially embarrassing stuff. Why would I want to do that more often? I get into enough trouble as it is. I’ve been fired from every job I’ve ever had, including my volunteer job at the library—which is beyond pathetic—been suspended from school for my outbursts in class, and, depending on how you feel about circus sideshows, am considered either a freak or a hilarious spectacle by the population at large. It’s not a gift. It’s a curse. Why can’t I do something that’s actually useful like you and mom?”
    “I suppose that depends on how you define ‘useful.’”
    “Oh, whatever. I’m going to go pout in my room.”

    I flop down on my bed, pull on my headphones, and choose something appropriately morose to listen to. Then I close my eyes and find myself imagining Grayson Chandler in tights. Something I’ve done probably daily since he moved to Lunevale five years ago. Which isn’t as weird as it sounds since he showed up for the first day of school in a Princess Bride T-shirt and he had the same floppy hair and shy smile as Westley, the hottest tights-wearing farm boy/pirate in cinematic history. When Grayson turned out to be as funny as he was dreamy, I was a total goner. So was almost every other girl at Lunevale Elementary.
    On the day I finally summoned up the guts to talk to Grayson, I ended up getting suspended from school. It was a misunderstanding involving a math test and one of my psychic flashes, but Grayson has avoided me like the plague ever since. He also happens to have the most perfect girlfriend in the world, so there’s no way he’d be interested in me even if I weren’t a total freak. Bree Blair is so perfect you can’t even hate her properly.
    And while Grayson purposely avoids me, Bree goes out of her way to be nice to me. When we were younger, she never made fun of my uncontrollable outbursts and gave hell to any kid who did. She once made Josh Gaddis eat his Batman eraser after he snuck up behind me in the cafeteria, yelled, “You’re going to use a number two pencil when you take your test today!” and made me spill chocolate milk down the front of my favorite sweater. She’d been one of my best friends until about seventh grade. Which is when things got super awkward. As Bree was blossoming into the most popular girl in school, I was becoming a candidate for biggest freak. Plus it was torture to watch Grayson gaze at her so adoringly; everyone else was clearly extraneous when they were together.
    So, yeah, the only thing worse than being in love with someone who is in love with someone else, is being in love with someone who is in love with someone else who is a thousand times more perfect than you can ever