"You take longer to change than I do," I grumbled, adjusting Luc's tie as he watched me with an amused twinkle in his eye. "I mean, how fucking long does it take to put a jacket on?"

"He doesn't know how to tie a tie," called out Lila, who was skipping down the Merciers' grand stairway. I looked away from Luc, whose ears were bright red now, to her. (With her wispy, whimsical white dress and loose hair, Lila somewhat resembled a fairy—one that would haunt my dreams as a child, of course.)

Luc pushed my hands away from his tie gently. "Don't listen to her," he said lowly to me. "She just likes to think that I'm inadequate."

By now, Lila was standing right behind me, so she slung her arm around my neck, heartily slapping Luc on the shoulder. "He's inadequate, you know, down there—" she started to stage-whisper into my ear.

"Shut up," Luc grumbled. Now, his entire face was bright red (which was pretty cute, if I had to say so). "Just don't—"

I held up a finger to his lips, shrugging off Lila's arm at the same time. "You're making the situation worse."

"Woah." Luc pushed Lila off to the side, staring intently into my eyes. His golden eyes glinted in the fading evening light. He ran a hand through his dark hair, which had previously been neatly gelled back (pretty fit for the occasion, if I had to say so myself). "You can't seriously believe her. She hasn't even—"

I yanked on Luc's tie. "I really should not be having this conversation with any person, especially not with two people who are fucking related. So please, the two of you"—I shot a look at Lila, who was fighting a little smile behind her hand as she stood to the side—"taisez-vous."

That shut them up pretty well.

With a long exhale, Luc rolled his eyes to the (very high) ceiling (probably to focus his eyes on the Mercier family chandelier, which was very elaborate and quite sufficient to distract him from his sister or me, for the matter) as I finally finished fixing his red tie, which really had a problem with cooperation. On the other hand, Lila crossed her arms over her chest, smirking at her brother and me as she leaned against the banister.

"What?" I said to her, taking Luc's arm.

She took an audible breath as she assessed Luc and me—the sign that she was about to make a surely offensive comment. All right, I was going to have to steel myself for this one.

"I thought I'd never see you act, you know...so wife-like." Lila stifled a giggle when she caught my expression.

"Shut up," Luc said once again. His eyes finally returned from the chandelier. "Where's your date anyway?"

I elbowed him. "You scared him off, remember?"

Luc looked down at me, quizzically wrinkling his nose. (It was another habit of his that I found so incredibly cute these days, now that I could spend more time with him. I also found that he tended to do things like that to distract me from the matter at hand.) "I did?"

"You didn't," Lila said loudly. She glanced down at her phone. "He says he's going to be late."

"Josh is never late, Lila." I took my own phone out of my clutch, glancing at my notifications. "We should probably get going. Livy says that she and Eli are outside already."

The three of us walked out of the Mercier residence, not without fuss, however. Amid all of the high heel clacking noises, Lila grumbled to her brother. I couldn't really hear, but whatever she said must have offended Luc (not that it was particularly difficult for Lila to rile up her brother, and vice versa). Somehow, by the time we were all on the front porch so that we saw Olivia and her date standing in the driveway, Lila had dropped her clutch, and Luc was smirking as he held my arm.

I glanced at Lila first, who was brushing off her bag. (She didn't seem too concerned about the status of her phone, which was weird. Who didn't think of her phone of her own child?) Then, I moved my eyes to Luc, who avoided my eyes as his lips twitched.

"Why do I always feel like I'm the babysitter?" I complained, waving over Olivia and Eli with my free hand. "I'm not here to clean up after your battles."

"You are, though," said Olivia, who had somehow made her way to the rest of us. "The perks of dating Luc Mercier."

Luc muttered something under his breath that sounded like, "Why is everyone targeting me today?"

"Be quiet," I said to him.

Josh's car pulled into the driveway just then, and within seconds, he had hopped out and joined the rest of us. His jacket and tie looked immaculate (why couldn't Luc be this way?). "Yo, sorry I'm a little late," he said, sound a little out of breath. "Where are we going again?"

Lila shot Luc and me a triumphant look before taking his arm very heartily.

"Some theatre production of Guys and Dolls." I played with Luc's sleeve, which was pretty amusing until he pulled my fingers off very firmly with his other hand, sending me that look. "It's sponsored by the Classic Rock Appreciation Club because they couldn't find any retro-themed bands performing this week."

"Guys and Dolls?" Eli lifted an eyebrow.

I shrugged. "I don't know. Lottie Ingham picked it—her favorite '50s musical, or whatever."

Luc checked his phone. "We're late, guys."

"What?" I yanked up his sleeve to take a look at his watch. 6:20pm. Oh shit, shit, shit, shit. I thought I'd planned this out so carefully! Luc's stupid tie—that must have been it. "Damn, move it, guys!"

And as we all rushed onto Eli's SUV (Olivia, Lila, and I probably messed up our dresses and hair with that), I caught a vibe from junior year—that frenzied rush when a student realizes that he or she is late for crazy Bredbenner's class.

I couldn't wait till senior year.

→

So here's one final snapshot focusing on the lives of Audrey, Luc, Lila, Olivia, and many others!

I'd like to say thank you to everyone, seriously. I can't say it enough. Thanks to you guys reading, voting, commenting, and adding EMF to your reading lists (I keep wanting to say playlist even though I know this isn't a song—I wish I was good at writing songs, but I'm not), we've been able to hit 5K and more!

Omg, seriously. As I did mention before, I'm going to enter EMF into the Wattys (after I finish editing), so it would be appreciated if everyone who read added this to his or her reading lists to spread the word! Honestly, I don't mind if you're just a silent reader—love ya nonetheless :)

Oh, and the blurb for this book's spin-off is up. Take a look if you can, and if you're looking for some more fun from the students of Excelsior Prep, Roll the Dice will most definitely give you that! (It's up right now—a huge accomplishment for me, I know.)

Much love,

Anne xo