Kiss in the Dark by Lauren Henderson Page A

release catch. It finally swings shut, the latch clicking into place with a small metallic sound. I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding, in a long sigh.
    I’m bottling it. The sight of Mr. Barnes has broken my resolve. I don’t have the guts to march into my grandmother’s private sanctum and demand she give Jase and me permission to see each other.
    Gloomily, feeling beaten, I turn away and march off in the direction of the library, my hand closed tight around the little jewelry box in my pocket. And then an awful thought hits me: what was Mr. Barnes doing in my grandmother’s quarters? I just assumed it was some estate-related business, her giving him his orders for the latest round of grounds maintenance.
    But what if he went there to ask her to forbid me and Jase to date?
    Oh God. I’m going to bury myself in the library till dinner time and do my very best not to think about anything but the research I’m doing for my latest history essay. Suddenly the short, brutal, torture-ridden reign of Bloody Mary Tudor looks a positively cheerful prospect by comparison with my own existence….
    Rats. I forgot it was red bean chili and rice for dinner tonight. That means only one thing. I need to get my piece in first, before Taylor has a chance to comment.
    “I know!” I say, sliding in to sit next to her on the long bench as the dinner ladies thunk down big serving dishes of steaming chili and boiled white rice at either end of the Lower Sixth Form table. “This is totally not chili in any recognizable shape or form. If a Texan turned up here for dinner by some freak accident, they would have a heart attack at us dumb Brits having the audacity to call this horrible, bland food chili. Because it bears absolutely no resemblance to proper American red bean chili, which is spicy and tasty and ooh, talking of which, did you bring your—”
    Taylor reaches into her pocket and pulls out her prized possessions: three bottles of Tabasco sauce, which she places on the table in front of her.
    “Not that you deserve any,” she says, grinning, “but I’ll share these with you just ’cause I feel nothing but pity for you dumb Brits and your horrible bland food.”
    “Thank you.” I grab my favorite, the habanero Tabasco, and apply it liberally to the sludgy reddish chili. “It’s just, you say the same thing every time we have chili, and I thought I’d get in first for a change.”
    “They put ketchup in it!” Taylor says, agonized. “They cook chili with ketchup in this freaky godforsaken country! I mean, I’m from Pennsylvania, which is, like, farther from Texas than this tiny little island is from, I dunno, Australia, and even I know you don’t put ketchup in chili.”
    “It does taste a lot better with the Tabasco,” I admit.
    “Everything tastes better with Tabasco,” Taylor says sweepingly, drenching her own heaped plate with a carefully calculated mixture of the habanero and chipotle Tabascos. Then she adds a few swirls of the green one on top for decorative effect.
    “Oh, look at Scarlett and Taylor. Aren’t they sweet?” Plum’s voice echoes from the center of the table. Her super-posh accent, clipped and cutting, not only carries effortlessly but slices through the rest of the chatter too, interrupting everyone else’s conversations. “What a lovely couple they make! What are they sharing—hot sauce?”
    I can’t help but admire the amount of twist Plum manages to put on the words hot sauce. She’s like a tennis ace, slicing a ball so it spins in the air, going places her opponent can’t anticipate. Girls down the table start sniggering automatically.
    “Does Jase Barnes know you’re sharing Taylor’s hot sauce?” Plum continues, smiling triumphantly. “Isn’t he jealous? I mean, Taylor’s the closest thing we’ve got to a boy at school—apart from Sharon Persaud, I suppose.”
    Sharon Persaud, surrounded by the other members of the hockey and lacrosse squads, glowers at