Page 31 of Scarlett and the Kiss Thief

I shook my head and opened the door to the guest bedroom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in here. Probably when I was playing hide-and-go-seek years ago or something.

“Close the door behind you. Quickly.”

I stepped into the room and closed the door. My phone buzzed again as I walked toward the bed. But I didn’t have time to read it because the carpet caved in and I was falling through floorboards like a sack of potatoes.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, but only a tiny peep came out because someone put their hand over my mouth mid-air right before I landed hard on a big bean bag chair.

“Ow,” I mumbled against RJ’s hand.

“Did you just lick me?” RJ said with a laugh. He pulled his hand away.

“No I did not lick you.”

“Whatever you say, baby doll.”

I shoved him away from me and looked up at the massive hole in the ceiling. “What. The. Actual. F did you do, RJ?”

“Don’t you love it?” He tossed a saw to the side and moved a ladder under the hole. “I’ll admit, the cut could have been cleaner. And smaller,” he added as he climbed the ladder. “But for some reason this apartment’s floorplan was all in Russian.”

“What?”

“Yeah, and my Russian is a little rusty. So the hole was a little bigger than I meant for it to be because I accidentally started sawing a little to the right. But it’s fine.”

None of this is fine!I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Falling through the floor was scary. But the thought of my father seeing the hole in the floor of our apartment was a lot more horrifying. “My dad is going to kill me. I’m going to be grounded for a year instead of a week.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? You broke into our downstairs neighbor’s apartment and cut a hole in the freaking ceiling.”

“We didn’t break in. Liam has a key.”

Why would Liam have a key to this random apartment? And that was the least of my concerns. I looked around the room. It was pretty much empty minus the ladder and bean bag chair I was sitting on. Maybe it was vacant. I stood up and winced. My butt hurt from the fall.

“I know it looks bad right now,” RJ said. “But I’ll make it look nicer later.” He shoved the carpet back up into the ragged hole so that the next unsuspecting person to enter our guest room would fall and break their neck.

He looked down at me from the top of the ladder. “But for now, now one will even know. See.” He gestured to the hack job. “I mean, you didn’t notice when you were in the guest room. You fell right though.”

“You should have warned me!”

“I tried to text you but I guess you were in a hurry.”

I glared at him. He’d been texting me not to dillydally! And if he’d told me the whole plan I would have told him it was a no-go. “Wait a second.” I thought back to what he’d just said before blaming me for falling. “RJ, what do you mean you’ll make it look nicerlater? You have to completely fix it! Right now!”

“But wouldn’t it be better if you always had a permanent escape route?”

“RJ!”

“I’m going to make it into kind of a trap door. With a pull-down ladder and everything. Hence Operation Trap.”

“Brilliant, right?” Sophie said as she walked into the room in a white, floor-length fur coat and matching furry hat. “Operation Trap was a glowing success.”

“What are you wearing?” I asked. But I had a sinking feeling in my stomach. I’d been in Sophie’s closet a million times and those were 100% not Sophie’s clothes.

“I don’t know, I found them in the closet of the woman who lives here. But I’m obsessed.” She did a twirl. “Don’t you love it? Especially whatever this hat is.”

“The hat is a ushanka,” Liam said as he strolled into the room. “Our downstairs neighbor is Russian.”

“Yeah, I got that.” I just stared at the three of them in disbelief. They all seemed perfectly calm despite the fact that there was a gaping hole in the ceiling, Sophie was wearing our neighbor’s clothes, and we were about to be caught red-handed. I hated Hunter Hunter mess arounds.

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