“You don’t look like you’re living in a convent, Scar. And I’m sure plenty of the girls at Empire High wear dress code length skirts. Just change. You’re gonna give Dad a heart attack.”

“How would you know what the other girls wear? It’s your first day. And honestly, most of them wear skirts shorter than this. They barely cover their asses.”

“Really?” His eyebrow quirked up.

“Perv.” I tried to ignore him so I could eavesdrop on my parents. I hoped my mom would win this one. I had a whole plan for today and this new skirt was a huge part of it.

“Why didn’t you just bring the shorter one to change into? Like how you bring a second dress to every party you go to?”

“How do you even know that?”

He shrugged.

I looked up at him. Over the past year he’d gotten taller than me. And he would probably blend into a high school party just fine. But I didn’t love the idea that he was at the same ones I was. “Honestly, that’s a pretty good idea. Maybe I should go change and just…”

“Okay,” my dad said and came back into the foyer. “You and your mom win this time. But just for the record, I think you look beautiful in glasses, pumpkin.” He pulled me into his side and kissed the top of my head. “And in appropriate length skirts.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Dad.”

“And your mom also informed me that you used to roll up your old one anyway, so that this was an argument I couldn’t possibly win.”

I felt my face start to redden.

“But let me make myself very clear. If I see that one rolled, you’ll be grounded,” he said and released me from his hug. “For a month.”

I wasn’t planning on rolling it up. But even if I did…it would be at school. So it wasn’t like he was going to see it. Although I didn’t trust Liam to not rat me out. He’d probably just told me about knowing I brought a change of clothes to parties to hang over my head as leverage. I just had no idea what he wanted yet. I’d liked him better when he was shorter than me.

“Come on,” my dad said. “You don’t want to be late for your first day.”

I looked over at Liam, who somehow in the last few minutes had gotten tired of his blazer. It was tossed over his shoulder and his dress shirt underneath had the sleeves rolled up halfway on his forearms. He was literally not wearing any of the uniform correctly. Why the heck wasn’t my dad threatening him with being grounded?