Boo York State of Brains
(Cleo's POV)
Dear Ra with all your mercy and magnificence I beg you find time today to burn this boy and cease the poetry! I like the idea of poetry, beautiful words to match my all-around beauty. This ridiculous ramble of words strung together to make this Mummy's Boy sound educated is wasted on me. I respect his name but I haven't been around royal boys in a while, I forgot how bland they are underneath the labels.
Deuce only wears labels when they're presents from me. I give him presents because he makes me laugh. He also makes me scream, for good reasons and sweet, sexy reasons, but I can depend on him to make a dry situation tender by bringing out the best in anyone. Even this 40% gold, 60% wheat-bread prince can be made bearable by my wonderful boyfriend.
I hear gasping in the restaurant; I'll look at anything to take me away from this loser's dull verses. My 'wonderful' boyfriend just walked into Per Scare wearing scuba gear and floaty and begging for everyone's attention; for ghoul's grief!
Yelling at him seems unnecessary as Deuce is looking around the other guests and realizing he looks worst than last season. We meet near the door, away from my family and the others (though I know they see him, ARGH!)
"You're late." I inform him, "and what are you wearing! The invite said 'formal attire'!"
"I thought it was a pool party." His smile is cute, not cute enough for me right now.
"Deuce, are you doing this to me on purpose?" I did not scream but he flinched when I clenched my fists.
He makes this sad face like he's confused. "Why would I want to do that? I didn't even want to come on this-"
I glared at him, daring him to finished his horribly mean statement.
"Cleo, I just-"
Deuce tried to take my hand, which held the kingly beard I gave him and he kept forgetting to keep. I kept my hand away from his fingers.
"Go back to the hotel and I'll call you when brunch is done." I twisted on my heel and let him stare at my long dark blue hair and I walked back to the table.
(Deuce's POV)
I've always thought my hair was pretty cool, I mean after a healthy feeding of mice-bites, but Cleo's hair is better. It's all whooshy and always smells good. I hate seeing the back of her like this; tasty ass is not hott to look as when she walks away mad at me. But if she's not asking me to go with her then I'm not staying here in my swim trunks while her dad and the ghouls are in their fancy duds.
I pressed the elevator down and sighed. I'm not fancy and I can't even pretend to be. Cleo is all about that and she's absolutely…wow and more. Despite how wow she does love me, almost as much as I love her. She's mad at me but I can make her un-mad at me. Usually it's me cooling her down, now it's my to turn up the heat.
(outside of POVs)
"Prince Seth, again, I am so sorry for knocking over the flambé." Catty said with extinguisher foam in her nightly fur.
Madame Ptolemy was wiping her son's mask; she ignored the pink-haired Bastet child.
Seth grudging accepted his mother's attention. Seeing her deny attention to the lovely top-forty-shorty singer was offense to him on many levels. The level of being a prince of honor and an amateur musician who respected her voice, maybe not her genre of pop but her voice could cover anything and I'd be on my knees.
"Ms. Noir, accidents happen. No one blames you for at least trying to put the table out." Seth told the ghoul who shyly pushed her bang from her face.
Catty was about to thank him when Nefera and Ramses De Nile stepped in front of her.
"You have our apologizes as well, your Ptolomeynesses." Ramses said, taking Seth's hand.
"Bastet comes out in so many different ways." Nefera says, holding Toralei's ginger paw. "Some better than others."
Toralei stuck her tongue at Catty behind the Egyptian royals' backs. Catty rasied her nose and walked to her friends.
"Brunch to remember." Clawdeen said to their new friend Mouscedes.
"Not if you have ways to erase the memory." Moucesdes said, pulling out a few pills from her satin coin purse.
Clawdeen cocked her head. "Wow, never seen any like that and my brother is in pharmacy."
"Oh, these are testers from my psychiatrists." She smiled and swallowed them down. "Water please, lime in it."
Frankie wiped foam off of Draculaura's pointy ears. "Come on, ghouls, at least we have dresses to try on for the gala tonight."
Operetta grinned and nudged Cleo, the princess frowned. "I'll meet up with you ghouls after I pick up Deuce. Ra knows I can't let him pick out an outfit by himself."
"There's little that boy wouldn't do for you," Operetta reminded her friend's ghoulfriend. "He deserves a little tolerance on his head."
Cleo bit her lip then raised her head. "I know."
The Egyptian princess walked into the elevator. The Prince of Boo York walked next to her. His mother and her friends were about to walk in as well when a maître stepped before them.
"Complications since the Fire Fighters came, two monsters per elevator please." The vulture said.
Madame Ptolemy looked disapprovingly at him, the maître looked at the fat roll of bills Nefera was holding.
Seth and Cleo stood quietly in the elevator as it went down. The Monster High student checked her iCoffin, she looked at her most recent pictures. Seth thought of lyrics from the M.W.A debut album (Mansters With Attitude). Neither of them saw the scarab beetle crawl on the ceiling. Azura released a tiny glass ball from her pinchers. It smashed on the floor silently and a red smoke rose in the air.
Cleo felt her heart begin to beat and her thighs grew shaky. Seth loosened his bowtie. It wasn't enough so he took off his mask for a breath. Cleo fanned her neck with her hand, she raised an eyebrow, he's pretty under the mask.
Seth noticed the curve of her legs and the tightness of her blue dress. They looked at one another, eyes matching liners and a strong sense of familiarity went into their hearts and minds. The Boo Yorker's mouth went dry, Cleo began to breathe quickly.
"Give me a minute, not a Boo York minute a real one." Cleo said with one finger in the air and her thumb texting on her phone. She sent a message. Cleo waited for the response. She tsked her tongue and typed, Not anymore.
"De Nile,"
"Cleo." The princess said, looking up and down his Scarmani suit. That sleek three-piece suit is excellent outside and I want to feel the inside.
"Ghoul, you are working that deep blue." Seth said, touching the Pharaoh in him.
Cleo pushed him against the elevator buttons. "Let's see what I can work with here."
"Why are is the elevator going up and down?" Frankie asked as she and the ghouls watched the numbers bounce back and forth on the overhead.
At the Ptolemy tower Deuce held his phone, he felt like his hand and heart had turned to stone. He looked at the map he pulled up of the carriage rides through Boo York on Clawdeen's laptop. She was mine yesterday. Yesterday! What happened?
Deuce paced in the Ptolemy waiting room. He saw the Ptolemy guy walk out of a cab. Cleo was holding onto his arm, twisting around it with both hands. The gorgon felt his stomach fill with ice ants.
Cleo and Seth were talking quickly in an ancient Egyptian dialect. Translation was unneeded when he saw Cleo grin like she was.
Her smile dropped only a little when she saw Deuce. "Oh right, you're still here."
Deuce's snakes flexed back in shock. "Cleo, what is this?"
"Real true love, Deuce. That's just how it goes when you get out of the high school setting." She said, it sounded right in her head but somewhere in her heart there was a disagreeing fire.
"What did you do to her!" Deuce approached Seth but was pulled back by his, and De Nile, servants.
"Nothing personal, bro." Seth said, his thumb under Cleo's chin, "But you of all people can't blame me."
"You son of a-" A servant held his throat and covered his sunglasses. He squirmed in the servants' grips as they dragged him outside.
Cleo heard him muffle something that sounded like her name. She rolled her eyes.
"Wait, don't throw him out, believe me he has zero sense of direction and will be lost to the concrete jungle." Cleo told Seth who chuckled at her viper tongue. "Keep him in a guest room until we go back to Monster High."
The mummies didn't see the gorgon struggle. Cleo didn't see the tear run down his face. Seth kissed his new ghoulfriend's perfect plump lips.
"Don't go back, my diamond," Seth said, "Stay in the greatest city in the world. With me."
"Make a case, a very shiny one." Cleo challenged.
The mummy prince snapped his finger, six servants ran up to her with twelve different necklaces.
"Oooh! Bloode& Dunderthorn, Boocheron, Brittanys, Boolgari, Spider& Webs! I love these." Cleo calmly explained while she put on the eighty-four carat choker.
"Sweetie, are those tears of happiness?" Seth asked.
"I don't know what else they'd be." Cleo said, she ignored the ice worm in her stomach.