Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Which means I need to sneak out, now. I press my ear to the door, to make sure the coast is clear, then I grab the envelope I packed for Lexi, and I sneak into the carpeted hallway. I creep down the stairs, into the mid-sized living room.
Thankfully, Grandma isn’t sitting on the worn-leather couch. She isn’t watching TV or sipping red wine or reading. She’s not in the messy kitchen, either.
“She’s in her office,” my cousin Fern says, stepping into the kitchen from the backyard.
Fern is more of an older sister than a cousin, really. My mom bailed when I was a teenager, so I grew up here with Grandma, and Fern spent summers in the room next to mine. She took me under her wing, since I was two years younger and infinitely less cool. Her (really, our) older sister looks out for me, too, but she isn’t here now because she’s taking courses at UC Berkeley.
“Let’s sneak out and go to the party,” I say.
“You read my mind.” Fern grins. “No sneaking in, though. We’re invited, remember?”
Well, not specifically, but I know what she means. We have an open invitation from Mr. Huntington to come by anytime.
Fern checks her outfit—a pair of high-waisted jeans and one of Grandma’s button-up silk blouses—and nods her approval. “How’s my hair?” She tosses back her dark brown hair as if the natural-looking waves are, in fact, natural. “Do I need a makeover?” She doesn’t wait for a response, just dives into her romance novel–inspired daydream. “Can you imagine that scene? A makeover before a party at the Huntingtons’ place? I could slide down the stairs in a backless gown and silver heels, with my hair pinned up on my head.”
“A backless gown?” I raise a skeptical eyebrow.
She nods and continues watching the scene in her mind, a far-off, dreamy look in her eyes.
“To a high school party?” I press.
“It’s a Huntington party, River. There will be someone in a backless gown.”
“Lexi?” My blood pumps faster, imagining Lexi Huntington draped in a piece of silk, the pink fabric cutting a long line down her elegant back.
Fern laughs as I drift into fantasy land. Which is ridiculous. She lives in her imagination even more than I do.
“Come on,” she says, pulling me firmly from my mind, back into the small space of the kitchen. “Let’s get there in time for the birthday girl to make her entrance.”
I take her hand and follow her out of the kitchen. We cross the grass in our tiny backyard, into the side yard, the one that connects our house to the Huntingtons’.
As usual, the tall wooden gate is wide open, allowing anyone and everyone into the party—well, anyone and everyone invited.
The music grows louder as we step into their backyard. Now that I’m closer, I can see the people around the pool are mostly adults. Friends of Mr. Huntington. They’re in suits and cocktail dresses, sipping clear liquor from martini glasses or bubbly liquid from champagne flutes.
There’s a bar back here, right between the massive man-made waterfall and the rose garden, complete with a crystal bowl full of pink punch. Likely alcoholic.
The bartender, a twenty-something guy in a catering uniform, watches Fern approach the table, take a glass, ladle the punch.
He leans in to whisper something to her. She returns an inviting smile.
I look away. I’m not foolish enough to believe my gorgeous, friendly sister is somehow lacking experience with men. She’s twenty years old now.
But I’m worried because she spent weeks crying over her last boyfriend. Because, like me, she believes in the magic of love and the idea of destiny. And realizing the person you’re with isn’t The One is soul-crushing.
“Be careful,” I say, when she returns with two glasses of bright pink punch.
She laughs. “Take your own advice.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lexi Huntington.”
“What about her?”
Fern opens her mouth to answer, but then I don’t hear a word.
And I don’t see anything else in the world.
Because she is here now.
Lexi Huntington pushes everything else away.
From right here, ten feet from the sliding glass door, I watch Lexi descend the oak stairs in the middle of the living room. She keeps one hand on the railing. She uses the other to wave to her guests.
She’s not wearing a backless dress, but she is wearing pink. A neon pink as bright as her mocktails. As pink as the bikini she wears all afternoon. As pink as the color she paints her nails and the lipstick she wears when she sneaks to the backyard to kiss boys from school.
Not that I watch her do that once she’s started. But I can wonder…if it were me with her instead…
For one beautiful moment, I imagine the pink makeup on my skin. My lips. My neck. My collarbone. Like in one of those old movies Grandma loves. In one of the scenes in her romance novels. The physical marking of passion. Not just a sexual passion—an emotional one.