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I look over at Chase, and he looks at me.
We’re both sitting on the floor, legs out in front of us. He’s holding his hand over one eye, where he got hit, and I’m covering my mouth in shock. Our eyes lock, and then Chase’s huge grin spreads over his face, flawless and heart stopping as always.
Then we both start laughing.
I catch sight of Lindsey at the same moment Chase does. She and her brother are standing over us, glaring down at Chase, their arms crossed in front of them in identical postures of disapproval.
I almost laugh again, my gaze flitting back to Chase to see if he noticed their poses. Before I can, Lindsey turns and storms out. Chase jumps up and chases after her, no longer finding the situation quite so amusing.
Lindsey’s brother holds out his uninjured hand to help me up. I hesitate, not sure where that hand has been and if I want to touch it. Who knows what he’s been doing since the last time I saw him? I’m guessing not much is off limits for a guy who will stick his penis in three mouths at the same time.
But he just stands there with his hand out until I hesitantly place mine inside. He yanks me to my feet, his grip crushing as he pulls me flush against him.
“You have no idea who you’re fucking with,” he growls into my ear. “We’re Darlings. We built this town. You’re nothing. My sister could eat your pathetic ass for breakfast and forget you by lunchtime.”
“What are you talking about?” I demand, jerking my hand from his. “Lindsey’s my friend.”
“Which is why I looked into your family, little rat,” he says, his cold eyes piercing into me with each word he speaks.
“What?” I whisper, my throat closing. My gaze darts around, but everyone’s gone back to their own dramas, and no one thinks anything of a Darling boy pursuing yet another girl.
Outside, I hear cursing and groaning as some people help the Michael guy up. No one helps me. No one comes to my rescue, saving me from the harsh words I don’t want to hear.
Preston smirks, the look on his face eerily similar to Elaine’s triumphant expression right before she delivers a killing strike.
“You can pretend you’re hiding from a normal family scandal in Faulkner, but I know why you’re really here. I know who you are, Sky Eden. And I’ll be watching you.”
Confusion and pain and fury war inside me, but Preston doesn’t give me a chance to figure myself out. He turns and walks way, as if to prove that I’m not worth his time, his sister’s time. I’m not good enough. I’m still a nobody. And here, I’m an outsider too.
“Are you okay?” asks a sweet voice beside me, and I turn to see Katy, the pretty Asian cheerleader from Lindsey’s group.
A group that I’ve fooled into thinking I belong with them. That I’m good like them. That I don’t live in my aunt’s office, in the shadow of my father’s deception. Maybe I’m just like him, living my double life as a big fat fake that no one suspects is anything other than what I pretend.
Katy takes my elbow and leads me across the room before pushing me down on the couch. “Don’t move,” she says. “I’m going to get you some ice.”
I wonder if she thinks I was hit in the fight. I don’t correct her. Why would I? I’m a liar, a fraud, an illusion. I take everyone’s generosity, and I pretend I’m exactly what they want to believe I am.
A minute later, Todd’s giant form fills the doorway, dripping water all over the carpet. He’s wearing jeans and nothing else. His barrel chest is hard, but his stomach is rounded and soft, and he has that over-muscled gorilla walk. I’ve never seen him shirtless before, and I’m startled by the thick layer of hair all over his body, also quite like a gorilla.
The thought breaks the gloomy tension around me, and suddenly, I’m giggling and I can’t stop. Todd scoops me up in his arms and holds me against his hairy chest, soaked and reeking of chlorine.
“I heard you got in a fight,” he says. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say, collecting myself.
He sets me back on the couch, lowering himself to kneel between my knees and taking my hand in both of his. He looks up at me with such concern that I feel bad for laughing. Overwhelmed with a tender feeling towards him, the one I get when Lily does something funny or cute, I lean forward and kiss his nose.
Lindsey storms back in, her hair messy and sticking out on one side, like it got something wet in it and never dried correctly. Eyes flashing, she points a finger at Todd, sloshing her drink over her hand.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look more than annoyed, and the first time I’ve ever seen her looking a little unkempt.
“You,” she says, still pointing. “You’re just as bad as the rest of them. Oh, you pretend to be so sweet and noble, but you’re a lying pig just like he is.”
She swings her arm around to indicate Chase, who appears in the doorway behind her and tries to pull her out of the room.
“Let me go,” she yells, pulling away from him and shaking her drink cup at me. “You ask him where he was just now. Ask him!”
“Get her out of here,” Todd says to Chase, who captures Lindsey around the waist. “She’s drunk.”
