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“I’m going to call my dad,” Russell said to Lily. “This will all get sorted. I promise.” He said it with a kind of quiet authority, and even Lily must have heard it, because she set the phone down on the desk, though she kept her hand on it.
Russell pressed a number on his phone and raised it to his ear—and I clocked, for the very first time, that aside from his watch, his arms were bare. He didn’t have a Silverspun bracelet on. The bracelet that everyone who’d attended the festival had to wear.
Things were starting to snap into place, forming a picture I really didn’t want to see.
“Russell,” I said slowly. “Who’s your dad?”
He met my eyes—sadness and frustration mingled in his expression. He took a deep breath, and when he spoke, his voice was resigned. “Wylie Sanders.”
II A Little Less Conversation
Friday 11:05 A.M.
I pulled the car into the Chevron station and killed the engine. I was already sweating, which didn’t seem fair. I glanced at the temperature on my dashboard and groaned. It was already seventy-nine degrees, and I had a feeling it was going to be worse as I drove through the desert.
I glanced into the back seat, where my duffel was, but resisted the urge to check it one last time. It was enough that I’d been getting messages all week—Don’t forget to bring a sweater! It’ll get cold at night!—R. It was time to just go.
I got out of the car and stepped into the bright sun, squinting and then flipping down my sunglasses. I definitely wasn’t used to this. I headed into the mini-mart, welcoming the blast of air-conditioning that greeted me. Mariah Carey was playing over the store’s speakers. I grabbed a sparkling water from the refrigerator case, then swung by the snack aisle for a bag of cheddar Ruffles—the best kind—as well as a granola bar and an Abba-Zaba.
My phone beeped again with a text as I picked up the candy bar, and I glanced at it. Did you get my email? We need to discuss what we’re bringing! “Romy, give it a rest,” I muttered as I shook my head and slid my phone into the back pocket of my jeans. If I didn’t get moving, I was going to be seriously late.
I took everything up to the register, where the woman working behind it was humming along to Mariah. “Hot one,” she said conversationally as she rang me up. I nodded. I was already dreading the moment I’d have to leave the store with its artic blast, and get back in my ancient Prius, whose air-conditioning was barely functional.
“I know,” I said with a groan as I waved off her offer of a bag and handed her a ten. “And it’s worse where I’m going.”
She raised an eyebrow as she handed me back my change and receipt. “And where’s that?”
I pocketed the change, crumpled the receipt, and gathered my snacks up. “Nevada.”
CHAPTER 8 Sunday
9:30 P.M.
Two years ago, at the Raven Rock community pool, I’d fallen asleep in the shade on one of the loungers. Apparently, this made me an irresistible target. Didi had bought a jumbo cup of ice water from the concession counter, and she and Katy decided to wake me up by dribbling little drops on me.
And that’s what they were doing until a kid ran past and bumped into Didi. She stumbled forward, and the entire cup of ice water was thrown on me. I’d woken at once, gasping and confused.
I had the same feeling now—startled and shaky, shocked out of a dream and back to reality with a jolt. Except now, I was not on a lounge chair at our community pool.
I was in Wylie Sanders’s helicopter, flying toward Vegas.
I stared at my reflection in the helicopter window, meeting my own eyes in the darkness.
What had I been doing? Who had I thought I was? It was like I didn’t even recognize the me from the last few hours. I wasn’t a character in a book or a movie, but I’d pretended like I was. I’d just decided that I was having a perfect night and that this was the moment—and the guy—I’d been waiting for.
But none of it had been true—and things like that didn’t happen in real life.
Because Russell had been lying to me, practically from the moment we’d met.
I glanced across the helicopter—he was in the seat opposite me. But then I immediately looked away again, my throat feeling tight. This was beyond humiliation. This was something I was pretty sure I’d never felt before—and never wanted to again.
I was cycling through shame, anger, embarrassment—then returning back to shame in a loop that was really a lot of fun for me. I had been about to sleep with this person—this stranger who had lied to me, over and over again.
Wylie Sanders.
Wylie Sanders was Russell’s dad.
It explained so much—inconsistencies and red flags that I just hadn’t wanted to see. It explained why he didn’t have a bag or a tent with him. It explained the lack of a bracelet and the Tom Ford T-shirt and going to bars in Paris. It even explained Jeopardy!.
