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After that, there would be no doubt that they were the originals. Sylvie could vindicate her family in just one weekend. She could expose the Machados for the thieving frauds they were.
“Oh shit!” Lauren braced herself on the spare tire mounted to the back of her dusty, red Jeep. Her hand on her curvy hip.
Sylvie slipped into her driver’s seat and blasted the AC. She was about leave her with a snide remark for the road when she noticed Lauren’s gleeful expression as she looked down at her phone.
No. It couldn’t be.
Lauren looked up, her dark eyes gleaming as she pulled off her sunglasses and bored into Sylvie with her mischievous gaze. “You got it already, didn’t you?”
“Got what?” Sylvie snapped, irritated by Lauren’s shit-eating grin.
“Don’t play games. I see you listed in the selection,” she explained.
Sylvie regretted not having read the entire email. She’d gotten ahead of herself. As the AC cooled her sweaty body, Sylvie pulled her phone out and read the email more closely.
When Sylvie looked up from her phone again, nausea rocked her stomach, her head a helium balloon floating away from her shoulders. Lauren, meanwhile, leaned against her car, her legs crossed at the ankles obviously waiting for her reaction.
“What did your family do? Who did you pay off?” Sylvie growled as she leapt from her car and invaded Lauren’s personal space. She hated Lauren’s height advantage and doubled down on her ferocity to make up for it.
Despite Sylvie’s invasion of her personal space, Lauren did her best statue impersonation—her chin thrust forward, her expression stony. “Who do you think we are? The Genoveses?” Her lip curled in the most infuriating half smile.
Sylvie’s skin flooded with heat as she clenched her muscles. She was well aware of the fact that they weren’t kids anymore and they couldn’t actually fight, but that didn’t diminish her urge to throttle her.
Without backing down, Sylvie pressed. “You found out we were selected and you pulled some shady shit to ruin it for me. Admit it.”
“You think that if we could talk our way into the Whitney we wouldn’t have done it years ago?” She laughed, her straight teeth gleaming in Sylvie’s face as her dimples appeared. “Does everything really revolve around you in there?” She pointed to Sylvie’s head, appearing not the least bit bothered by Sylvie standing inches from her face.
“You did something and I’m going to find out what. You’re not going to ruin—”
“If you want to find out what I did just read the message you maniac.” Lauren pulled out her phone, bumping Sylvie’s hand as she did. “We were both invited as part of a new thing the festival is doing to showcase the roots of Miami food culture.”
Disdain was an invisible string tugging Sylvie’s lip into a sneer. This couldn’t be happening. The Machados couldn’t be ruining this of all things. It wasn’t fair.
“Are you ever going to stop imitating me?” Sylvie stepped back. She didn’t want to be in her presence anymore. Her energy was turning a dream into a nightmare. “It’s gone from pathetic and into pathological.”
Lauren replied with an infuriating chuckle. “What time did you get your email?” she asked, leaning forward as if she could peek at her phone. “Let’s see who got it first and we’ll see who copied who.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Sylvie screeched, her heart pounding as her grip on her self-control loosened. No one on the planet was as maddening as Lauren. “Just do the right thing and drop out.”
Lauren walked around the front of her own Jeep as Sylvie started to climb into her driver’s seat. “The right thing? Why is that the right thing? Under that logic you should drop out.”
“I hate you,” Sylvie decided before slamming her door closed.
In response, Lauren blew her a kiss. As her fingers left her lips, there was only one standing. The middle one.
