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As if I called upon the universe to smite me, my brother breaks from his conversation with Farrow to look at me. “I’m sure he’s coming, Luna.”
Is it bad that I don’t know who he’s talking about? Donnelly or Korey?
I just nod.
Moffy takes my silence to heart like maybe I’m more upset at him. “I wanted to come to make sure you were okay. I don’t want you to be stood up.”
“Don’t be too hard on your brother,” Farrow tells me. “His intentions were pure.”
Moffy scrunches his face at the word pure, but my stomach drops hearing pure intentions used by Farrow. The universe is really on a tilt. Are multiple planes of existence colliding? Did Eliot and I really open another dimension?
“I’m not mad,” I say quietly to my brother. “I don’t want to be stood up either.” I really don’t, especially if everyone here will begin pitying me.
“Shots for the table,” Jack orders a round of green apple shots for those drinking alcohol.
Tom offers me his shot when the tray is brought out, but my uneasy stomach is saying no to any more liquor.
“No thanks,” I whisper.
I glance towards the door again, trying to will Korey to enter.
Please.
Enter.
An older man with graying hair slips inside next. My stomach sinks. But then the door swings open one more time after him, and I recognize the chestnut brown hair. The tattooed arm. The faded Van Halen tee and ripped denim jeans, even in the fancy club.
Donnelly has arrived.
He’s not alone.
Next to him is his date.
I recognize her too, and my heart stops.
Oscar must see what I see because he says, “Why the fuck is Donnelly with my sister?”
17
PAUL DONNELLY
What is Luna doing here?
I try not to stumble backwards seeing her, but the gut-punch steals my breath. Joana skids to a stunned stop with me, in equal shock.
“Donnelly,” she whispers sharply, her uncertain eyes on me and the table of people staring back at us. “You didn’t say Cobalts would be here.”
“I didn’t think they would be.”
No one told me Eliot, Tom, and Luna were having their triple date at The Green Room too. I’m not angry about the lack of a heads-up. Just that my whole plan to bring Joana as a date is unraveling into something I didn’t intend.
I quickly avert my gaze from Luna.
Jo intakes a breath. “We came this far. Have to go for the KO.”
“Pro-tips from the pro-boxer,” I say into a slanted smile, trying to push past the tension in my muscles.
“You bet.” She pats my shoulder hard. “Act like you’re a killer in the ring.” Joana is still wearing boxer braids. I picked her up after her televised fight that she won, and in the backseat, she changed into a sage, flowy dress—all sparkly and shit. And she spent most of the ride putting on makeup to hide the bruises and cuts on her face. “Kill, kill, kill,” she whispers into each step as we head to my friends and her brother, and I should play up the part: me dating Jo.
I planned to sling my arm around her shoulders.
But I can’t move my stiff joints.
Joana slides an arm around my waist, hooking her fingers into my waistband near my pelvis, and Oscar rocks back in horror.
“Jo,” Oscar nearly shouts.
“Cute dress,” Frog calls from a couch of on-duty bodyguards, sitting nearby in the lounge.
Joana finds the source of the voice and sees Frog’s emerald getup. “Love yours, too.” And then back to Oscar, she says, “Hey, big bro. What’s up?”
I thought I’d come in with a smirk. Stick out my tongue, throw back a shot or two, have a pretty good night, all thing’s considered.
The unease is rippling through me, and I can’t mask it with fake anything.
Don’t look at Luna. Can’t look at Luna. Fuck me, I’m not even making eye contact with her best friends or her brother. Eliot, Tom, Maximoff—for the sake of my speeding pulse and the hammering in my temple, I pretend they aren’t here.
Farrow is mouthing, “What the fuck?” at me.
It’s not real. Me and Jo.
It’s a joke on Oscar.
I didn’t expect Luna to be here. It wasn’t supposed to hurt anyone, just lightly poke at one of my oldest friends who’d laugh about this later; I know Oscar would.
I’m hoping I’m communicating that through my eyes, and I could roll this to a stop—but how? Joana wants to screw with her brother, not actually be my date, and I wouldn’t have asked her here for real.
“What’s up?” Oscar repeats to Jo. “My baby sister has lost her motherfucking mind, that’s what’s wrong.”
“You know I’ve always thought Donnelly was hot.”
“No, I did not know that.”
“How could you not? He’s sex on a stick.” She spins into me, clutching my shirt. “Isn’t that right, sugar boo?”
“They’re fucking with me?” Oscar is asking Farrow. “Tell me they’re fucking with me.”
