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Our names are screamed out as the paparazzi swarm around us like pigeons in a market square, shouting questions and accusations in a chaotic cacophony of madness. My heart thunders like a storm of the strongest magnitude, starving me of breath and making me lightheaded. I'm dizzy, confused and blinded by camera flashes. The only thing keeping me grounded is Thea's small hand in mine.
An age passes by the time we finally make it through the front doors of the hotel. But even in the safety of the foyer, Thea doesn't drop my hand. Whether it's for her benefit or mine, I don't know, but I'm grateful for it, nonetheless. We're silent as a porter leads us to the elevator where he presses the button for the sixth floor, slipping out just before the doors close.
“Have I told you yet how beautiful you look tonight?” I whisper as we rise up through the building.
“Not in those exact words,” she chuckles lightly, rubbing her thumbs over the collar of my shirt. “But I think you said something similar.”
“I could come up with more ways to say it if you want? Stunning, gorgeous, so fucking hot I could grill steaks on your body.”
She snorts. “You're such a dork.”
“It's my nervous energy.” I wink just as the elevator dings.
We collide with the party like a brick wall the very second the doors slide open. I wonder, fleetingly, if I can stay in the refuge of the elevator all night, but Thea takes my hand once more and pulls me into the noise.
My eyes widen at the sheer ostentatiousness of the space. In all my twenty-four years, I've never seen anything like it. I'm used to barn dances and pageant parties, not round tables with silk cloths and enormous white-rose centerpieces. Every carpet-cushioned step I take leads me further outside of my comfort zone. The faces we pass are familiar, though I know I've never met them before, the jewelry hanging from their throats worth more than I paid for my condo.
“What do you think?” Thea nudges me, chewing on her lip as she blinks up at me.
“It's like something off a damn movie set,” I tell her, wonderstruck. “You did all this?”
She gives a light shake of her head. “My event planner did. I just gave her the brief. She did good, huh?”
“More than.”
And I mean it.
As overwhelming as this environment is for me, I can't deny that it's incredible. I mean, there are lights hanging in strings and ultraviolet cylinders from the ceiling like we're standing under a damn meteor shower. It's insane.
“It's a lot, I know.” Thea looks up at me as we find our table, nervousness shining in her gold-lidded eyes.
I stroke the bridge of her nose. “It's fucking amazing, baby.”
“Good.” She grins and it's this beautiful, beaming thing as luminescent as the meteor stream above us. “People are paying five figures for a table, so the pressure was high.”
My lips fall open in a gape. I can't help it.
Thea laughs at my stunned expression. “It's pocket change to the people here and they're happy to pay it because it looks good for their image,” she explains. “Especially our male benefactors. It looks great for them to contribute to a cause that works toward dismantling gender inequality, especially in industries like this one.”
I scrape my hand over my jaw. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
But still, it blows my mind. I've always led a pretty simple life. Started working on the cars in town after I left school and saved up enough money until I could open the shop. And the cash I make now, though decent in my eyes, is nowhere near enough to splash ten grand on a table at a charity gala, no matter how important the cause. That's more than double what I make in a month. Hell, I can't even afford to fix Stanley Garrison's car because business hasn't been great recently and I spent my savings on helping out my parents with shit they needed for the farm.
And don't get me wrong, I'm excited as hell that Thea's raising so much money for her charity. She deserves every fucking cent. It's just crazy to me that this is how some people live.
That this is how Thea lives.
“Althea?” A small voice behind us surprises us both.
We turn in unison to find a girl with raven-colored hair and glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, fiddling nervously with the dainty silver chain hanging around her neck.
I watch Thea as she tries to place the young girl in her mind, nose scrunched in thought, eyebrow twitching ever so slightly. But then her eyes light up like the sunrise, recognition dawning.
“Bethie?”
The girl—Bethie, I assume—flushes a furious shade of red. “You remember me?”
“Sure do.” My girl turns toward me, a bright smile tugging at her lips. “Let me introduce you guys. Bethie, this is my boyfriend, Cole. Cole, this is Bethie. She interns for the studio that produces Julia Abernathy's morning show.”
