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Her request snuffed out any remaining fantasy of hope Gemma had.
“It’s cool,” she said, and took another sip of the addicting seltzer.
“Thanks, Gems. I assume whatever went down at Urban Light didn’t end well if you’re not granting him exclusive access to your old-man crush.”
Gemma was midswallow when she started to gasp. The seltzer shot up her nose and tried to come out her eyes in a painful fit of carbonation.
“What?” she asked Carmen, choking, unsure she had heard her correctly. “What are you talking about?”
“That little tiff you guys had; it’s all over the internet. Well, Iassumeit was a tiff if you’ve got him pouring his heart out to you like that. It’s a shame. I was hoping for the best for you two. Seemed like a nice guy. I gotta go. This set is almost over, and not all of us got the day off today. Back to work.”
She hung up and left Gemma blinking burning seltzer from the backs of her eyeballs. Her mind was a fog ofconfusion and the seltzer had lit a fire in her throat. Nothing made sense. How could Carmen know about her and Jack’s conversation outside the museum?
She set her drink down and coughed to try and recover. She braced herself against the counter as she fought for breath.
“You all right over there?” Lila asked without looking, still painting her face.
At the sound of her voice, something Carmen had said clicked into place.
All over the internet.
Gemma stopped hacking and looked at her best friend innocently dusting her cheekbones with rouge.
She wouldn’t, Gemma thought at almost the same time she thought,Yeah, she would.
“Lila,” she said slowly. “What did you do?”
She paused with the dusting and looked at Gemma. “What are you talking about?”
Gemma stared her down from inside the kitchen. “Carmen told me that she saw my and Jack’s conversation from Urban Light. How could that even be possible if she wasn’t there?”
Lila’s jaw tightened and her lips pursed in a look that saidguiltyso clearly, Gemma had no doubt what she had done.
“Lila,” she said like she was scolding a toddler, “whatdid youdo?”
They both remained frozen, Lila turned sideways in her chair at the dining table, blush brush in hand, and Gemma braced against the counter inside the kitchen. The only thing that moved was Lila’s eyes as they darted to her phone perched on the breakfast bar between them.
Like someone fired a starting pistol, they both leapt into action.
Gemma lunged at the breakfast bar, reaching over the sink and clawing at the cold granite right as Lila sprang from her chair fast enough that it fell over backward. They both reached for the phone—Lila’s connection to hundreds of thousands of followers—and Lila’s hand slapped down first. Gemma’s landed with a hard smack right on top of it.
“Gemma, wait!”
“You posted a video of us?!”
Lila tore the phone away and dashed for the living room. Gemma burst from the kitchen and nearly jumped on her.
“Lila! Take it down!”
“No!”
They fought like sisters over a favorite toy.
Gemma tackled her onto the pink velvet couch as Lila tried to play keep-away. She held the phone as far away as her arm could reach.
“Show me!”
“Stop it!”
