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ALLIE
“What the hell is she doing here?” Imani asked, pulling me aside after Nicole and I showed up at her front door for a girls’ day. Imani grabbed my hand and looked over her shoulder at Nicole, who walked up the grand staircase and gawked at the paintings on the walls that must’ve been worth millions of dollars each. “I thought we hated her?!”
I shrugged my shoulders. “She doesn’t have any friends.”
“She has the entire cheer squad.”
My lips curled into a frown, and I grasped Imani’s hands. “Just for today. If it doesn’t go well and she doesn’t fit in with us, then we don’t have to hang out with her like this anymore. I promise. I just … please. I need to do this one thing for her.”
After rolling her brown eyes, Imani cracked a smile and gently shoved me. “Only because you’re my best friend. If you weren’t, I would’ve thrown her out the second that she stepped onto my driveway.” She pointed a finger at me. “But don’t make me regret this.”
I wrapped my arm around her and rested my head against her shoulder. “Thank you.”
Maddie peeked in through the side-door window and waved at us, then opened the door and sprang into the room with a huge smile. “I brought my friend Vera to our girls’ day! I hope you don’t mind. She really needs to get out of the house and stop writing those smutty stories of hers.”
With long, silky hair and bright brown eyes, Vera stepped into the room and shut the door behind her, cheeks flushed red—and not because of the searing wind outside. “Can you not?” she said to Maddie, narrowing her eyes and pushing up her glasses. “I don’t need the entire world knowing.”
Imani rocked back on her heels as she stared at Vera. “Where have I seen you before?” she asked, tapping her finger against her lips. “Wait, don’t you hang out with that guy who’s always buying weed from Poison? What’s his name again? Blake? Blaise? Is that his name?”
“I do not hang out with Blaise,” she said, her thick Latina accent coming through.
Imani ushered them up the stairs and to her room, shutting the door behind us. “Sure you don’t. I bet you don’t even like him either, like Maddie doesn’t like her brother’s best friend.” Imani wiggled her brows at me. “And Allie over there hates her stepbrother.”
I rolled my eyes playfully at Imani. Though that girl hated big groups of friends, she damn well liked to troll them.
She grinned at me wickedly, then peered over at Nicole, her smile dropping a bit. “Do you hate anyone, Nicole?”
Nicole placed down her bags of makeup and sat on the bed, looking between Imani and me. Her lips curled into a half-smile, the expression on her face seeming like nobody had asked her something like that before.
“Maybe …” She glanced down at her freshly manicured nails and smiled wider. “I have my sights set on one boy, but he’ll never date me. He’s way too smart, and he makes me feel like such a fool sometimes.” After a moment of silence, she unzipped her makeup bag. “So, makeovers?”
I plopped myself down in front of her, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and placed my glasses on the side table. “So,” I said once Imani, Maddie, and Vera started bickering about how they all hated their boys, “you going to tell me about this boy?”
She rummaged through her supplies and pulled out some mascara. “Maybe one day.”
