I sighed heavily. Then, since my feet were already dangling over the edge, I slid myself fully off of the daybed and turned around to face him. I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jean skirt—borrowed from Jillian—and gave him a small smile.
Joshua, however, didn’t return my smile. He studied me, suddenly serious, and even a little . . . sad, maybe. Then he reached out to let his palm hover by my cheek, almost as though he could cup it.
“You know,” he said softly, “that I’d give just about anything to touch you again?”
I didn’t trust myself to answer him aloud. Not without my voice cracking. So I just nodded. We stayed silent for another beat, until he cleared his throat.
“Have fun tonight.”
All I could manage was a rough “I’ll try.”
Before I did something I’d regret, like lean into his hand and pretend, just for a second, that this wasn’t our new normal, I spun around and raced out of the gazebo.
Cramped into Jillian’s tiny car and listening to yet another generic hip-hop song, I couldn’t quite believe I’d left my gorgeous boyfriend sitting on an equally gorgeous bed . . . for this.
Before leaving the Mayhews’ house, Jillian had forced me to try on about a hundred different outfits until I looked presentable. It was ridiculous, considering the fact that most items in my wardrobe once (and sort of still) belonged to the most famous actress in America. Next came an inch-thick layer of makeup, something I’d stopped wearing the day Gaby disappeared. Worst of all, Jillian spent most of our drive lecturing me on how to behave once we reached Kaylen’s house. Which made me wonder—yet again—why I’d been invited in the first place.
“And another thing,” Jillian continued, “you need to treat Kaylen’s mom with a lot of respect. Like, a lot.”
I turned away from my open window, back toward the interior of the car so that Jillian could see my exasperation.
“What do you think I’m going to do, Jill, run naked through her living room?”
Jillian laughed, but she began to drum her fingers nervously against the steering wheel. “It’s not that I think you’re going to do something stupid. It’s just that I’m trying to, you know, prepare you.”
“For what, the Miss Wilburton pageant?”
“Something like that,” Jillian muttered.
Before I could ask her what she meant, Kaylen’s house came into view, and I was momentarily struck speechless.
The home was absolutely enormous—at least three stories tall, maybe four. But the building’s most striking quality wasn’t its size. Its façade boasted every imaginable architectural element: columns, balconies, copper awnings, weather vanes. Best of all, two life-sized statues of lions flanked the double front doors. It was a triumph of wealth and excess.
“Whoa,” I eventually managed. “It kind of looks like Better Homes and Gardens threw up all over this place.”
“Yeah,” Jillian said, pulling her car onto the circular driveway. “This is what we call a McMansion.”
I let out a low whistle and stared up at the house while Jillian parked alongside several other cars. We kept quiet, almost reverential as we removed our overnight bags from the trunk and made the long walk to the front porch.
Finally, standing between the stone lions and waiting for someone to answer the doorbell, Jillian broke our silence with a torrent of words.
“Okay, so Mr. Patton is an oil guy and a state senator,” Jillian hissed in a rushed whisper. “So he’s gone, like, all the time. That leaves Mrs. Patton alone a lot with Kaylen and all this money. And, well, Mrs. Patton is a former Miss Oklahoma, which should mean that she’s super nice. But in Mrs. Patton’s case—”
At that moment, the front door swung open to reveal Kaylen, unbelievably glammed up and looking regal in the marble-tiled foyer. Except the person standing in the doorway wasn’t Kaylen. She was at least six inches taller, not counting her five-inch stilettos. That also left out the four inches of gravity-defying hair, which had been sprayed into some complicated blond sculpture. All that height made her look superhuman, like some sort of suburban goddess.
“Jillian, sweetie, don’t you look pretty,” she cooed, pointing to Jillian’s block-print dress and wedge heels. Then Mrs. Patton raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow and assessed me coolly, before breaking into a high-wattage smile.
“You must be Jillian’s little friend,” she said, offering me a handshake full of bedazzled fingernails. I took an instinctive step back to avoid the nontouch, and her smile dropped.
“Sorry,” I offered lamely. “I, um, have a cold.”
I offered a weak cough as evidence, using my shaking hand to cover it. Then I waved that hand as if to say, See? Germ-ridden.
Mrs. Patton’s upper lip curled in disgust and she, too, took a step backward. Then she composed that lip curl into something that was only slightly less repulsed.
“You poor thing. Why don’t y’all just come on inside?”
She waved us into the entryway, gestured vaguely to a grand, curving staircase, and told us that the other girls were in the theater room on the third floor. Then she hurried away on her ridiculous heels, fleeing what she clearly assumed was the black death.
Now I realized why Jillian had demanded a fashion show before we left. And why we were wearing designer labels to a party that should have been filled with sweatpants and junk food.
I snorted as Jillian and I started up the stairs. “You have to admit, this explains so much about Kaylen.”
“Doesn’t it though?” Jillian murmured. “I told you, Kaylen is an okay person—she’s just a little . . . skewed.”
“I can see why. She’s living with a grade-A pageant mom.”
“Aw, who’s afraid of tiaras and mascara? We’ve fought demons.”
“I’ve fought demons,” I corrected. “You fought a crazed psycho killer with some serious girl issues.”
“To-may-to, to-mah-to.” Jillian waved her hand dismissively.
After what felt like a thousand miles of stairs and hallway, Jillian paused outside a set of red double doors. She’d just reached for one of the handles when both doors swung open and Kaylen came bounding out into the hall.
“Jill!” she squealed, enveloping her friend in a bear hug to which Jillian responded with an awkward back pat.
I’d always thought of Kaylen as something of a princess. But tonight, in stark contrast to her mother, she appeared in a set of comfortable-looking pajamas.
“So, Jill, I got those hot Cheetos you like even though they make everyone else want to puke.” She abruptly shifted her attention to me. “And you’re Amelia, right? Josh’s secret new girlfriend?”
Now that took me aback. All I could do was stutter, “Uh . . . y-yeah. I guess I am.”
I thought I’d have to dance around this issue for hours—maybe suffer a few sly, catty comments in the process. But Kaylen just came right out and addressed the elephant in the room.
“Not so secret anymore,” she noted,