“Thanks,” Jillian breathed, immediately slipping her feet out of her tall wedges. Then she and I hefted up our bags and followed Kaylen inside.
The theater room matched the house perfectly: overdone, with heavy red drapes and gold tassels everywhere. The only difference was that this room looked a little friendlier with the addition of a rom-com on the big screen and a few pajama-clad girls gathered beneath it.
I’d seen them before, following Kaylen and Jillian around Wilburton High. One of them—a strawberry blonde with a sharp nose and pale green eyes—hung back in the semicircle of theater chairs and arranged bowls of junk food on a low table. The other two girls approached us, both sporting messy sets of pigtails. Slumber-party couture, I guess.
“Nice dress, Jill,” one teased, flipping an ashy brown pigtail. “Are you going to a fancy horse race?”
“Are you running in one?” Jillian shot back, but she grinned warmly and gave her friend a playful shove. Then she moved toward the bathroom, apparently to change. Without looking back, Jillian wiggled her fingers over her shoulder. “I’m going to go un-Derby myself. See you in a sec.”
As soon as the door clicked shut, the third girl moved closer to me. Too close, actually, almost like a shark. Her smirk wasn’t necessarily hostile—in fact, it looked sort of pretty against her deeply tanned skin—but it made me uncomfortable. Deeply uncomfortable.
“So,” she said archly. “You’re Amelia?”
It was as if those three words were some kind of signal. All at once, the entire room seemed to focus on me. Each girl moved in concert, angling herself toward me like a missile seeking its target.
After a long, uncertain pause, I nodded and cleared my throat. “And all of you are . . . ?”
“Chelsea Qualls,” the ashy brunette offered, and then pointed behind her to the redhead. “That’s Elyse Richards.”
“And I’m Mya Homma.”
The girl with the deeply tanned skin and black hair waved at me, a gesture that I wasn’t sure whether to read as snarky or friendly. For lack of anything better to do, I waved back.
“Hi. I’m Amelia Ashley. I’m dating Joshua Mayhew. I enjoy competitive figure skating and long walks on the beach.”
The other girls laughed, relaxing by separate degrees. One by one, they each shifted away from me. Sensing that the attack was over, I smiled at them as genuinely as I could and reminded myself that I’d faced far scarier things than a roomful of teenage girls in judgment mode.
Still, when Jillian exited the powder bath, I took the opportunity to excuse myself to change—and breathe easier for the first time since we’d entered the room. Maybe even the house.
An hour later, the awkward, interrogation-themed tension had almost dissipated. I guess a few peanut butter M&M’s and more than a few sips of stolen wine just had that effect on people. It also didn’t hurt when Jillian told them that my pajamas were previously worn by the actress now prancing around in the chick flick that we were only half watching.
“I can totally see the resemblance,” Mya said, using a bottle of Mrs. Patton’s finest merlot to draw an invisible line between the woman on the screen and me.
“Yeah,” I muttered awkwardly. “My famous aunt just loves to share her outdated clothes.”
“Outdated?” Chelsea breathed. “They’re freaking gorgeous. Is that silk?”
Chelsea sat in the chair next to mine, and she moved forward to touch my sleeve. Without thinking, I yanked my arm back before she had the chance. Jillian must have seen the small, insulted O that Chelsea’s mouth made, because she darted forward.
“Amelia has touch issues,” Jillian said defensively, leaning around me. “You know, like a phobia.”
“Oh.” Chelsea gave me a smile that was equal parts polite and weirded-out. Kaylen, however, looked intrigued.
“Really?” she asked. She sat up straighter in her chair. “How does that work, exactly? With Joshua, I mean.”
My mouth started flapping open and closed like a fish’s. How did I even begin to answer that? Luckily, before I had to craft some believable lie, Jillian faked a loud yawn.
“Bor-ring,” she grumbled. “New subject, guys. Please.”
I could have kissed her. Instead, I gave her a sly wink of gratitude.
“Okay,” Kaylen said. “No more phobia talk. How about a game of truth-or-dare?”
Jillian and I shouted no at the same time, almost as loudly as Chelsea, Mya, and Elyse cheered yes. With the rest of the party on her side, Kaylen grinned triumphantly.
“Four against two. It’s totally happening.”
I groaned loudly and glanced at Jillian. She shrugged, as if to say, No use fighting this. I sank into my plush seat, waiting until the very last minute to join the other girls in the cross-legged circle they’d formed around the coffee table. Once there, I folded my arms and prepared myself for the inevitable questions from Kaylen. But to my surprise, Mya jumped in with the first challenge.
“Truth or dare, Jilly?”
Obviously Jillian hadn’t expected that, either. She blinked a few times and then said, “Uh . . . truth, I guess.”
Mya exchanged meaningful looks with Chelsea and Elyse before turning back to Jillian. “Are you in love with Scott Conner?” Mya asked bluntly.
Jillian blinked even faster, as did I.
I knew that Joshua’s quiet friend Scott liked Jillian; his feelings were written all over his face, every time he looked at her. But I had no idea that Jillian might feel something for Scott in return, especially not after her misguided crush on Kade LaLaurie this winter.
Now, watching the red stain of a blush creep up her neck, I knew it must be true: Jillian liked Scott back.
“No,” Jillian muttered, after far too long a pause. “Of course I don’t like Scott. He’s like . . . a brother to me, or something. And he’s not even that cute. I’m mean—floppy hair is over, right?”
Instead of answering her, the other girls whooped and laughed in triumph.
“Liar!” Elyse crowed. “You do! You totally like him.”
Chelsea pointed an accusatory finger at Jillian. “You’ve got a crush on your big brother’s bestie. Admit it.”
“No,” Jillian spat. She chucked an M&M at Chelsea, who caught it deftly and popped it into her mouth. Somehow, this offended Jillian even more. She folded her arms over her chest and scowled at her friends.
“Fine. So I sort of like Scott, okay? I didn’t used to. But after we got back from Christmas break, he just . . . he started to look better to me. Cuter. Funnier.”
I heard what Jillian didn’t say: that Scott Conner, compared to a creep like Kade LaLaurie, looked like Prince Charming. Not that Scott needed the comparison—he’d always been a nice guy. But now, Jillian actually valued that quality. I couldn’t wait to tell Joshua.
Jillian’s girlfriends, however, continued to tease her mercilessly. And for once, she couldn’t seem to muster up any sharp comebacks. So she scowled harder and flopped angrily against the footrest of a theater chair.
“Traitors,”