“It’s a popular song,” he says before walking backwards. “I’m going to get another drink. You two want anything?”
“Bourbon, no ice,” Lo quips dryly.
“Hilarious,” Ryke says with zero humor. He nods to me. “What about you?”
I can’t get over how he said La Vie En Rose, like he understood exactly how to pronounce each syllable in the foreign language. If I said the song title, it’d sound like an American butchering the words. “Do you know these lyrics?” I ask.
“They’re in French,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the growing line to the bar. “Last chance, Lily.”
“Fizz Life,” I place my order, letting my suspicions go with it. He weaves between the guests, and I focus my attention elsewhere. “Do you think they’ll be okay?” I ask Lo as we watch Connor spin Rose with poise and masculinity. They haven’t confronted the serious repercussions of having a sex tape floating on the internet.
Once they start Googling themselves and the hatred and criticism pours through—they’ll feel the real sting. It’s not fun.
“Yeah,” Lo says. “They’re Connor and Rose.” He says their names like they’re a fortress of steel. While I agree on some accounts, he hasn’t calculated the fact that negative cannon-blasts from tabloids can easily knock down their defenses.
“Yeah but they’ll need us,” I say with a nod. “We’ve been through this before.” We’ll pay it forward, be a friendly shoulder to cry on like Rose was to me. Not that she sheds more than a few tears a year.
He stays quiet on the matter, his eyes darting to alcoholic beverages in almost everyone’s hands. It’s an open bar. He wears that mildly annoyed look that he used to get in college, when happy people flaunted their enthusiasm in front of him.
Just as the first song ends, guests begin to join Rose and Connor on the dance floor. Instead of rushing to the middle, a hoard of people edge closer to us. They unfortunately linger, as though to eavesdrop. We haven’t had a single reporter bombard us with questions because Connor ordered them not to, but they’re studying our movements from afar…well, now they’re doing it from five feet.
I press up against Lo’s hard, lean body. The spot between my legs pulses, and my arm latches around his waist. If I shift just a little close I can feel his bulge—
“Lily,” he says softly, staring down at me. He fixes a piece of my flyaway hair. “If you rub up against me anymore, I’m going to get hard.”
Ohmygod. I let out a shallow breath. “That’s the point…” Or is it not the point? We’re not allowed to have sex at my sister’s wedding, are we? That’s old, bad Lily.
This is Lily 2.0. Scratch that—this is Lily 3.0. Brand spanking new.
He groans a little. “Lil…” He pries my fingers off his toned ass. Oh Jeez. I redden. “Spanking” is a very dangerous word. The intensity in his amber eyes magnifies when they bore into me. His chest falls heavier than before.
Lo doesn’t distance himself from me. Not once. Instead he closes the gap, kissing me with an urgency that I’ve missed dearly.
My limbs shake as his palm cups the back of my head, his fingers gripping my hair, his tongue skillfully sliding against mine. We part for one single breath.
“Lo…” We’re in a room full of people. It’s a thought that disintegrates in the back of my brain.
“Lil…” He rests his forehead on mine. Then he kisses my cheek, and quickly clasps my hand, leading me in a new direction, swerving between people. I realize we’re aimed for a hallway or a bathroom. He glances back at me once, his lips rising in a gorgeous, devious smile. We’re going to have sex!
Yes. Yes. Yes.
My body thrums with victory and applause. It’s not wrong. It’s so right. I hold onto his one hand with both of mine, afraid that we’ll break apart and I’ll lose him.
And then a sloshed guy with black Ray-Ban sunglasses on—indoors—haphazardly cuts through us, tearing my hand right from Lo’s. Another guy in a white button-down rushes through the same space. “Wait up, Luke!” he shouts after him.
His momentum forward pushes me backwards. I nearly stumble into an old lady with oversized jewelry.
Three, four…five other people follow the two guys like a wolf pack.
Luke essentially created a pathway right between Lo and me.
What’s worse: I can’t see Lo anymore. It’s like he’s vanished from the building, lost in the sea of bodies. I spin around, my heart pumping, the need thrumming for him. Where’d he go? I rotate one more time and catch eyes with a woman in a maroon dress. My attention narrows straight to her honey-colored curly hair that’s strangely tamed despite the large volume.
She stops mid-sentence in a conversation with another woman, white wine in both their hands. Her face just lights up when she sees me. For a brief moment, I wonder if I personally know this woman. She takes a few tentative steps forward, like she’s a vampire I haven’t invited in my house yet.
“Hi, Lily, I’ve been wanting to meet you for so long. I’m glad I caught you here.” She holds out her hand for me to shake.
I hesitantly do, a foreboding feeling in my gut. I scrutinize her deep red lipstick, darker skin and perfectly matched high heels, jewelry and dress. Very fashionable. “You must be Rose’s friend,” I say. “From Princeton?” Though she seems a little old to be a college graduate with Rose, probably in her early thirties.
She lets out a small, weak laugh like are you serious? You don’t know who I am? Oh God. Is she famous? A celebrity?
Shit.
I suck. I really wish Lo was—
“I’m Wendy Collins, a staff writer at Celebrity Crush.”
My face plummets. Wendy Collins. The one who posted my letter that I sent to her, online for the whole world to see. The one perpetuating any and all rumors that I’m sleeping with Loren and his brother…at the same time.
Wendy Collins. I have nothing to say to you. Any harsh, horrible insults that stick to the back of my throat must stay there. I don’t have one of my family’s publicists to help redirect the conversation. If I spout anything wrong, she’ll just twist my words for a better headline.
I know that now.
Maybe she can read the horror on my face because she adds quickly, “You have to realize that I’m just doing my job. If I didn’t write those stories, somebody else would have, and I wouldn’t be paid nearly enough to afford rent in New York City. We don’t all come from money.”
Right. I don’t know if it’s my civic duty to let people berate me on the internet so they can afford their apartment. Maybe it is. Maybe this is the cost of growing up in luxury.
“I have to go,” I say, about to turn around. “I have to find my best friend.” Wrong term, Lily. I redden. “My boyfriend,” I amend and then wince. Still not right. “My fiancé. And yes, they are all the same person.” So there.
“We were just talking about your sister,” she says, freezing me in place.
I turn back, taking the bait too easily. Wendy motions to another woman by her side, older with a short blonde haircut and a pointed chin like a wicked witch. “This is Andrea DelaCorte an Executive Editor at Celebrity Crush.”
“Pleasure,” Andrea says, sipping her wine. Her needled brown eyes cast judgment from my toes to my face, probably speculating how many bodies touched mine.