Which was how Betty became the closest thing I had to a sister.
Her dad was always on the road, and her mom went with him, leaving Betty’s grandma, Sheila, in charge. So I spent most nights over there, so happy for the company, I’d have moved in if they’d let me. I found a place there, a happy place where straight As were celebrated with Funfetti cupcakes and breaking curfew got you a talking-to. Theirs were the faces I looked for in the crowd at dance recitals, the people I celebrated my life with.
It was then that I’d learned I could choose my family. And I’d chosen Betty and Sheila.
I know, I know—poor little rich girl. Don’t get me wrong. I didn’t hate my parents, and we never fought. Never once had they raised their voices to me in fact, and I’d never even been grounded. Mom was pleasant and always seemed happy. Dad was distant, but his job was so demanding, we barely knew each other. I didn’t hate them or even resent them. Because I wouldn’t have had Betty and Sheila otherwise.
When Sheila died a few years ago, Betty and I were lost. We spent a solid month in bed, nurturing each other’s grief. But nothing could mend the empty space she’d left, the only mother figure we’d ever known. But we still had each other, and that was something. Something that tempered our friendship to steel.
My father, whom I hadn’t seen in years, put an obscene amount of money in a trust for me before the divorce—strictly to keep it from my mother’s bank account, I was certain. Not that it fazed her. She jumped straight into the next handsome Italian leather wallet. Then the next. Six weddings I’d attended—the seventh around the corner—and as a result, I had enough step siblings to make a baseball team.
I thought Mom was in Malta. Or was it the Riviera? Mostly, I kept up with her through her Instagram as she yachted her way through the Mediterranean with her silver fox du jour. Occasionally, we texted. Once a year or so, we called. Every couple of years, I saw her for another of her weddings. But we hadn’t spent a Christmas together since I was in high school, and my birthday gifts always came by way of a courier.
Though I would have given just about anything to have a mother, a family, their absence hadn’t bothered me so much after I found Betty. I’d made a home for my heart where my best friend loved me and my surrogate grandma cared for me. A place where I could escape what might hurt me, a place where I was safe. And we’d made that place perfect, never without a plan of attack for fun and foe alike. Whenever we had to do something we didn’t want to do, we’d reward ourselves with something fun. Concert tickets. Shopping sprees. An epic night out when we were older. Sparkle Bombs, we called them. Because everyone knew if you got hit with a sparkle bomb, you’d never get the glitter off. And that was exactly how we liked it—we wanted to be covered in happy forever, thankyouverymuch.
We chose to be happy instead of sad, much preferring to ignore the bad and focus solely on the good. Life was so much easier that way, so much more fun.
Even in high school, we partied with the same crew we were with now. Prep school friends turned into college friends—Betty and I graduated from NYU a few years ago, and no one else strayed far from Manhattan. Our core group spanned ages from mid-twenties into early-thirties, the overlap bridged by siblings and mutual friends. Plenty of people had come and gone, but in the end, we were a unit, a force, a familiar space.
And the creation of the Bright Young Things had only brought us closer together. We were a big, unruly family, a gang echoing the idea of a chosen family. The experiences we shared were some of the best in my memory.
Just another reason why I slipped into Cecelia Beaton’s shoes. We wanted to take things bigger, and I didn’t do anything halfway.
I rolled over with a sigh, pulling a spare pillow into my chest. Last night’s party slid into my mind, replacing lingering shadows with glitter and shine. It’d been a smash, and we’d hit no trouble with the cops, thank God. The constant badgering by Commissioner Warren had stopped being cute months ago, and though we always had our permits in place, some things were just unavoidable. Like serving underage kids.
You might tell Billie Eilish she couldn’t have a drink, but I wasn’t going to.
But last night had been perfect, utterly and completely.
Including the kiss.
A smile spread on my face, then through my chest, and I sighed again. That Kiss.
Levi and I had watched each other across the room for the rest of the night, though neither of us made a move. It was anyone’s guess why he didn’t, but as for me? If I’d gotten within ten feet of him, who knew where we would have ended up—a bathroom stall, a dark alley, any secluded corner we could have found. Certainly nowhere with a bed and definitely somewhere one of us would have gotten tetanus. Instead, we’d left the challenge I’d set hanging between us with anticipation on its tail. Because if he managed to get into a party again, it’d be tetanus or bust.
And God, I hoped he showed up again.
I took a long moment to recount my memories of him, from the first moment I’d seen him through That Kiss. Every time I’d spotted him, his eyes had been trained on me, his gaze locking me down like shackles. Hot, steamy shackles that did something tingly to my nethers. Poor, neglected nethers that tingled just at the memory.
He’d be the perfect diversion, the best kind of distraction. My very own Sparkle Bomb after the drudgery of spending the last month trying to get over Dex. Something casual and easy, something to make me feel good. I needed casual and easy. Complicated disinterested me on the molecular level.
With the flip of my covers, I rolled out of bed in search of coffee. A twist of my hair had it in a bun as I padded down the hall and into the open living space, walled in by floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked a crosscut of Manhattan, with Midtown rising in the distance and the East River beyond.
I had just started the espresso machine when the door flew open, and Betty walked in wearing her dress from last night, hands in the air and heels hooked in her index fingers.
“I am the queen of the world!” she proclaimed as the door closed behind her.
“That good, huh?” I asked.
“Better.” She tossed her shoes and reached into her cleavage to extract her ID and money. “How about you?” She glanced around. “Where’s that beefcake who had laser eyes on you all night?”
“I told you I wasn’t hooking up with him. But if he manages to show up to Cirque Du Freak next week, all bets are off.”
“Zeke and I were really hoping you’d cave and hook up with him anyway.”
“You’re a terrible influence.”
“Thank you,” she said earnestly, laying her hand over mine.
The keypad on the door beeped, and I frowned in its direction, wondering which of my friends was on the other side just before the door flew open.
And Zeke blew in like hellfire.
He was light and dark, his face fresh and furious. Hair was combed back to expose his undercut in a streak of platinum, the rest of him swathed in black from his Chucks to his jeans to his tee. Even on a regular day, Zeke was quite possibly the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, but with his jaw filed steel and his eyes glinting with rage, he looked like an angel of death. Trailing behind him were two massive suitcases, one of them sprouting boa feathers from the zipper.