“I think so too.”
Rose looks ready to reignite their old argument, but Connor leans in and whispers into her ear again. French. Can’t understand a fucking word. She eases considerably.
“I need a translator,” Lily whispers to me.
“Or an interpreter.” Preferably not a male interpreter. I can just picture Lily getting aroused and flushed from some French guy. Even that proposed fantasy makes me cringe. Jealousy is the one thing I don’t ever want to tear us apart. But it’s there. Festering.
Rose finally pins her eyes back on me. “Modeling is difficult,” she says, her voice much softer. “It’s not just about having a good body or a pretty face. Ask Daisy.”
“I know,” I say. “But Rose, this isn’t going to be a career for me. I just need to make enough money to pay back my debts and get on my own two feet. That’s it.” I glance at Lily for a second. “And you won’t have to mess up your schedule for Lil. I’ll be there while the other models are. It’ll be better.”
Lily holds onto the waistband of my jeans, and she says, “And what are you going to do after modeling?”
I have no idea. The fog of my future is too thick to clear. “One step at a time,” I say. She nods, understanding.
Rose mulls over my proposition for a minute. And then she says, “Fine.”
I break into a full grin.
And she adds, “But just so we have things clear, I’m doing this out of pity.”
My smile vanishes. “You could have stopped at fine.”
It’s her turn to grin. “I know.”
{ 9 }
LILY CALLOWAY
Two days pass and I still haven’t had sex. And on top of that, I welched on telling Lo about the old tests. But I plan to. I just need to…phrase it correctly so he joins my immoral side of things. And Connor has yet to find any evidence about the so-called blackmailer （or whatever he is—considering he still hasn’t asked for anything in return）。
“What about Patrick Bomer?” I sit with my legs crossed on the bed, an old navy-blue Dalton Academy yearbook on my lap. Big black circles outline certain faces and on others I’ve drawn X’s…and mustaches.
I raise my head and catch Lo’s frown through the circular mirror mounted above our dresser. He spent a solid twenty minutes dressing this morning and another ten minutes on his hair. It’s his first job at Calloway Couture. Hell, it’s his first job ever, and he’s freaking out about it.
“Why would Patrick hate me?” he asks, disheveling the thicker pieces of his hair on purpose.
“You won first place in our art class’s end-of-the-year projects.” Lo took a five minute video of a plastic bag blowing in the wind, which was beyond boring and beyond unoriginal, seeing as how American Beauty did it first.
He turns to look at me. “What? That’s not my fault. My project was damn good.”
“The entire class fell asleep,” I remind him. And Patrick made a bronze sculpture of Apollo, but it was hardly appreciated by Mr. Adams.
“So he should be pissed at the teacher, not me.”
I don’t refute because he’s right. Teachers gave Lo special treatment, even so much as awarding his crappy video the highest prize because he’s a Hale. Because his father is a multi-billionaire with connections so intricate that a spider would be jealous of the web Jonathan Hale weaves.
I glance at my computer screen on the bed. “Maybe he’s not angry anymore,” I add. “He’s at Carnegie Mellon for art now.”
“How do you know that?”
“Facebook.”
Lo groans. “Please tell me you didn’t sign up.” We’ve had an anti-social media rule since high school. We like privacy too much to waste it away on cyberspace.
“I didn’t. I signed you up.”
His eyes darken.
“The way I see it,” I say quickly, “is that if someone hates you, they’ll probably start slandering you on here.” I point to the screen. “It’s like a fly trap for suspects.”
Surprisingly, he risks his wrinkle-free, steam-pressed khakis to sit down on the bed beside me. Our canopy net tangles in his leg, and he curses under his breath, swatting the fabric away. “I swear I’m going to cut this stupid thing down.”
“I like it.” Even if I got caught in the net like a praying mantis last night. I roll sometimes when I sleep. It happens.
“We’re not in a jungle trying to ward away bugs.”