“What, a conversational safe word? Like what, I say‘apple’and we hightail it out of here?”
Grant made a face.“Pssh,‘apple’is so boring. Not a challenge at all to work into a sentence. I vote for‘fecund.’”
“How the hell am I supposed to think of—” I started, but Grant had spied a circle of girls my own age, and swooped towards them to deposit me in their midst.
“Shall I get you a sample of that famous Merlot?” Grant asked, and without waiting for an answer: “Look after her, ladies, I’ll be right back!”
Still slightly disoriented from the transition between the intimate car conversation and the loud party crowd, I blinked at the dazzling girls in front of me, trying not to be blinded by the gleam off their glossy hair and perfectly white teeth.
“So, how’d you land him?” asked a busty blonde who could have been a model if her nose-job had been just a little less obvious.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“How. Did. You. Land. Him?” She blew an exasperated breath through her nose as if I were too stupid for words.
“I didn’t ‘land’ him,”I said, my temper flaring slightly.“He’s not a fish. We just met.”
Another girl, this one a strawberry blonde with piercing blue eyes, looked me up and down with a skepticism usually reserved for atheists in church.“How?”
“At work,”I said shortly. Somehow, the fun story Kate and I had come up with didn’t seem so fun here. It just seemed silly. Like Grant would ever care about rescuing me from snooty bitches when he’d just plopped me into their laps and left?
“That dress is…nice,”the first girl said, not quite hiding her giggle.“Was it on sale?”
“It was a gift from Grant—” I started to say through clenched teeth.
“It would be, wouldn’t it?” she interrupted.
A third girl, her hair the kind of glossy black that only goes with skin that pale when the black comes out of a bottle, drawled:“I bet he’s bought you a lot of‘dresses,’huh? Did he give you a credit card or does he just leave cash on the bedside table?”
“Excuse me, I don’t like what you’re insinuating!”
“God, don’t be so defensive,”said the first girl with a vicious smile.“We were just making conversation.”
“So, tell me about yourselves,”I said desperately. For a moment that seemed to perk their interest, but then I made the mistake of adding:“How do you know Grant?”
They looked at me like I was scum.
Great, a whole room full of people who hated me for something that wasn’t even true. And the lie was just getting bigger all the time, creating vast new vistas of people to hate me for no reason. I felt misery welling like a black lake in the pit of my stomach.
“And I return!”Grant swooped back in with drinks, handing mine to me as he kissed my cheek, and then pecked the check of the girl with the nose-job.“I see you’ve met Starla; her family’s not far from here. We used to play together as kids, didn'twe?”
Starla blushed and mumbled something unintelligible; I felt a twinge of sympathy. A childhood crush on Grant, ouch. She had to be hurting now more than ever.
“You’re all looking lovely,”Grant said, sliding his arm around my waist.“Don’t you think so, Lacey?”
“Yup,”I said, and took a large gulp of my drink.“Very lovely. Very, very…fecund.”
“Oh?”Grant raised an eyebrow and surveyed the girls, who were displaying varying levels of confusion, incomprehension, and in a few cases, dawning anger.“Do you know, Lacey, I couldn’t agree more. These girls redefine the very word‘fecund.’Make it lose all meaning. It pales beside them.”
Something about his charming smile seemed to make them all decide it was a compliment; there were now a few tentative smiles. He beamed another smile at them, and they all melted.
“I hope I’ll make it back later tonight,”he went on,“but I do need to show Lacey something right now. Lacey, pudding-blossom, a moment, please?”
I let him get us fifteen feet away from them before raising my eyebrows.“Pudding-blossom?”
“Payback for sugarplum.”
I shook my head.“Sugarplum is at least an actual word. But thanks for saving me from the mean girl squad.”
“You looked as though you wanted to throw yourself off the veranda,” Grant said.“I can’t marry you if you’re a splattery mess. Want to get out of here?”
For a second I thought he just meant over to the other side of the party with the drinks, but then I saw he was gesturing out into the night.“But…I thought the safe word was just for…what about all these people?”
“It’s our party,”Grant said with that wicked grin that made my heart start playing percussion.“We can do whatever we want.”And then that arrogance melted for just a second, and that other grin surfaced, that soft, shy one that made him look like a timid kitten, eager for affection and approval.“I want to show you around.”
How could I say no?
SEVEN