When we pulled up outside Millie’s house, I could hear music blaring through the walls. Cars lined the streets and crammed into the driveway. I climbed out onto the curb.
“Are you sure Millie’s parents are OK with this?” I watched my mother survey the cars warily.
“Yup.” I turned away from her so she couldn’t see my brazen, lying face.
“OK …” she relented. “Have a blast.”
I watched the car until it shrank to a small blue dot.
When I turned around, Millie was standing at the front door, wearing a short black dress that accentuated her bust and bandaged her in around the waist.
“Mil!” I exclaimed, making my way toward her in high heel–induced slow motion. “Thank you so much for the shoes!”
“Holy crap,” she shot back, her red-lipsticked mouth agape.
I hunched my shoulders and covered my dress with my arms. “Is it too much? Should I change?”
She gestured at my dress, moving her finger up and down in several slow flicks. “That dress really shows off your best assets!” She made a botched attempt at a wolf whistle and then wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“Pervert,” I teased, reaching her.
“What?” She raised her hands in a gesture of feigned innocence. “I meant it really brings out the blue in your eyes … So vivid …”
“Who are you talking to?” Alex arrived behind Millie at the door. His blond hair was styled in perfect spikes and he wore dark-rinse jeans paired with a tight blue shirt. He was smiling goofily and clutching a red plastic cup. When he noticed me hovering in the doorway, he let his jaw drop so that, side by side and wearing the same expression, he and Millie looked like twins.
“Sophie Gracewell,” he spluttered.
“I know,” Millie murmured. “I know.”
*
Millie and I danced like maniacs across her hardwood floors, throwing our hands in the air and whipping our hair in circles, both of us teetering precariously on our respective sky-high heels. All around us, couples gravitated toward each other like magnets, pushing up against one another or peeling off to other rooms to make out. I barely recognized most of the people — the majority were Alex’s college friends, and those who heard about it from Millie were ignoring me, as usual. It didn’t matter. Everyone was laughing and having fun, and it was contagious — I was relaxed and energized. But more than that, I was eternally grateful to Millie, who had converted the entire downstairs of her impressive family home into a hub of energy, which meant I could spend my birthday having some much-needed fun.
The front living room had been cleared of its picture frames, knickknacks, and creepy porcelain dolls, which usually peered out from glass cases in the corners — an obsession of Millie’s mother’s. The lights had been dimmed so low that the features of anyone standing more than two feet away were foggy and indiscernible, and the leather couches and upholstered armchairs were pushed back against the wall. Above the fireplace, a fifty-inch TV was blaring music through surround-sound speakers.
“Where’s Dom?” I asked, ignoring the dull ache in the balls of my feet.
“He’s not coming.” Millie’s face crumpled, but she waved her explanation away as though it didn’t matter. “I haven’t heard from him since our date. He didn’t even return my text.”
“I’m sorry, Mil!” I shouted above the music. “That sucks!”
“It’s fine,” she returned loftily, but I could tell it wasn’t. She had been hopelessly obsessed with Dom after their date, and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to follow it up was strange, not to mention incredibly rude.
“I hope it’s not because of me,” I suddenly realized, feeling the color drain from my bronzed and blushed face. “Maybe Nic said something to him.”
Millie’s expression soured. “If it is because of you, then Dom is as spineless as his brother and they should both be shunned for judging you for your father’s accident. I don’t want to be with someone like that anyway!”
“It’s his loss,” I offered, feeling her anger ignite my own. “He’s an idiot.”
“They both are! I hope they have a really boring time styling their stupid hair and overspending on their stupid Italian clothes while they all grow old together in that creepy mansion!” Millie threw her head back and started swaying her hips, putting an end to the topic of Dom and his brothers for good.
Following her lead, I closed my eyes and let my body melt into the music. But deep down in my private bubble, I couldn’t help but imagine Nic’s hands around my waist; that he had shown up to apologize for his strange behavior and that there was a reasonable explanation for his sudden callousness. But when I opened my eyes and twirled around again, I saw a collection of faces I didn’t recognize, all red-faced and panting.
After a while, my feet started to throb. I stopped dancing and slipped through the double doors that led into a large marble-fitted kitchen. Inside, a bunch of guys were leaning around a keg, chugging their drinks. At the table, two skinny brunettes in short skirts were squealing their way through a game of beer pong.
I squeezed by a red-haired girl who was inking a henna tattoo on her friend’s back, and made my way toward the fridge just as Alex slammed his beer cup across the counter and backed away from his friends with his arms up in victory. “Losers!” he shouted. “You can’t beat the champ!”
I smiled. Alex had been so uptight at the basketball tournament; it was nice to see him in a lighter mood — even if he was still being abnormally competitive.
When his eyes fell on me, he stuffed his hands down by his sides and hunched his shoulders, adopting a sheepish expression. “Beer?” he offered, gesturing at the keg behind him. “Or we have some harder stuff, too?”