“Then it’s settled.” I toast her with my cup of tea. “To your revenge.”
She raises her glass of water in response. “Toourrevenge.”
27
Cece
Ada and I spend the day lying around my hotel room, eating various types of cheese and sharing a bottle of champagne. We drink it slowly, not trying to get drunk, just enjoying the bubbles on our tongues as we talk through the events of the past twenty-four hours, shafts of sunlight drifting through the open balcony door.
We make plans to meet up with Betty and her husband for a drink before we head to the formal reunion dance over at Silverlight Estate Hotel.
My parents ring a few times, and I let the calls turn to voicemails, which I won’t check any time soon. Ada’s parents don’t call at all.
We talk about Tristan. Ada gives him a lot of extremely rude names, and I agree with all of them, throwing in a few of my own.
We don’t talk about Davis, but we do talk about Jake.
“I love him,” Ada says with a dreamy smile I’ve never seen before.
“I know. Are you going to tell him?”
“Yeah. It’s too big to keep inside much longer.”
When we finish the bottle, we get ready in Ada’s room. She linesup brushes and palettes all along the bathroom counter and turns us both into goddesses.
“I look fabulous,” I say when I examine my reflection. Ada’s given me an Old Hollywood look, winged liquid liner and matte lips, all traces of my freckles lost under a zillion layers of makeup designed to seem as though I’m wearing none at all. My gold dress is doing the Lord’s work, somehow managing to make me resemble a pin-up girl and a high society lady at the same time.
“Youareamazing,” Ada wraps her arm around me and pulls me in for a quick hug. She’s gone for a more femme fatale vibe, with blood red lips and thick lashes. She’s poured herself into a short white dress, whose satiny fabric gives the illusion of being see-through when she moves. Jake is going to take one look at her and either swallow his tongue or come in his pants. Maybe both at the same time.
Like Davis did. In my office.
I roll the memory through my mind in slow motion and on repeat. There’s been an ache in me since we fought on Thursday, a hollow throb in my stomach that’s only grown deeper since we were together this morning.
With the last vestiges of my ‘Stable Cece’ fantasy in tatters, it’s hard not to see that I’ve been fucking up in all areas of my life, including the way Davis and I have been tiptoeing around each other.
The lines between us are blurry as hell, and no matter what happens, when I get back to Auckland, I need to straighten them out. Even if it means finding a new bouncer, because I can’t imagine he’ll want to come back.
The sun is setting when Jake knocks on Ada’s door, calling out so we know it’s him. Ada’s busy applying lip gloss so I go to answer.
He looks like Hollywood royalty in his suit and tie, and there’s a seventy percent chance I’m going to have to meet Betty and Mr. Betty by myself so Ada can suck his soul through his cock. Well-cut formalwear is her Kryptonite.
“Hey, Jake.”
“What’s up, Cee? You look great.”
“Thanks. So do you.” I step back to let him in. “How did it go with Bryan?”
He shrugs. “Still hates me, but turns out he hates Thrasher more. He’s onto it. Said he’s gonna talk to the Auckland city cops and run any paperwork through there so it doesn’t give any of the local boys a heads up.”
“That’s good.”
Ada appears in the bedroom door, and Jake grunts like he’s been tackled. “Fuck me...”
“I know,” she says, twirling for him.
He takes three steps and pins her against the wall, running his hands over her hips. “I gotta have you.”
“Later.”
