“I haven’t been crying. I’m just drunk.”
“You don’t look drunk. You lookdevastated.” Kat’s blazing blue eyes dart to mine. “Why has she been crying?” Her eyes narrow to murderous slits. “What did you do?”
Georgina looks frantically around. “Have you seen Alessandra?”
“Not for a while.” Kat shoots me another death stare. “What happened, Reed?”
“We’ve had a disagreement.”
“Adisagreement.” Georgina scoffs. She returns to Kat. “Have you seen Fish?”
As if on cue, Fish walks up, looking distraught. He shoots me a death stare that rivals Kat’s, before addressing Georgie. “Alessandra needs you. Reed told her she sucks, and that her music is bullshit, so she ran upstairs to your room to cry.”
Oh, for the love of fuck. “That’s not how it went downat all,” I blurt.
But nobody is listening to me, least of all Georgina. Indeed, suddenly, it feels like everyone around me is gathering up their pitchforks, and I’m the guy with a rather conspicuous hump on my back.
“I tried to comfort her,” Fish says, “but she said she preferred being alone, until you could come.”
“I was trying tohelpAlessandra,” I say lamely. “I wasencouragingher.”
Fish flashes me a look that plainly says,Prick.Kat shoots me one that says,I’ve seen your version of encouragement many times, Reed. And it ain’t pretty.And Georgie doesn’t even look at me. Indeed, her skin flushed and jaw tight, Georgina marches away from me, without so much as a glance at me, through the packed party, straight to the staircase, and up the entire flight of stairs, like a woman possessed.
Of course, I clamber after her, desperate to clear my name on this one thing, at least. “I told Alessandra she’s talented!” I shout from behind Georgie, matching her every bounding step. “I told her she has great vocal control. All I said was she’s trying to be someone she’s not and?—”
“I told you not to say anything to Alessandra about her demo!”
Oh, shit. That’s right. She did.
“Are you capable of keepingonepromise to me?” she shouts. “Why do you even bother pretending to make promises, if you’re literallynevergoing to keep any of them?”
“I forgot you said that. I think I was stoned? I’m sorry. I was just trying to help her, and I guess I just... forgot what you said about that. I don’t know.” I run my hand through my hair. “Georgina, if you’d just let me tell youexactlywhat I said to her, you’d know I was actually doing her a favor.”
But she doesn’t stop. She keeps bounding down the hallway toward her room.
“All I said was she needed to tell the truth in her art. That she shouldn’t try to mimic?—”
She stops in front of her closed door and whirls around on a dime, making me nearly run into her. “You told Alessandra to ‘tell the truth’ in her art? Oh, that’s rich, seeing as how you don’t even know the meaning of the fucking word.” She turns and swings open the door to her room, and gasps at what she finds inside: her stepsister lying on the bed in tears. “Ally!” she shouts as she runs into the room, leaving me in the doorway, like a vampire who hasn’t been invited inside.
Georgina takes her beloved stepsister into her arms, while I stand watching helplessly from the doorway. After a moment, though, when she notices me, she gets up, marches to me, and slams the door in my face. And that’s when I know: all hope is lost. If Georgie were standing over my Bugatti now, holding a golf club raised above her head, she’d smash it to Kingdom Come, even more so than she did to my Ferrari. And no command or plea from me would stop her.
I place my palms flush against the closed door, my heart feeling like it’s physically bleeding onto the wood.Let me in, Georgie.Please, please, let me in.
After what feels like forever, the door swings open, making me lurch back into the hallway, and Georgie and Alessandra barge out of the room.
Georgie’s wheeling her suitcase behind her, her regal head held even higher than when she wore that ruby necklace. Alessandra’s wearing abackpack on her back, and holding the cardboard box Georgie doesn’t know I know about. The one containing the documents from Stephanie Moreland’s lawsuit, plus, God knows what else.
“Where are you going?” I choke out.
“None of your business,” Georgie tosses over her shoulder.
I follow the girls down the hallway. “Alessandra, you misunderstood me. I’m sorry if my words seemed harsh, but?—”
“Don’t speak to her,” Georgie hisses. “And don’t speak to me, either. Ever again.”
Down the stairs they go, with me following behind like a stray dog.
A new “super-group” is performing onstage now, which means, thankfully, everyone at the party is crowded in the main area, blissfully dancing and cheering with their backs to us. It’s the perfect time for the girls to make a getaway, completely unnoticed. Which is exactly what they do. Indeed, they walk straight out my front door, past security, and into the cool night, without anyone noticing a damned thing.
