I refocused on my plate. Part of me had hoped this ultra-exclusive world would act as inspiration for my own parties, but everyone was too stuck in the past to inspire anything other than a yawn. I could have thrown this event in my sleep. Sterling silverware, white bone china, floral centerpieces. Sure, it was done to an impeccable degree, but at the end of the day it was all so... blah. No wonder Stella had sought a way to dissociate.
That thought brought me up short. Was I actually empathizing with her?
No. Absolutely not.
Beside me, she picked up the second half of her sandwich and took a tentative bite. It wasn’t just bananas and peanut butter tonight. She had a side of unsweetened applesauce to go with it. A veritable buffet.
I opened my mouth to ask if that meant she was feeling better, but didn’t want to seem like I actually cared. Because I didn’t.
Instead, I tucked back into my own delicious food. That was one thing I had to give the rich. Their chefs were better than mine.Hmm. Maybe I could find a Michelin-starred restaurateur with a shady past and rope them into working my upcoming party. There was still time. The tunnels had needed more work than I first thought, and it set my target date back by several days. Not that I was strict about when I hosted my events. Sometimes, it was every four weeks, sometimes much longer; it all depended on the location. The unpredictability of it was part of what made people so desperate to attend.
After dinner, we remained in the glittering ballroom, trapped by a ninety-minute-long auction. Up for grabs were a stunning array of luxury items and vacations, the odd old-world painting thrown in for good measure. I raised my hand a few times, winning a five-thousand-dollar pair of diamond cufflinks, losing on the rest. It was all for show, to prove that I had money to toss around.
The hosts thanked the crowd at the end, and the stage was cleared to make way for a twelve-piece band. Two tables over from us, AJ sat in my line of sight, even more handsome than I remembered. He caught my eye and subtly tipped his head toward a side door.
I nodded and leaned toward Stella. “We’re being summoned away.”
“Good. I’m so bored I could fall asleep.”
I dropped a kiss on her bare shoulder. To annoy her.
She jerked, clipping me on the mouth.
I licked her.
“Ew!”
Every head at the table swiveled our way.
“Sorry, thought I saw a bug,” she said.
I straightened, lips twitching. Her expression promised retribution.
Around us, the younger attendees in the crowd started filtering out of side doors one by one, so as not to draw attention to their departure. Stella and I remained where we were, waiting for our chance.
Phil was seated on my other side, and he turned toward me during a lull in the conversation. “Are you two planning to get the dancing started again?”
“Not unless we’re forced at gunpoint,” Stella answered.
Phil patted his coat pockets. “I know I have that Ruger here somewhere.”
Georgie, on his other side, put a restraining hand on his arm. “Darling, let them go smoke their marijuana with their friends in peace,” she said, but with her accent, she pronounced it mary-jo-ahna.
I snuck a glance at Stella, whose expression was carefully blank. “I haven’t smoked pot since I was in high school.”
Her father nodded sagely. “The kids these days eat it instead.”
Georgie rolled her eyes. “Like we weren’t the ones who invented baking it into brownies?”
“They hit gummies,” Phil told her, looking to Stella for confirmation.
“Yes, we hit them,” she said, and though there was almost no inflection in her tone, I could tell she was fighting back a laugh because of the way her eyes shone.
A few minutes later, our time had come to follow the others, and we rose from our seats.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Stella said. “I think we’ll go see if AJ has any pot for us to hit.”
Georgie smirked, recognizing the troll for what it was. As I passed her chair, she snagged my arm. “You’ll be careful?” Her eyes slid to Stella’s retreating form. “Precious cargo and all that.”
