He pauses, his hand still on the remote, and appears on the brink of denying it, then relents. “It came up on my recommended list the other day and I was... curious,” he admits. “I only saw one scene.”
A thrill races through my blood.He was curious about me.I’d thought that my chances of winning Ares over had pretty much evaporated after I’d accused him of leaking the divorce story, but after tonight, maybe my chances aren’t so bad after all. But it feels like more than just a victory, more than relief that my plan to save my own future is working. It feels almost like atype of pressure building inside my chest, a complicated heat and weight, like his body on mine minutes before.
“Let’s keep watching it, then,” I say.
He raises his brows. “Really? You want to watch yourself?”
“What, do you think that’s incredibly narcissistic of me?” I ask, grinning.
The corner of his mouth rises, like he can’t help himself. The closest to a smile I’ve seen on him. “I already knew about your narcissism, though your shamelessness is refreshing.” But he clicks into the show anyway.
As the opening theme plays, I lie there with my head nestled against his shoulder, the blue glow of the TV screen flickering in my peripheral vision, too comfortable to move. It’s so easy to pretend the rest of the world away like this, everything blurry and secretive and vaguely intimate. I can smell the perfume in my own hair, mixed in with the lingering notes of blood, hear the loud thudding of his heartbeat.
“You flew to Paris just for your birthday?” Ares asks as a scene of me strolling down theChamps-Élysées flickers to life on the screen.
“Yeah. It looks nice, right?” I say. The cameras continue to follow me throughout the weekend: stopping to take photos in cobbled alleyways, sun on my shoulders, floral sundress billowing around my ankles, smiling through perfume-making classes and private cathedral tours. Then the actual birthday party at a luxurious restaurant with a panoramic view of the city, me showing up with my hair done, in a custom-made dress, holding a brand-new Chanel purse I’d been eyeing for months, while agroup of girls—all gorgeous, all my age—gathered around me. “But like, I barely knew any of those people.”
Ares frowns at the screen, where one of the girls is loudly gushing over my dress. “Those aren’t your friends?”
“Nope. It was just for the show,” I say, shrugging. “All those girls are the daughters of CEOs and fashion designers and entertainment company founders. The director of the variety show and my mom created the guest list. I didn’t even know who was coming.”
Ares doesn’t say anything to that, but he grabs the blanket from the other end of the couch and covers my bare legs with it and holds me tighter.
The shot cuts to a lychee cream birthday cake from Holiland, my name written out in chocolate and pink swirls in the center. And though I’m used to seeing myself on screen by now, it’s still strange to be presented with the edited version, cropped by the camera, and remember how it had felt to live inside the frame.
I’m grinning like I’m competing to be the happiest girl in the universe, blowing out the candles, and then cutting through the cake with a shiny gold knife. “That’s the part I was looking forward to the most, you know,” I tell Ares. “The birthday cake. It’d been ages since I’d had cake or any kind of dessert.”
“And? Was it good?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t get to taste it. Right before we all went to sit down, my mom reminded me that we were still filming for the next few days, and if I had any sugar, I’d end up looking bloated. So I did the trick where I was like, playing with the icing using the fork—see what I’m doing there?—but whenthe camera moved away, I’d simply put the fork down. What?” I can sense Ares staring at me, and I tilt my head toward him. It’s difficult to read his expression, but something glimmers in the depths of his eyes.
“You should have had some,” he says, his voice quiet. “You deserve birthday cake.”
I blink in surprise, the pressure inside my chest expanding until it nearly resembles pain. It’s so unexpectedly sweet, sosincere,that I don’t know what to say, except... “Thank you.”
We finish the episode in silence, but I’m barely watching anymore. Instead, I run my fingers absently through his hair, over the hot shell of his ear, the cool, metallic edge of his piercings, and I let myself pretend for just a little while that the boy lying beside me isn’t fated to ruin my life.
18
Ares
His legs are numb when he wakes.
He glances down, frowning, his thoughts still half hazy, and finds Chanel Cao asleep on top of him. Suddenly he’s wide awake, the events of last night trickling in like the pale sunlight through the curtains. The fear that had pierced his lungs when he first spotted her at the Cave, stumbling home together after, the kiss that tasted of blood and cherries, the unreality of seeing her grab towels from his kitchen like she belonged here, like their lives were irrevocably tangled. He must have dozed off at some point—he isn’t sure when, which is... strange. He normally struggles to fall asleep to the point where his body shuts itself down from physical exhaustion, and even then he’ll spend much of the night tossing around, waking every hour or so with a start and struggling to relax again.
Yet the last thing he remembers is closing his eyes, and now this:
Chanel, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her headresting on his stomach. There’s no blanket around either of them, but he isn’t cold at all, not with her body pressed so close to his.
She breathes slowly, her features soft, her lashes dark against her skin, her makeup smudged and beginning to fade. He never imagined he would get to see her this way, and only in comparison does he realize how alert she always is. Always scheming, calculating, showing off her best and brightest sides.
So while the pins and needles in his legs are starting to feel more like a thousand tiny daggers, he holds himself very still, careful not to shift his weight on the couch. He doesn’t move at all until she stirs, her eyes fluttering open.
“Morning,” he says.
She seems, briefly, surprised to see him there. She looks around at the room, then down at herself, and sits up, swinging her legs off the couch like a gymnast, lithe and soundless. “I need a new shirt,” she declares.
“What for?”
