Kamilah’s eyes flicked down to the cardboard tube in Grey’s hands. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. He said it was my birthday present.”
Grey popped off the white plastic top of the cardboard tube and pulled out the contents.
It was a poster, a big one. With Kamilah at her side, she cleared off her coffee table, anchoring one end with a book as she unrolled it. The living room was still fairly full, and the people on the couch leaned forward to watch her progress with interest. A few more gathered around to peer at it as she flattened it out.
It was the original theatrical poster forThe Sister Switch: two identical tween girls grinning back-to-back, arms crossed, as theirparents leaned in from either edge of the frame, giving them looks of benevolent annoyance. Grey felt a twinge of nostalgia at the sight of it. As she looked closer, however, she felt a twinge of something else, something immense and ineffable. Instead of seeing Morgan Mitchell’s face doubled back at her, Grey was staring at her own eleven-year-old visage.
She ran her fingers over the slick paper, stopping once they reached the text at the bottom:
And Introducing EMILY BROOKS as HEATHER and ASHLEY.
There were a few giggles and murmurs of confusion around her. Grey looked up and met Kamilah’s eyes. She could tell Kamilah understood immediately. They were both speechless.
Grey rolled the poster back up as quickly as she could without damaging it. It felt wrong to have it laid out in public with everyone staring at it. In a way, she felt more exposed by it than by the photos of her own naked body that had been everywhere for weeks. A hidden piece of her soul laid bare. She slid it back into the tube, her hands shaking.
“I have to— I— Sorry,” she muttered, her feet carrying her out of the room before she knew what was happening.
IT WAS STILL TOO EARLYfor Ethan to go to bed. He popped open a beer to calm his racing mind and navigated, almost unconsciously, to the next episode ofPoison Paradise. As the now-familiar theme song started playing, his stomach curdled. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe he’d had enough Grey for the night. But it seemed like there was no such thing as too much. There was something perversely enjoyable about it now, rubbing salt in the wound, reveling in her rejection.
Well. She hadn’t rejected him, exactly, but he didn’t have his hopes up. Ethan hadn’t professed his love many times, but he’d done it enough to know that anything less than an enthusiastic affirmation was a rejection. At least he still had another season to go before he really had to worry about it. He supposed he could always start it over from the beginning, again and again, growing old, alone, as the world’s foremostPoison Paradisescholar.
He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on the couch. Lucy had just discovered that her boyfriend’s accidental death may nothave been an accident after all, and there was a cabal of shadowy forces at work in the idyllic town of Paradise Point. Ethan had been glad to see Callum’s character make his unceremonious exit, and not just for the obvious reasons. His presence had really dragged Grey down toward the end—although Ethan hadn’t yet seen her have a story line that wasn’t completely bonkers.
Grey and Mia peered around a corner, eavesdropping on a group of shady-looking men having a private conversation in broad daylight.
“What do you think it all means?” Mia mused loudly.
Grey bit her lip. “I don’t know. The more we find out, the less sense everything makes. How does Jackson’s secret greenhouse fit into all of this?”
“Turns out Mia was behind it all along. Killed my boyfriend and then had the nerve to act like she didn’t know a thing. What a bitch, right?” came a dry voice from behind him. Ethan sat up with a start, tearing his eyes off two-dimensional Grey so abruptly that it took him a moment to readjust to the three-dimensional version standing behind him.
“I— You—” he sputtered.
“Oh. Sorry. Spoilers.” The corners of her mouth twitched as he scrambled off the couch, stopping short in front of her. She let her overnight bag slide off her shoulder onto the ground, her eyes flicking from his face to the screen and then back again. “You weren’t kidding.”
“What?” he asked, taking another step toward her so she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
“Youarein too deep.” Her tone remained sardonic, but the vulnerable quiver at the end of her sentence gave her away.
He was still smiling when he kissed her. She twined her arms around his neck, and he pulled her as close to him as she could possibly get while still remaining a separate entity. That wasn’t goodenough for him. The thought of being inside her wasn’t good enough for him, either. He wanted to devour her. Somehow, if she could become part of him, he would never come close to losing her again.
When they came up for air, he realized at some point he had hoisted her onto the back of the couch, her legs wrapped around his waist.
“It’s really not a bad show,” he said, pulling her shirt over her head and dropping it on the ground.
“At least you weren’t jerking off to it.”
“Not this time, anyway.”
She laughed and smacked him lightly on the chest. He got his revenge by bending his head down to nip and suck at her throat until she moaned.
“Sometimes I just get too carried away by Lucy LaVey’s adventures. That girl sure knows how to get herself into trouble.”
Grey unwrapped her legs from around him and hopped off the back of the couch, kneeling in front of him. She looked up at him with an expression that could pass for innocent, if she weren’t already halfway done unbuckling his belt. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her. She smirked.
“Wait till you hear what she’s been up to lately.”
