“Thank you!” she says back, doing a little twirl, and I see her skirt is covered in peacock feathers. “It’s synthetic peacock, of course, but I think it looks real. I just love peacocks.”
“Yeah,” I say absently, and I’m still back there in that room, Nate up against my ass, bending me over that princess bed—“Cocks are great.”
Jo chokes on her wine, and my face burns. Oh my god, did I just say that?While I am miked?
I want to die right here on this lovely garden path, but instead I scramble to play it off, giving a sly look to Jo like I meant to say that.
Londyn gapes at me, like she’s not sure whether to take offense, but Addison and Madison, who had stepped apart like boxers going to their corners, are now heading back into the ring.
“You were obviously the one who did it,” Addison says archly, folding her arms above her exposed midriff. How many of those two-piece dresses does she have? “I heard you were lurking in my room. And I heard you’ve done this kind of thing before.”
“Were yougossipingabout me?” Madison asks in a tone that indicates she believes this is the most evil thing that one can do outside of not being here “for the right reasons.”
“I wasn’tgossiping. I was just literally saying what someone said to me!”
But I’m still distracted from all the drama. Because oh god, Nate’s going to hear that audio—this is going to be my tagline until the end of time, isn’t it?—and he’s going to know I said that right after he helped with my little wardrobe malfunction.
I’m sure I’ve made my interest obvious tohim, but I don’t want him thinking I’m trying to be obvious to the whole show. Could this cost him his job? I mean, we didn’t actually do anything, but if they suspected—
No, I’m just being paranoid. What’s more likely is that he’ll hear it and think it’s hilarious. He’ll get that big grin on his face, which lights me up all over. And maybe knowing how crazy turned on I was—still am—will excite him even more.
I shouldn’t love the thought of that as much as I do, especially not knowing if something real, something more, could actually work out between us. Not knowing if that’s something he’d want.
I’m pretty sure I got the answer of whether he’s completely uninterested in me, but now I’m only more confused. And in need of a cold shower.
“What’s that?” Londyn asks, and this time I really try to focus on what’s happening around me, lest I blurt out something even worse than my love for cocks. She’s looking at my hand, her nose wrinkled. “Is it a bug?”
I look down and see the little piece of green fabric pinched between my fingers. “No, it was stuck in my zipper.That’s why I was late, the zipper was caught.” I wonder if I’m talking too fast.
“Huh,” Jo says, her brow furrowing as she looks at it.
Does she suspect something? Like I planted this myself to get Nate to—
“Why would I do something like that?” Madison says, getting up in Addison’s face again. “I’m not threatened by you. Preston is a man of discerning taste.”
“He is,” Addison says primly, though she looks about one second from going into full fighting stance. “Which is why you tried to ruin my dress. But joke’s on you, because cutting the strap only made it sexier.” She wiggles her shoulders, and yeah, she does only have one strap holding up that skimpy top. Fortunately it’s tight enough around her chest, I don’t think she needs even that.
Damn, her boobs are fabulous. Clearly she hasn’t breastfed two kids.
Also, did Madison really sabotage her dress? Is that what this is about?
I make the connection at the same time as Londyn (which doesn’t do wonders for my self-esteem), because she blurts out, “Someone broke Becca’s zipper, too!”
All eyes turn to me, along with several of the cameras, and my palms start to sweat. “I don’t—I mean, it wasn’t broken, it was just—”
“This was caught in it!” Londyn says, grabbing my wrist and holding up my hand.
Addison squints and then stomps over to us, snatching the wisp of fabric from my hand.Then her jaw drops. “It’s green organza.”
Several girls gasp, and all heads turn to the right side of the garden where Daisy stands, now surreptitiously trying to scoot behind a large, phallic-shaped hedge. I didn’t really register her presence before, but she’s wearing a slim green dress, with a puff of this very fabric (organza?) circling the bottom.
Daisy looks flustered. “Why would I do that to Becca’s dress?That would be disrespectful, especially because she’s so mucholder—”
“Oh my god, Daisy,” I can’t help but say, putting myself right where I didn’t want to be, in the fray. “I’m not eighty, I’mthirty-one.”
“I know,” she says very seriously, and I groan.
“Preston needs to know you did this,” Madison says, turning her arch look toward Daisy, who shrinks under it. “Because I have been accused of something I would never do by a girl who called me a skank—”
