not that I’m aware of
that would be bizarre. To be a bot and not know it.
JOSH
or to be an old creep and not know it
CLOVER
JOSH
you live in CB?
CLOVER
that’s a question an old creep would ask
but yeah. U?
JOSH
born and raised. How have I never seen you?
CLOVER
I go to private school
JOSH
the lowly public school kids are missing out on your company
CLOVER
Trust me. I’d rather attend any other school than the one I do.
We talked every day for hours and hours and well into the summer. We shared secrets and talked about big things that felt nebulous, like why the hell do we even exist and how are we supposed to know what we want to do with our lives.
I couldn’t stop flirting simply because I finally could. I couldn’t stop hinting at how beautiful she was and speculating about how she could possibly be single.
She asked for pictures, and I sent her some random guy I found online. He was good-looking enough but no one I felt threatened by. I was Josh in so many ways. I told her so many truths that it became easy to convince myself that this was just a white lie. It was just a name. And a picture. And a backstory. But I had a hard time with the idea of her falling for anyone who didn’t look like the real me.
When she broached the topic of meeting, I told her I was gone for the summer and that my family rented our house out every year to out-of-towners.
She believed the lie… and so did I.
CHAPTER 12
Bennett
“Tex, you look dapper as hell,” I tell him.
“And what about me?” Julian asks.
Tex kicks one cowboy boot–clad foot out. “The bootsdogive me an unfair advantage,” he admits.
The three of us are huddled around a cocktail table in the Founders Hall on the first floor of Bellcliff. My mother had to cancel at the last minute and asked me to step in as her table’s host for the alumni fundraising dinner. When I made grumbling noises in response, she sweetened the deal by telling me I could bring Julian and Tex. She did make it clear, however, that we were to be on our best behavior and that she needed me to woo an alumnus she had invited herself.
Lacey Rosen, a twenty-nine-year-old alum, had launched her own skincare line by the age of twenty-six that is now carried in major department stores across the world. And my mother is fascinated by her. Mom has been eager to get into the beauty business for a whilenow, but Lacey grew her company without investors and has been elusive in the past about being courted by the Graves Corporation.
