‘Amanda,’ Lily said, ‘much as I appreciate this new spine you seem to have grown, I’m also tired. I also want to go to bed. Even I can’t muster the energy for snarky monologues every second of the day. Do you have any micellar? I’m out.’
I passed her my micellar water.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
And then, for several minutes, we stood there in silence, taking our make-up off together. It was almost nice.
I twisted my hair up into a topknot. My elastic broke. ‘Shit.’
‘Here,’ Lily said, passing me one of hers. ‘It’s the wrong colour, but it’ll work.’
‘Thanks.’
‘They’re wrong, you know.’
‘What?’
‘They’re wrong,’ she repeated. ‘He doesn’t like her the best out of anyone.’
A piece of hair fell out of my topknot and into my eyes. I tried to put it back in, and failed.
‘They’d be a terrible match,’ Lily said.
‘If you think that, then you’ve never seen them together,’ I said. ‘They look perfect.’
‘Sure, they look perfect,’ Lily said. ‘Doesn’t mean they are perfect, though.’
‘We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one,’ I said, finally managing to get the rogue strand of hair into my bun.
‘Are you going to give up on Dylan that easily?’
My eyes met hers in the mirror. I was almost positive I knew exactly which Dylan she was talking about.
‘You’re not the only person who’s seen them together,’ Lily said. ‘Can you tell me, without a word of a lie, that you see any spark there? Any passion?’
‘He gave her cake.’
‘So? You and Jess gave everyone cakes today. Are you in love with everyone?’
‘It was different,’ I said. ‘After the photo shoot date. He saw that she wanted the cakes in our shoot, and so he gave them to her.’
‘He heard that you were a mechanic and he gave you a Lamborghini.’
‘Come on, Lily, I’m not as stupid as I look. I know the producers plan the dates. Plus, they would have had to source that Lambo way before the bubble.’
‘I’m not saying he doesn’t like her,’ Lily said. ‘I’m sure he does. He’s nauseatingly nice. He likes everyone. He even likes me.’
Did she have any proof of that?
‘I just don’t think he likes her better than he likes anyone else,’ she said.
Is he sneaking anyone else down to canoodle on his boat, or just her?I wanted to snarl.
But even I wasn’t foolish enough to reveal that kind of information to someone like Lily. ‘Why do you care, anyway?’ I asked instead.
One corner of her mouth curled up, her expression a subtler cousin of her usual smirk. ‘I want things to beinteresting,’ she said. ‘Things are going to be dull as hell if the next three weeks are just a grim progression towards Double Dylan.’
‘You sound like Murray.’
