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The Last One
-- EXCERPT: “Ms. O’Donnell.” 
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by:
Of Fae & Hate
-- EXCERPT: I’m halfway to my dorm when I become aware of footsteps marching in time with mine. I whirl around prepared to give the fox guy another piece of my mind, but I pull up short when I see the guy who’d waved at me the first day I got here. His eyes are a mystic green that seem to swirl with magic as he watches me. His lips spread into a wide grin, showing off pearly white teeth. He drifts close to me, a chain hanging from his dark jeans. When he stops a foot away from me, my eyes move down to his nails, taking in the black polish covering them. “Let me guess, you want to take on round three of my anger,” I say to him coldly, preparing myself for another argument. Just my fucking luck. But instead of saying that I don’t know who he is or one of those other cheesy lines that seem to be in abundance at this school, he only huffs out a laugh. His eyes twinkle as they roam over me. “I’m not here for an argument. I figured I could escort you to your room, keep you out of trouble since you seem to attract it.” Mirth dances in his eyes. “Really? Because something tells me you’re the exact type of trouble I need to avoid.” He gives me the classic bad boy vibes and how could he not with his leather jack, dark features, and crooked smile. He’s shirtless under the jacket, but I refuse to let my eyes really inspect all the smooth, toned skin. “Me?” he asks, placing a hand to his chest. “I’m about as innocent as they come around here.” “Why do I doubt that?” I ask even as my shoulders relax. “Because you’re a smart girl,” he drawls, moving close to me until we’re almost standing chest to chest. Heat swarms my body as I tilt my head back to look up at him. My breath stutters in my chest as his eyes swirl from green to a near pitch black. The sense to run away overwhelms me but it’s battled by the feel to get even closer to him. I lean closer to him, my mind obviously made up about which side we want to be on. He chuckles and I feel him reach up and wrap a lock of my hair around his finger. I watch out of the corner of my eye as he twirls the curly, purple hair. He chuckles as he pulls a piece of spaghetti from the strand. “So does that mean you’re going to let me escort you to your room, gorgeous?” he asks, raising a brow. Okay, yeah, definitely trouble. It feels like I’m broken from a trance as I take a step away from him and yet my heart is still beating rapidly in my chest. The urge to get closer to him is still strong but I choose wisely this time, moving away from him. “You can walk me,” I tell him. “But if you try any bullshit-” “You’ll threaten to smack me like the other bitches?” he asks in amusement. I blink. “You’ve been following me?” I ask. “As it happens, I wasn’t following you, not at first,” he says, but he doesn’t elaborate any further. He turns, walking away and I only stare at him. He pauses, looking over his shoulder at me and raising a brow. “Are you going to come?” he asks and I realize he’s already walking in the direction of my dorm. I move to catch up with him, keeping space between us as I fall into step behind him. He noticeably slows the pace of his long legs. “You know, if you’re trying to convince me that you’re not stalking me, the fact that you know where my dorm is isn’t helping,” I tell him. He peeks down at me, “And yet, you’re still following me.” I am. Conversation dulls as we walk the rest of the way to my dorm, but it’s surprisingly pleasant. I don’t feel any pressure to speak to him, nor is the silence awkward. When we make it to my room, I find myself wishing the trip wasn’t over. After running into so many annoying, over chatty people, this guy is like a reprieve. I lean against my door, one hand behind me on the handle as I look up at him. “I don’t believe I quite caught your name.” “That’s because I didn’t give it to you, Nerrysa Ebirac.” “Definitely a stalker then,” I mutter before raising my voice slightly, “because I definitely didn’t tell you mine either.” “No, you didn’t,” he agrees, drifting close again. “And you seem to have a problem with personal space as well,” I tell him as he twirls yet another lock of my hair. Thankfully, food doesn’t come with it this time. His grin is ruthless and when he leans close to me, his breath fanning over my neck, I decide he just may be combustible. Because I’m on fucking fire. His lips move so close to my neck that I can feel them brushing over my skin as he speaks. “I have a lot of problems to be honest,” he mutters, “but you may be my solution, little Nerys.” I have no idea what he means, but I really don’t give a fuck, feeling dizzy from his close proximity. His fingers dance over my hip before suddenly he’s pulling away. He takes a step back, eyes bright. “And my name is Brynsyn Challard,” he says before disappearing down the hall, leaving me confused and eerily enticed.
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by: #Book Blitz #Yearning to Live (Finding the Strength 4) by Shirley Anne Edwards @Xpresso Book Tours25/7/2022
Yearning to Live
-- EXCERPT: “How did you know I’d be here?” I finished my juice with a loud pull on my straw. She tapped her now painted silver thumbnails together. “Yesterday morning I went back to your work to check on the dog but then I saw you get in a car with some guy. I, ah, followed you home. After your boyfriend dropped you off and you walked inside your house, I was going to ring the doorbell, but I didn’t want you to think I was a stalker.” “Israh’s not my boyfriend. He’s my best friend and next-door neighbor who—” I shut up before I told her too much about him, and me. “But you knowing I’m here now isn’t being a stalker?” She stopped fidgeting with her fingers and stared out the window. “I drove away and decided to stop by your house again this morning. But then you were walking on Main Street, and I saw you come here.” She turned back to me with a confused expression. “You really do like to walk instead of driving?” Her eyes widened dramatically. “Unless you don’t have a car? But you live in a nice neighborhood in what I would say is an expensive house for this type of small town.” The front door opened, and the bell rang. She slouched in her seat and tugged down her hood. She looked nervous, and even though I should have been offended by her rambling speech, I grew concerned. She was too twitchy and perhaps scared? She was really paranoid about being spotted. “You’re that worried someone might recognize you and rat you out to the press? Why do you think it would happen here, in such a small town like Albee?” “I’ve been hounded by the press since Gio and my first album was released. It’s been nonstop for twelve years.” She hugged herself and glanced out the window again when Savannah came over. “You and your friend ready to order?” She focused on me first, not appearing to recognize Gem. “I’d love another juice. My friend is still deciding what she wants.” I expected Gem to face me, but she kept staring out the window. “Sure. Take your time.” She grabbed my glass and left. Gem exhaled and gave me her attention. “See? Savannah didn’t recognize you. This is a safe place.” I tapped her shoe with mine. “Guess so.” She stared at the meu. “What’s good here?” “The pancakes.” My stomach growled, but Gem didn’t seem to notice. “Too many carbs and too much sugar.” She turned the menu over. “I ate breakfast already, but I’d kill for a chai tea.” “Sorry, only regular coffee here.” I thanked Savannah when she brought my juice. “I can’t sit here while you eat and I don’t.” She held up her hand as I started to speak. “I can’t drink any type of coffee. I have standards.” I paused in taking a sip of my juice, afraid it would go down the wrong way or I’d spray it on the table or on Gem. “Unless you have something important to tell me, I’m staying and enjoying my banana pecan pancakes I have every Sunday.” She might be used to people doing what she wanted, but I was sticking to my routine. She checked behind her when the door opened, and a group of six girls around my age came in. She cursed under her breath and turned back around. “I want to explain why I left so suddenly after the phone call Friday night, but I’m really not comfortable talking here. Can we go somewhere more private? Please?” The pleading tone in her voice, and her use of the word please, which I had a feeling she rarely used, stopped me from telling her no. But I was curious, well more than curious. A waitress brought over the meals to the table nearest us. I watched the couple dig into their breakfast, and I sighed. Gem curled her fingers around mine holding my glass. “Pretty please?” “Not many people say no to you.” I finished my juice, even though she kept her hand on mine. I should have told her to let me go, but having a celebrity like her touch me was something I’d never expect in a million years. “I can’t remember the last time I was refused something I wanted.” She pressed my hand and let me go.
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by: #Book Blitz #The Language of the Wind by M.R.Grand #Fantasy #New Adult #Romance @Xpresso Book Tours25/7/2022
The Language of the Wind
-- EXCERPT: It was painful, not being able to breathe. The demon screamed. They had never felt such pain. They weren’t even sure they were supposed to feel pain, not until a body had been granted to them. But the way they felt — as though something was being ripped from them, like they were vanishing from this very world, dispersing back into the arms of the winds as dust —it must be pain. They tried to scream again, to call for the winds to save them, but the winds were nowhere. The winds had finally abandoned them after one too many failures. What a horrible thought, to die without a body to be remembered by. The demon knew they would simply cease and never know any other mortal emotion except pain and burning. There was no sound, no sight, without the winds. Just the overwhelming scent of blood and bones. They knew it was too good to be true, to follow something so close to the witch homes, the city built on stolen power. But after losing the small and frail child to that large demon, after wandering and growing bored of the company of the winds, the demon was desperate. Too good to be true. Too good. Then, another feeling—something being pressed into the demon’s shriveling form, like seeds being shoved beneath the earth, planting something new. More pieces found the demon, like rocks grinding between one another, trying to make a perfect fit, to mold the demon into shape. Fear suddenly grasped the demon. This was not someone mourning a death; this was not an accident. The demon was being bound by a witch. They could feel their long fingers, the foreign additions being given, pieces of a body that their form was claiming…all the stories were true, then. Witches were the true monsters of this world. Breathe, the witch commanded in the language of the wind. Instant relief flooded the demon as they obeyed. A cavity opened, and the winds were back, flooding their being. They could feel themself rush back into place, fluid and fluctuating…and yet not. Something is very wrong with them. Something very wrong, indeed. Open your eye, demon, commanded the witch. See what I have given you. Eye? An eye? The demon did feel as though they were blind, like there was more to behold than what the winds whispered to them. Taking orders from a witch, however, was not ideal. Not after nearly choking into nothingness, after having to figure out exactly what state they were in. Their form felt split—like limbs—except there is no skin; they know that. Something is tied around the lower half of them, like a chain of some sort. The demon did not like this. Not one bit. The winds now flowed through the cavity the witch gave them—something like clay resting inside—and then the grinding rocks. Open. Your. Eye. At last, the demon obeyed. The world was bright. It burned and was much smaller in such a windowed space. Their breath quickened, the cavity—mouth —opening and closing as they braced the ground, the winds tickling their form as if apologizing. And then, the demon faced their captor, the monster who bound them so deceitfully. A woman—yes, a woman—of young age. Her skin was dark, but not nearly as dark as her voided eyes. Her hair brushed her chin in waved kissed by the winds, the color like the sheen of crows. Her strong brows are lowered, her dress like deep green petals of the forests, laid against a full and curved figure. And her ears—just as the stories had said—were butterfly wings that granted them the language of the wind, wings of purple and silver, flared in challenge. “You — ” the demon breathed, testing their voice for the very first time. “You are — hideous.”
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by: #Book Blitz #Spark of Madness (Ember Glen 1) by Bryn Ford #Dark Romance @Xpresso Book Tours25/7/2022
Spark of Madness
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo -- EXCERPT: I sinned. I ran, and I hid. I rebelled from my soul’s purpose, and I was promised punishment. He’s come to punish me. As soon as the realization hits me, I scramble, kicking against the earth to push myself backward and crawl out from beneath him. He ignores me as I awkwardly rush to my feet and back away; instead, he bends to pick up my mother’s journal. No! I lunge for it, but he jerks his hand away, holding the journal beside his head. “Give that back.” “No,” he says plainly. He slowly lowers it in front of him, thumbing open the pages. I lunge again to snatch it, but he only steps back, narrowing his eyes at me with his head tilted toward the pages. “Stop. Your property is my property now.” “What?” What is he saying? I’m entitled to have my own things. Except, the Control has license to take authority over the personal property of sinners. And I’m a sinner now. I feel frozen as I watch him flip through the pages, reading a sentence here and there. A shiver runs up my spine despite the warmth of the sun, and I hug myself, running my hands up and down my arms. Movement in the distance catches my eye; standing at the tree line, at the edge of the meadow, are the other six members of the Control. Watching. Waiting. The notion of my death claws through my mind, scratching away all other thoughts. Have they come to kill me? Will I die today? How will they do it? Burned at the stake like my mother? “What is this?” Arlo asks, closing the journal and holding it up. “Is this your mother’s?” I hear him, but I struggle to respond. The very essence of my being is trapped behind a thick wall of ice inside my mind, frozen and paralyzed to thoughts of punishment and death. “Forget it,” he says with exasperation. “Come with me.” He holds out his palm, covered with a black leather glove, and I stare at it as if it’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, as if it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen…because it is. If I take his hand, he’ll lead me away, only I don’t know where to and I don’t know what will happen then. I don’t know if I’ll be hurt or tortured, or if I’ll be killed immediately. I lift my gaze from his hand to meet his stare. “Are you going to kill me?” His eyes are blue—bright blue, like the clear sky above. They sparkle as he watches me, waiting for me to take his outstretched hand. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever really looked at him. I’ve only known him by name and in passing before the other night in the forest. I knew of him; I’d seen him and could identify him easily. But looking at him now, I know I’ve never truly seen him before. “Not personally, and certainly not today,” he offers. “Come along now. We have things to discuss.” “What things?” He takes a step closer, and instinctively, I step back. “Mercy.” “What’s going to happen to me? Please. Can’t you just tell me now?” “I’m not going to ask you again.” His offered palm twitches with threat. “We will drag you away if you insist on resisting.” Part of me wants to resist. If my fate has already been decided—and I suspect it has—then resistance won’t change the outcome. Resisting might make me feel like I did something, that I at least tried. That part of me makes my knees bend with the urge to run.
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Gilded Butterfly
-- EXCERPT: This book is in the world of Rockin’ Fairy Tales with some character carryover from Pink Guitars and Falling Stars, Book 1, but it does work as a standalone. Windshields are a dark destiny for butterflies. As I wind up the drive to Midas Lear’s Waterfall Palace in the Hollywood Hills, my windshield becomes one such destiny for a vibrant blue butterfly. The poor critter traveled to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune with plans to name its cover band Wing Spread. The driver’s side glass of my deep blue, Tesla model 3 had other plans. In a single fatal moment, the band, Wing Spread became Smush, which sounds more like a pop-up night club than a cover band. In Hollywood, it’s all about the name. I pull as far off the road in front of the mansion as the narrow drive allows. There are those who would mock me for bemoaning the death of a bug. In my humble opinion, sadness should be mandated when something lovely is destroyed. I, Adair Holliday, am to blame for a drop of beauty gone from the world. I retrieve an index card from the leather messenger bag my half-brother, Desmond, gave me last month on my thirtieth birthday with the directive: “Time to upgrade from your folksy backpack look, Adair.” Across the road, I pick my way down a steep bank landscaped as a butterfly garden to the shore of a narrow stream fed by cascading water features of the mansion. It’s ironic the intentional flora attracts winged beauties only to threaten death via windshields and waterfalls. Before me, the final brushstrokes of a California sunset reflect off Midas Lear’s Waterfall Palace, three stories of glass framed with stacked stone walls. The president of Golden Pipes Records runs his music empire from this Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water House meets Irish castle. Spray from the waterfall spilling from the cantilevered stone shelf at the mansion’s base dots the butterfly’s wings. I crouch at the water’s edge to release the creature and its paper ship into the current, a Viking funeral in miniature. The card flips, sending broken blue wings beneath the surface. A bend in the stream disappears into shadows underneath the peppy blossoms of overhanging purple and pink crepe myrtles. Were I slightly metaphoric, I’d define the waterway as a parallel to the new turn my life is about to take. Maybe the fact I’m figuratively pondering means I possess a drizzle of the poet in my soul. A good showrunner needs such drizzle in the ole creative toolbox. I’ll leave poetic musings to Midas Lear and his three red-headed daughters. Rubata, Glissanda, and Chorda Lear will be my trio of responsibilities when I step into the executive producer spot on their reality TV show, Kickin’ It With Midas, after we shoot tonight’s season finale. I’m primed to step up my creative splash on the Golden Pipes Network. I emerge from clusters of crimson columbine and lilac to the roar of an approaching engine. Desmond’s vintage red Ferrari 360 Modena zips around the corner, screeching to a stop inches from my toes. “Shit, Adair. You nearly ended up on my windshield.” The timeliness of his comment is not lost on me. I decline to share deets of my Viking butterfly funeral. “Cooling my jets for a sec by the water.” Des shakes his head. “Cooling your jets? My little brother, crowned prince of outdated idioms and clichés.” I celebrate and perpetuate the resurrection of sayings I’ve absorbed from the classic and not so classic movies and television programs I adore. More than one person has accused me of time traveling to the present from a black and white 1960s sitcom. I tap a finger to my chin. “Are colorful phrases ever outdated?” Rubata, the middle Lear sister, springs through the open pop top of the car. Her dyed cherry-red hair clashes with the Ferrari’s paint. She raises her phone to grab a selfie with a green, white, and red striped bag. “Gelato. I gotta gelata,” she sings and waves a handle bag stamped with the Gelato Buono logo. I dive to catch the phone she tosses to me. “Adair, get a shot of me with the gotta gelata and the car.” Rubata holds the bag next to her cheek and puckers her lips. As I snap pictures, she flips her hair and kisses the bag. “Did you get the shot? Wait, switch to video of me singing gotta gelata, gotta gelata.” Through the window, I catch her gold painted toenails dancing across Desmond’s shoulder. “Oooo, Desi, feed me gelata. That’ll look sexxxxy.” 
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by:
Aberrant Monsters
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GIVEAWAY! Hosted by:
A Little Wilder
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: There’s a knock on Bernadette’s door. It pulls me out of deep concentration on the trailer project and sends a small thrill of anticipation up my spine. Kane. It’s gotta be Kane. It’s not like I get visitors. I haul myself off the couch—an increasingly challenging undertaking. Even though I know it has to be him, I peep out. One of the awesome mods on Bernadette, courtesy of her previous owner, is a peephole, which is super useful when you’re a single woman on the road alone. And even though I know it has to be him, I still feel a surge of pleased surprise when I see his face. “Delivery,” he says, holding out a big, round Tupperware… cake holder? “Boston cream pie.” Holy shit, he found it. I yank open the door and have to stop myself from snatching the cake out of his hands. Or throwing my arms around him and hugging the crap out of him. “Where did you find it?” “I—” He stops, appearing to think better of whatever he was about to say, but it’s too late. I know where that sentence was going. “You made it?” “Amanda helped,” he says, like that’s going to take anything away from a six-foot-something built-like-a-God man who bakes Boston cream pies. “Aaaaahhhh!” I cry, overcome. “You are a saint and a genius.” He tries to bite back a smile. “I think you’re overstating things a little.” “No,” I say, shaking my head. I have been fantasizing about yellow custard, soft yellow cake, and chocolate ganache nonstop since before I knew Kane had planted this baby in me. “Come in. You have to have some, too.” “It’s all for you,” he says. “I wouldn’t take any of your special treat. Your presentation was fantastic. You deserve all the cake.” This guy. I swear. He was too much in Vegas, when all I knew about him was that he asked real questions and knew how to use his body for both good and evil. Now… He hesitates again, then follows me in, setting the cake on the counter. I wash my hands and take two small plates down from the cabinets. I grab two forks from the utensil drawer and two mugs from the overhead hooks. “I don’t have coffee—” I gesture at my belly, “—but I have tea, milk, or water.” “Water would be great,” he says. “And no cake. I’m serious. It’s yours.” I wrestle the cake carrier open and cut into my prize. My mouth waters as I do. It’s so-- We sit at Bernadette’s little pink dinette table. I’d forgotten how small this table is with two people at it. Or maybe it’s how big Kane is; his knees touch mine, and his arms cover so much territory, even with his hands folded. I force myself to look away because staring at close range is both rude and dangerous. His eyes are very, very blue. I dig in. “Oh, wow,” I say. “Wow.” It’s soft. Moist (again, sorry!). Tender, springy. The custard is cool and smooth on my tongue, the ganache dark and flavorful. “Mmm. Just. Thank you.” Kane grins at me, like he’s pleased, though there’s something else in his expression I can’t quite read. “I did good?” “You did amazing. So good I could kiss you.” One eyebrow goes up, but he only says, “How does it rate among the Boston cream pies of the world?” “It’s up there. Although pregnancy might be biasing me.” I lick a bite that’s mostly custard from my fork, and catch a glimpse of Kane’s face. His eyes are… interested. I lick again, for good measure, and notice the muscle in his jaw tense. A ripple of tension slides down the lower slope of my belly and lodges itself in my internal muscles. In their constantly primed state, they… quiver dangerously. The next time I look at him, Kane’s eyes are on my chest. I’m wearing a flowy green maternity dress with a low scoop neck, and, why, yes, it does show off my newly ridiculously huge boobs to excellent advan-- “You have—“ He reaches out. “Some cake—” His finger almost touches the upper curve of my breast, and, oh, whoops, yes, that is cake on my boob. I use my own finger to scoop it up, then lick it clean. I hear the moment the breath leaves Kane’s lungs. I see the moment his gaze travels from my chest to my mouth, when it fixes on my finger, sliding between my lips. The moment it sticks, and stays, right there on my mouth, even as my hand drops away. “Mari—” His voice is hoarse. “Do it. Just—do it,” I order him. Then he’s leaning over the table, setting his mouth over mine, hot and unhesitating and so, so good.
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by:
Two Boy Summer
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: “Your mom’s really young, isn’t she?” Heath says. “Yeah. She had me when she was sixteen.” “She looks like she could be your sister.” “Yep,” I say, that being exactly the eighteen hundredth time I’ve heard that. I reach for my suitcase, but he lifts it and heads up the stairs. “I’ll take it up for you.” I hesitate before following him. Craig would sooner gouge his eyes out than have something happen to me on his watch, so he must trust this guy implicitly. But that’s not to say I do. Heath stops at the top of the stairs and scoots to the side. “Lead the way.” I poke my head into each of the rooms, Heath doing the same. “This one looks out on the pool and it’s got its own bathroom,” he says. I had already pretty much settled on that one, so I shrug and head inside. He points to the window on the far wall. “It’s got a view of my room too.” I lift my eyebrows. “Excuse me?” He hefts my suitcase onto a bed and then points again. “My family’s in that one.” He squints one eye. “My room’s right there. The blinds are pulled right now, but I’ll be sure and lift them, especially when I get out of the shower.” I peer at him, starting to seriously question Craig’s judgment. “I’m kidding. One of us had to break the ice. You’ve been looking at me like I’m a serial killer since before you got in the car. I don’t bite…unless you want me to.” He waggles his eyebrows and then picks up a decorative shell and inspects it. I eye him. “Who are you?” His lip quirks up in a smile, his gaze still focused on the shell. “Such disdain already. I must be doing something right.” “You want me to dislike you?” “Oh no. That’s impossible. I’m far too charming for that.” I try to make out if he’s being irreverent or if he’s a cocky a-hole. I can’t tell yet. I plop down on the bed. “So, you’re starting the apprentice program, huh?” “For the summer, yeah.” I frown. “You mean you’re not doing the full five-year plan? The high school to college to real life program?” “Nah. Just the summer. Just to occupy my time and keep me out of my parents’ house. What about you? What’s your gig this summer?” “I’m working at the boardwalk. My uncle manages the place.” He nods, picking up a turtle knick-knack from a bookshelf and then setting it back down. “Sounds fun,” he says with sort of a sigh, and again, I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or serious. “What’s there to do around here?” he asks peering out the window at the pool. “Have you never been here before?” “Nope. Just got here yesterday. Spent last night right out there.” I rest my hands on my hips. “Why are you so familiar with this house? Don’t you live at the one next door?” He shoots me a dry look. “My family’s over there.” I nod, like I get it, but I really don’t. I’ve got a great family. I’ve got two of them actually. Craig and my mom are always including me in everything they do, and when my dad is in town, we do all kinds of stuff together. I guess I never went through that whole my family sucks phase. Because my family’s kind of awesome, even after what I’ve put them through the past five years. He drops his hands down to his sides. “Well, it’s been stimulating.” He goes to head out of my room. “Hey,” I say, at my limit with trying to figure this guy out. “Are you an asshole or are you just hard to read?” He huffs a little laugh and then looks me up and down. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
GIVEAWAY! Hosted by:
Dark Hearts
Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / Kobo / Google Play -- EXCERPT: You want to know what the rich and powerful do? They go to parties like this one. And on little plates they carry food around that they don’t actually eat. In heavy crystal glasses they drink champagne and scotch. Rivers of it. They laugh and whisper and watch each other out of the corners of their eyes. But really what they do is pretend. That’s all. They play pretend in their four-thousand-dollar tuxes and ten-thousand-dollar dresses. They pretend to care what the person they’re talking to is actually saying. They pretend to give a shit about whatever cause to which they’re donating money. Or in the case of tonight’s party—the marriage of a 20-year-old girl to a 48-year-old man. They pretend that it’s not gross. My sister Zilla and I played a version of this exact same game that hot summer under the willow tree at the back of our estate. Wearing our mother’s nightgowns with thin little straps and lace that fell past our little girl knees, Zilla would hold out a leaf with a worm on it. “It’s a delicacy where I come from,” she’d say in a ridiculous accent. “After you,” I’d say, trying to sound like the Queen of England but getting tangled up somewhere in the deep south. And then, because she was fearless, Zilla would pick up that worm, bite it in half, and swallow it down. “Show me,” I’d say, and she’d open her mouth to reveal nothing but her molars poking through the tender pink of her gums. And then she’d dab the corners of her mouth with the leaf, and we’d tip our heads back and fake laugh. But the fake laughs always turned to real ones. Ones that shook our bellies and made us collapse onto the ground. That was not going to happen at this party. “Are you all right?” asked Mrs. . . . oh, god, what was her name? She was important, I’d been told that earlier. I’d been told not to forget that this woman in the vast sea of important women at this party, was important. “I’m fine,” I said, but there was sweat pooling between my breasts. The sweat had nothing to do with the heat of summer in Upstate New York and everything to do with my life ending while people ate shrimp cocktail. The harpist in the corner struck up what sounded like the exact same song she’d been playing for the last hour. It was. It was the same song. The harpist was playing a joke on all the assholes at this party. Oh god, the thought just occurred to me—she thinks I am one of the assholes. “As I was saying,” the important woman said. The diamonds in her ears were the size of pea gravel and could keep Zilla in Belhaven for a month. “The senator has done excellent work for the state in Washington. Everyone here fully supports his tax relief bill.” “I’m sure he appreciates that.” “Tell him, won’t you?” she asked, leaning in closer. “I have a nephew graduating Harvard and he’s hoping to intern with the senator next year.” Little did Important Woman know, I had no power. Everything about me—from the dress I was wearing to the seven million thread count pillowcase I would lay my head upon tonight—was a loan I was in the process of paying back. “Sure,” I said. “You must be so excited,” Important Woman said. “How that man has managed to stay single is a mystery to me.” “I think I just need to get a breath of fresh air,” I said and then rudely, really rudely, just walked away from that important woman. Whoa. I was really starting to unravel. Despite being in this house roughly a million times, I couldn’t seem to find a door leading to a room I wanted to be in. There was like . . . a hysterical giggle in my chest. Or a scream? Maybe it was a scream. Or a sob. All three? Was that even possible? I’d wished a million times since all this started that I was more like my sister. Tougher. Stronger. Angrier. Strong was never a word anyone had applied to me. I had to get out of the Constantine compound. Now. Three seconds ago. The champagne glass in my hand was empty, and I handed it to a waiter, not waiting to answer his polite question about having more of the expensive bubbly. If I opened my mouth too wide I was afraid, well, not afraid as much as I was sure, absolutely sure that I would ruin not just this night. But everything—the whole spider web keeping my sister and me safe would be torn apart. So I kept my mouth shut as I pushed past Tinsley Constantine. “Are you all right, Poppy?” Tinsley asked. We weren’t close, me and Tinsley. The Constantine children breathed rarified air, and when I was around them, I felt all the arrows of my circumstances. We’d been raised as cousins of a sort, but we all knew that was a lie. Now, since leaving college, I was staying in their pool house. And they never intentionally made me feel bad, but I could tell they didn’t like how much their mother cared about me. And they really didn’t love me staying in the pool house. “I’m fine,” I said with what I hoped was a smile. I could see across the room Winston and Perry, Caroline’s sons, tracking this conversation. And more eyes were not what I needed. “I just need some air.” They were one hundred percent pitying me and barely hiding it. I was one hundred percent freaking out and barely hiding it. The front doors were still open, people walking in and out, and the big veranda would be just as crowded as this ballroom, so I followed a server out the door and through a wood-panelled study full of men in tuxedos. I didn’t look at their faces. In this world, this place, they all looked the same. White, slightly saggy, watery-eyes behind glasses that assessed my worth as I went running past. In my desperation, I got turned around inside the sprawling mansion and found myself in the small sitting room being used as a bar for the catering staff. The same room where Caroline had changed my life forever—god, was that . . . Christmas? How had my life changed so dramatically in a few months? “You have to listen to me,” Caroline said, sitting next to me on the little settee facing the icy window. The white twinkle lights reflected in her eyes. “This is serious. And this is hard. But you’re not a little girl anymore.” “I know,” I said. I’d turned 20 in the spring. And now that Dad was dead, I was Zilla’s legal guardian. Frankly, I hadn’t been a little girl since Mom died. I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt like a little girl. “Your father . . .” Caroline took a deep breath. “There’s no money, Poppy.” “For what?” I asked. “There’s no money for you. For school. For Zilla. You need to sell the house to pay off what he owed.” “Okay,” I felt the ground shifting under my feet. “The life insurance—” “He cashed it out a year ago.” “My college fund?” “Gone. The money from your mother’s estate. All gone. There’s nothing, Poppy.” “How will I pay for Zilla—” “You’re going to need to drop out of school, and we need to figure something out.” “You all right, miss?” a server asked while trying to get by me with a tray of empty glasses from the kitchen. “Bad place to stop,” a guy said, lifting his tray of full glasses over my head as he went by. “I just need . . . fresh air.” “The front—” “And privacy.” The server nodded once, her no-nonsense ponytail swishing over her dark vest. “Follow me,” she said. Maybe I could get a job as a server with this catering company. She probably made good money. I didn’t have any experience serving appetizers on trays, and probably way too much experience eating them. But I could learn. Probably. We were through the kitchen and down another hall, and finally she pushed open a door to a small brick patio with a few chairs around what looked like a fire pit. I could see the swimming pool beyond. The pool house where I’d been staying since Christmas like some very unwanted guest. The gazebo. Tennis courts. The manicured lawns slipped down over the hills to the shadowed tree line. Fresh air abounded. The sounds of the party were muffled. I could almost pretend I was far away from it all. “You should be okay out here,” the server said in her neat vest and bow tie. I loved bow ties. Honestly, I was made to be a catering server. “Thank you so much!” I said, showing way too much enthusiasm for the kindness she’d shown me, but there’d been a real lack of kindness—big or small, in my life in the last year so I always got a little messy around it. “It’s just where the servers smoke, nothing to get excited about,” she said with lots of side eye. The server vanished through the open doorway, and I walked out into the grass, past the edge of the light thrown from the lantern fixture over the door. In the distance was the thick tree line that separated the Constantine land from my parent’s old house. When Zilla found out what Dad had done, she burned the house down. That’s when we knew the medication wasn’t enough. That’s when Belhaven happened. When everything changed. What was left of the house after the fire and the willow tree had been bulldozed, the pond filled, the land sold to the Constantine’s. I could run around to the front of the house and get a key from the valet. Any key. Any car. And I could drive away. Except, you idiot, you don’t know how to drive. I could run. Just . . . run. Even as I thought it, I was slipping out of my shoes. The grass cold and damp and real beneath my feet. That was how bad I wanted to escape—my body was committed to action before I’d fully finished the thought. God. I wanted to RUN. Run and do what? Go where? What about Zilla? The thoughts were chains erupting out of the grass and wrapping around my feet. Hands in fists, tears in my eyes, I opened my mouth ready to scream. Ready to let all the poison out, no matter who heard me. Let all of them hear me—Important Woman with the earrings, the Constantine children, the server who in another life might be my best friend—I’d go back in there in a minute and smile and thank them. Show them the stupid rock on my finger and blush and laugh, but now, let them stand in those rooms and know they were robbing me. Killing me. Let them-- “Jesus Christ, you okay?” a thick Irish accent asked from the darkness in the corner of the patio, and instead of screaming I kind of squeaked. Which, honestly, was about right.
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