Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
And the place is packed.
Bodies move in the reddish light, dancing, talking, shouting over the music. Laughter bursts through the air. Girls in shimmering dresses weave through the crowd carrying tequila shots balanced on lava-stone serving trays. Someone’s wearing devil horns while another person swings a glow stick.
It is obnoxious and so entirely Elias’s scene.
And in the middle of the mayhem, I spot him, standing on a raised platform surrounded by friends and acquaintances, a ridiculous red silk shirt half unbuttoned, a birthday sash across his chest reading BORN HOTTER THAN HELL.
“DAAAAAISY TURNER!” he yells, spreading his arms wide. “You made it!”
He’s grinning with that charismatic, troublemaking energy he’s had since freshman year—magnetic and dangerous—drawing everyone close while simultaneously warning them not to ask too many follow-up questions.
“You look like a lava lamp,” I shout back as I reach him and hang my purse up in a safe spot.
“That’s a compliment in my book,” he replies, kissing my cheek.
His friends cheer. Someone hands me a cocktail that is bright red and steaming faintly. It looks like it might dissolve a metal spoon, but I hold it anyway.
“It’s a Molten Manhattan,” Elias says proudly. “The dry ice is completely unnecessary but absolutely fabulous.”
“It looks like a witch’s cauldron.”
“Exactly.”
The platform vibrates beneath us as the music changes to a tune that’s deeper, bass heavy, throbbing through the lounge. The birthday energy is infectious, swirling around us. He walks me toward a more private area of the place where we can actually hear each other speak.
Elias is mid-ramble about how his birthday should be a federal holiday when I reach into my bag. “I come bearing gifts,” I say, lifting a medium-sized, neatly wrapped box.
“For me?” He gasps, pressing a hand to his chest. “Daisy Turner brought me a present? Everyone clear out, this is a moment.”
People around us laugh. Someone yells “Open it!” and Elias, ever the performer, holds the box up.
He tears into the paper with theatrical vigor—then stops.
His breath hitches.
“Is this—” he whispers.
I bite back a smile. “Yes.”
He lifts the scarf from the box and for a second, the ridiculous, lava-lit lounge blurs around us. The scarf is soft dove-gray cashmere, with a faint charcoal pattern. It’s exactly the one he pointed at in a SoHo shop window months ago, sighing dramatically when he learned it was sold out everywhere.
“You said it was the only scarf on earth that ‘understood your bone structure,’” I remind him.
“I DID SAY THAT!” he shouts, clutching it to his chest. “And I STAND BY IT. Daisy… how? This color was impossible to find.”
“I pulled some strings,” I say simply.
He looks at me, eyes softening, expression warming with the familiarity that reminds me why he’s been one of the most important people in my life for almost a decade.
“You always do this,” he murmurs. “You listen to the throwaway stuff. The things I say once and forget. And then you find a way to make them… real.”
I shrug, but my chest tugs. “Someone has to keep you grounded.”
He drapes the scarf dramatically around his neck. “I look incredible. Tell me I look incredible.”
“You look incredible.”
He beams.
Then, with the scarf looped just so, he narrows his eyes at me and gives me a critical once-over. “There’s something off about you.”
I try to look offended, but I have never felt more off in my life. “I am not off,” I say quickly.
“Yes, you are,” he says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from the crowd. He shoves me down into a corner table and pulls a chair in close to me. “You’re glowing but not in your usual well-moisturized, frighteningly competent Daisy way. It’s… different.”
“Nothing is different.”
“I know you, Daisy. Your face is doing the thing when something’s wrong.”
I try to look innocent. “What thing?”
Elias rolls his eyes. “That thing where you overcorrect your facial expression because you’re hiding a secret, and even though you think it works, you’re actually screaming ‘I’m off!’ in neon.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I mutter and take a deep sip of my steaming drink.
Elias pulls my cocktail away and sets it out of reach. “Daisy, don’t pull this with me. It’s either a guy or a guy. So,” he says, “let’s try this again—slowly—like you’re confessing a sin to a priest. Give it up to Father Elias.”
I exhale and lean closer to him. “Fine. I… slept with him… Grizz.”
He stares. I stare back.
“And…?” he prompts.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Twice.”
Elias doesn’t gasp or scold. He just settles deeper into his ridiculous lava-themed lounge chair, folds his hands over his new scarf, and says softly, “Okay. Tell me everything.”
The gentleness in his voice undoes me. “I know, I know,” I rush out. “This is where you’re supposed to tell me what a mistake it was, how unprofessional, how messy—”