12
Shane had meant to find a real date for the season-nine premiere party, but since he barely had time to breathe with the whirlwind of promo stuffed into the gaps in their shooting schedule, it snuck up on him before he knew it. For once, Dean didn’t have a date, either, so the two of them shared a car to the first venue of the evening—a theater that the network had rented out to screen the episode—which would be followed by an after-party at a historic nightclub nearby.
On the ride over, Dean was uncharacteristically quiet, staring out the window.
“You good?” Shane asked.
Dean turned to him, shaking his head a little. “Just thinking about how this is the last one of these.”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “But you know I’m taking you with me, right? Whatever happens next. If I have a job, you have a job.”
Dean’s face clouded over unexpectedly.
“Right,” he said, looking back out the window again.
Shane frowned, but he didn’t push it.
Honestly, he’d been a little surprised that Dean had lasted so long as his stand-in in the first place. It wasn’t hard, but it was still early mornings and long hours. He’d half expected Dean to blow it off after the first week to go to Burning Man without even a heads-up text. But his instinct to protect his brother, to take care of him, had overridden the (very reasonable) fear that he’d fuck it up—and Shane was beyond proud that he hadn’t.
There was a two-year gap between Shane and his older sister, Cassie, and five between him and Dean—none of them had exactly been planned, Dean least of all. As the oldest, Cassie had been forced to step up whenever their parents couldn’t, during the first nine years of Shane’s life. Because of that, she’d always felt more like another parent than a sibling. Even after things in their family had stabilized, Shane had still gotten the sense that she saw the two of them as a burden, the pain and resentment she felt toward their parents redirected at him and Dean. Though his relationship with her had gotten better in adulthood, they’d never been that close.
But while Shane’s friends complained about their annoying younger siblings, he had never minded Dean tagging along. He’d been the one who taught Dean how to ride a bike—by pushing him down a hill and yelling, “pedal,” but still. And when Dean was in middle school, Shane had been the first person he’d trusted to confide in that he didn’t think he was totally straight. Once Shane had booked the job on Intangible and it looked like it was actually going somewhere, it had been a no-brainer to bring Dean out to share in his success.
But he was unsure what Dean actually wanted to do with his life, even less sure than he was about himself. Dean had never shown much passion or aptitude for anything in particular—nothing he’d stuck with for longer than a week, anyway. He’d always been spontaneous, the risk-taker, reaping the benefits of having two older siblings who doted on him and little memory of the period before their parents got their act together.
As the car deposited them in front of the theater, Shane tried to push his concerns out of his mind.
Focusing on the episode wasn’t much of an escape, though. He didn’t love watching himself onscreen—he’d tuned in during the first season, just for novelty’s sake, but soon realized it made him overly self-conscious on set.
It was a strange experience, though, watching it with an audience, especially one that was so receptive, filled with the people who made the show and their loved ones. When Lilah appeared onscreen at the very end, the whole auditorium erupted in whoops and applause. Shane resisted the urge to sneak a look at her, sitting a few seats down, so he could see her reaction.
It seemed like their therapy sessions were actually working. When he’d seen her face backstage at After Hours, he hadn’t felt any kind of gloating satisfaction at how much she was clearly struggling. He’d just wanted to fix it, and fast. And not because he was worried about her embarrassing him, or having to carry her through the interview, or anything like that. Because they were a team.
It shocked him, that feeling. Both the fact that he’d had it at all and how powerful it still was—like it had never gone away. Like the place in his heart where she used to fit had been drywalled over rather than bricked up.
And then there was the way he’d felt when she’d curled up inside his jacket, her body flush against his, his hands on her bare skin, her heart thrumming so hard against his chest that it felt like it was pumping his blood, too.
He was still attracted to her, that was all. It was fucking annoying, but it wasn’t new. He had been since the first time he saw her. He couldn’t help it. But acting on it had, historically, brought them nothing but trouble. The only thing to do about it was to continue avoiding her as much as possible.
“As much as possible” was relative, though, since as soon as he arrived at the after-party, the show’s publicist sent him to track down Lilah for cast photos.
It didn’t take him long to spot her once he went inside. She’d brought a friend as her date, one of the women from those summer camp movies she’d done—Annie, he wanted to say? He’d never heard of the series before he met her, but he’d stumbled across the first one on a streaming service a few years back and accidentally ended up watching the whole thing. It wasn’t great, but it was clear that the four of them had had a blast shooting it, the kind of chemistry that was impossible to fake. He should know.
The two of them were facing away from him as he approached, caught up in animated conversation. He felt a pang as he saw how relaxed Lilah was, her body language carefree and easy. He’d been allowed a glimpse of that, once: what she was like when she was truly comfortable around someone. He knew it was something she didn’t give up easily.
As he got closer, he could overhear their conversation.
“So, who here should I nail?” Annie asked, scanning the room.
Lilah laughed. “What are you in the mood for? Above or below the line?”
“Ugh, below. I never want to fuck an actor again. Fetch me your best boy!” Annie proclaimed, slipping into a fake British accent.
“I’ll drink to that.” Lilah clinked her glass against Annie’s. Shane was glad neither of them could see him flinch.
When he came up beside them, he was startled to see a flash in Lilah’s eyes that looked almost like guilt before she composed herself, her guard raised sky-high in an instant. He addressed Annie instead.
“Annie. Nice to see you. It’s been a while.”
Annie nodded, in a curt I-dislike-you-by-proxy way. “Sure.” She sized them up next to each other. “Did you two coordinate?”
They’d both worn classic black tuxes, with one major difference: Lilah wasn’t wearing anything under her jacket—except possibly double-sided tape.
He shrugged. “Just on the same wavelength, I guess.” He turned to Lilah. “Hey, could I borrow your jacket? It’s a little chilly in here.”
“Ha.” She rolled her eyes, but he could see she was suppressing a smile. “You can tone it down, it’s just Annie.”
He cocked his head toward the door. “They want us outside for pictures.”
Lilah drained her glass and set it down, excusing herself as Annie waved them away. She was drinking tonight: white wine, so it wouldn’t stain her teeth. Shane offered her his elbow automatically. Thankfully, she took it without comment—but not without hesitation.
“Nice to see the Hags are still going strong,” he said as they made their way over to the step and repeat.
“Mmm. Sorry your toxic-masculinity support group disbanded.”
“I’m not.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her glance at him, so he changed the subject. “So, how do you decide which one to take to something like this? Do you have a little wheel that you spin?”
“Well, first of all, law students really know how to party. But Pilar’s in Bali, and Yvonne’s rehearsing for her tour, so she’s not allowed to do anything fun for the next three months.”
“Yvonne’s probably too famous to be a plus-one now anyway, right? Wouldn’t want to get upstaged at your own party.”
“I dunno,” Lilah said. “Might be nice. I’m getting a little sick of being the center of attention these days, aren’t you?”
“It’s what we signed up for,” Shane said, but it was half-hearted.
“Yeah,” she said quietly, and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was: there was no way they could’ve known back then what they were actually signing up for.
They reached the step and repeat, where most of the cast had already assembled. They started with group shots, Shane and Lilah at the center, the rest of them slowly peeling away until it was just the two of them, his arm around her waist.
“Who wore it better?” one of the photographers called.
“I did,” Lilah said, at the same time as Shane said, “She did.”
They turned to each other and laughed, perfectly in sync. She probably assumed he was playing it up for the cameras, which was fine by him, but it was true: she looked fucking incredible. Her face was sunny and open, eyes sparkling, not a trace of strain in her smile. It shouldn’t have surprised him; she was an actress, of course she was good at that. Maybe what really surprised him was that his own smile didn’t feel forced at all.
…
After a few hours, Lilah slipped outside to the enclosed patio to get some air. She should’ve known better than to hope she’d be alone, though—there was already a small group huddled in a circle, passing around a joint, by the smell of it.
One of them lifted his head out of the shadows. Dean.
“Hey, Lilah,” he said on an inhale. “You want a hit?”
She opened her mouth to decline, then paused. “Sure. I’d do a shotgun.”
“Oh yeah?” Dean asked, opening the circle so there was an empty space next to him. Lilah stepped into it, suddenly self-conscious about the intimacy of what she’d asked for—and who from. She realized too late that maybe she’d had one drink too many, her inhibitions lowered, her tongue looser than she’d like.
“Sorry, is that weird? I haven’t smoked in a long time.”
Dean shrugged. “Nah. Not weird.” But instead of taking another hit, he reached across her, passing the joint to the hand on her other side, already outstretched.
She knew it was Shane before she even looked up.
The first time she’d gotten high wasn’t with him—that would’ve been when she was fifteen, at the cast party for The Miracle Worker, after which she’d spent the rest of the night hiding in the host’s laundry room, fending off a panic attack by reading the back of the fabric softener bottle over and over—but she was with him the first time she’d enjoyed it.
One night early on, when they’d gotten home at an ungodly hour, their next call time pushed to the afternoon to accommodate the mandatory twelve-hour turnaround, they’d lounged on his living room floor as he’d rolled them a joint. Lilah, already punch-drunk with exhaustion, hadn’t been able to take her eyes off his hands, nimble and assured, handling the fragile paper as delicately as if it were a butterfly’s wing.
When he was done, he’d shifted so they were sitting facing each other, legs bent and overlapping as he sparked it. He’d taken a long drag, then leaned forward, gently cradling her jaw in his other hand. She’d opened her mouth for an endless, bottomless moment, the two of them suspended in the split second before a kiss, breathing in as he blew out, bringing the smoke deep into her chest and holding it. It was like they’d transformed into a single organism, four long legs and one set of lungs: Inhale. Exhale.
The high that followed was soft and safe, enveloping her like a hug, her mind quieting rather than shifting into overdrive. When they’d had enough, he’d stubbed out the joint and closed the gap, kissing her slow and deep, the taste of smoke lingering on their tongues. He fucked her that same way, right there on the floor, every sensation so heightened it was almost too much.
Okay, she’d thought as she’d lain beside him afterward, rug burn on her back and sweat cooling on their skin, I get why people like this.
She snapped back to the present as she watched the cherry flare at the tip of the joint, twin embers smoldering in Shane’s eyes to match. And that look in them, the one she knew well, like he was trying to burn her, too. Did he think she was trying to provoke him by asking Dean? It wouldn’t have meant anything with him.
Shane pinched the joint between his fingers, his hand dropping back to his side. She wasn’t sure if she moved into place or if he did, but suddenly his lips were inches from hers, his face cloaked in shadow again. She took a shaky breath, bracing herself.
What she didn’t expect was for his hand to come to her jaw, lightly tilting it toward him. The gesture was so comfortable, so familiar, so intimate, that Lilah jerked back involuntarily, stumbling a little. Shane’s brow creased as he stepped back, too, dropping his hand and stuffing it in his pocket, like he didn’t trust it.
“Sorry,” he said, the word escaping in a cloud of smoke.
“Sorry,” Lilah repeated automatically. “I just—I’ll do it. I can do it.” She held out her hand and Shane passed her the joint, and she took a sharp, too-deep inhale, already coughing before she was even finished.
“Thanks,” she managed to choke out, handing the joint to Dean before turning on her heel and fleeing the circle. She knew it was rude to hit and run, but her cheeks were burning, her face likely as red as her hair.
She sagged against the railing on the outer edge of the patio, trying to collect herself, already feeling more light-headed than she’d like. Her gaze snagged on the Edison bulb string lights, bobbing gently in the wind, going blurry and shimmery as her eyes slipped in and out of focus.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the group disband and make their way inside. A lone figure doubled back, heading toward her.
“Hey.” Shane’s voice was thick and slightly raspy from the smoke. He reached his arm out, like he was about to touch her on the back, then dropped it awkwardly. She still felt the ghost of it there.
“Hey,” she said, a sliver of wariness threading through her tone.
He came up beside her, resting his drink on the railing, not looking at her. “Weird night, right?”
“Yeah.” It came out under her breath.
“Have you been thinking about it?” he asked. She shot him a sharp look, as if he could somehow sense she’d been thinking about the season-one premiere party, when they’d narrowly avoided getting caught dry humping in the coatroom.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I mean…about what’s going to happen after. What we’re going to do next. On our own.”
“Oh. Yeah. I mean, of course.” She turned her back to the railing, resting her elbows on it. “I guess it depends how all this goes. If it works. If I get another chance.”
“To do what?”
“To do anything else. Anything interesting, I mean. To stretch myself. Not just scraps, playing someone’s wife or mom for the rest of my life.”
“What would you want to do? If you had your pick.”
She cut her gaze sideways, unnerved by the sincerity of his question. Even more unnerving was the fact that she actually wanted to answer.
“I don’t know. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would’ve said…” She trailed off, reluctant to dredge up her false starts and failures. “Someone different from Kate. Someone unlikable, maybe.”
“I thought you said you wanted to stretch yourself.” Even the insult lacked the bite it normally would, an audible smile in his voice.
She laughed, a small hum in the back of her throat. “I guess I set myself up for that one. What about you, then?”
She was surprised to see the amusement drain from his face. “I’m not sure there’s much to stretch.” He looked off into the distance, lost in thought for a moment. “I’ll figure it out, though. I kinda have to. It’s not like I can go back to The Vine, right?”
“Don’t underestimate yourself,” she said before she could think too much about it. He turned his head slowly to meet her eyes, his face still mostly in shadow. Sensing the moment was on the verge of becoming too earnest, she added, “I’m sure you could still handle the lunch rush with the best of them.”
He cracked a smile. “I used to dream I was back there all the time, during the first few seasons. Like they’d realized they’d made a huge mistake and dumped me back where I belonged. Or sometimes it was like I never even moved out here in the first place, and I’m back in Oklahoma, helping my dad run his body shop. Even after all these years…I don’t know.” He shook his head, looking out over the railing for a few long seconds. “Do you feel like you deserve it?”
“What?” she asked, startled.
He half turned and gestured back toward the party. From the catch in his voice and his troubled expression, she knew what he was really asking: if he deserved it.
Lilah almost deflected it with a quip, but something—probably the one-two punch of that third glass of wine on an empty stomach and her accidental monster hit—compelled her to answer seriously.
“No. Yes. I mean…as much as anyone deserves anything in this industry, I guess? So much of it is out of our hands. I know so many people from school, or classes, or auditioning, who were—are—so fucking talented, but never got a break. I don’t think I’m here and they’re not because I deserve it more. But since I am here, all I can do is my best, you know? Show up on time, know my lines, take it seriously, try not to be an asshole to the people I work with…” He raised his eyebrows. “Well, most of them,” she amended, sheepish. “Sorry. I think I lost the thread of that question.”
“No, no, that was a good answer. But this was your dream, right? What you always wanted.”
She turned to face him fully. His expression was serious, searching.
His star-is-born origin story had been a huge part of the promotional push for the first season: landing in L.A. by chance as a roadie with a friend’s band, couch surfing and waiting tables with no ambitions beyond the next night’s party, then plucked to star in the top-rated show in the country without so much as a credit as a tree in a school play.
He’d brushed it off in his aw-shucks way at the time, and as the years went by, she’d assumed he’d bought into his own hype—that he really was that fucking special. But as she studied him now, she realized she’d been wrong. He’d never stopped feeling like a directionless fraud, he’d just gotten better at hiding it.
Out of nowhere, she was struck by the woozy sensation of time folding back in on itself, suddenly granting her the ability to see him—really see him—as he was now, free of the vestiges of the younger man she’d known a decade ago. Her gaze tracked across his face, taking him in anew: the faint lines in his forehead and beside his eyes, the furrow in his brow, the way he held himself with a gravitas she didn’t know he was capable of.
Something in her chest constricted, and she pushed it aside, trying to refocus on his question. “Yeah,” she said, drawing it out slowly, unsure. “Yeah, it was my dream. I never thought my career would look like this, though.”
“Like what?”
“Playing the same character forever. Being known for this one thing. Being part of something so huge. I mean, I’m grateful for it, but I would’ve been satisfied just being a working actor. I didn’t need to be a celebrity. Even a B-list one,” she added self-deprecatingly. “Sometimes I wonder if I would’ve been happier staying under the radar, even if I made less money.”
She saw his expression tighten, subtly, almost imperceptibly in the dim lighting. “What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He shook his head. “It’s just nice that’s not a factor for you. The money.”
It was impossible to ignore the bitterness that had crept into his tone. Lilah bit the inside of her cheek, fighting the urge to get defensive. If she’d been even 10 percent more sober, she would’ve ended the conversation there and gone back inside.
“When I was in high school,” she said, her voice calm and measured, “I found out my mom was in a ton of debt. Like, hundreds of thousands of dollars. I had no idea until I started applying for college.”
Even more than a decade later, long after she’d worked through it with a string of therapists, the same emotions shuddered through her in a rush of heat. The betrayal. The fear. Dozens of happy memories turned retroactively grim with this new context, every clue she’d brushed off and ignored falling into nauseating place. The terrifying realization that the person she’d trusted to guide her through the world was, in fact, no better equipped than she was—and possibly worse. She supposed she was lucky she’d been able to maintain the illusion for that long.
She glanced over at Shane, whose jaw had gone slack. “What? Why? I mean, how?”
She shook her head. “She’d been a stay-at-home mom our whole lives. She went back to work part-time after she and my dad got divorced, but…I think it was really important to her that she could give us everything my dad could. Even if we didn’t ask for it. Even if we didn’t need any of it. But she cared a lot about what other people thought of her; the two of them were constantly trying to one-up each other. So, yeah, we had more than we wanted growing up, but it wasn’t real. It wasn’t even about us.”
Shane was staring at her intently, his drink down to melted ice in his hand, forgotten. “So what happened?”
Her mouth twisted. “What do you think? I paid it all off after I booked the show. I still have to bail her out every now and then, but less, ten or twenty K maybe.” She shrugged, a little helplessly. “What else am I gonna do?”
He didn’t say anything else, just kept looking at her, that same intense gaze. She felt self-conscious all of a sudden, unsure why she’d told him, wishing she could take it back.
“I had no idea,” he said at last.
“Why would you?” she asked, her tone light. “She doesn’t owe you money, does she?”
The edge of his mouth curved up. He pushed himself off the railing, and she did the same, falling into step beside him as the two of them slowly walked along the perimeter of the terrace.
“It’s not like you need to worry about money anymore, either,” she said. “You never even have to act again if you don’t want to. Just get an endorsement deal for one of those midlife-crisis cars, or some macho-man liquor brand. You’ve got nine seasons of residuals, plus the convention circuit. You’re set.”
They both received invitations to do panels and meet and greets at various conventions multiple times a year. Shane did them regularly—likely for the fat paycheck that came along with it—but Lilah had gone only once, during the first season, to the biggest one of all, held every spring in San Francisco. She’d found the whole thing so overwhelming that she’d drifted through the weekend in a Xanax haze, which she regretted after she’d been visibly zonked out of her mind in all the photos.
Shane snorted. “I don’t know if I’m ready to be put out to pasture like that just yet.”
“Well, I’m sure Dancing with the Stars would be happy to have you.”
“If you want to see my moves, you could just say so.”
“I’ve already seen them.”
“Maybe I’ve learned some new ones.”
She glanced over and met his eyes, the two of them slipping into a slightly awkward silence.
“So, why’d you come alone tonight?” he asked, averting his gaze again.
“I’m not alone. I’m with Annie.”
At that moment, they passed by one of the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the back of the venue and were treated to a perfect view of Annie making out heavily in a corner with Kenny, the camera operator she’d been talking to when Lilah had gone outside.
“Not anymore,” Shane said.
“You know, good for her.” She glanced over at him. “Why’d you come alone?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t find anyone who wanted to sit in the splash zone.”
“That was an accident,” Lilah protested, her face heating at the memory even as she laughed.
The first time she’d met Serena, at the season-two premiere party, Lilah had turned around too quickly and bumped into her, spilling her drink directly down the front of Serena’s dress. Lilah had been mortified, offering to pay Serena’s dry-cleaning bill—which of course was an empty gesture, since Serena was worth more than Lilah and Shane combined.
“Sure,” he said with a grin.
They passed one of the doors, and she expected him to break off from her and go back inside, but instead, they continued walking in silence, making their way to the other end of the patio. Even though it wasn’t cold, Lilah wrapped her arms around herself in a protective gesture. Her head felt pleasantly fuzzy around the edges, the intrusive worries that were constantly running through it dulled to a low hum.
She followed Shane’s gaze through the window, where Margaux and Dean were absorbed in an animated conversation, Dean’s hand going to the small of Margaux’s back.
“I know she’s not really my daughter, but part of me wants to go over there and break that up for some reason.” There was a hint of conspiratorial humor to his voice, low and husky, that made her feel warm all over. She forced herself to focus on the part of it that irritated her.
“God. Are you going to be one of those dads who gets all weird and controlling about his daughters dating?”
“If they’re dating my brother, yeah.”
“Well, good thing she’s not really your daughter.”
They watched as Dean pulled Margaux closer, whispering something in her ear, and the two of them headed toward the exit.
“Man. Is it just me, or is everyone extra horny tonight?” She felt Shane’s eyes on her, felt her cheeks go pink. “I mean. It’s like none of them ever heard that you shouldn’t fuck your co-workers.”
“It’s the last season, I guess it’s now or never.” He looked at her for another beat, then looked away. “You want to catch up and tell her?”
“Nah. That’s a mistake she has to make on her own.”
A spark of tension crackled between them.
Shane pushed his jacket aside, resting a hand in his pocket. “Well. Now you two can compare notes.”
Lilah was so startled that she turned to face him fully. “What? You mean about Dean? Nothing happened between me and Dean.” Aside from a few stilted minutes of making out that had gone nowhere, during which she’d felt nothing.
No, not nothing. Nothing would’ve been preferable to the ache she’d felt somewhere deep in her chest—the realization that, even though Dean looked uncannily like Shane, had a similar voice and smile and overall demeanor, he wasn’t Shane.
That glimmer of understanding about what she’d actually been looking for had been so disturbing that she’d shut the whole thing down before Dean’s hand could even make its way up her shirt. He hadn’t seemed to care much, but he’d been drunk enough to take her up on her offer to crash there for the night, stripping off his shirt and passing out facedown on her couch before she’d finished brushing her teeth, out the door by the time she woke up the next morning.
She didn’t blame Shane for being pissed that they’d made a scene by leaving together, but she’d assumed Dean had told him that it ended there.
Shane’s brow creased. “You went home together. He spent the night.”
“Yeah, on my couch. He didn’t tell you?”
He looked even more stricken. “He, um. He did. I just…I didn’t believe him.”
The words hung in the air for several long seconds as Lilah struggled to process them, the thick, syrupy muddle of her thoughts no longer a comfort.
“So, wait a minute. This whole time, you’ve been mad at me for something I didn’t even do? That Dean told you I didn’t do?”
Shane put his drink down on a nearby table and ran his fingers through his hair in agitation. “Yeah, but you were going to.”
“What are you, the thought police? Fine, yes, I was going to, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.” She saw something shift in his expression and hurried to continue. “The point is that you are so fucking obsessed with hating me that you didn’t even believe your own brother that we didn’t. Which, by the way, I assume you haven’t been holding this same grudge against him the whole time.”
“No, but—”
“And why is that? Bro code? Double bro code, because he’s your actual brother? Guess I can’t compete with that.” Even as she said it, she knew she should back off, that she’d made her point, that her lacerating tone was unnecessary. But she was drunk, she was pissed, and she could never fucking quit while she was ahead.
“Because he didn’t know!” Shane thundered, just as worked up as she was.
She suddenly noticed how red his eyes were, the hazy, unfocused look in them. Neither of them was in a state to be having this conversation. She couldn’t stop herself, though.
“Didn’t know what? That we were”—she lowered her voice just in time, conscious that they were still in public—“together? You didn’t bother to tell him?”
Shane exhaled in frustration. “No, he didn’t know that I—that we—” He gestured between them. “Just—everything. With us. He didn’t get it. Doesn’t.”
Lilah stared at him, baffled. “Okay, well, he and I have that in common, because I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
It seemed like maybe he was about to say something else—his face flushed, posture tense—but instead he just shook his head resignedly before turning and skulking back toward the party.
“Use your words, Shane!” she hollered at his back before she could stop herself. She winced as a few heads turned toward them from inside, her outburst clearly audible through the glass. Fuck. Hopefully this wouldn’t wind up in some fucking tabloid.
She took a few deep breaths and headed back inside, too, making a beeline for the bar once she clocked that he wasn’t anywhere near it.
“Sounds like therapy’s going well,” she heard Natalie say dryly over her shoulder.
Lilah choked out a laugh. “Glad I’m not the one paying for it.” The bartender handed her her seltzer, and she dug around in her purse to find a few bucks to tip.
Natalie leaned against the bar next to her. “It’s pretty wild. I’ve been working with him for two and a half years now, and he’s one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met. Except around you.”
“Well, lucky me. He must like me the best, then,” Lilah snarled, her frustration flaring again.
Natalie laughed, holding up her hands defensively. “Whoa, okay. I’m not the one you’re mad at, remember?”
Lilah let out a full-body exhale, the bar at her back the only thing preventing her from totally collapsing. “Fuck. I’m sorry.” She took a long drink of her seltzer. “I think that might be my cue to get out of here.”
Natalie frowned sympathetically. As if she’d been summoned, Annie sidled up to Lilah’s shoulder, high heels dangling from one hand.
“Ready to go?”
Lilah turned to look at her. “You’re still here? What happened to Kenny?”
Annie grimaced. “He kept trying to stick his fingers in my armpits.”
“What?” exclaimed Lilah and Natalie in unison.
“I know. I don’t want to talk about it. Do you think the driver would take us through Del Taco?”
“Never hurts to ask.” Lilah turned to Natalie. “Wanna come?”
Natalie grinned. “Sure.”
Head held high, Lilah left the party flanked by Natalie and Annie, pretending she didn’t notice Shane glowering at her from the corner where he stood alone.