No Place Like Homecoming

by Dallen, Maggie

  How freakin’ embarrassing would that be?

  “Oh, Flynn!” Callie called out to someone over my shoulder. “There you are.”

  The hottie with the sexy eyes joined our weird little tableau as the princesses attempted to frog-march the kids out into the hallway and I…

  I tried to figure out how to disappear in plain sight.

  “Have you met Isla?” Callie asked.

  The hottie I now knew was named Flynn handed me a tall glass of something clear and bubbly. Definitely not champagne. Probably club soda. “Not officially.” His smirk was back as his gaze held mine.

  Nope. It was definitely missing the heat that I’d seen there before.

  There was a heat. But it was an angry heat, not a sexy one. And his gaze was filled with disdain.

  “Ooh, is that club soda?” Willow asked. “Can I get one too? One of the kids poured juice all over my jeans when I first got here.”

  “Sure.” But Flynn was still watching me.

  And I was watching them. All of them. I might not have been a straight-A student, but one thing was definitely becoming clear.

  He wasn’t a guest at this party. And he probably wasn’t in college. And that meant that he was…

  Oh crap.

  He was the help.

  His lips curved up in a smirk again as if he could see the puzzle pieces falling into place behind my eyes. “This one’s on the house.” He nodded toward the bar. “But the tip jar is over there if you’re feeling generous.”

  Two

  Flynn

  I should have known better. This was what I got for talking to a guest. But in my defense, I’d been bored. Well, I’d been bored until she arrived. It wasn’t every day a new girl walked into a party in Lindale. And a new girl with a gorgeous smile and killer legs? That was a rare occasion, for sure.

  But I really should have known better. I’d lived in this town my whole life, and I knew for a fact that Lindale had two types of people—the filthy rich and the poor, working-class schlubs like me. And then, in walked Isla. The worst of both. A working-class schlub who pretended to be one of the filthy rich. A hypocritical snob. An entitled brat.

  Yup, she was the worst of them all.

  And I’d tried to hit on her.

  At first glance, she’d looked like a sweetheart. With that heart-shaped face and the look in her eyes that seemed to say lost and vulnerable.

  I shook my head as I watched her disappear around the corner, swept along in a wave of princesses and bearded dwarves who’d inexplicably caused a commotion by singing a Wizard of Oz number. Just another day in the life when it came to these Lindale high-society gigs, but it was no wonder that Isla chick had looked freaked. But as she was now the Princess Troupe’s newest member, she’d better get used to it.

  I let out a huff of amusement at the thought of Isla in the Princess Troupe.

  I wasn’t sure whether to pity her, Mrs. Messner, or the other girls who’d have to pick up the slack when she inevitably quit. If she even made it through training.

  Something told me she wouldn’t last a week. The troupe wasn’t for the faint of heart. I’d been working alongside them for years now since my boss’s catering company got hired for all the same events. I knew exactly how hard they worked...and just how much those girls needed the money.

  I went back to the bar and poured a few refills. No surprise, no one remembered to tip on refills.

  I cursed under my breath as yet another uptight jerk turned away without so much as a glance at the tip jar. I earned an hourly wage, but the tips were where it was at.

  Usually.

  Sometimes.

  But unfortunately for me, there seemed to be a universal law at play. The richer the people hosting the party, the worse the tips. I did a mental tally of how much I’d made so far at this reception, plus what I’d earned the night before at the country club event. Sometimes the country club hired me on for parties when they had a big event, and last night was a doozie.

  But even with the extra shifts, I wasn’t even close to what I needed to make if I was going to drive to New Jersey by the end of the month like I’d planned. And I had to get there. My mom was counting on me. My little brothers were waiting for me.

  I cursed under my breath and stared at the nearly empty tip jar. The catering jobs weren’t cutting it. Since I’d turned eighteen and was now allowed behind a bar that served alcohol, I’d hoped my catering gigs would start earning me more. But it turned out that the jerks drinking wine and beer at weddings were just as cheap as the jerks drinking punch and soda at kids birthday parties.

  I’d probably made more when I was just helping to clean up after the guests than I did behind the bar. How depressing was that?

  I reached for an empty glass and poured some club soda for Willow. At least I could help out a friend. I fought a smile as I thought of the look of alarm on Isla’s face as she’d been led away.

  Yeah, okay. Maybe a little part of me wanted to see how she was surviving in the chaos too. And there was no doubt the rec room was chaotic. I’d stopped in briefly earlier to say hi to Callie and Willow. As I’d expected, it had been a zoo.

  Not all the guests’ kids had even arrived yet, and it had been total anarchy. But pros that they were, Callie and Willow had been wrangling the chaos into some semblance of order as they’d brought out costumes and games to keep the kids entertained while their parents got drunk in another room.

  Glorified babysitting, Savannah called it. She’d been lucky to skip this one, although I knew without a doubt the troupe’s favorite diva was pissed she’d missed the chance to make money.

  Sometimes I was convinced Savannah needed money just as much as I did. Though for her sake, I hoped not.

  My family had been living on borrowed time after my dad left, and when my mom had lost her job last year, we’d all known that something would have to change. My mom had only come out West for my dad. Her family was on the East Coast, and so was any hope of her getting back on her feet. So that was where she’d gone, my brothers along with her. And I’d follow soon enough with our belongings and hopefully enough cash saved up to tide us over until I could get a full-time job that my uncle was hoping to line up for me.

  As I headed down the mansion’s long, thickly carpeted hallway, I heard the chaos well before I saw it. One shriek and then another. For a second, it was hard to say if those blood-curdling screams were of the horror or laughter variety. A quick glance inside the room made the answer clear.

  Laughter. Definitely laughter. The only person who looked horrified was Isla.

  Callie was smiling as she chased her dwarves around a sofa. Willow was kneeling before two toddlers and patiently asking a girl with jelly around her mouth why she wasn’t sharing the glitter with the boy with the runny nose. Mrs. Messner was laughing as she led an older group through a pantomime of sorts. She had them decked out in pirate and mermaid costumes.

  But Isla…?

  Isla was looking on from the sidelines with a pained look in her eyes and a sneer of disgust on her face.

  “Is it...Is it always like this?” I heard her ask Willow when the long-haired princess got to her feet and brushed off her skirt.

  “Insanity? Yeah. Pretty much. But it’s easier when it’s a kid’s birthday party and the kids are allowed to be seen and heard.” She eyed the large high-ceilinged room with a critical eye. “Although, as far as kid prisons go, this is a nice one.”

  “Kid prisons?” Isla had gone pale at some point since I’d last seen her.

  Willow didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. That’s basically what these events are. The parents hire us to keep the kids safe and contained.”

  “Oh.” Isla looked like she might throw up. Or faint. The girl was too skinny, and that sundress was hot as hell, but it also looked like she was wearing a corset. I edged closer in case she was about to go down.

  “But don’t worry,” Willow continued. “Most of the events we do are birthday parties, whe
re we’re expected to be the center of attention.”

  Isla nodded as if processing all this. I glanced around at the crazy. Admittedly, it was a lot to take in.

  “Next week’s party will be worse, though,” Willow continued, not seeming to notice Isla’s distress. Which was not surprising. Willow wasn’t always quick on the uptake when it came to picking up on others’ feelings.

  “Worse?” Isla said quietly.

  “Oh, yeah. It’s the Garners’ annual back-to-school party,” she said, pointing to two of the kids currently dueling with fake swords in the far corner. “Their parents go all out, and they expect us to throw an amazing performance, all while keeping their little beasts disciplined and happy.”

  “That’s the Wizard of Oz party?” Isla asked.

  “Yup. You’ll be Dorothy. It’s kind of the worst, to be honest.” She moved around the kids doing arts and crafts as she spoke. “The kids are not into it. Like, at all. But Mrs. Garner loved the movie so she insists on it every year.”

  Isla had gone from pale to ashen, and her bright green eyes were round as saucers. Callie noticed even if Willow didn’t.

  “Don’t listen to Willow,” Callie said. “She doesn’t always realize when she’s being…”

  I arched my brows and Willow tilted her head as she waited for Callie to finish. Even Isla seemed to hold her breath in anticipation.

  “Insensitive,” Callie finally finished with a shrug.

  Willow laughed, her grin totally unapologetic. The girl had a huge brain and was typically the calmest of the bunch, but she was definitely not the most emotionally attuned of the group. She lived her life by a laundry list of rules. A code she’d come up with for herself. And while she was kind as kind could be, and was generous to a fault—Callie was right. She wasn’t particularly sensitive or empathetic. Which was why, despite being undeniably pretty, she’d never gone on a date. She had a reputation for being cold and standoffish, maybe even heartless. But, of course, we all knew better.

  Willow spotted me and rushed over for the club soda. When I glanced over at Isla, I caught her staring at me. Gone was her horror. Gone was her earlier embarrassment. The way she looked at me, it was unnerving.

  Calculating.

  But when she turned toward Callie, I got the feeling I’d been dismissed.

  I gave a little snort of amusement. Of course I’d been dismissed. I was the help, after all.

  “Thanks for this, Flynn,” Willow said beside me.

  “Yeah, no problem. How’s it going in here?”

  “We’re surviving.” She cast a wry glance over in Isla’s direction, and we both watched with amusement as she pressed her back against the wall to avoid being run over by the Gunderson twins. “With no help from the new girl.”

  “Give her time,” Callie chided sweetly as she joined us. “It’s her first day. Poor thing just got off the plane this morning.”

  “Yeah, but jet-lagged or not, I don’t get the sense she has a lot of experience with kids,” Willow said.

  I watched with a grimace as Isla sneered down at a toddler who’d taken an interest in her pink dress like the little girl might have rabies.

  Even Callie was wincing when she turned back to us. “Yeah, but Mrs. Messner says she has experience with acting and singing.” She shrugged. “She’ll learn how to deal with the kids.”

  “Uh huh.” Willow didn’t sound convinced. “But I still hope Mrs. Messner is going to hire some more people. We’re so short-staffed, it’s ridiculous.”

  “Actually,” I said, glancing over at Mrs. Messner. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that.”

  Callie’s brows shot up. “Don’t tell me you want to be a prince!”

  I jerked back as if I’d been slapped. “What? No. Definitely not.”

  Willow snickered at my loud and insistent rejection of that idea. I lowered my voice. “I just meant…” I cleared my throat and glanced around again. I couldn’t believe I was actually going to try and work for the troupe.

  I’d thought cleaning up smeared birthday cake and pouring lemonade was as low as I’d go, but clearly I was wrong. “Do you know if she found a replacement for Ruby?”

  “Another photographer?” Callie asked. It was a rhetorical question. We all knew who Ruby was. She’d been the troupe’s in-house photographer for years before she graduated and left for college a couple days ago.

  I shrugged. I hated being stared at, and I hated talking this much to anyone. Even to two girls I considered friends. Sort of. As much as I had any friends, I supposed.

  Willow seemed to recover from the shock first. “I don’t think she has. And I’d bet she’d hire you in a second since she knows you and likes you—”

  “And you can’t be worse at photography than she is,” Callie interrupted with an impish grin.

  Willow and I laughed because Mrs. Messner’s one and only attempt to play photographer had been an epic fail, and no one let her live it down.

  “It would mean spending even more time with the Princess Troupe,” Callie teased. “Do you think you can handle even more of us?”

  I sighed. “Yeah. I think I can handle it.”

  “Hopefully you can handle yourself better than the new girl,” Willow said with a wince.

  I found my gaze wandering to the far side of the room despite myself.

  Isla looked like she might start trying to climb the wall as the little girl shoved a glitter-covered, still-wet painting in her direction, coming dangerously close to that sexy sundress of hers.

  “Um, some help please?” Her gaze was pleading as she shouted over to us, and for the first time in a long time, some of the stress and weight I’d been drowning under these past few months eased as I fought another laugh.

  This girl was trouble...but she was pretty freakin’ hilarious to watch.

  Three

  Isla

  The only sound in my aunt’s kitchen Monday morning was sipping and slurping.

  Aunt Lucy sipped her coffee and I slurped the cereal she was forcing me to consume despite the fact that it contained more carbs than I’d eaten all of junior year.

  Fun times.

  “You nervous?” Her gruff voice broke the sipping and slurping like a gunshot, and my gaze darted up from my phone to see her studying me closely.

  “Nope.” I went back to eating and scrolling. It was a bad combo, to be honest. Nothing like scrolling through pictures of my former life to ruin an appetite.

  I froze with my spoon halfway between the bowl and my mouth as Taylor posted a selfie from the steps in front of our school. The caption was some maudlin crap about senior year and time going by so fast—Taylor always had been a sap. But it was the face next to hers that gave me pause.

  Logan.

  Handsome as ever with his blond hair slicked back and his mom’s Swedish supermodel cheekbones.

  Did he miss me? Was he as bummed as I was that I wasn’t there?

  Today was also their first day of school back home. Thanks to the time difference, they had a two hour head start, so I was basically watching my life go on without me in real time.

  “You know, it’s normal to be nervous on the first day at a new school,” my aunt said.

  I ignored her. Tuning her out seemed like the best policy to survive my time here. I had nothing against this lady who’d offered to let me crash in her spare room. I mean, aside from her rules and her desire to make me fat, she wasn’t the worst. She was just misguided.

  I was going to be eighteen in a few months, but the lady seemed to think I still needed a nanny and a pep talk over Cheerios.

  She didn’t seem to get that this was only temporary.

  I shook my head as she continued, giving me a rundown of how to get to school—as if I might get lost on the three-block walk. On who to check in with when I got there—because apparently she thought we didn’t have principals offices on the East Coast.

  “Got it,” I mumbled.

  But she wasn’t done.


  Luckily for me, my phone buzzed and my mom’s face filled the screen. I held it up to Aunt Lucy as an excuse before darting away from the table to take it.

  “Hi, honey. Are you ready for your big day?” My mom had her phone propped up on her vanity as she did her makeup.

  “Any luck with Dad?” I asked.

  Her sigh was answer enough. “Oh honey, give him time.”

  That was what she’d said a month ago when he’d come up with this ludicrous plan. “School starts today, Mom. I’m missing my first day of senior year—”

  “You’re still getting a first day of senior year, it’s just at a different school.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, sweetie, but I need you to be patient.” She set down her eyeliner to turn and face me. “You know how important this year is for your father. He’s so close to making partner at the new practice, and with my new obligations on the board for the nonprofit—”

  “I know, I know.” My dad’s new job was all anyone talked about in our house. I’d been dragged along to countless parties this past summer, and all in the name of presenting an image of the perfect family.

  Did his partners know that he’d shipped his perfect daughter off to a relative he’d never even met?

  Doubtful.

  “Isla, I promise you, I’m working on it. You’ll be home soon enough.”

  I huffed in acknowledgement. I’d believe it when I saw it. She’d said she would put an end to this before I even left, and look how that had turned out. And then she’d said she’d have me back before the week was over, and here I was on day three with no flight home in sight.

  “I love you, sweetie.” My mom had adopted her most sugar-coated voice and I rolled my eyes.

  “Love you too,” I muttered.

  “Keep your chin up, hon. This won’t be forever.”

  “Yeah, okay.” I turned off the phone and reached for my bag. It wouldn’t be forever. It wouldn’t even be a month.

  “Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” my aunt called from the kitchen as I headed toward the front door.