“I look like a warty toad,” I said, making a face at myself. I wasn’t even interested in Archie.
“Try this one.”
We spent hours going through every bathing suit in the store until I finally settled on a shimmering holographic-looking design that covered everything it needed to cover, but had enough cutouts to satisfy Julianne’s need to pimp me out to some trust fund man-baby.
It wasn’t going to happen.
It didn’t matter how much skin I showed—if I had one talent, it was being invisible.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Julianne’s party was as one would expect Julianne’s party to be. A mess of entitlement and overconfidence sharing fake smiles and eyeing the competition.
Extravagant decorations lined just about every surface, shiny and glittering and throwing beams of light into the heavens. The catering, though, as over-the-top as it was, there wasn’t a bad thing I could say about it.
I plopped a cherry tomato into my mouth and chewed slowly, my eyes rolling in all the right ways as mozzarella and balsamic vinegar bled from the center and created a kaleidoscope of flavors in my mouth.
“I don’t get it,” Julianne said, snapping my attention to her. With a flick of her finger, she readjusted my suit straps for the hundredth time. “Why do guys just keep walking away from you? You’re pretty darn cute and you look like a space goddess in this thing.”
I shrugged, pleased with myself, and gestured around at all of the other barely-clad bodies.
“A goddess among goddesses is only as interesting as herself,” I said. “These guys don’t want me, which is totally fine, because I don’t want them either.”
“Maybe mom will know what’s wrong,” Julianne said, mostly to herself. “Come on.”
I followed her reluctantly. I didn’t much like Julianne’s mother. Natalie was completely, intimidatingly perfect. Perfect blonde hair, perfect body (in spite of the rumors about her plastic surgery, it was still perfect and looked natural), perfect poise, perfect teeth, perfect smile, perfect everything. She was wearing a light blue wrap around her stunning purple bikini and was talking to a bunch of other perfect people. I didn’t want to bother her, or have her attention on me, but Julianne didn’t even hesitate.
“Mom,” she said plaintively. “I’ve been trying all day with this one, but nobody’s biting. What do I do with her?”
I shifted uncomfortably, not happy about being put on display. Natalie narrowed her eyes at me and walked around me, taking me in from all angles. I felt like the only blood-scented mannequin in front of a big, bad, shark.
A hand on my chin, Natalie tilted my head up in her strong, soft, perfectly-manicured hand.
“Talk to me,” she told me.
“Uh—”
“There’s your first problem. Nobody likes a mumbler. Tell me something about yourself.”
“I’m the second-fastest person on the track team,” I said.
She wrinkled her nose. “Boys don’t like girls who are faster than them. Something else.”
“I took a carburetor apart in ninety-seven seconds last week,” I said. I was actually really proud of that one.
Julianne’s jaw dropped. “Is this what you’ve been telling people?” she asked, her voice squeaking.
I shrugged. “I mean, yeah. People ask me what I do for fun and I tell them—”
“You tell them you’re an artist or a musician,” Natalie huffed exasperatedly. “Tell them you dance if you’re only trying for a little tryst, tell them you volunteer to cuddle babies if you’re talking to a family man. For god’s sake, don’t tell them you run and take engines apart. Good god in heaven, didn’t your mother ever teach you anything?”
Not really, no, not after I could take care of my basic needs on my own. I smiled at Natalie, fighting the cold twist of fear in my belly. I didn’t know exactly what it was about her that scared me, but I couldn’t help the feeling that saying anything about my mother would be a bad idea.
“I’m not interested in guys who aren’t interested in me,” I said. “I like what I like.”
“My kind of girl,” Julianne’s dad said in a booming voice as he wandered over. His teeth looked unnaturally white in his tanned face and his hair, though it was silver, looked like it was pulled from a hair dye advertisement. “Hey, Kennedy, how are you doing? Are these two busybodies trying to get you to Stepford it up? Don’t you worry about them. You just keep doing you. Maybe it’ll rub off on Julianne.”
“Greyson,” Natalie said coldly. “This is a conversation between women. Your opinion has been noted, now shoo.”
“Shoo?” He gave me a put-upon look and sighed. “I’m getting shooed out of my own backyard,” he said. “You’d think I would have earned the right to be here, seeing as I paid for it all.”
My smile froze uncomfortably on my face. I had no idea at all how to respond to that or whether or not I should respond at all.
“You would think so,” Natalie agreed. “If only money could civilize a man. Right Kennedy?”
I looked helplessly at Julianne. “Let’s go swim,” she said quickly, tugging on my arm. I followed her gratefully.
“Holy cow, what is with your parents?” I asked. I’d never attempted to converse with both of them at once before.
Julianne huffed. “Oh, I don’t even know. They’re crazy about each other, they really are—but I don’t think they enjoy it much.”
We were halfway to the pool when a man who I vaguely recognized as a local talk show host intercepted us. His eyes were set on me and his lips parted too quickly for me to rush away. “Ms. Lane! Corban Styles, pleasure to meet you. How’s your dad these days? I caught the tail end of his TED talk the other day, great stuff, great stuff. I’ve been trying to talk him into coming on my show for years, but he never seems to find the time. Is he here tonight?”
“No,” I said, smiling gently. Poor guy would waste a lifetime waiting for my dad to do anything he didn’t particularly feel like doing. “He’s on tour for a few weeks still.”
Styles’ face fell slightly. He recovered quickly, pasting on a bright smile though his shoulders still slumped. “Well, next time you see him, you tell him that that Corban Styles’ invitation is still open. We’d love to have your dad on the show. Wouldn’t take much time, and we’d pay him well. You let him know.”
“I will,” I promised, knowing that I wouldn’t. Mentioning Styles—or any other local show—was enough to send my dad off into a rant about time wasters and national syndications and things that made my head hurt. I would be the first to admit that my dad’s opinion of himself could not be outmatched by anybody else’s opinion of him, except maybe my mother’s. It had served him well, keeping him shooting for the stars—but it made him look like a pompous ass behind closed doors. Which, to be honest, he kinda was.
The sun was starting to go down and one of the servants lit the tall mosquito-repellant candles standing guard around the pool. There were only a few people in the water now, though it had been packed an hour or so before when the sun was hot.
The milling crowd looked bigger in the dimming light and I found myself sticking close to Julianne, melting into her shadow. Invisibility rule number one: always keep the hot person between you and the people you don’t want to talk to.
We made it to the edge of the pool, and I hesitated. There was something about the water that bothered me, but maybe it was just the weird way the lights interacted with the sunset.
Macy and her new boyfriend floated in the middle of the pool, their arms around each other like they were slow dancing. It made me miss Rudy so damn much.
Joan had poor Stew cornered by the waterfall, trying desperately to get him to kiss her. By the look on his face, it seemed as though she had quite a bit more convincing to do. I’d never understand that – the desire to have something that doesn’t want to be had by you. But I guess that’s where Joan and I were different. She’d spend a lifetime and go to the end of the world to seek
approval and I…Well, most of the time I tended not to care. That’s not to say I didn’t choose things and people and circumstances that were comfortable. But chasing after a guy, that wasn’t going to be one of them.
Thomas waited impatiently for Julianne, goading her and splashing at her as she daintily dipped her toes in the section of the water near the stairs.
“Just jump in, you big baby,” Thomas said, splashing water at her.
“Would you knock it off? I don’t want to ruin my hair!”
“Kennedy, push her in, will you? She’s making a scene,” Thomas said with a nasty grin.
“Kennedy, don’t you dare,” Julianne snapped, her practiced serious look twisting her lips a bit downward. I hadn’t even moved.
“Either you do it, or I will,” Thomas threatened.
Julianne dropped the serious façade and rolled her eyes. “I’ll jump, I’ll jump. Ass.”
And she did. Holding true to that promise, she took a deep breath and slipped into the pool. The second she did, people in the crowd around started screaming, exclaiming, and muttering. Glasses broke and even more voices, pitched with fear rang through the air. I kept my eyes on Julianne, certain that I’d missed something. That maybe she’d hit her head on the way in, but she was fine and just as royally confused as I was.
“Oh my God, they’re everywhere!” someone screamed. It was the first words I could decipher, but even then, it took a second for me to realize exactly what was happening.
The grass on the other side of the pool wasn’t rustling in the breeze; it was alive. Crickets, hundreds of them, jumped through the greenery, not caring one bit about the scattering, stomping humans. They jumped on people’s bare legs, hopped down cleavage and up swim trunks, found their way between people’s toes. Julianne slapped a hand to her chest and screamed. The pool was filling with bugs desperate to escape their predators, and the frogs, so many of them, were flopping in after them. It was impressively biblical.
“What the hell is happening?” Julianne demanded furiously, then screamed again as a bug jumped on her chest.
Everybody on the patio hurried inside while those in the pool scrambled to get out, brushing bugs and frogs off themselves as they clambered out. It wasn’t until we stood in the pool of light by the back door that I realized why the water had bothered me.
All of my friends had been dyed blue everywhere the water touched. We hurried inside and slammed the door shut as our tiny pursuers clicked like hail against the glass.
Hysterical women and blustering men demanded answers from the hosts, but Natalie was preoccupied. She stared, horrified, at her blue daughter with the green-tipped hair.
It looked as though she, too would turn into a screaming, wailing mess, but she didn’t. Instead, she hurried over to the blue group—for me, it was only my feet—and ushered us down to the servants’ stairwell.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing but I will be damned if you ruin my party with this spectacle,” she hissed. “Upstairs, now. Don’t come back down until your skin is a normal color.”
It was only then that Macy and Joan realized their plight. Joan screamed. Macy sobbed. Julianne went pale and the guys—well, they thought it was hilarious, all except for Thomas. He was livid.
“You!” he pointed accusingly at me. “You didn’t get in the pool with the rest of us, why?”
“I was waiting for you and Julianne to finish working out your squabble,” I snapped back. “Don’t blame this on me, I don’t even like bugs.”
“You think the bugs and the blue are related?” Joan asked, her eyes wide.
The tips of her long red hair looked purple, and I noticed Stew suddenly taking an interest. He reached out to touch the ends of her hair, but pulled his hand back before she noticed. I could have told her how to get his attention after that, but I wouldn’t. Scene look or no, she was still the same person, and I knew he couldn’t stand her.
“It’s a hell of a coincidence if they aren’t,” I said.
“They should have gone with red dye,” Renard said with a grin. “To stick with the theme, you know?”
“I would have noticed red dye before getting into the pool,” Julianne said with a murderous growl.
After we’d all taken turns in the shower—with little effect—we sat around Julianne’s huge room. Macy stood by the window with Adam wrapped around her while Joan sat on the floor by Stew’s feet, letting him play with her hair. Thomas flopped on Julianne’s bed like he owned it, and Renard examined the new blue hue of his skin under the bright lights of Julianne’s vanity. Julianne was perched in her big fluffy white chair, looking like a queen who was about to give the order—off with his head!
“They went too damn far this time,” she said quietly.
“Exterminators are here,” Macy said.
“Oh, no,” Julianne groaned. “Exterminators? Everybody is going to be talking about this.”
“Especially with Corban Styles downstairs,” I agreed.
Julianne stared at me in horror. “Oh God, he’ll have a whole spot about it. Oh, no.” She buried her face in her hands for a moment, then sat up straight. Her gaze was hard, flinty, and furious.
“We can’t let them get away with this,” she declared.
“Who?” Joan asked.
Julianne huffed at her like she couldn’t believe she was so stupid. “The damn Seymore boys, of course! Who else would do this? Blue dye in the pool, crickets and fucking frogs everywhere—this has Seymore stink all over it. We’re going to hit back. And we’re going to hit back hard. Tell me, what are those stupid boys most proud of? Anybody?”
Fear trickled down my spine. I’d seen Julianne pissed before, but I don’t think I’d ever seen her this pissed.
“Um, Julianne? I don’t think we should. I mean, they weren’t the only ones who weren’t invited to the party, maybe somebody else got mad about it. Heck, Corban could have done it. His show’s been struggling for years. He could use the sensationalism.”
Julianne narrowed her eyes at me in such a way that it caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand tall. “Are you defending the Seymores?” she hissed. “After getting rushed by crickets and frogs, after we were all dyed blue, are you really going to sit there and tell me we shouldn’t fight back?”
“No,” I said with a sigh. “Whoever did this did go too far. Way too far. They deserve to be held accountable for it. But come on, Julianne, it’s not like they signed their names or anything. And you have to admit, you do blame the Seymores for literally everything. What if somebody else wanted to get back at you for something? They’d know they could get away with it because you would never even look past the Seymores.”
Macy frowned at me. “What makes you think it isn’t the Seymores?”
I ran a hand through my hair, trying to put my thoughts together. “It’s—all the pranks over the last week. They haven’t really felt like Seymore pranks. They’ve been creative and amateur all at once, and it got me thinking. If someone wanted to harass us for some reason, or the Seymores, all they would have to do is play an anonymous prank and watch the fireworks.”
Julianne scoffed. “Thomas, are you hearing this?”
He shrugged, still lying spread out on her pale pink bedspread. “She’s not wrong. You do tend to be like ‘Seymore, Seymore’ all the time. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were into them.”
“How dare you,” Julianne growled icily.
“All right, look. There’s no need for anybody to get hostile,” Renard said. “But it sounds like the crowd has cleared out downstairs, and I need to get out of here before I hear something I can’t deny later. Y’all have fun with your plotting and scheming.” He waved a blue hand at us and went out the door.
Julianne followed him with her eyes then sighed, sounding defeated. “He’s right,” she said. “We’re being too hasty. We should sleep on this and come back to it later. Thanks for coming everybody.”
She turned her head away,
clearly dismissing us. I shrugged and waved at the rest of them, then followed Renard down the stairs.
The rest of the guests had already gone, and I could hear Natalie coldly scolding the exterminator. I wondered if she knew of any other way to communicate with men. From the way Julianne behaved with Thomas, I kind of doubted it. Like mother like daughter.
When I pulled away, I glanced up at her room. Macy still stood at the window, watching me. Something about the way her eyes were focused on me made me uneasy. I told myself I was being stupid—but I couldn’t quite convince myself.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I spent most of Sunday playing around in my garden. Rudy stopped by for a while and we made up for lost time, but he couldn’t stay long. My nerves were a little calmer in the moments he was here, though. And I was thankful for that because as soon as he left, the chaos of confusion went swirling in my head once again.
The more alone you are with your thoughts, the bigger they become and the silence sure worked a number on how loud my mind screamed at me. I could have met up with the girls, but I was still uneasy about my friends, all the way up until bedtime. Then Julianne shot me a text.
You were right. We’ll wait for evidence. No retribution necessary.
Relieved, I drifted off to sleep, intending on waking up early and running to school the next morning. When I stepped out of my shower the next morning to find my phone ringing, my heart didn’t sink the way it usually did when I saw Julianne’s name on my screen.
“Good morning!” I answered, careful not to sound too down, but also not too chirpy, either.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“Look out your window.”
And look out my window I did. There was Julianne’s convertible in all its pink glory, carrying all three of the girls. Macy, in the front passenger seat, held up a white donut bag and jiggled it. Joan lifted a tray of coffees up for me to see. A huge grin spread across my face. They’d managed to solve the blue problem somehow, and were looking like their usual selves again. Or maybe that was all wishful thinking.
Them Seymore Boys: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 1) Page 23
