“You have to disable the queue,” I told Lily. “Quit posting.”
Lily’s head was bowed. I couldn’t see her face, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Her hands were gripping the tablet so hard that they shook—or maybe she was holding on to it for dear life because she was shaking.
“Are you okay?” Sadie-Grace asked hesitantly.
“I’m fine.” Lily sounded hollow. She hit a few buttons on the tablet. “The blog is disabled. No more posts.” She paused, then drew in an uneven breath. “I should probably delete it, get rid of as much evidence as I can.”
You should, I thought. But can you?
I hadn’t really questioned what had possessed my cousin to start this project. It hadn’t occurred to me that it was anything other than a titillating little pastime, a chance she was taking because taking chances felt good. But right now? This didn’t look like someone who’d had to put a hobby on hold. She didn’t look like a girl who regretted doing something stupid.
She looked like she was grieving.
“Enough.” Lily snapped the cover to the tablet closed. “It’s done. It’s over.” She walked to the trash can and let the tablet fall from her hands. It landed with a clank. “Let’s get Campbell her freaking hamburger and go home.”
t never even occurred to Lily or Sadie-Grace to get Campbell’s lunch from McDonald’s. No, our temporary hostage could only be served an organic beef burger of the finest provenance. In fact, my fellow kidnappers bought two twelve-dollar gourmet burgers, because neither my cousin nor her best friend could recall with any degree of certainty whether Campbell Ames was in favor of avocado as a burger topping, or against.
“You guys do realize that she’s not going to be writing a review of this experience, right?” That earned me two blank stares. “Five stars,” I deadpanned. “Would definitely be kidnapped again.”
“Believe me,” Lily replied crisply. “We realize.”
Sadie-Grace nodded seriously. “Campbell never gives anything five stars.”
It took everything I had not to start massaging my temples. “I’m just saying that if you guys are feeling guilty, maybe it’s time to reconsider option one.”
Let Campbell go. Gamble that she wouldn’t have us arrested and weather the scandal that would result from Lily’s outing as the Secrets blogger. Eventually, a bigger scandal would come along.
“Sawyer.” Lily pressed her lips together, then forced herself to continue speaking in a pleasant tone. “It’s not just what people would say. It’s that they’d enjoy saying it. I’m Olivia Taft Easterling’s daughter. I am proper and respectful and polite. I say the right thing. I do the right thing.” She took a breath, but there was a long pause before she let it out. “Sadie-Grace is probably the only friend I have who wouldn’t be glad to see me fall.”
“That’s not true,” Sadie-Grace argued immediately.
“It was when Walker broke up with me.”
Before Sadie-Grace could reply, Lily’s phone rang, and my cousin glanced at me. “It’s Mama. Whenever I even look at this many calories…” She held up the brown bag containing Campbell’s burgers. “… she knows.”
I plucked the phone from Lily’s hand and declined the call. Based on the reaction from the peanut gallery, you would have thought I’d done actual witchcraft.
“Your mom will live,” I said.
“She just likes to know what I’m doing,” Lily replied automatically. “Where I am.”
“What you’re eating?” I suggested.
Lily responded to my pointed question with one of her own. “Doesn’t your mama care about nutrition?”
When I was a child, we’d named our dog Pop-Tart. My mom’s idea of a balanced breakfast probably didn’t match up with Aunt Olivia’s.
“Let’s put it this way,” I told my cousin. “If I was the one running the Secrets blog and my mom found out? She’d try to turn it into a mother-daughter activity and ask if she could submit some photos of her own.”
Lily was either awed… or aghast. “They never talk about her, you know.” She slowed her pace as we neared her parents’ house. “Your mama. I was in the fourth grade before I even knew she existed.”
I took that to mean that Lily hadn’t known that I existed, either.
“That’s the scary thing.” Sadie-Grace was wide-eyed. “With some scandals, people talk. But with others…”
Lily looked down. “They stop talking about you. Forever.”
She couldn’t possibly believe that the reaction to Secrets would, in any way, equal the one to my mom’s teenage pregnancy, but I doubted she’d find They won’t exile you forever to be comforting.
For better or worse, we definitely were not going back to option one.
“You requested a burger,” Lily declared as she opened the door to the pool house. “We got you a…” She stopped talking.
I looked past her and saw why. Campbell was gone.
Incredulous, I stalked over to the empty chair and picked up the ropes that lay there. “How the hell did she…”
“I told you,” Sadie-Grace whispered. “She’s in congress with the Beast.”
“She’s flexible, she’s driven by vengeance, and she has sharp fingernails,” Lily corrected tersely, holding on to her composure by a thread.
Sadie-Grace was dismayed. “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to file her nails to points during that hot stone manicure!”
I couldn’t help myself. “You kidnapped her and gave her a manicure?”
“Enough with the Monday-morning quarterbacking,” Lily told me tartly. “Campbell’s gone, and that’s that.” She plucked a handwritten note from the arm of the chair.
I moved close enough to read it. Campbell’s message was all of two words long.
GAME ON.
Beside me, Lily bolted. At first, I thought she was going outside to puke her brunch up, but she kept running.
To the main house.
Up the stairs.
To her room.
I managed to keep up with her, but only just.
“It’s gone.” Lily sank to the floor next to her trash can, and in an uncharacteristic burst of temper, she knocked it over. “The tablet I used for Secrets,” she whispered hoarsely. “I threw it away, and now it’s gone.”
ily and I spent the rest of the day waiting for the ax to fall, but Campbell’s social media accounts remained silent, and a few discreet texts on Lily’s part suggested that even Campbell’s highest-ranked minions still hadn’t heard from her.
The police did not show up at our grandmother’s house.
By the next morning, my cousin seemed intent on pretending that absolutely nothing had happened—and disturbingly adept at doing just that.
“It’s Monday,” Lily declared, entering my bedroom after a purely perfunctory knock. “Typically, that would mean the club is closed, and Symphony Ball events are usually spaced at least a month apart, but—”
“Lily,” I interrupted.
“But,” Lily continued emphatically, “this particular Monday is the exception to both rules. Northern Ridge is well aware that classes at Ridgeway and Brighton start next week, and the mamas on the Symphony Ball Committee realize that Pearls of Wisdom is more for the parents than for the Squires and Debs.” She finally took a breath, but it was a short one. “Today is for us.”
“Today?” I repeated.
Lily stalked toward my closet. “You’re going to need a bikini.”
Three hours later, I’d accepted that Lily was not going to discuss Campbell Ames, her missing tablet, or any form of impending social doom. I’d also developed a new life motto: You can make me wear a skimpy bathing suit, but you can’t make me take off the board shorts and cutoff T-shirt I’m going to wear over it.
Lily had attempted to coerce me into a designer “cover-up”—total misnomer—but I won that fight. It didn’t take long after we’d arrived at the pool party for me to realize that, in this social circle, the more questionable you
r fashion choices, the more compliments you received. No one would come right out and say that I looked like I’d taken a pair of scissors to a Walmart T-shirt myself (I had). Instead, I was told that my outfit was just darling.
I was so original.
And wasn’t it nice that I didn’t get all bothered by the way I looked?
“An insult doesn’t count as an insult if you phrase it as a question.”
I’d retreated from the pool area and taken refuge inside the Northern Ridge Country Club Boathouse, which did not, in fact, house boats, but instead served as the upscale version of a snack shack. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d decided to hide out among the onion rings and shrimp cocktail.
“Coincidentally,” Boone Mason continued, “an insult also doesn’t count as an insult if you pretend it’s a compliment, call the person you’re insulting sugar, or self-deprecatingly and completely insincerely criticize yourself at the same time. Shrimp?”
He offered me a plate, which he’d already piled high with hors d’oeuvres.
“No, thanks,” I told him, flashing back to the moment when I’d seen him at the dessert buffet the day before. My brain went into hyperdrive, searching his face for any similarity, no matter how subtle, to my own.
This was Thomas Mason’s son.
“I live life by relatively few rules,” Boone said, perfectly content to carry on a mostly one-sided conversation. “But one of those rules is to never turn down a free crustacean.”
Physically, Boone looked nothing like me, but it was all too easy imagining him as a child, adopting an endless series of truly odd obsessions.
“I have rules, too,” I found myself saying. “Anyone interested in flirting with a teenage girl isn’t remotely worth flirting back with. Don’t expect people to surprise you, and they can’t disappoint. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”
There was a beat of silence.
“How refreshing,” Boone said, in a surprisingly good imitation of the last Debutante to not-insult me. “You are an interesting one, aren’t you?”
He offered me a crooked smile.
“I might also be your half-sister.” It was one thing for me to say that I didn’t believe in letting social niceties get in the way of the truth. It was another to walk the walk, but I hadn’t come here—to Lillian’s house, to high society, to today’s pool party—to be demure and observe.
I’d come here for answers.
“You might be what?” Boone sputtered.
“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” I said. “Your dad is just one of the men who might have knocked up my mom. You might be my half-brother, but it’s also entirely possible that we’re cousins.”
Brow furrowed, Boone ate another shrimp. It took three more delicious crustaceans before he’d recovered enough to question me further.
“First cousins?” he asked. “Or distant cousins, destined to a star-crossed love?”
I gave him a look.
“You will eventually find me endearing,” Boone promised. “And I will eventually stop flirting with you.”
Without warning, a third party entered our conversation. “And why would you ever do a thing like that?”
I turned.
Walker Ames was not wearing a bathing suit. He looked like he’d just stepped off the golf course.
“We meet again, Sawyer Taft,” he said. “Are you going to spend all of the Symphony Ball events hiding on the fringes?”
“She’s not hiding,” Boone said quickly. “She’s…” I waited for him to say something about the bombshell that I’d just dropped on him. Instead, he shoved his plate into my hands. “She’s monopolizing the shrimp, is what she’s doing.”
“Actually…” I started to say, but Boone elbowed me. Do not say to Walker about his father what you just said to me about mine. The warning was as clear as if he had spoken out loud.
Deciding—for once—that discretion was the better part of valor, I opted for a topic that was slightly less sensitive. “Heard from your sister yet, Walker?”
“Not a word.” Walker glanced out the bay window toward the pool. “But I’m banking on the likelihood that someone here has.”
I followed his gaze. Dozens of Debutantes and Squires lounged poolside. There was a game of volleyball going on in the water, and closer to the pool’s edge, a coed chicken fight was quickly devolving into a mess of intertwined limbs and sexual tension.
I searched for Lily and found her sitting on the side of the pool with Sadie-Grace. Beside me, Walker’s attention had landed in the exact same place. He’d already graduated high school. He wasn’t a Squire, and that meant that my cousin wasn’t expecting her ex to be here today.
“It’s nice to see you sober,” I told Walker dryly, deflecting his attention from Lily. “It’s a good look for you. Less poor little rich boy, more borderline-functional member of society.”
Walker had an automatic, default smile—that helping and a half of charm that Lily had mentioned. For just a moment, his go-to expression went lopsided: less handsome, more real.
“Like I said,” Walker told Boone before turning to take his leave. “Why would you ever want to stop flirting with the indelible Sawyer Taft?”
Without waiting for a reply, he exited the Boathouse, but hung a left at the pool, leaving me to wonder who, exactly, Walker expected to have heard from his sister.
“He’s protective of Campbell,” Boone said beside me. “Always has been.”
“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t want me to say anything to him about his father,” I said.
Boone ate two more shrimp, then dodged the question. “That thing you said about my dad and his implied sperm and your mom’s implied ovaries? I can’t really picture it. My uncle Sterling—or, as I like to call him, Senator Bossypants—likes to say that I’m all Mason. He means that I’m not smooth, because neither is my dad.”
“Nice uncle you got there,” I commented.
Boone shrugged. “It’s his way of getting under my mother’s skin, because she’s all Ames. Like Walker. And Campbell.”
I’d grown up without siblings—or cousins. But I still recognized sibling or pseudo-sibling rivalry when I saw it. Boone was used to being in his cousins’ shadows.
“My dad…” Boone searched for the right words. “He grew up middle class. I have no idea how he and Uncle Sterling became friends, but they did. So my dad got a taste of what this life was like, and he decided he wanted it, too.” Boone paused. “He made something of himself, and he married an Ames. Some days, I think he regrets it, but back then? I can’t imagine him risking all of it for some woman.”
Not a woman, I thought. A girl.
“My mother is what one might charitably call vindictive,” Boone said, almost fondly. “She would have buried him if he’d cheated.”
Maybe Boone had the right read on his parents, but my mother had scratched Thomas Mason’s face out of the picture for a reason.
And if I’d been a boy, she would have named me Sawyer Thomas.
“What about your uncle?” I asked Boone, returning to the point he’d skirted. “The senator. Any idea what he was up to, approximately eighteen years plus nine months ago?”
“None whatsoever,” Boone said cheerfully. “But might I suggest not asking any other member of my extended family that question? We are, on the whole, a merciless lot, especially Uncle Sterling.”
And that’s why you didn’t want me saying anything to Walker.
“I can take care of myself,” I said.
Boone did not seem to like that response. “I’ll see what I can find out,” he promised. “About my uncle, my dad, your mom—just… hang tight, little buddy.”
“Little buddy?” I repeated incredulously.
“Hey,” Boone said, “you deal with your possibly incest-y feelings for me in your way, and I’ll deal in mine.”
made it through another hour of the pool party before
I abandoned ship. A quick survey of the s
urrounding area told me that my only options for fresh air were an expanse of vibrantly green grass, where people were honest-to-God playing lawn games, and a back alleyway that led to the dumpsters.
I chose the dumpsters. Imagine my surprise when I found Dumpsterville occupied.
“Sorry.” The boy leaning back against the building immediately straightened. His phone went into his pocket, and his eyes went to a point over my right shoulder.
“What are you apologizing for?” I asked.
The question surprised him into meeting my gaze. It took me a moment to realize that I recognized those eyes.
The valet. He was wearing different clothes today—navy-blue swim trunks and a formfitting shirt emblazoned with the club’s crest.
“Lifeguard?” I asked.
“Filling in for a friend,” he replied. “Don’t worry, I’m certified.”
“Really not my number one concern at the moment.”
He managed a small smile. “New around here?”
“What gave me away?”
“Besides your accent, your clothes, and the fact that you’re comfortable not smiling?” He leaned back against the wall, keeping his shoulders squared toward mine this time. “Absolutely nothing.”
That might have actually gotten a grin out of me, but the sound of the door to the alleyway opening and closing interrupted the moment. The valet glanced toward the door. I took note of the motion. Growing up above The Holler had given me a sixth sense for bar brawlers. In a polo shirt or lifeguard uniform, it didn’t matter. This was a guy used to keeping his back to the wall and his eyes peeled.
He wasn’t built for walking away from a fight.
What fight? I wondered. I turned to look at the person who’d joined us and found myself facing Walker Ames.
“I should go,” the valet said. He walked past me, then attempted to pass Walker.
Walker sidestepped. “Nick,” he said. “It is Nick, right? Got a minute?” Walker didn’t wait for an answer. That was what happened to people who grew up in a world where the answer was always yes. “We need to talk.”
“I need to get back to work.” Nick’s blank expression never wavered. He was like stone.
Little White Lies Page 9
