Chapter Twenty-Five Julia
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Always carry an umbrella. You’re covered if it rains and covered if you need to kick someone’s ass.”
—Remington
Julia
“You look amazing, Jules,” Donovan said as the elevator took us up to the rooftop of the Henry. Because, yes, Beckett lived in the penthouse of a luxurious building, and his party was on the rooftop.
Did that mean he was the richest of all the rich people who lived there?
“You really do,” Jasmine agreed, reaching out a hand and adjusting the right side of my hair.
“Thanks to you guys,” I said, feeling a tiny bit amazing.
I’d gone to Donovan’s to get ready for the party, opting to go with my friends instead of my brother, and she and Jasmine had insisted I borrow something from her closet. And I was glad for the offer, because for the first time since our arrival in New York, it seemed like I looked pretty okay.
I was wearing Donovan’s white off-the-shoulder cashmere sweater, a trio of chunky necklaces that managed to look effortlessly cool and twinkly, and a pair of weathered jeans with loafers the color of my hair.
And my friends had somehow managed to make my hair look good.
It was down, with zero pins trying to force it into place, but the product they’d used had somehow transformed it. The wild curls were as wild as ever, but they looked soft and intentional, like I wanted my hair to look that way.
I was in love with it.
So much so that I’d begged them to let me keep the five bottles of whatever they’d used on my head.
The elevator doors opened, and you’d think, as someone who actually lived in a spectacular house, that I would stop being so starstruck by the grandioseness of Gardenwood.
But that was impossible.
Because it was hard not to stare with a gaping mouth as we walked onto a stunning—and huge—rooftop patio.
A patio larger than the main level of our old house.
There were couches and tables, perfectly placed, roaring fireplaces illuminating the dusk, and music coming from the DJ…
stand (was that what it was called?) that was set up near luscious botanical plants.
“Have Your Lovin’ ” by Johnny Orlando. Nice choice.
Immediately I saw kids I recognized from school, but unlike at the soiree, I didn’t want to run away screaming.
Because people were laughing. Talking with actual volume.
I could breathe out here.
The smells of the city came at me on the autumn breeze, and I wondered if I’d taken a wrong turn and was on the set of some really cool streaming series instead of at a high school party.
Instead of red Solo cups, I saw wineglasses, pint glasses, lowball glasses. Instead of beer pong, there were guys my age playing cards around a table. While smoking cigars.
It was like these people were grown-ups in teenagers’ bodies or something.
So, so douchey.
“Julia!”
I squinted and saw that one of the cigar smokers was the birthday boy himself, so we approached their game.
“Happy birthday, Beckett,” I said, my cheeks getting hot from the attention, but this time no mean girls were eyeballing me like they wanted me to disappear, no Toms were scoffing like my existence was screwing with their world aesthetic.
“Where’s the food, Beckett?” Donovan asked, fluffing her hair as her eyes scanned the rooftop.
“No ‘happy birthday’—just ‘where’s the food?’ ” he said, looking at his cards.
“Happy birthday, where’s the food?” she corrected.
“Inside.” Beckett rearranged his hand. “The chef’s got a helluva spread in there whenever you’re hungry.”
I realized as I stood there that Liam was sitting next to him. My brother was one of the douchey bros.
“You smoke cigars now?” I said without thinking.
He didn’t look up from his cards. “Do I really have to answer that?”
“Let me rephrase. Have you always smoked cigars and I never knew, or is this your stogie debut?”
“Yeah,” Beckett said with a smirk. “Is this your stogie debut, Lowell?”
My brother laughed as he puffed. “You don’t know everything, Jules.”
“Can I get you something to drink?” A waiter popped up at our side, apparently ready to take our drink orders.
This definitely doesn’t happen at parties back home.
“Oh. A drink. Um…” I said, wondering what in the world to order. I didn’t want to seem gauche, like a kid ordering a Shirley Temple at her first big Gardenwood party, but I also didn’t want to seem try-hard by going with something like a vodka cranberry.
“Um, I—”
“She’ll take a Dr Pepper,” I heard from behind me.
I turned around and there was Damion.
He was wearing jeans, a charcoal sweater with a white T-shirt underneath, and a backward baseball cap that teased his dark curls through the opening. A different pair of black glasses were on his face, these with thin frames, and the overall look was a tiny bit overwhelming.
I was used to the prep-school version of Damion, but the casual iterations of him kind of took my breath away.
“You’re ordering for me?” I said, managing to sound unaffected even though I was definitely affected.
“Just offering a suggestion,” he replied, his eyes dipping down to my exposed shoulder, making me want to tug nervously at the sweater.
“Well, I will take a Dr Pepper,” I said to the server, “but not because he’s suggesting it.”
“Okay, miss,” the waiter said, before turning to my friends and taking their orders.
“You are the last person I expected to see here,” Damion said quietly.
“Why is that?” I asked with an eyebrow raise, even though we both knew why.
Nobody likes me here, so why would I be at a party?
“Because you didn’t mention it yesterday, and Beckett is one of my best friends and he didn’t mention inviting you either,” he explained.
“Beckett’s one of your best friends?” I glanced over at the guys playing cards, and for some reason I couldn’t imagine him hanging out with them. “I can’t see it.”
The guys at the table seemed way too… not Damion.
“I get that,” he said. “He’s a club-joining, extroverted little frat boy, but for some reason I still love him.”
“I heard that,” Beckett said, pointing his cigar in our direction. “And being involved in school activities doesn’t make me a ‘frat boy,’ for the record.”
“You’re puffing a cigar whilst wearing a shirt that says ‘Birthday Daddy,’ ” Damion said, but he looked amused as he mocked his friend.
“Okay, so a teeny bit fratty,” Beckett corrected, not looking remotely apologetic as the breeze played with his spiky hair. “If you remember correctly, I bought this shirt for you on your birthday, but you refused to wear it.”
“That’s called taste.”
“That’s called a missed fucking opportunity, Rutledge.”
“Come on,” Donovan said, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go drool over the hot DJ.”
“What?” I allowed her to pull me alongside her as she and Jasmine crossed the rooftop patio, relieved to be taken away from Damion while also feeling a little disappointed.
Relieved because I didn’t need any more gossip about the two of us, and disappointed because…
well, I wasn’t sure why I felt disappointed.
Probably because he was one of the few people I sort of knew from school.
“Did I hear that you’re wearing a Jessi McSullivan design to the ball, Don?” A girl with bright red hair, wearing a crewneck that said BATSHIrT and the cutest jeans I’d ever seen, approached us.
“It’s true,” Donovan said, looking like she’d won something. “I nearly died when my mom told me.”
“I’m so jealous,” the redhead said, holding her wineglass and shaking her head in disbelief. “The best we could do was Dempsey.”
“He’s incredible, are you kidding?” Donovan replied. “He’s going to make you look stunning.”
“I mean, I’m happy with him; Dempsey’s really talented,” she agreed. “But he’s no Jessi.”
“You two need to shut up,” Jasmine said, “Because I still don’t have a dress.”
“Only because you know your mom can get anything you want from anyone, be serious,” the redhead said, and then she said to me, “I’m Addison, by the way.”
“Julia,” I said, pointing to myself. “Nice to meet you.”
“You’re the one who called Cassandra ‘Headband,’ right?”
I would’ve died of embarrassment, but all three of them started laughing like it was hilarious, so I just shrugged. “That would be me, yes.”
Her friends, Jo and Grace, joined the conversation, and all three of them seemed… pretty okay with me.
As in they weren’t gushing warmth and begging me to be their friend, but they weren’t calling me New Money and looking at me like I offended their eyeballs by existing, either.
So that was a definite upgrade.
Everybody started talking about the season again, because that was all anyone could talk about, it seemed. There had been another party since my ill-fated soiree, so they were all sharing stories of everything that’d transpired at the event.
“By the way,” Addison said, lowering her voice and looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. “My mom thinks, um, you-know-who, the Dead Poet king with the glasses, is going to go to the ball with Coco.”
“I don’t believe for a second he’s going,” Grace said in a whisper, like she was scared of being overheard, even though we were outside and it was noisy. “I can’t picture any scenario that ends with him dressed in a tux and dancing at a ball.”
“Who is the Dead Poet king?” I asked, also whispering.
“Rutledge,” Donovan said, giving me a look like she thought I might have more information. “Do you know, Jules? Is he going with Coco, or does he have someone else he might be interested in taking?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure why, but the thought of him and Coco together made me feel… not good.
Not good at all.
It seemed right somehow, but also somehow gross and disappointing.
Oh, don’t be disappointed in me, Nebraska. I just couldn’t bear that.
“He hasn’t said anything to me about her, but he probably wouldn’t tell me anyway,” I said, throwing a lot of who cares in my tone when everything about the idea of them as a couple made me feel panicked. “Why do you call him that, by the way?”
“Because he was, like, the original member of the Dead Poets before he became too cool for—gahhhh!”