Book Five Teaser
IZ
There are twenty parents in the Harringtons’ backyard.
Twenty. I counted, because apparently that is what my brain has chosen to do while we wait for five girls who have been upstairs long enough to qualify as missing persons.
Callum and Saoirse are here. Thomas and Fiona.
Gideon and Alice. Clifford and Louise. Cassandra and Walter, obviously, because this is their house.
My parents. Theodore and Katya. Calvin and Verlina.
Preston and Margot Bellmont. Warren and Camille Pierce.
Then there’s Delilah, who graduated from UConn and therefore technically qualifies as a real adult now, although she’s currently stealing strawberries off Danny’s plate while he tries to slap her hand away.
Twenty-one adults, nine teenagers if I count Tobias—which I probably shouldn’t, but he’d be offended if I didn’t—more phones than any reasonable event requires, and five girls who have apparently been getting ready since the fucking Reagan administration.
Senior prom is going great.
“I saw that,” Danny says, catching Delilah’s wrist before she can steal another strawberry.
She pops the one already in her hand into her mouth and chews slowly while staring at him. “Saw what?”
“That was mine.”
“You have four more.”
“I had five before you showed up.”
“You’re eighteen, Danny. Learn resilience.”
He looks at Louise, who is standing a few feet away talking to Katya and Camille. “Mom. Your adult daughter is stealing food from a child.”
Louise doesn’t even turn around. “You ate half the fruit in Cassandra’s kitchen.”
“That’s completely unrelated.”
Delilah pats his cheek. “She loves me more.”
“She tolerates you because you moved out.”
Clifford laughs into his drink. Delilah gives Danny the finger, Danny returns it, and Louise finally looks over just long enough to tell them both to knock it off with the exhausted ease of a woman who has been parenting Rorkes for far too many years.
Katie laughs beside me, and I glance down at her.
She looks good. Really fucking good, actually.
Her purple dress hugs her through the waist and hips before falling loose toward the ground, dark enough that the beading catches every time she moves.
Her hair is up, her makeup is perfect, and she has spent most of the afternoon attached to some part of my body.
Right now, one hand rests against my chest while the other loops comfortably through my arm.
Katie Bellmont is having the time of her fucking life.
I know this because she has been wearing the same smug little smile since she arrived.
Which, honestly, is fair. She won. Me. Congratulations to Katie. There should have been a trophy. Maybe a sash.
She’s been trying to hook up with one of the Elite Five at parties since sophomore year, and I don’t even mean that as an insult. Katie likes attractive boys, Katie likes sex, and Katie has never once pretended otherwise. There are worse personality traits in Edgewood.
Danny told her he was gay the first time she tried him, and without missing a beat, Katie asked if Becca knew.
I’ve respected her ever since. Kaid turned her down at some Christmas party with the efficiency of a man declining an extended warranty.
X dodged her a few times before he and Penny finally stopped making everyone around them miserable.
Ryan somehow escaped the rotation entirely, which I assume was less strategy and more dumb fucking Harrington luck.
Now all four of them are permanently unavailable. Which leaves me.
Last Elite standing.
Katie smooths her palm over my lapel, even though there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. “You look hot, Walsh.”
“I know.”
Her eyes lift to mine. “You know, most people say thank you when someone compliments them.”
“I could lie to you if that would make you feel better.”
“God, you’re an asshole.”
“See?” I grin down at her. “We’re already getting closer.”
She laughs and presses herself more firmly against my side. I let her. Katie and I both know what tonight is, even if I suspect she has slightly more ambitious plans for the ending than I do. That’s a problem for Future Iz. Current Iz has no reason to ruin her fun.
Besides, the smugness isn’t really for me. I noticed that about ten minutes ago. Every time Katie touches me, her eyes eventually wander toward the Harringtons’ back door.
“Your girlfriend is going to wear a trench into the patio,” I tell Kaid.
He’s on his fifth pass between the bottom of the steps and the edge of the lawn, and if he gets any closer to the door, Cassandra is going to make him wait in the driveway.
Kaid doesn’t bother looking at me. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I’m concerned about Walter’s pavers.”
“They’ve been upstairs for almost an hour.”
“Forty-seven minutes.”
That gets his attention. It gets everyone else’s too.
Kaid stops pacing. X lowers his phone. Danny looks over from where he’s still guarding his remaining strawberries from Delilah, and Ryan turns around from his position at the bottom of the steps.
Katie’s eyebrows climb. “You know exactly how long they’ve been upstairs?”
“I know lots of things.”
“You’re timing them.”
“I am not timing them. Unfortunately, my brain functions.”
Danny points at me. “Freak.”
“Science boy.”
“Fuck you.”
“See? Becca isn’t even out here yet and you’re already cranky.”
“I’m hungry.”
Delilah reaches for his plate again.
Danny jerks it away. “I will fucking stab you.”
“You need therapy.”
“We have Darla.”
Mom looks over from where she’s talking to Alice and Saoirse. “No.”
Danny blinks. “You didn’t even hear what I need.”
“I know you.”
Dad laughs beside Walter, which earns him a pointed look from Mom. “You too, Arthur.”
Dad lifts both hands. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
Katie leans closer to me. “Your mother terrifies me.”
“She should.”
Mom has patched up nearly everyone standing in this yard at least once.
Physically, emotionally, or both. Now she’s somehow also doing family therapy with the O’Farrells, because apparently being a doctor, raising me, and unofficially adopting every damaged teenager within the Edgewood town limits left too much empty space in her schedule.
I glance toward Thomas and Fiona without meaning to.
Thomas is standing with Callum, Dad, Gideon, and Walter, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think he’d been part of this mess forever.
He hasn’t even been in Edgewood a year. He and Cat moved here in July, the new family in town, and somehow Thomas got swallowed by this group almost as quickly as his daughter did.
Cat had Kaid and the girls dragging her in whether she liked it or not.
Thomas just…fit. By winter, nobody thought twice about him being here.
Now he and Cat live with Callum and Saoirse, and Thomas has somehow become one more father yelling at one more kid who isn’t biologically his.
Fiona had fit too. Then she fucked up.
Now she’s standing with Saoirse and Alice, listening to something Alice is saying, and the difference is small enough that someone outside this group probably wouldn’t notice it.
Nobody is icing her out. Nobody is making her earn the right to stand in Cassandra Harrington’s backyard.
She’s still Fiona. They know her. She knows them.
It’s just careful now.
Fiona is trying. Cat is trying. Thomas is civil. Mom has all three of them in therapy, which means they’re probably doing better than the rest of us by default.
Mom catches me watching them. One eyebrow lifts.
I tap two fingers against my temple. I know what you’re doing. Her eyes narrow. Stop psychoanalyzing people.
I grin. She rolls her eyes. Fucking therapist.
The thing about gatherings like this is that nobody needs to be introduced.
Preston Bellmont is arguing with Calvin about something near the gardens while Margot stands with Verlina and Cassandra.
Warren Pierce has somehow ended up in whatever conversation Walter and Clifford are having, and Camille is laughing with Louise and Katya.
Gideon is holding Alice’s phone while she uses Cassandra’s, because apparently one camera at a time isn’t enough.
Most of these people knew each other before any of us existed.
Same charity boards, political fundraisers, galas, school benefits, holiday parties, country clubs, business dinners, and whatever other bullshit rich adults do when they want to convince themselves they’re socializing instead of networking.
Then they all had kids around the same time and condemned us to the same thing.
Edgewood is small. Edgewood is rich. And nobody here has ever needed GlossX to know everyone else’s business.
The only people who came late were the O’Farrells, and even they got folded in so thoroughly that Thomas is currently stealing ice out of Walter’s drink without asking.
I’m watching him do it when movement near the gazebo catches my attention.
Nolan Pierce. Right. There’s another problem.
Pierce is standing beside Warren with his hands in his pockets, tux immaculate, looking entirely too comfortable for someone I’ve recently decided to dislike.
Nolan has been on varsity lacrosse with Ryan and me long enough that I know exactly how insufferable he can be.
He’s cocky. Smug. Rich. Good-looking and very fucking aware of it.
Basically, he’d fit in perfectly with us if there weren’t already a hierarchy carved into Edgewood before any of us were old enough to understand it.
Nolan knows where he sits in that hierarchy. He’ll talk shit to us. He’ll shove Ryan at practice. He’ll tell me when I’m being an asshole and argue with Kaid when he thinks Kaid is wrong. He’s not scared of any of us.
But he knows the line. He always has. Unfortunately, tonight he’s also Bella’s date. I’m considering whether food poisoning can be induced remotely when Ryan appears beside me.
“You’re staring at Pierce.”
“I’m looking past Pierce.”
Ryan follows my line of sight. “There’s a hedge behind him.”
“It’s a nice hedge.”