The look Danyella throws me is equal parts horror and fascination.
“Not from me!” I blurt out, and I hope I look as aghast at the idea as I sound. “You think I’d actually touch that jerk’s ass?”
“Flushed cheeks and parted lips are a physical indicator of attraction. You were certainly looking at him like you wanted to touch his ass,” Danyella says with a shrug, flipping her book bag open and rummaging around for her keys. “Also, there seemed to be a bit of a rash on your chest that wasn’t there earlier.”
I narrow my eyes on her the way Parrish does, and then I want to kick myself for imitating him or even thinking about him at all.
“I was angry,” I tell her, and she gives me a look, once again over the rim of her glasses which must be some sort of indicator that she’s annoyed. “He infuriates me like nobody I’ve ever met. I can’t explain it, but from the first second I laid eyes on him, I hated him.”
Danyella continues to stare at me for a moment before letting out a regretful sigh and dumping her bag onto the pavement. She’s like Mary Poppins or something with all the weird shit she keeps in there: scissors, glue, bags of sequins, signed playbills from past theater performances, a curling iron, a single pink ballet slipper.
“So you’re glad it happened then?” she clarifies as she digs through the items and then eventually finds her car keys shoved into the toe of the slipper.
“Glad what happened?” I ask, still far too distracted for my own good.
Danyella shovels the junk back into her bag and stands up, pointing at me with her keys.
“The breakup,” she says, and it takes me several seconds to even remotely remember what she’s talking about. Oh. That. People have giving me sympathetic looks all day, but I don’t really know anyone here yet with the exceptions of Danyella, Lumen, Chasm, and Parrish.
“We were never really dating, so we can’t really break up either,” I tell her after a quick look around to make sure nobody else is in hearing distance. “He just wanted to put on a show to humiliate me.”
“He resents you,” Danyella agrees, and three tries later, she’s able to unstick the door on her side of the car. Mine was never really closed to begin with since the fabric of an old costume was stuck in the hinges. I carefully tug it free and deposit it into the back seat.
“I guess,” I reply, wondering where we’re going with this. I’m excited to have made a friend so quickly, but I’m still wary. Chasm warned me about Whitehall; Maxx did; Danyella herself did. I can’t be expected to trust too easily, right? “He blames Tess’ overprotective nature on me, as if I chose to be kidnapped. I’m pretty sure he’s jealous, too. Like, he wants to be Tess’ bio kid the way I am.”
“I think the two of you resent each other,” Danyella says, backing out of her space in the parking garage and maneuvering around all of the luxury cars driven by idiots who seem to be backing out without looking and also while going about ninety miles an hour.
“Whatever resentment I feel toward Parrish, he brought on himself,” I say, shooting off a quick text to Tess and then another to Maxine. Tonight would be a good night to talk, seeing as neither Lumen nor Danyella care whether I speak to my ‘kidnappers’ or not. Maxie keeps saying she’s going to take me hiking, but we haven’t been able to work out a day where she’s free and one where I can escape Tess. I haven’t talked to my grandparents since the coffee shop either, and it’s starting to chip away at me on the inside.
They’re all alone now, in that big house, and it kills me. It fucking kills me. I suck in a deep breath to banish the feelings and try to focus on my new friendship instead.
“Regardless, it still takes two to tango,” Danyella replies, carefully checking both ways before exiting the parking garage. That two second delay causes the other cars piled up behind us to honk, and people start yelling out their windows for her to hurry up. I feel my eye twitch. Entitled brats.
I turn in my seat to give her a look.
“Whose side are you on anyway?” I ask as we pull onto the road heading toward the gate. On either side of us, huge willow trees sway in a gentle breeze and early spring sunshine turns the grassy grounds a brilliant emerald. I could almost be happy here if I hadn’t been ripped violently from the only home I’ve ever known and stuck in an ice castle with an aloof writer and a brooding stepbrother.
