But maybe I am too nice? Because I really, really want to talk to Lumen. This is my chance, and it might be the only good one I get for a long while.
“I mean, I did burn the theater down and ruin the production,” I start, and Chas sighs.
“You’re very clearly going to do it anyway,” Chasm says, gesturing loosely with one hand. “So let’s get this over with.”
“Thank you,” I tell them both earnestly, and I swear, they both soften right away. I stifle a smile as I weave through the crowd. Before I even get to her, Lumen turns around, dressed in a form-fitting gold gown that sparkles when she moves.
Her earth-colored eyes bore right into me, and her face takes on a cold, dangerous cast.
She moves away from me so quickly that she disappears into the crowd, and I curse under my breath.
“Clearly, she doesn’t want anything to do with me,” I mutter, temporarily defeated but refusing to give up. If Lumen is here, then her parents are clearly trying to impress Justin. She can’t run from me forever. Even though the school year is almost over, she has another year at Whitehall with me, Chas, and … Parrish … before they graduate.
“Want to meet my parents instead?” Maxx offers up hopefully, giving Lumen’s retreating back a dark look before he drops his attention to me.
“Introducing her to the parents already? You move quick,” Chasm jokes, but there’s no heat to his quip. He hates being here in this crowd as much as I do. His eyes dart around, searching the faces in the room before he returns them back to me. “They’re much nicer than my dad, so don’t worry too much about that.”
X gives a snort and snatches my empty champagne glass from my hand, dumping it on a nearby table before he hooks his arm with mine, guiding me over to two men in suits standing beside a table laden with refreshments.
“Hey,” he says, and both men turn to look at us. One of them smiles brightly while the other has a small crease between his brows. They exchange a quick couple look before turning back to us. “I wanted to introduce you guys to my friend, Kota.”
“Maxine’s little sister?” the blond man says, slightly shorter and smaller of frame than the other.
My heart breaks all over again, but I do what I’ve been doing for weeks, cobbling it together and leaving it messy and slightly off-kilter.
“That’s me,” I say with as pleasant a tone as I can manage.
“Dakota, these are my dads,” Maxx explains, gesturing at the blond one first. “Laurent and Hamilton Wright.”
“So lovely to meet you,” Laurent, the blond one says. The other one—the one with the dark hair that very much looks like Maxx—forces a smile. I consider all the things that X told me, about how his parents encouraged him to seek Maxine out, how interested they were in her, how they talked shit about me before ever meeting me. Part of me wants to be upset, but there are just too many unknowns in this situation. Besides, my dad is a goddamn serial killer, so I can’t really fault Maxx’s parents for spreading gossip, now can I? “I hope our son has been a polite houseguest?”
“We also hear he’s adopted a rabbit,” the other one, Hamilton, says, frowning prettily. They’re both very handsome men actually. To be fair, most everyone in this room is good looking. Money can do that, you know. Plastic surgery (probably through Dr. Paul Vanguard), personal trainers, private chefs, nutritionists, access to the best doctors, fancy clothes, makeup artists, hair stylists, lash extensions, microblading … do I even need to keep going?
I take all of that pretty in with a very large, very salty grain of reality.
“Not sure how I feel about that,” Hamilton continues as his husband sighs dramatically, draining a glass of wine. “But I suppose it can live with us when you move back into the dorms next year.” My heart sinks a little at that thought, of X leaving and going back to Eugene. I know we’ll only be five hours apart, but with Maxine, I already know that at times it can feel like an impossible chasm.
That, however, is future Dakota’s problem.
“We were sorry to hear about Maxx and your sister,” Laurent adds, giving his husband a look that clearly says let the damn bunny thing go, please. He looks back at me with caramel-colored eyes and smiles again. “She seems like such a nice girl; I can only hope we raised our son well enough that he didn’t do anything to upset her.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Maxx interjects as I spot Lumen in the crowd again. She looks a bit flustered, one of her fists clenched tight at her side. “I told you: it was a mutual breakup. Can you let it go, please?”
