Page 46 of The Version You Hide

When an awkward silence fills the atmosphere, I finally ask, “And you are?”

“I’m Skye, and this is Madison,” the blonde says, gesturing to the brunette next to her. “Madison and Dylan dated for like… ever.”

“Ah, I see.” A light bulb flickers on somewhere in my brain. Dylan’s ex. Noted. No wonder she doesn’t trust me.

I look at Madison, but her eyes don’t meet mine. She’s too busy staring down at her manicured nails. She looks bored by our interaction. Another awkward silence passes before she finally makes eye contact with me.

“You know, you don’t seem like his usual type.” She tilts her head to the side, staring me down with her green gaze, before shrugging condescendingly. “But I get it. You’re pretty in that girl-next-door kind of way. Be careful though. You know what they say. Once a player, always a player.”

“Sure.” I nod knowingly.

I can see what’s going on here. The jealous ex is trying to spook me, but what she doesn’t know is that Dylan is only my fake boyfriend. For tonight only. There’s nothing she could say right now that would have any effect whatsoever on me.

“He seems quiet tonight, though. More reserved. He’s usually way out of control at parties, but I guess the night is still young.” Madison snickers, then turns to Skye beside her. “Oh my god, Skye. Do you remember that party he had here when his parents were overseas on business?”

“Yeah.” Skye sounds only vaguely interested.

Madison turns back to me. “Someone called the cops to make a noise complaint and he was so high he threw a pound of weed on the bonfire to hide the stash.” She says this with a less than impressed look upon her face, making air quotes when she says ‘hide.’

She expects me to be horrified by this information, but knowing she probably made half of this story up in her head, I give her the opposite reaction. I laugh. “Wow! That’s chaotic! Sounds like a real rager. I bet everybody left a little light-headed that night.”

A giggle escapes Skye’s Barbie-pink pout. I think I’m beginning to like this one.

“Anyway,” Madison scoffs. “If you’ve managed to tame the party boy, then good for you. I guess the one thing we’re really struggling to understand is how you got him to abandon his career.”

“His career?” I shake my head at this crazy notion. “No. He’s not abandoning his career.”

What the hell are they talking about? Dylan works two jobs.

“Yes, he is.” Madison replies, blinking at me as though I’m stupid. “He quit the hotel industry.”

“Hotel industry,” I echo dumbly.

“I mean, the guy’s obviously already loaded but walking away from running the Abbott Group is costing him millions. Maybe even billions. How’d you get him to do it?” She rests her chin on her hand, staring me down with contempt.

“What?” I look to Skye, hoping she has something else to offer that might explain the insanity coming out of this woman’s mouth, but she just sits there, casually watching our interaction play out.

“I mean, the Abbott hotel chain is booming,” Madison continues. “I overheard his father say they’re going to be starting up a new boutique hotel soon. I guess I just can’t understand why, given the opportunity, Dylan wouldn’t want to run it.”

Evidently there’s more family drama here than I’d banked on. “I… I don’t know. I guess that’s something you’d have to ask him.”

I realise now that Dylan wasn’t kidding when he used the term ‘vultures.’ These women are brutal. Madison clearly has it out for me, and I’ve managed to hold my own up until now, but I’d be lying if I said her words hadn’t begun to blister under my skin.

Not because I care what Dylan’s job prospects are or whether he has money or not, but because he’s beginning to sound untrustworthy. Secretive.

The idealisation of him being this carefree, open book begins to shatter like glass, the lines of what I’d thought to be the truth beginning to blur at the edges.

According to Madison and Skye here, Dylan is loaded.

A loaded, party boy player.

And now I’ve found myself wondering if it was intentional when Dylan’s mother had called me Madison the day we met at the tavern. Is this woman sitting in front of me the kind she has always envisioned for her son?

I may have encouraged this fake relationship that day in the tavern, but Dylan had been more than happy to bring me along to his parent’s party. In fact, he had insisted on it. And I had believed him when he’d said he wanted me here. That having me here would make this night easier for him.

But the more I think about it, the more I question it. Because I am nothing like the two women sitting here in front of me. I’m obviously not Dylan’s type at all.

Did he bring me here to parade me around in front of his parents in some futile attempt to piss them off? Am I here as some kind of revenge act?

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