Page 6 of Eye Candy

With one more pat, she spun on her heel and pushed her way out of the venue, waving down a cab. She was gone before I could gather my wits.

Sonya was staring at me. Everyone was staring at me. Feeling like a wild animal, I looked around the room for help, but none was forthcoming. It was an eternity before the gallery burst into motion again. Greta Winters, one of my oldest friends and one of the few people here I truly liked, made her way over to me, sympathy on her face. We hugged, and I told her that I had to go. She understood and promised to call later in the week.

I had planned to be on a flight tonight, so there wasn’t anything to eat in my apartment. Adrian, who sometimes cooked for me, was busy with other clients so I ordered pesto and parmesan ravioli from the place around the corner.

While I waited for the delivery, I replayed the interaction at the gallery.

None of it made sense.

As I ate my pasta one-handed, I scrolled through everything I could find online about Teddy Bircher. Years ago, when she lived in New York, Teddy had posted prolifically. Since moving to Europe, she hadn’t posted at all.

The later the hour grew, the fainter the feeling of exhilaration became and the better I could think. Oddities that on their own were unremarkable became significant. Teddy’s confidence. Her nothing-to-lose argumentativeness. And her face—it looked the same, but the expressions were completely different.

Most inconsistently, she’d been flirtatious.

Withme.

Before tonight, Teddy and I had only met a handful of times, always brief. The most memorable was at her and Joe’s clusterfuck of an engagement dinner. Teddy had taken an instant dislike to me and made no secret of it. She thought I was boring. Specifically, her words were, “textbook in a sweater.”

This, tonight? That wasn’t Teddy Bircher.

I didn’t have any proof, only gut feeling. For Joe’s sake, Iwould need real evidence she was an impostor. Then I’d expose her. Her lies, rather. I needed to get closer to her. This wasn’t about her flirting, or the way her laugh felt like electricity dancing over my skin. This was for Joe.

CHAPTER 4

CAROLINE

Joe Sanford’sbrother looks like a walking wet dream and no one thought to warn me about that? Not one single person?!

Was it too much to ask for a quick,Brace yourself Caroline?

Chase Sanford was a lighter, and my scam was kerosene.

My building was a five-floor walk-up in a trendy part of town, on a block where millionaires bought lofts to cosplay being down-to-earth. It was an easy walk to nice parks, bustling brunch spots, and cool coffee places. All I had to do to afford it was share a ground-floor studio with an influencer whose mom owned it. Oh, and empty my savings.

“Nice five-dollar word.” I mocked myself. “Good one, Caroline.” I turned the key to the apartment and called, “Lyssa?! Are you home?”

There was no answer, but the bathroom door was shut and mournful jazz drifted under the door. Lyssa was having one of her Main Character Baths. She would put on a voluminous prom dress and sit in the water until it cooled, playing sad music and drinking prosecco from the bottle, feeling her feelings. When sheemerged, her gown would be soaked through and she’d have mascara tracks down her face. Her theory was that romanticizing your sadness helped your brain process it as just one scene in your story—and those scenes always cut away to the glow up montage. Lyssa was a human glitter bomb who never did any of the shopping, cleaning, or laundry—she struggled to turnoffher Main Character energy—but she was my closest friend in this country, and a fashion genius, and I loved her.

Tossing my bag, keys, and itchy wig on my bottom bunk—Lyss and I shared bunk beds—I made a cup of tea with the kettle I’d bought when the first half of Gerard’s money cleared.

The kettle was my third spend with my new windfall. The first was to put some money in the Café Levitate account to pay suppliers, the second was to pay five hundred dollars off my credit card (interest-free my ass), and the fourth was to stock up on the lashes I liked. Once the essentials were covered, I’d pulled a brown wig I never wore out of the suitcase under my bed, looked up some pics of Teddy, and painted my makeup like hers until even I could barely tell the difference between us. She was younger, but we did look similar: the same chin, the same—sparing—height. Maybe my figure was a bit more generous, my nose a little more snub, but those were things that could be achieved in a doctor’s office, were Teddy so inclined.

I hadn’t thought throwing a tantrum to embarrass a privileged little trust-fund bro was a big deal.

Just an easy night’s money and a way to get my career on the up. Joe Sanford was supposed to be defensive, then embarrassed, and slink off with his tail between his legs. Gig me, Gerard.

I had not accounted for Joe’s older, hotter, more morally rigid big brother.

Who had the gall to lecture me about virginity! Like I hadn’t been ruthlessly criticizing the patriarchy my entire career! I’d performed whole acts about it.

I guess Chase doesn’t know that.

And, he was right.

Still,boo, hiss. Allies who spent their energy explaining patriarchy to people who experienced patriarchy always got me riled. Leave it to men to mansplain men.

The only champagne flute we hadn’t broken was missing—in the bath with Lyssa, probably. I opened another prosecco and poured some into a mug. As I fed Root Beer, Lyssa’s big ginger cat, I thought about how Chase had raked his eyes over me and how his low voice had rumbled beneath his knitwear. I was a professional performer, but of all things,knitwearhad made me break character. I’d started saying very Caroline things, like how good he smelled—a cinnamon stick stewing in a honey-based tea—and baiting him about the sexual repression that was practically emanating from him.

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