Page 54 of Kingmakers, Year Two

“Let me get you a drink,” I say to Zoe, as an excuse to keep her right by me.

I lead her over to the punch bowl. “It’s good, I promise. Not some mixed-up toilet bowl shit—quality liquor.”

“I trust you.” She smiles up at me.

Those words send a thrill through my whole body.

I pour her a cup of punch, careful not to splash a single drop on her snow-white gown.

“Tell me about the Marilyn dress…”

“It was hot pink. Perfectly-fitted. With long, matching gloves. I don’t even look good in pink, but the color was so vivid and so powerful . . . you don’t think of pink being powerful, but it can be. On the right person.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe you don’t look good in pink.”

Zoe’s cheeks flush a shade lighter than her lips, and I say, “See—you’re pink right now, and you look better than ever.”

Zoe fixes me with those light-green eyes, that always seem to have a storm behind them.

“Are you flirting with me, Miles?”

I consider denying it. But Zoe is so honest, it demands the same from me.

“Yes,” I say simply. “I definitely am.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“No. And I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to keep doing it, unless you tell me to stop.”

I watch her face closely, to see her reaction to this.

She considers.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she says.

“Good. ‘Cause I wasn’t going to.”

She laughs.

I don’t know if I ever heard Zoe laugh before this year. It’s a captivating sound, low and intimate, meant only for me.

“I knew you were trouble,” she says.

“You have no idea.”

9

CAT

My first party at Kingmakers is my first party anywhere—not counting the tedious events we had to attend with my father and Daniela from time to time.

I always felt like a show pony, dressed up by Daniela and trotted out for some specific purpose. Usually to dance with some awful business associate of my father’s, who would invariably tell me that I reminded him of his daughter before trying to slide his hand down from my waist to my ass.

This was my first time getting dressed with friends, laughing and joking the whole time, after being offered a little pre-party drink from Chay, which I accepted because I was fascinated by the pear bobbing around inside, whole and intact, like a ship in a bottle.

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