Page 129 of Pretty Little Lies

“I think we just walked through hell,” I mutter, propping my hip along my fender.

“I’d say heaven,” Nessa replies, coming around to stand at my side. “You drove us to the right house, right?”

Jaguars.

Mercedes Benzs.

Audis.

And Aston Martins.

“Yeah.”

“I can’t believe Levi let us come here.”

“He has no other choice but to allow me to play 007 that might get me double-o killed if I don’t play my cards right.”

Nessa loops her arm with mine just as a group of three girls exits a Beamer and begins to make their way up to the house, glancing over at us to give us the stink-eye and disapproval that the white trailer park trash is here.

“I want her bag,” Nessa mutters in my ear as we follow. “Wanna put twenty on it that I’ll have it by the end of the night?”

“Iknowyou can do it by the end of the night.” I notice the blue bag she’s eyeing and smile. “Don’t get caught, eh? You’re still on probation.”

Nessa pulls back her long blonde hair and drops it to her other shoulder. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Bitch, donotget in trouble here. We’re here to play a role and?—”

“I think you’re playin’ yours a little too good,” she retorts as we hit the steps and begin the three-tiered walk up. “You got two of the three practically on their knees for you.”

Guilt fills my chest, but I shove that shit aside.

All’s fair in love and war.

But there is no love.

Just like.

And sex.

But definitely always war.

“Then steal me an Oscar because I’m gonna be putting in work tonight,” I tell her.

Nessa pulls me closer. “Just don’t get hurt.”

We stride inside the mansion,“Need To Know”by Doja Cat blaring through the space. The place is packed.

A dance floor is to our right, in a room that looks like it could be a living room with a roaring fireplace and industrial lighting over sectional couches that have been pushed back with bodies already on it.

The kitchen is on the left, and ahead is a huge balcony full of folks with red Solo cups and something to smoke between their fingers.

“Easy way to find them,” Nessa starts. “Is to dance. It’s like a rite of passage. They can sense their picked mate out or something.”

My brows knit. “What the fuck—” She pulls me to the right and along the edge of couples dancing, spinning me around in her heels and singing to the song. Her fingers wrap around my chin, meeting her eyes, and she already knows.

She knows I’m not comfortable here, and that she’s the only one of the two of us who can push back an uneasy feeling and act like it’s normal.

“We’re the two hottest bitches here,” she tells me over the music, then leans in, smelling of some expensive perfume that she stole from somewhere. “And we’re South Shore. Enough said.”

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