Page 52 of Enemies

You keep making that party look so good I’m gonna crash it.

I grin. Don’t write checks you can’t cash.

My phone rings as I’m out for a run with Barney. Adrenaline is pumping through my veins as I slow to a walk and answer. After a moment for the video call connection to establish, a handsome grinning face appears.

“I read about you this week,” Beck informs me.

“Wow. I didn’t know you could read.”

His bark of laughter is warm and welcome. Beck’s outside too, his hair blowing in the breeze. “Just because I’m an actor doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

He’s not. My friend took an arts-school vlog and leveraged it into a TV deal after graduation. He stars as a psychic cop in one of the top shows on television.

“How’s the club gig?”

“I’m going to fill the place if it kills me.”

“Badass. I heard someone’s birthday’s coming up from Tyler and Annie. Which day is the party?”

I frown. I haven’t talked to Annie in a couple weeks except for the odd text. “There’s no party, Beck. My birthday’s not a day to remember.”

He cocks his head, surprised. “Clearly you need to replace it with better memories.”

“I’m trying. Tonight, I’m going to the biggest club on the island.”

When I woke up an hour ago, there was a note on my dresser in Harrison’s scrawl saying we were going to La Mer to scope it out.

Excitement bubbled through me when I stared at it, then the bottle of pills I had demoted to the dresser from my bedside table earlier in the week and replaced with a tiny vase of fresh flowers from Natalia’s garden.

“Sounds like fun.”

“It’s recon,” I say.

“Even better.”

Tonight, I dress for the occasion. A cropped white top. A skirt that shows off my legs. The platform wedges Harrison got me. I try my hair a few different ways before twisting it up into buns on my head.

I look like a warrior, and maybe I am one.

It doesn’t feel as if Harrison and I are on opposite sides since he went on the trip to clean up his clubs in person.

Tonight, we both want the same thing.

La Mer.

“Come on, Rae,” Ash hollers from the other side of my door.

“Bossy, considering I invited you,” I call back.

Harrison had frowned over his coffee when I informed him I’d called his brother, but he’ll get over it.

If I’m being honest, it feels safer to have Ash there.

The door opens without my permission, and Ash surveys me.

“Jesus,” the younger King says before I can protest.

I plant a hand on my hip. “Good Jesus or bad Jesus?”

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