Page 64 of The Bitter Rival

Spinning to give her the death glare, Kat interrupts, pulling me back to look in her direction.

“It’s nothing like that. You’ll have hot pants and a jacket on. You can flash him at the end if you want, but those stars are pretty big. No one is seeing anything with those on there. We’ll work on the dance here, so you’ll have something to concentrate on while you’re on stage. I’m telling you, this is going to work.”

Frozen to this spot on the floor, I can hear the words coming from her mouth but am trying to assess whether I’m actually awake. That this is a real conversation and not a hallucination. I look at these girls, mouth agape, like I’ve completely lost my mind. I cannot believe I’m even considering this.

“Okay, we’ve got no time for dawdling. Let’s get this show on the road,” Kat says, walking over to her phone.

“Literally,” Bailey says, snickering.

“Bailey, you need to help with this dance. We’re all going to be at the end of the catwalk cheering you on and doing the dance. So you can mimic us if you get nervous.”

“It’ll be like we’re the dance instructors at Jenna’s dance recital.” Rachel claps. “Except I won’t give you a carnation and a pack of Skittles when you’re done.” Rachel and Bailey start to laugh, and I again give them the stink eye.

“The key is to get out of your head. Just enjoy doing something crazy for once,” Katarina says, cueing Demi Lovato on her cell. As the opening chords to “Confident” pour out of her blue tooth speakers, she stands in front of me and starts to dance. “I’m just going to see what works, and then we can piece it together, okay?”

“Ha, yeah, okay.” I’m shaking my head back and forth, trying to wake up from this crazy dream.

It’s late. I’m so glad the boys kept Austin at home with them tonight. I’m going to get up early and head back to get him in the morning. I may just fall asleep right here on this floor.

We’ve all been dancing, laughing, and drinking for the better part of the evening. Every now and then, Nick sneaks down to the basement to catch a good laugh. I’ll be mortified when I see him when this ridiculous show occurs, but I’m going to do as Kat suggested and just focus on them.

“I think we’ve come a long way, ladies,” Kat slurs. We’re all lying in a circle, on our backs, staring up at the ceiling.

“We did a good job,” Rachel adds.

“The margaritas helped,” I chime in, round-robin style, each of us adding something as we go clockwise around the circle.

“Yeah, they were my favorite part.” Bailey breaks out into a fit of laughter. This is the way much of this evening has gone. Will I even remember any of this when it’s time for this show to occur?Oh, yeah. When exactly is this show supposed to occur?

“Um, Kat?”

“Yeah, B?”

“When is this show supposed to happen?”

I quickly notice, it’s eerily quiet. God, did she fall asleep that fast?

“What?” Bailey squeals, laughing so hard I can see her arms across her abdomen to steady herself.What did I miss?

“What’s so funny?” I ask nervously.

“She said tomorrow,” Rachel whisper-yells before joining Bailey in hysterics.

“What? Tomorrow?”

“I knew you’d chicken out otherwise. The more time you had to think about it, the more time to back out.” Kat just shrugs her shoulders like,no biggie.

“Kat?” I blurt.

“Yes?”

“Are you crazy?”

“I think we’ve established that several times over,” Rachel guffaws.

“Listen. We’ll meet at my place in town. We’ll have a few drinks to take the edge off, help you get dressed and take you to Daddy Rabbits. Nick will come later with Sebastian.”

“Holy shit, there’s no-” I’m cut off when Katarina grabs my arm.

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