Page 131 of Tempting the Player
As I look around at my friends drinking wine, wearing beautiful custom gowns, talking about boys and life and our plans for the future, I wonder if we’ll always be this close. If we’ll continue to share our lives when we’re not bound together by these four walls. We will. I know it. I need them. They’ve become a part of me.
Music from a party next door at The White House threatens to drown out the TV in front of us, but we aren’t watching it anyway.
“Okay, your turn,” Daisy says to me. “Would you rather give up sex or kissing?”
We’ve been going around asking these types of questions all night long. When do we want to get married? Are we going to have kids? Where will we live? And then of course it turned to sex.
“Kissing. No, sex. No, crap, kissing. I can’t decide,” I say.
Laughing, Vi gets to her feet. “I’m gonna grab another bottle of wine.”
“I’m coming with you to get more snacks,” Daisy says and follows her.
Dahlia scoots closer to me and rests her head on my shoulder. “This is exactly what I needed tonight. Me, you, Vi, and Daisy.”
Her phone lights up in her lap. We both look down as Felix’s name flashes on the screen with a text.
“And your boyfriend not so patiently waiting to come pick you up?” I ask with a laugh.
On the coffee table, Daisy’s phone vibrates. Dahlia and I share a smile before she leans forward to confirm what we’re both thinking. “It’s Jordan.”
We laugh. “Who would have thought that we’d be hanging out and boys would be blowing up our phones begging us to hang out with them?” she asks.
“I would have. We’re amazing.”
She smiles back at me, warm and caring and with a kind of understanding that only your truest friends ever really know.
“Cheers to that,” she says and clinks her wine glass against mine softly before finishing off the last of it. I do the same.
Dahlia sets her empty glass on the coffee table. “I saw that Penelope and Clint broke up.”
“Yeah, me too.” It was splashed all over the front page of every major news outlet this morning along with news that Clint had gotten into an accident while driving drunk and allegations that Penelope had filed a restraining order against him. And the big superhero movie he was doing...yeah, they dropped him too. There was a lot going on there and the media was eating it up.
“Are you okay?” Dahlia asks.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m sad for her, of course, but I’m okay. Maybe I’ll reach out,” I say off-handedly, but it isn’t a terrible idea.
“Speaking of celebrities, guess who texted me?”
“Who?!”
“Eddie Dillon.” Her eyes are bright with excitement as she mentions the pop star we met last year. She had this huge opportunity to design an outfit for him, and totally crushed it.
“I knew he’d be back begging you to design more clothes for him. You’re so talented, babe,” I say.
“Well, he didn’t beg, but he did offer me a summer internship with his wardrobe team.”
The three of us squeal at her news. Dahlia blushes and soaks it all up as we take turns hugging and congratulating her.
“A-mazing.” I wrap her in another tight hug. “I am so proud and so, so happy for you. You’re going to kill it.”
“Thank you, but there’s more. He also asked me to pass on his number to you.” She tilts her head toward me.
“What? Why?”
“Why do you think?” She squeezes my knee and gives it a shake. “He saw the videos of you bringing down the house at the Spring Fling and he wants to collab with you.”
My stomach bottoms out. “Are you fucking with me right now?”
