You know what? I was so ready to get the fuck out of here. No mystery woman, weird conversations behind me, greasy table. Somehow I'd entered hell in the last hour.
With a sigh, I glanced out the window, wondering how it had all gone so wrong. Why wouldn't she tell me who she was? Not to brag or anything, but most women I met wouldn't leave me alone.
"I'm full," Archie suddenly said, scooting back from the table. "Can we go? I, uh, gotta fire a tactical nuke. Code brown, I repeat, code brown."
Lovely. I eyed the empty plates he'd left behind. "I get it. Please stop talking."
He shot me a teenage smirk, then turned to the people sitting behind us. "Hey, good luck to you all. I hope those douchebag developers step on a million legos. You don't deserve that. No one does."
His words shocked the hell out of me, both the fact that he'd spoken up at all and the pure passion lacing his voice.
While I stood there momentarily stunned, Archie reached for the nearby door, holding it open and ushering me through. "Age before beauty," he said, a favorite of his lately. "Hurry, dude, I've got to make it to home base to drop thi—"
"Yeah, yeah," I interrupted, rolling my eyes.
That was one thing I'd noticed about teenagers, how quickly they could swing from heartfelt intensity to being a total jackass.
God help me. It was one of those nights when I was regretting every decision I'd ever made.
Fourteen
Astrid
Frustration bubbled through me, and I stabbed a pin into the dress form. The oversized coat was technically perfect—all sharp lines, dramatic length, and bold shoulders—but something was still missing.
I stepped back, eyeing it, Katie sitting on the floor somewhere behind me going through discarded swatches. "Everything okay?" she asked a little hesitantly.
Sighing, I tried to stifle the wave of annoyance. What was wrong with me lately? Everything and everyone was getting on my nerves. It was like that dream that I'd had days ago was still affecting me, like I was still living it.
Damn Tristan Hawthorne popping back into my life and wreaking havoc. I couldn't stand that man.
Ever sincethatnight, I'd been a rocket full of rage about to shoot off with the slightest bit of provocation. Not that I had. The good girl part of me was too deeply ingrained in me, too much of a force field for even a rocket to break through.
So I shoved all my feelings down, keeping them bottled up, only letting out little leaks of pressure, like with what I'd done to Tristan last weekend, hopefully leading him on a wild goose chase looking for me Friday night. It was nothing really, justsmall revenge side plots to torment him during the buildup to the big one, which was breaking his heart.
Oh, crap.
Any time I thought of the end game, nausea rumbled through me. It was a big, big plan. Too big perhaps for me to successfully pull off.
Whenever I voiced any doubts about it to my sisters, they'd assure me that I was more than capable of carrying it all out to the grand finale. And then, they'd give me the pep talk I needed, rallying me and reminding me of Tristan's awful misdeed in high school—not that I would ever in my life need reminding—exclaiming about how he deserved every rotten thing coming to him and more.
Of course, he did. There was no doubt about that part of it.
According to them, our plan wasn't big enough. If it were up to them? The man would be in jail right now.
I mean, they weren't wrong. I just hoped I could do this thing and do it successfully.
With a sigh, I shoved an errant lock of hair behind my ear, still staring at the offending coat. "I don't know," I finally said, belatedly answering my assistant. "It's okay, but I wantmore."
"I think it's beautiful as is."
Katie was a great cheerleader, and I loved her for it. But the buck stopped with me. Ultimately, I was responsible for what went down the runway. I was the one being judged, and I was the one who had to face the consequences, for better or worse.
Stepping back, I accidentally bumped into a mannequin. "Sorry," I automatically mumbled under my breath, annoyance flaring up momentarily that I'd forgotten to move it back where it belonged.
Something pricked at the edge of my awareness, something just out of reach, and then it suddenly hit me—I'd just said sorry to a mannequin. A mannequin!
I was sick to death of saying sorry to everyone and everything. My heart pounded with the dawning of an idea as my brain slowly latched onto it.
