Okay. Fine. Whatever. It didn't matter really. Because it was show time now.
I needed to woman up, get out there, and keep playing this revenge game. Time to lay on the charm, as much as I was capable of that, and make this man fall for me.
Holding up the long legs of his pants, I began to walk in my bare feet toward the closed door. But at the last second, something caught my eye, and I turned to glance at Tristan's memory board. My breath caught.
There on the corner, I recognized something...
It was the mask he'd worn to our event.
Stepping closer, I found the clues from our scavenger hunt, plus a napkin from the venue, and a flower petal from one of the displays.
I felt a funny flutter in my chest, my heart constricting.
Oh, no. I had to squash that. I was supposed to be makinghisheart constrict, not mine.
Letting my eyes wander over the rest of the memorabilia, I saw something that sent a chill down my spine. A photo, a groupof people dressed up and smiling, arms around each other's backs as they posed.
And their faces. My God. Their faces sent me straight back to high school. They were the faces that appeared in my nightmares, the features older now, but still very much recognizable.
Tristan was still friends with these jerks? The ones who had been left behind when he'd been kicked out of high school, the ones who'd taken up his torch and tormented me the last half of my senior year, subtly and slyly so they wouldn't get caught, making it almost worse.
A shudder went through me. They all still hung out? Did they talk about me? Had they looked me up? And did they still say nasty things about me, maybe even my clothing, my fashion line?
Was there a chance Tristan really knew who I was and he was just playing his own game?
Oh, God, this whole night was a total nightmare.What had I been thinking agreeing to this?I needed to talk to my sisters. I needed to get out of here.
A light knock sounded at the door. "You good?" Tristan asked. "Are the clothes okay?"
He didn't wait for a response, just opened the door a little, making me jump back from his memento wall like I was guilty of something. Which I wasn't.Hewas.
The adrenaline coursing through my limbs made me shaky, but it also did the unexpected—it gave me sudden resolve to power through the rest of this night. I'd keep up my strategy, then go home and regroup, talk to Annalise and Aria, maybe even check with Ethan and see if he could do some more investigating, to once again make sure Tristan wasn't the one deceivingme.
Tristan's eyes swept up and down my form, not for the first time tonight, and then a smile lit up his face. "I like it. You can wear my clothes any time you want to."
I had no idea what to say, still breathing deeply, trying to get over the shock of seeing my old bullies on his wall.
His eyes narrowed. "You good?"
Quickly, I nodded. I had to channel my inner actress and pretend like everything was hunky-dory.
His brows came together even more, and he opened his mouth to say something.
A loud voice came from down the stairs, interrupting him. "You guys are takingforever.At this rate, I'll be old enough to drink by the time the movie starts."
Tristan gave me an eye-roll, a wry smile on his face, while I said a silent thank you to Archie for giving me a moment to gather myself.
"Ready?" I asked, striding forward, doing my best to put everything behind me and forge ahead.
"Ready."
Still with my silly mask on, I walked downstairs holding my pant legs up so I didn't trip on them, kind of wondering how I'd gotten myself into this mess. My life had been just fine before, and I wasn't sure why I'd let things get so wild and out of control.
The smell of popcorn permeated the air, and we followed the scent to find that Archie had already made himself comfortable, sitting in a large recliner with a huge bucket in his lap. He tossed back a handful then spoke.
"What took you so long? Was Tristan trying to impress you by doing pushups again?"
Taking a seat on the couch, a laugh slipped out of me. "No. No pushups."
