Page 63 of Devious Lies (Cruel Crown)
My stomach flipped with stupid butterflies, and my fingers hovered over the red button, so close to ending the call before Reed asked, “Am I sure that I want to propose or am I sure that I want my best friend to be supportive and give me ideas?”
Point taken.
“Well, Basil likes big gestures.” Huge, ridiculous, ostentatious gestures. “Maybe take her to Hamilton and have the cast weave your proposal into the play? Like, a local version, because I doubt Broadway would do it.”
Perhaps Wicked. I’m sure Basil will identify with the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Can’t do Hamilton. Basil’s dad thinks Hamilton is a bastardized take on American history with too much diversity.”
And that’s the family you want to marry into?
I bit my tongue until I tasted copper and flipped the phone off video call, so I could talk without worrying Reed would discover I was living in a closet like a less-glamorous version of Harry Potter. Only, I was a Muggle, and life couldn’t get much more fucked-up than that.
“How about a helicopter—”
Reed cut me off, “No helicopters. Basil refuses to ride in one that isn’t manufactured by her dad’s aerospace company, and you know he hates me.”
Forgetting why I’d been whispering in the first place, I pushed my face into my make-shift pillow of shirts and screamed.
“What was that?” Reed asked.
“I think Alva Grace just screamed into her pillow.”
“Is that your neighbor’s name?”
“Yep.”
“Must be some sex.”
“Yep.”
“Any other ideas?”
“Not off the top of my head. I’ll think about it,” I promised and hung up.
Reed and Basil. Married. I no longer loved Reed like that, but I still thought he could do better. Nash’s escort perhaps, because at least she was willing to work for money.
I dragged my bottom lip into my mouth, wishing I could get full off lies and unfulfilled dreams.
I’d never starve again.
The fourth sign of the apocalypse came when I snuck down to the fifth floor, our makeshift design office, at exactly eight in the morning on the dot. Chantilly sat on the couch, watching The Titanic.
She paused on the scene where Rose pretends there’s no space on the debris she’s laying on and Jack dies. When Chantilly turned and saw it was me, she pressed play on the remote without a word.
If I’d surprised her, she didn’t show it. Maybe she hadn’t left me out of the email chain on purpose. And maybe that overweight bird I’d seen flying like a drunkard outside the window was really a pig with wings.
Chantilly ignored my existence and continued watching the movie, a tear trailing down her cheek as Rose’s selfishness kills the man she supposedly loves.
“Gets me every time,” Chantilly whispered to herself, not a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
Murder?
“Umm… okay,” I drew out, wondering where everyone else was. Ida Mae had told me eight sharp. “Where is everyone?”
“The meeting was pushed back an hour. Not my decision.” She swiped at the mascara trailing a path down her cheek. “Shit. I need to fix this,” she informed me as if I cared.
I whipped my phone out, typed out a message to Ben, and waited for everyone else to show up. I considered telling him I’d had a wet dream about him, but I decided to go for something PG, especially because I’d pictured him as Nash.
