Then she looked up at me. “Sorry. Like, I know you just moved here and all. But I can’t wait to get the hell out of here.”
I nodded sympathetically as she started picking at the corner of the invitation on the table again. “What’s that?” I asked, as innocently as I could muster.
She scoffed. “Crazy. Crazy is what this is.” She shook her head and picked up the gold-inscribed invitation.
Then she laid it down again and covered it up with her hand, glancing around her like she might get caught doing something by someone watching her.
She leaned in over the table, and I leaned in too.
“You grew up around here, right?”
I nodded.
“So have you ever heard of the Order? Like, that secret society thing that can offer pretty girls anything they ever wanted and make all their dreams come true?”
I licked my lips and then cursed myself for giving away such a tell. I tried to be more nonchalant as I nodded and then paused, my eyes going to the Invitation.
“Wait. You aren’t saying—” I scoffed and pretended to swig some of my drink, not really letting any of the actual liquid into my mouth.
Then I leaned in further and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I mean I saw that weird guy come in here. You aren’t saying that’s it? One of the, like, Invitation things?”
Her eyes got wide, and she nodded.
“Shut the front door!” I yelped and slapped the table.
She giggled and waved her hands at me, shushing. “Shhhh.” She looked around us again. “Shhh, I don’t want anyone else to know.”
I nodded and pretended to zip my lips closed. I moved around the table to a seat that was closer to her and then asked, “But seriously, are you just fucking with me? No way that guy actually gave you one of those Invitations. I thought it was all just made up.”
“It’s not! Look!”
She handed me the Invitation. Just handed it to me.
I took the precious, crisp thick-stock paper in my hand and carefully skimmed the gold lettering.
The Trials of Initiation for Beau Radcliffe.
Oh shit. There it was in black and white.
His name.
Beau Radcliffe.
I hadn’t even known his last name for the longest time. When I first heard his first name, I laughed. I thought it was bow like bowtie, and I wondered who would ever name their son Bow?
“But you aren’t actually thinking of doing it, are you?” I asked, handing it back to her.
She bit her bottom lip and then downed the rest of her vodka and coke, coughing a little afterwards before taking another long sip of the new glass the waitress had brought. Her eyes were teary from the sting of the alcohol which she was obviously not used to in such quantities or quick succession.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice bereft. She leaned in, her head bobbing, obviously a little drunk. She weighed a whole lotta nothing, and I had no clue how much she’d drunk before I’d helped her along with the extra vodka.
“I’ve heard shit,” she whispered, low, swaying even closer to me. “Bad shit about what goes on during the Initiation. Scary shit. I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to take it.”
She shook her head, her eyes going distant as she reached for the glass and again, emptied it.
Her eyes were bright and watery when she looked back at me. “But I don’t know what other choice I have. I’ve got nothing left. Daddy’s gone. Mama up and left us when I was just a kid. My brothers are assholes who don’t give a shit about me, and now that JJ dumped me and kicked me out…”
A big, beautiful tear slid down her porcelain cheek.
Well, fuck her. She was even beautiful when she cried. A more perfect candidate they could not have picked.
I was an ugly crier. There was little about me that could ever be interpreted as gentle, much less genteel.
But I could see why they’d picked her—this beautiful, delicate woman—to be a belle of the Midnight Ball.
Frankly, I was doing her a favor. The world would break a woman like her if she didn’t buck up and grow a thicker skin and fucking quick.
I reached out and grabbed her hands in mine. “You listen to me, Abilene. You are a strong woman. You’ve got this.”
When she started to shake her head, another beautiful tear cresting and falling down her cheek, I made my move.
I reached down into my purse and pulled out the two envelopes of cash I’d stashed there. It was all the money I had in the world. But you had to gamble on the big plays, and this was the biggest play of my life.
“Abby, listen to me. You’re right. I have heard about the Order, and the Trials, and everything it takes to make it to the end. What if…” I trailed off, trying to make it sound believable and natural, as if it was something I came up with as I went and not something I’d calculated for hours in the mirror last night. “What if we helped each other?”