Dashing Through the No (Summersweet Island 3)

“Yes. Her name is Allie Parker, she’s the same age as me, and we’re going to be best friends forever.” Millie takes another sip of her McDonald’s drink and then points the straw at me, changing the subject. “You should let your hair grow out. That blond, closely shaved on the sides, slicked back on top look isn’t good with your bone structure. I see you with more of a shaggy, surfer look.”

I start coughing and choking on my own spit so hard when Millie says “surfer” that she has to set her drink down on a table and reach over and pat me on the back a few times while she continues talking.

“Do you even own a T-shirt? I’d like to see you in something of the soft cotton variety, like an old concert tee. Dare I say, you could even pull off cargo shorts? You just… don’t look right in a tuxedo, my sweet friend. Handsome as hell, don’t get me wrong. But you look like that time I was out with Britney and we ran into Justin. A little pukey and very uncomfortable.”

My closet is filled with nothing but designer suits, polo shirts, button-downs, and dress pants. I don’t own cargo shorts. Or any concert T-shirts, because I’ve spent my entire life studying, and always being good, and always making the right choices so I don’t end up in the tabloids and mess up my father’s career. It doesn’t matter that all the people he thinks I should be friends with are literally the scum of the earth who make all the wrong choices. And I’ve had a standing appointment with my father’s stylist for a haircut every six weeks since I was ten years old. I don’t even know if my hair can grow out any longer, but now I have the sudden urge to never cut it again.

“FYI, valet has the good weed tonight.”

“I don’t do drugs,” I reply, panting as I speak, wondering why it suddenly feels like it’s a hundred degrees in here and I’m sweating my ass off.

Millie laughs and shakes her head at me, grabbing her drink from the table and taking another sip.

“Oh, sweetie, you’re so cute and innocent.” She sighs, talking to me like she’s the adult and not four years my junior, cocking her head to the side as she watches me fan my face while my chest feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter. “But seriously, go to the valet for the good weed. Stay away from the coat check room. There’s so much coke being snorted in there it looks like the inside of a snow globe.”

My panting breaths cut off for a second as I raise one eyebrow at her. Even though Millie came out of the womb as a mature adult, she’s still like a little sister to me.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I haven’t done coke since that Christmas party at Marilyn Manson’s house last year,” she informs me. “It was so boring. You would expect someone like him to at least sacrifice a human or two over eggnog. After he made us sing “Silent Night” for the third time surrounding his piano, I started sprinkling it in my cocoa.”

“So that’s why you’re banned from his house,” I muse. “I always wondered.”

“I thought his grandmother was the maid. She looked parched, so I gave her my drink. I didn’t tell her to snort lines off of the bartender or remove any article of clothing. That was all her,” Millie complains.

I hear my name being shouted from across the room and turn to look through the sea of people to find Brandon waving at me while making hip-thrusting motions behind the female pink-onesie-wearing server from earlier, and my heart starts beating faster again.

A few feet away from Brandon, my father makes eye contact with me, smiles, and motions me over to a group of men from his firm and a reality star who was just accused of sexually assaulting a minor. My skin breaks out into a cold sweat once more, and I quickly loosen my tie completely until it’s just hanging around my neck, while I unbutton the top two buttons of my white dress shirt. It feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t take a deep breath as I stand here surrounded by celebrities and the Hollywood elite, panting like a damn dog.

“Are you okay? Now you look like I did that morning I woke up in Lindsay Lohan’s bathtub,” Millie says, studying my face closely.

“I’m fine.” I wave her away with my hand and a smile in between pants, even though I’m definitely not fine, and all I want to do right now is jump into the ocean and swim the hell away from here. “But I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”