They might have been the most pow­er­ful of the Billings Girls, but I would still have the Billings name be­hind me. That had to count for some­thing. Didn't it?

So, re­al­ly, what did I have to lose?

I start­ed for the dress­er, but the mo­ment I did, a sick­en­ing dread came over me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't look through their pri­vate things. I couldn't help Natasha rat out Noelle and Ar­iana-- the on­ly peo­ple who had shown any re­al con­cern for me since Thomas left. Yeah, they made me do chores, but they were al­so my friends. Sort of. And be­sides, it was just wrong. So I told my­self I didn't have time--that I would deal with it lat­er--and I moved on.

Af­ter my show­er I pulled my damp hair back in­to a pony­tail, grabbed my books, and rushed out. That was when I heard the par­ty.

“Omigod! Look at this lug­gage! This is di­vine!”

“Open the big one! The big one!”

A cham­pagne bot­tle popped and a bunch of girls squealed. What was go­ing on down­stairs? It sound­ed like a bad episode of The Bach­elor. I slow­ly walked down the car­pet­ed steps and paused. The en­tire en­try room was filled with white he­li­um bal­loons. All the girls of Billings were gath­ered around a pile of elab­orate­ly dec­orat­ed gifts in the cen­ter of the floor, while al­ready-?opened box­es had been flung against the walls. Wrap­ping pa­per lit­tered the room and rib­bons had been strung from the ban­is­ter and the wall hang­ings. I saw Ki­ran slip a silk scarf around her neck and tip a glass of cham­pagne down her throat.

69

It was sev­en thir­ty in the morn­ing.

“What's go­ing on?” I asked, ar­riv­ing at the bot­tom stair.

“Glass-?lick­er! Just the girl I was look­ing for!” Ki­ran trilled. She grabbed a small box and hand­ed it to me with a flour­ish. "For you!

It was an iPod. A lim­it­ed-?edi­tion se­quined aqua iPod.

“What? Why?”

Ev­ery­one laughed.

“It's Ki­ran's birth­day!” Tay­lor an­nounced, look­ing more rosy-?cheeked than she had in days. Ev­ery­one whooped and hollered.

“It is? Hap­py birth­day!” I told her with a s

mile.

“And on Ki­ran's birth­day, we all get gifts,” Vi­en­na told me, sip­ping her cham­pagne.

“I don't get it,” I said.

“Ev­ery year it's the same thing,” Ki­ran said, rolling her eyes. “All these presents roll in from de­sign­ers and pho­tog­ra­phers and mag­azine ed­itors and stylists. So much crap I can't even fit it all in my room.”

“And there are al­ways tons of du­pli­cates,” Noelle said, fin­ger­ing a Louis Vuit­ton purse.

“So I give it all away,” Ki­ran said, throw­ing her hands up with a smile. “Or most of it, any­way. I think I'm keep­ing the lug­gage.”

“Oh,” Rose said, pout­ing. She had clear­ly been cov­et­ing the five-?bag set, hov­er­ing over it ev­er since I ar­rived.

“So that's for you,” Ki­ran said, ges­tur­ing at me with her cham­pagne glass.

70

“Re­al­ly? Even Cin­derel­la gets a gift?” I joked.

Ki­ran and Noelle looked at each oth­er and laughed. “Even Cin­derel­la,” Noelle said.

Ah. So that was it. No one else want­ed it, so I got it. Still, I couldn't com­plain. I was im­pressed that they had thought of me at all.

“Get over here!” Ki­ran said, throw­ing her arm around me and pulling me to­ward the gift pile. “There has to be some more good stuff that hasn't been claimed. Ev­ery­one clear out! Let Glass-?lick­er pick some­thing!”

There were a few grum­bles, but the girls backed off. I eyed the pile of de­sign­er tags, lit­tle blue box­es with white bows, big black box­es with gold rib­bon. These were Ki­ran's gifts. Ki­ran's things. And she was of­fer­ing to share it all. With me. No strings at­tached.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
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