Paradise Lost (Private 9)

Taylor laughed as Amberly and I glared at each other. Noelle could not be serious. But she sure looked serious. I couldn't believe it. Noelle was pitting me against Amberly?

"You guys! Dad's calling it a wrap! Do you want to take some pictures?" Tiffany called out, her oversize white shirt billowing in the breeze from down by the water.

"Definitely!" Noelle replied with a grin. She turned to pick up her plate and cup, but Amberly pounced on them.

"I'll get those for you!" she said with a smile.

"Well, thank you, Amberly," Noelle replied.

Amberly shot me a narrow-eyed look of triumph and walked off toward the garbage can next to the craft service table. I jogged after Noelle, who was already on her way to the makeup area--two chairs set up in front of huge mirrors lodged in the white sand.

"You're not really going to make me compete with her, are you? " I asked. "I'm a junior. I used to be president of the house. And you like me better!"

"All of that may be true, but you both want the same thing, and there has to be a fair way to decide who gets it," Noelle said as she sat in the first makeup chair.

"So whoever does more crap for you over the next few days gets to live with Constance, and whoever doesn't has to live in the triple?" I said. "How is that fair?"

"It's fair because I'm the president of Billings now, and I say it's fair," Noelle replied. "What could be more Billings than a good old-fashioned competition?"

172

Taylor smirked as she slipped into the second chair and pushed back her curls behind her ears.

"Gome on, Glass-Licker. It'll be fun," Noelle said. "Just like old times."

"Yeah. Way fun," I said sarcastically.

Noelle shot me an admonishing look, and then glanced at the hovering makeup artist. "I'm thinking earth tones for the eyes. Reed, would you mind getting me a bottle of water? I'm parched."

I took a deep breath and let it out. I could just walk away. Tell her to shove it. Living in Pemberly wasn't all bad. .. .

Oh, who was I kidding? I hated Pemberly. And I was not about to share a triple. No way, no how.

"Fine. Water it is."

"With a squeeze of lemon," Noelle said, raising a finger. "Just a squeeze."

I trudged past Taylor, who giggled and sang the word "freedom" under her breath. I paused for a second to glare at her.

"What? I'm sorry, but you totally walked into that one," she said, earning a pleased smile from Noelle.

It was all I could do to keep from dunking Taylor's face into the huge vat of powder on the counter in front of her. I had thought that Noelle and I were friends now. Equals. But Taylor was, unfortunately, right. If there was one constant with Noelle, it was that she lived for power, and Amberly and I had just dangled the perfect opportunity for power right in front of her salivating choppers.

173

CHAPTER 27 THE FOOTLOCKER ON THE FUTURE

I managed to avoid morphing into Noelle's slave by hanging out only with Upton for the next few days. We went for a hike to a gorgeous, secluded waterfall and explored some frigidly cold caves. We lay out in the sand, occasionally reading to each other when something seemed too good to keep to ourselves. We ate most of our meals on the beach just the two of us, avoiding Shutters and the crew-related drama.

And we made out. A lot. Pretty much everywhere we went. It was next to impossible to keep from kissing him, and he seemed to feel the same way about me.

Being with Upton kept me from thinking about a lot of things I probably would have been obsessing about otherwise. Like the Amberly situation, the Josh situation, the stalker situation. Luckily, there were no more disturbing feelings of being watched. I didn't know if Upton's constant presence at my side had scared off the

174

stalker, or if I had just imagined the whole thing. Either way, I was more than fine with it being over.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, I met Upton's parents. Not because we were at that stage in our relationship or anything, but because every year the Giles family welcomed the entire group and their families to their home for Christmas Eve dinner. So there I was, in a red flutter-sleeved wrap dress I'd borrowed from Kiran, meeting my vacation fling's parents on one of the biggest holidays of the year.