Kingmakers, Year Two

8. Miles

8

MILES

I know Rocco Prince won’t lay low for long. There’s no way he’ll just swallow the insult of me interfering with his abuse of his fiancée.

It’s impossible for us to avoid each other—we’re both Juniors and both Heirs, so at least half of our classes are shared.

We had a cordial relationship up to this point—not friendly, but he used to buy mushrooms off me, and once Ozzy sold him an old iPhone loaded with some pretty fucked up porn.

The iPhones are one of our most popular products. We buy old models super cheap, then pre-download them with music, movies, and pornography, and sell them to students for $500 a pop. We offer an exchange program to swap out your old phone for a fresh slate of content, but most of the time they have to buy a new one ‘cause some teacher has confiscated it .

Cellphones are forbidden on the island. Also laptops and iPads. Speakers and iPods are allowed, as long as the only thing they do is play music.

Even just the charging is a hassle. There’s barely any outlets in the castle, none at all in the dorms.

No cell phone service, so all calls home to family have to be made from the bank of telephones in the Keep. No internet access. All assignments must be written by hand.

Of course, those rules are for the plebs.

Ozzy and I have GPS phones that work anywhere, and we’ve figured out how to hack into the school’s server. We’re about to secure a whole new way of connecting—our very own Starlink satellite. We just have to figure out where to hide it.

That’s the project for this afternoon.

This morning I’m dealing with Rocco Prince, Jasper Webb, Dax Volker, and Wade Dyer, who have apparently decided that they’re willing to jeopardize their access to the school black market in favor of airing their grievances against me.

We’re all in Chemistry class together, in the Keep with Professor Lyons. She looks like your average lab assistant, standing in front of the class in her white coat and her safety glasses, her gray hair cut in a sensible bob. You might even think her grandmotherly, with her sleepy-lidded eyes and her casual lecture style. Yet she has one of the highest kill counts of any former assassin, specializing in undetectable poisons and deaths that could be ruled as heart attack or stroke.

She taught us all about those poisons in our Freshman year. As Sophomores we focused on homemade explosives. Now we’re moving on to the manufacture of hard drugs.

“Opium is one of humanity’s most ancient drugs,” Professor Lyons says, looking a bit like she’s taken a hit from the pipe herself as she blinks at us with those heavy-lidded eyes. “The use of opium, both medicinally and recreationally, can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia. That precious nectar comes from the common poppy— papaver somniferum, the very bloom you grow in your garden, from which you can extract seeds for pastries or bagels. The very bloom you see upon your desks right now.”

We’re sitting at wide tables outfitted with lab equipment. I’m sharing with Ozzy, while Rocco Prince and Wade Dyer sit directly to our right, and Jasper and Dax behind us. If that’s supposed to be intimidating, it’s not. Dax breathes so loud he’d have no chance of surprising me, and Rocco’s dirty looks are B+ at best after you’ve been on the receiving end of Uncle Nero’s death stare.

As Professor Lyons indicated, each table bears a brilliant scarlet poppy with an ink-black center and a fuzzy stem. She instructs us to don our latex gloves so we can slice the poppy’s bulb to collect the thick, sludgy opium gum .

Rocco picks up his scalpel but doesn’t touch his poppy. He grasps the handle, silver blade pointed in my direction.

“Don’t be shy,” I say to him. “Or do you need me to hold it down for you?”

I’m provoking him, I know that. The truth is, I’m also holding a grudge from our little confrontation. If I’ve triggered Rocco’s animosity, he’s sure as fuck triggered mine.

Deftly, without even looking, Rocco slits the poppy bulb. White sap oozes out.

“I could slit your throat just as easy,” he hisses, his eyes fixed on me.

“You could try,” I scoff. “You might have an overinflated sense of your own abilities. Not everybody’s as slow as your boy Dax. Or as dumb as Wade over there.”

Dax shifts his bulk in his chair, and Wade growls, “Fuck you, Griffin. You’re not smart enough to mind your own business, are ya?”

Whenever Wade gets mad, he reminds me of a bully in an 80s movie. It’s something about his bland good looks, the blond hair and the cleft chin. He looks like Rip from Less Than Zero , or Ace Merrill from Stand By Me .

Ozzy says, “Wade, you’re not the dumbest guy on earth, but you sure better hope he doesn’t die. ”

It takes Wade a couple of seconds to figure that out, and in the interval Ozzy and I burst out laughing at the blank confusion on his face. Professor Lyons gives us an irritated glare.

Under her quelling stare we all go quiet for a minute, but I know it won’t last. Dax, Wade, and Rocco are all riled up, like a pack of dogs when somebody drags a stick along the fence. Only Jasper seems indifferent, behind and to the right in my peripheral. He’s working on his poppy, his skeletal tattoos still visible through the translucent gloves, seemingly deaf to the storm brewing around him.

“Once you’ve collected the sap, we’ll use solvents to extract the morphine solution,” Professor Lyons says, writing the chemical ingredients on the chalkboard.

“I’ll get all that shit,” Ozzy says, scribbling the list in ink on the back of his hand so he won’t have to make multiple trips to the supply cabinet if he forgets anything. “You jerk off the poppy.”

Wade follows Ozzy to the cabinet.

I pick up my own scalpel, intensely aware that Rocco and I are now both armed with only two feet of space between us. Holding a knife gives me a strange impulse to slash his fucking face open. Or maybe stab him in the eye, like he tried to do to Zoe. My hand feels twitchy and charged, as if it’s taken on a life of its own .

Technically, I’m the one in the wrong. Rocco and Zoe are engaged, and I have no right to interfere in their business.

On the other hand, Rocco fucking sucks and the more I get to know Zoe, the more I think it’s tragic for her to be the plaything of this lunatic.

“You don’t want to make an enemy of me. It wouldn’t be wise,” Rocco says. His sibilant voice draws out the “s” in “wise.”

Usually I’d say, “ I have no interest in being enemies.”

I’ve seen the havoc it wreaks. My family’s long and bloody battle with the Bratva in Chicago resulted in my grandfather’s death. Uncle Dante was shot, Uncle Nero almost killed. The grudge has lasted twenty years and is still carried on at this fucking school by Dean Yenin, the Bratva heir who tried to drown Leo last year.

The problem is . . . I really don’t like Rocco. I don’t like anything he stands for. The idea of making peace with him tastes like vomit in my mouth.

So I say, “Zoe’s best friends with my cousin. Me, Leo, Anna . . . we’re looking out for her. If you don’t want to be enemies, then keep your fucking hands off her.”

“You have a strange sense of justice,” Rocco says, his blue eyes fevered. “Would I tell you not to drive your own car? Or eat the food in your own fridge? ”

“You’re not married to her yet.”

“The contract is signed.”

“Yeah? Where’s the clause about cutting her eye out? Are you too stupid to take care of your own property?”

“It’s none of your business what I do to Zoe. I could set her on fire just to watch her burn.”

My stomach churns at the look of amusement on his face. I don’t believe in good and bad people. But Rocco radiates a level of evil I’ve never encountered before.

I’m good at reading people. I look for micro-expressions—hints of fear, anxiety, desire, deception in their face.

Rocco doesn’t have micro-expressions. His emotions aren’t complex. His intentions are simple: he wants to hurt Zoe for the fun of it. And he wants me to stop inconveniencing him.

“We’re not going to stand by for that,” I tell him flatly.

“That’s your choice,” Rocco says. “This was your warning. There won’t be another.”

Ozzy returns from the supply cupboard, arms laden with baggies and jars. Carefully he sets them down on the table, then slides into his chair once more. He looks over at Rocco, his broad face creased in a scowl, checking to see if we’re still barking back and forth at each other. Rocco smiles at him, his thin lips like a gash in the lower half of his face .

Wade finishes gathering his supplies, his arms even more heavily-laden than Ozzy’s. He walks slowly and deliberately. As he passes Ozzy, he drops an open beaker of clear fluid all over Ozzy’s bare forearm.

Howling, Ozzy leaps up from his seat.

The fluid sizzles on his arm, his flesh instantly lobster red and even bubbling in places. I smell chlorine.

Ozzy tries to run for the door, probably to sprint to the infirmary, but I seize him by the collar of his sweater vest and drag him backward. Yanking the faucet handle, I seize Ozzy’s wrist and thrust his arm under the steady flow of cold water to flush the area clean.

“What’s going on?” Professor Lyons shouts.

“Wade spilled something on Ozzy’s arm,” I say. “I think it’s hydrochloric acid.”

Professor Lyons uses tongs to lift the spilled beaker off the desktop and hold it aloft in front of her safety glasses. She squints at the soaked, blurred label.

“Why was this open?” she demands.

“It was an accident,” Wade says, trying to get in front of the story before we can accuse him. “I thought it was benzene.”

“Then you’re an idiot,” she snaps. “Go to the cabinet. Get me calcium gluconate. Try reading the label this time.” Then, adjust ing the faucet slightly, she says to me, “You keep that water running over his arm for twenty minutes. Not too hard—just like this.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” I tell her.

She surveys the scene with eyes no longer sleepy but sharp as a hawk. “How do you know? Wade is an idiot.”

“He tripped,” Dax says from behind me. “Miles stuck his foot out on purpose. I saw the whole thing.”

“That’s fucking bullshit!” I snarl.

Professor Lyons ignores my profanity. Cursing is common as breathing at Kingmakers.

“Twenty minutes,” she reminds me. “Then we’ll apply the calcium gluconate.”

Ozzy’s face is a rictus of pain, his lips drawn back to show his tightly-clenched teeth, his stocky body rigid and trembling as the acid continues to burn the exposed nerves of his arm. I hope the cool water is soothing him a little.

As soon as Professor Lyons moves away to dispose of the empty beaker of acid, I hiss at Wade, “You’re fucking dead for this.”

He smirks. “They’re not even gonna punish me. It’s four against two that I’m just clumsy. ”

“Think twice before you stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong,” Dax grunts at me, shoving his desk forward so it hits the back of my legs. I’d fucking pop him, but I have to keep holding Ozzy’s arm under the water. Ozzy’s shaking so hard that I don’t think he could do it himself.

I’m ten times angrier that Wade attacked Ozzy than if he’d dropped that shit on me. I’m sure that’s why he did it—failing to protect your soldiers is a grave insult in our world. Ozzy isn’t really my soldier—he’s an Heir himself, the only child of the Duncans, with sole control of criminal activity within Tasmania. But on campus, I make the plans and he helps execute them. As with any set of best friends, one of us has to take the lead.

I feel responsible for this.

The burn is fucking awful, the flesh raw and sure to scar.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I mutter to Ozzy.

“I know,” he grunts, red and sweating with pain. “It’s not that. It’s my Tails.”

“Your Tails?” I ask blankly.

“Yeah…” He grimaces in agony. “On my arm. He was my favorite. And now look at him.”

I look at the spot on his forearm where the doubled-tailed fox used to reside. It’s nothing but a red, swollen mess now, with barely a hint of an outline where the tattoo used to be.

“Ozzy . . .” I say. “That was your worst tattoo.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It was fuckin’ hideous, man. So bad. He looked like a squirrel. Honestly, Wade kinda did you a favor.”

I say that low, because fuck Wade if he thinks I’m being serious. He’s gonna pay for this, whether the school punishes him or not.

Ozzy laughs, though it comes out more like a groan. “Tails was wonky,” he admits. “But that’s why I liked him.”

When the twenty minutes elapses, Professor Lyons applies the calcium gluconate to Ozzy’s arm. She squirts it out of a tube similar to toothpaste. It seems to ease his pain a little. The professor wraps his arm in clean gauze.

“Take him to the infirmary so Dr. Cross can check him out,” she says.

“Can I bring a couple of those poppies with me?” Ozzy asks weakly. “Feel like I might need a taste of the dragon, you know what I mean, Professor?”

“You can ask Dr. Cross for painkillers,” she says unsympathetically .

“Come on.” I grab Ozzy’s bookbag.

I’m sure Dr. Cross will be thrilled to see me again.

Ozzy stays overnight in the infirmary. When he returns to class the next day, his left hand is stiff and swollen and the whole arm is wrapped up, hung in a sling to help protect it from jostling. Ozzy tells me the flesh is still raw. The slightest contact, even over the gauze, is agonizing.

I’m fucking furious that this happened to Ozzy because of me. I hook him up with some of our best edibles to take the edge off, but I need something better than that to cheer him up. So I get up nice and early the following morning and sneak into the Gatehouse.

The Gatehouse is where the Enforcers have their dorms. The rooms are neat and uniform, having been used in the old days as barracks for soldiers. Almost no female students are Enforcers, except for Ilsa Markov, who I’ll admit is a pretty fucking badass bitch.

There’s a distinct smell of testosterone and unwashed socks in the air. Also the overpowering Aqua Di Gio Wade always wears. I’d be able to find his room even if I didn’t already know which one was his .

From what I’ve observed, he likes to get up nice and early to hit the gym in the Armory before class starts. He’s part of the 6:00 a.m. crowd, along with Dax, Dean Yenin, and the rest of the masochists.

I wait outside his door, hearing him rustling around while he pulls on his gym clothes and those spotless white tennis shoes of his. I hear three distinct spritzes as he douses himself in cologne, which assaults my nostrils a few seconds later as the sharp scent seeps through the cracks around the door.

I’m waiting to the right of said door, phone in my left hand, right hand curled around my zippo for a little extra oomph.

The hinges creak and I ready myself.

The moment Wade opens the door, I haul off and punch him in the nose with all my might. It’s a sucker punch, totally unexpected, and not something I would usually do. But in this case, it’s fully deserved.

Wade clamps his hands over his nose, blood already rocketing out, spurting through his fingers.

“Smile, bitch,” I say.

I raise my phone and snap a quick pic of his howling face. Then I hightail it out of there before the rest of the Enforcers wake up and make it something like a fair fight .

I present Ozzy the picture over breakfast. He laughs so hard that tears come to his eyes.

“That was this morning?” he says. “Where is he? I wanna see it in person.”

He looks around the dining hall, hoping to see Wade slumped over his pancakes with a couple tampons stuffed up his nose. No luck—he must still be holed up in the bathroom trying to get the bleeding to stop.

“D’you think it’s broken?” Ozzy asks hopefully.

“I damn well hope so,” I say.

Wade does not appear for our Structural Organization class, though Rocco and Dax must have heard about the retaliation, because they’re glaring at us worse than ever.

I’m going against my usual policy of de-escalation, but I don’t give a fuck. I was a good boy my first two years at Kingmakers, relatively speaking. It’s about time I had a little fun.

“You up for installing that satellite?” I ask Ozzy.

“Yeah,” he says. “I only got one arm though, so you’re gonna have to do the heavy lifting.”

The Starlink satellite dish is small and compact, less than two feet in diameter. It needs a clear line of sight up to the sky, and the higher we mount it, the better. Most of all, it can’t be spotted—it was a fuckin’ pain in the ass smuggling this thing onto t he island. The last thing I need is some school employee ripping it down again right after I put it up.

We need it close, so the obvious choice is one of Kingmaker’s six towers. The Octagon Tower in which we have our rooms would be ideal, but it’s packed with male Heirs. Even the attic space is occupied. The Library Tower is out because of Miss Robin. Nobody lives in the attic of the Accountant’s tower—all their rooms are on the lower levels. But it would look strange for Ozzy and me to be traipsing up there with a suspicious package under my arm.

The Dungeon Tower is empty, but the doors are always locked whether there’s a prisoner inside or not—with modern electronic bolts, not the rusty old key-locks I could practically pick with a fingernail. And the Bell Tower was never rebuilt after it was ravaged by fire a hundred years ago. That rickety pile of stones looks ready to tumble down at a moment’s notice—we’d be risking our necks just walking through the door.

That leaves the Rookery. It’s the smallest tower, nestled up on the north end of the cathedral. It’s full of feathers and birdshit, but I think it will suit our purposes.

Ozzy keeps a lookout while I jimmy the lock at the base of the stairs. We slip inside, over steps spattered with dusty white guano. Tiny bits of down float in the still air.

Dozens of homing pigeons used to roost in here. Falcons, too, on the lower levels. The ammonia stench is eye-watering, but it won ’t matter. We won’t be spending much time in here. Once we’ve got the satellite in place, we can set up our own private network, unsearchable and undetectable unless you already know its name. Ozzy and I will have lightning-speed internet while lounging around in our dorm room.

Assuming he can get back the use of his hand so he can type again. FUCK Wade Dyer, and Rocco Prince, too.

Ozzy must be thinking the same thing. As I organize the tools to cut a hole in the steeply-pitched roof, he says, “Can’t wait to get this running.”

“Glad I’ve got you to do it,” I say. “I’m not bad with this shit, but you’re so much better.”

“SO much better,” Ozzy agrees, grinning.

“Good thing no girls ever liked you, so you had plenty of time to practice.”

He snickers. “They shouldn’t like me, but for some reason they do. Girls just don’t know what’s good for ‘em.”

“Yeah, neither do guys,” I say, thinking about Zoe again.

She pops into my brain multiple times a day. When I’m around Anna and Leo, Chay and Zoe, I can’t keep my eyes off her. I don’t know what it is. She’s not as loud as Chay, not as flashy as the other girls at school. Lately she’s been dressing like a boy in her oxfords and trousers. Somehow it only makes her se xier. Maybe ‘cause I know what’s under those clothes now. I shouldn’t be thinking about her figure—I was never supposed to see it in the first place. But fucking hell, I can’t forget it. I’ve never seen a body like that, not anywhere.

And it’s not just her looks. It’s the way she doesn’t talk often, but when she does, anything she says is intelligent and well-reasoned. She has this quiet dignity that reels me in, even when I know she’s about the worst possible candidate for a crush.

“Yup, we’re just as dumb,” Ozzy laughs. “I’ve got a real bonehead plan for the weekend.”

“Oh yeah?” I grin. “What’s that?”

“Gonna take another swing at Chay.”

I shake my head at him. ”What’s this, the fifth time?”

“Sixth,” Ozzy says.

“Maybe she’ll pity-fuck you now that you’re a cripple.”

“You think?” Ozzy says hopefully.

I’m sure Ozzy’s planning to make his move at the Halloween party. If Chay’s gonna be there, I wonder if Zoe will be, too? She doesn’t always come to parties because her shithead cousins rat her out to her dad. But if I don’t let the cousins in . . .

“Alright,” I say to Ozzy, “I’m ready to start cutting. You got the safety glasses?”

“Yup,” Ozzy says, passing me a pair. “Pocketed them before Wade flambéed my arm, luckily. ‘Cause, being honest, I wasn’t gonna remember afterward.”

“Yeah . . . well he’s not gonna remember what his nose used to look like either,” I say.

Laughing, we start sawing through the roof.

Ozzy and I are throwing a Halloween party at the old stables. We’re charging a fifty-dollar cover with the promise of unlimited spiked punch. The cover isn’t the money-maker. It’s the metric fuck-ton of Molly that everybody buys once they’re tipsy and dancing.

Throwing a party is all about creating a mood. I hire a couple of Freshman Accountants to make me a thousand black paper bats that hang from the rafters. Then I rig up some spooky red lights, surround the punch bowls with smoking dry ice courtesy of the Chemistry lab, and queue up a killer playlist.

I love music, always have. It does something to my brain. When I’ve got just the right beat going, and a complicated melody on top, I feel like I can think ten times faster, like my mind is going a million miles a minute .

I invite Leo and Anna, informing Anna that Martin Romero and Santiago Cruz won’t make it through the door.

Anna cocks one darkly-penciled eyebrow.

“Is that for Zoe’s benefit? You’ve become so . . . helpful.”

“Yeah. I’m a nice guy.”

“Since when?” she laughs.

“Just tell her,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant. “I never liked those fucksticks anyway. So no loss there.”

I don’t know if Zoe plans to come, but I’m strangely keyed up as the kids start pouring through the door, some of them dressed in the kind of makeshift costumes you can cobble together from shit you happen to have on hand.

Kasper Markaj dressed as a Spartan, wearing just his underwear and a red velvet curtain draped over his shoulders like a cape. Isabel Dixon teased up her hair and covered herself in charcoal, so she looks electrocuted, while her boyfriend Hiram Stokes hung a paper lightning bolt around his neck.

Everybody’s ramped up to celebrate the holiday. The party is bumping ten minutes after I open the doors. Ozzy’s collecting the cover charges as fast as he can with just one arm, and I’m pretending to welcome everybody, while actually keeping my eyes peeled for the people I want to see, as well as the ones who can fuck off back to their dorms .

Anna arrives wearing her most tattered clothes, with some pretty impressive zombie makeup all over her face. She’s done the same to Leo, but his blinding smile makes him look much too alive to be undead.

“Congrats,” I say to him.

Leo was just chosen Sophomore Captain for the Quartum Bellum . It was pretty much guaranteed to happen, after the unprecedented victory of the Freshmen last year, but now it’s official.

“Thanks,” he says. “Can’t say I’m quite as excited this time around—knowing what I’m up against.”

“Can’t be worse than last year,” Ozzy says.

“It can always be worse.” Leo grimaces.

“Yeah—like having Simon Fowler for your Captain,” Ozzy complains.

Simon is a Junior Heir with a high opinion of himself and a generous bankroll from his parents. He openly gave out cash to earn votes for the Captainship. I don’t give a shit, because I don’t give a shit about the Quartum Bellum . But I’m not exactly looking forward to taking orders from someone who would suck his own cock if he were flexible enough.

“Just you two tonight?” I say to Anna.

“Relax.” She smiles. “Zoe’s coming with Chay. ”

“I was just asking. For the cover charge,” I say quickly.

“You’re not gonna charge us!” Anna cries, outraged.

“Absolutely I am. Leo can down an entire punch bowl by himself.”

“What’s the family discount?” Leo says.

“Two for the price of two.”

“I’ll pay it,” Leo says. “But only ‘cause poor Ozzy’s having such a shit week. He deserves it.”

“Thank you,” Ozzy says, taking Leo’s crisp hundred-dollar bill and tucking it directly into his pocket. “Couldn’t go to a better cause.”

When I turn around again, I’m facing an angel.

Zoe’s wearing a diaphanous white gown that seems to float around her body. On her shoulders, intricately-cut wings made of paper and wire. Her dark hair is loose and shining. Her skin glows in the moonlight.

“Jesus . . .” I say.

“No.” Zoe gives me a small smile. “Just one of his friends.”

Chay stands next to her, dressed like the devil in a tight red jumpsuit.

Ozzy gives an appreciative whistle .

“Tell me who I have to kill to go to that version of hell,” he says, looking her up and down.

Chay grins. “If you take up the whole sidewalk with your friends and walk real slow so I can’t get by . . . eternal torment. If you mix the guacamole too much so it’s mushy . . . pitchfork, right up your ass.”

“Go on . . .” Ozzy says, looking titillated.

Cat trails behind the older girls, wearing an oversized black pullover and little black cat ears, with whiskers drawn on her face. It’s the obvious choice of costume for her, but it’s also fucking adorable. She really does look like a fluffy kitten, especially with her black curls wild around her face.

“You look great,” I tell Cat. She looks alarmed that I noticed her.

Chay holds out a wad of cash. I wave it away.

“No charge.”

“You sure?” Chay says.

“I never charge friends.”

“What the hell!” Leo calls back over his shoulder, still within earshot of this rank hypocrisy.

“Except him,” I tell Chay. “He can afford it.”

I can feel Zoe watching me. My face feels strangely warm .

“Go on,” I say to the girls. “Have a ball.”

Chay and Cat head inside, but Zoe pauses as she passes me.

“Where’s your costume?”

I turn so she can see the back of my jersey. “Number 23…I’m Jordan.”

She smiles. “I thought Leo was the baller.”

“Oh yeah, he’s way better than me,” I admit. “I just wanted to wear the shoes. Air 7s—same ones Jordan wore on the Dream Team at the ‘92 Olympics.”

Zoe admires my sneakers, something that usually would make me supremely happy, but right now I’m not thinking about my shoes at all. I’m looking at her face. I’ve never seen such smooth, clear skin. It makes me think of the flawless skin all over the rest of her body. I shove that thought away roughly. It’s sleazy, something that Rocco himself would dwell on—a view stolen from Zoe without her consent.

“I like vintage,” Zoe says.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. Especially things from old TV shows and movies. Like if I was ever going to buy a gown for myself, I’d love to get one like Marilyn wore in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Do you kn ow the one I mean?”

A crowd of students is trying to get through the door behind us. I’m blocking their way. But I want to talk to Zoe, so I say to Ozzy, “You got this?” and Ozzy says, “Yeah, go on, mate.”

“Let me get you a drink,” I say to Zoe, as an excuse to keep her right by me.

I lead her over to the punch bowl. “It’s good, I promise. Not some mixed-up toilet bowl shit—quality liquor.”

“I trust you.” She smiles up at me.

Those words send a thrill through my whole body.

I pour her a cup of punch, careful not to splash a single drop on her snow-white gown.

“Tell me about the Marilyn dress…”

“It was hot pink. Perfectly-fitted. With long, matching gloves. I don’t even look good in pink, but the color was so vivid and so powerful . . . you don’t think of pink being powerful, but it can be. On the right person.”

“I don’t believe you,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe you don’t look good in pink.”

Zoe’s cheeks flush a shade lighter than her lips, and I say, “See—you’re pink right now, and you look better than ever. ”

Zoe fixes me with those light-green eyes, that always seem to have a storm behind them.

“Are you flirting with me, Miles?”

I consider denying it. But Zoe is so honest, it demands the same from me.

“Yes,” I say simply. “I definitely am.”

“Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“No. And I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to keep doing it, unless you tell me to stop.”

I watch her face closely, to see her reaction to this.

She considers.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she says.

“Good. ‘Cause I wasn’t going to.”

She laughs.

I don’t know if I ever heard Zoe laugh before this year. It’s a captivating sound, low and intimate, meant only for me.

“I knew you were trouble,” she says.

“You have no idea.”