* * *
By the next day all of that speculation seemed utterly ridiculous. As she fixed herself some cold cereal and milk, and looked around the shabby kitchen with its ancient appliances, cracked and peeling paint, and stained wallpaper, she swallowed down a lump of disappointment along with some orange juice. Because, really, what could someone like Sean Blackthorne have possibly seen in someone like her? She wasn’t a “lawyer’s daughter” anymore, or at least, not in ways that would count to the Blackthornes. She was the daughter of a cheap waitress that worked at a dive bar down near the docks. She hadn’t even been wearing her cute New York clothing; it had been what she’d gotten from the thrift store. Even if he had been marginally interested in her, once he checked on her background (and she knew from the way things worked back home that people like the Blackthornes always checked; pedigrees mattered to the upper crust) he’d know everything about her, and know she was never going to be “the right people.”
I bet the only reason he brought me up there last night was so his friends could scope me out, and once I was gone, they had something to make fun of, she thought bitterly. I bet if I call the number he gave me, it’ll be Dial-a-Prayer or Time-and-Temperature. Or something worse. Like, maybe one of his friends so they can record me making a fool of myself.
So when she wheeled down to the bookstore, she was in a pretty dismal state of mind.
Tim seemed to pick up that she was depressed; he told her the first cup was on the house, and pointed her at some magazines he’d just gotten in. She managed to get up enough politeness to thank him, but buried herself in a huge cup of latte rather than reading.
Maybe when the others get here, that silly anime game they are going to start will get my mind off things. Because now, all she could think about was to go over and over and over the things she had said and done at the party, trying to pick everything apart and figure out how Sean’s friends could have used any of it to mock her.
Seth was first through the door, and lit up when he spotted her. He waved to Tim as he quickly walked over to her, dropping his heavy backpack with a thud as he sat down. “Hey!” he said brightly. “So, what was the food like?”
His enthusiasm forced a smile out of her. “Really expensive finger food,” she told him. “Upscale versions of a cook-out. So…mini lobster rolls instead of hot dogs. Real bratwurst. Really expensive-beef hamburgers with bleu cheese and mushrooms. Baby veggies and avocado dip. Chips, but I think they were hand-cut and hand-fried, ’cause they were still warm. With sea salt, or pink volcanic salt, or salt and cracked black pepper.”
Seth’s face crinkled up, and he waved both hands at her. “Stop, I think I’m going to cry!”
Jake and Riley were the next to enter, with Wanda bringing up the rear. Everyone took their usual spots; Seth had gotten up to start on getting coffee for the group, save for Staci, who already had a mug.
“So, you didn’t turn into a pumpkin at the end of the night, right? You’ve gotta dish.” As Seth handed her a steaming mug, Riley nodded her thanks, blowing on it as she waited for Staci to spill all the details.
She stalled for time by dwelling on the details of the mansion, the pool, the garden, and the party, figuring that was what Riley wanted to hear anyway. “I didn’t go inside the mansion or the pool house,” she finished. “The drapes were open at the living room of the pool house, so I could see inside…it looked like a picture in a home design magazine, if you crossed fifties-retro with darker colors. There was a huge LCD-screen TV though.” She sighed. “It probably had cable, or satellite; it looked like it was playing music videos, but you couldn’t hear anything over the sound system around the pool.”
Cable and satellite; they seemed a million miles out of reach at this point.
“Anyway, I said I had to go home, and he sent me home in the limo,” she finished.
“That’s all? That’s it?” Riley asked.
“Oh, there was probably plenty after she left,” Wanda said cynically.
“Come on, Wanda. You just wish he had picked you instead.” Seth elbowed her lightly. Her return elbow was a little less than light. “Hey!”
“Hey what?” Wanda snorted. “I bet by the time she got there, half of people were so polluted they won’t remember she was there. And by the time she left, all the rest were so polluted they’ve forgotten. You know what’s sad?”
“I’ll bite,” Jake replied, lightly.
“To think of all that great food being wasted on people who won’t remember eating it, don’t appreciate it, and are probably throwing it up at this very moment.” Wanda actually looked a little…happy?…when she said that last.
“Well, someone has a job making it, at least,” Riley observed. “So I guess that’s good.”
“Whatever,” Wanda said. “I just think it’s borderline creepy; party with a lot of underage drinking, spiriting a girl away—specifically away from her friends—to be alone with you at said party? There are news stories that start that way.”
“I don’t want to think about that,” said Seth. “Ew. Besides, nothing happened, and Prince Charming sent her home untouched in the coach with white horses. Your ability at prediction, Wanda, is right up there with Miss Cleo.”
Who’s Miss Cleo? Staci wondered. But Seth was still talking.
“Anyway, have you all got character sheets made out? Staci, I did yours like I promised; I figured you’d want to play a Magical Girl. Schoolgirl sailor suit is optional. Tentacles are off the menu.”
By this point her spirits had revived. “They had tempura-battered calamari,” she teased.
“Stop!” Seth moaned.
* * *
Although she’d been skeptical, the first game session had been fun. She’d watched enough anime to know what was expected of a Magical Girl—although apparently her character was not yet aware she was a Magical Girl. That was fine, a lot of anime started that way too, so she knew what was expected of a Magical Girl who didn’t know yet. Even Tim had smiled at some of the antics that Seth got them all up to. The guy had one heck of an imagination—and, she suspected, had seen way more girl-centered anime than he was ever going to admit to watching. I bet he has the entire Sailor Moon collection. And Princess Tutu.
She did not call Sean, now absolutely certain he had given her some sort of a prank number as a joke. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense. He probably gave me the number of one of his friends, actually, she was thinking, as she went down to the curb the next morning to bring in the mail—which Mom had, predictably, forgotten to do. That L.L. Bean catalog should be coming any day now, and she was getting to the end of her thrift-store clothes. She wasn’t sure how much of her wardrobe was going to survive a round in the ancient washing machine in the basement.
In a rare display of good luck, the catalog was there. So were several others, which she might be able to exercise her bank card on. She was just closing up the mailbox when the sound of a car horn lightly tapped made her turn and look up the street. Not that she thought it was for her, but this would be the first car other than Sean’s limo that she had actually seen driving on this street.
This was a gorgeous little sports car; not the big, powerful thing that Sean had been driving when he picked everyone up at the church BBQ, but a cute little two-seater. Bright red. The yellow badge on the nose, visible against the red even at this distance, told her it was a Ferrari.
That can’t be— But the car pulled up next to her, and the driver leaned towards her, and it was Sean. The passenger-side window rolled down silently. “Hey,” Sean said, with a smile.
“Hey yourself,” she replied, smiling back, but determined not to act excited about this. Because…well, because she was just not going to count on this being as good as it looked. “How’d you know where I live? I kind of doubt you were just cruising by this street.”
“Limo dropped you off here, remember?” He arched an eyebrow at her, still smiling.
“Oh, right.” Duh, you ditz. I’m going to die
from embarrassment. It’ll make for one hell of a tombstone inscription.
“You have plans for this afternoon and evening?” he continued.
Well, it wasn’t a game night for a game she was involved in. It was a Shadowrun game that the others were already deep into; “cyberpunk fantasy” is what Seth called it. Staci figured that she would watch a few games, but didn’t feel like juggling a ton of characters the way that Seth and the others seemed to do. And she’d already warned them she just might stay home and watch a movie instead. “No, nothing,” she replied quickly. Too quickly? She seemed to be second-guessing everything she said to him.
“Good, leave a note for your mother and go get a bathing suit and maybe a change of clothes,” he replied. “I’ll keep you from being bored today.”
She didn’t hesitate. She ran up to the house and inside while Sean waited in the car; this time she changed into one of her cute New York outfits. She was not going to make the mistake of turning up in front of his friends looking like Little Orphan Annie again. She didn’t need to camouflage herself to keep from being stared at this time. Then she stuffed another outfit into a gym bag along with the new bathing suit she’d never had a chance to use, and ran back down, half convinced he’d have left.
But he hadn’t.
With her bag at her feet, and cradled in the red leather of the passenger’s seat, she marveled as Sean drove the sports car at what had to be an illegal speed back up the bluff; once there, it was obvious their destination was, yet again, the Blackthorne Estate. This time he didn’t leave the car at the front; he drove it around to the side, down another private road, and to a garage that was the size of several houses put together. He left it parked in the front of one of the doors with the keys in it, came around to the passenger side, and the next thing she knew, they were walking between the mansion and the garage, approaching the pool and the pool house from the opposite side as last time.
There were about a dozen people there already. The music was a lot quieter, and no one seemed to be drunk. Already she was feeling her spirits buoyed.
“I figured I would give you a chance to actually swim, and see the politer side of my parties,” Sean said, with a smile, as the group of people disporting themselves in and beside the water all turned to face them. “Staci, this is part of the Blackthorne clan—the younger part. Clan, this is Staci Kelley.”
They were all, all, movie-gorgeous. Most of them, like Sean, were blond, although there were a couple whose hair was so black it had blue highlights. Most of them had green eyes. The guys weren’t ripped; they were lean and graceful. Any one of the girls could have walked into any model agency in New York and gotten a contract without a portfolio.
Sean began introducing her. They all seemed to have Irish-ish names. Meaghan, Brigit, Patrick (though it sounded like Padrigh), Ian, Caelen, Finn, Siobhan, Niamh, Liam, Connor, Niall, Aengus. Four girls, eight guys. Normally fourteen people would feel like a crowd, but the pool area was so spacious, it was more as if they were all rattling around in an Olympic stadium.
She was really glad she had changed before she left; the guys were all in opened guayabera shirts and Speedos, or a designer version of Speedos, but the girls were wearing little cover-ups over their suits that wouldn’t have been amiss at a dance, back home. If I’d been doing the faded flannel number, I think I’d just melt into a puddle of embarrassment.
“Sean, acushla, I’m starving. Can we eat?” asked one of the girls—one of the dark-haired Blackthornes. Niamh?
“Sure, ring for it, no point in waiting,” Sean said, laughing. “Can’t have you wasting away in front of us now, can I?”
She didn’t catch how they “rang for it,” but a moment later three uniformed servants came out of the mansion pushing carts with silver-domed dishes on top of them, and a fourth pushing what looked for all the world like a street vendor’s ice-cream cart. That turned out to be a refrigerated thing with soda and beer in it. The beer was not in cans, it was in a little keg with a tap, and with it were aluminum steins to drink from.
Not cook-out food this time, but picnic food. Gourmet sandwiches and cold but crisp fried chicken of the sort that had never even caught a glimpse of the Colonel. Staci got something that she had thought was tuna salad that turned out at the first bite to be lobster salad. The sandwich was chunks of lobster and a little of something that crunched that she couldn’t identify, with a spicy mayo.
She ate quickly, and asked where she could change. “Go ahead and use the cabana,” Sean said, waving at the pool-side house. “You’ll see the bathroom as soon as you’re in the door.”
She grabbed her bag and tried to hurry without looking as if she was hurrying. Part of it was not wanting to miss any of the conversation or the chance to ogle Sean some more…and part of it was fear that they would start in with making fun of her behind her back. And she was really glad that her suit was something she’d gotten from Saks last year at the end-of-summer clearance, since it was actually going to measure up to what the other four girls were wearing: a red two-piece, not a slutty thing with a thong, but not something that would make her look like a prude, either, complete with a matching cover-up.
When she was satisfied that her look was put together, she walked quickly without looking like it back to the pool. It seemed like the conversation had taken a different turn from local gossip and the like.
She knew immediately that there was something going on between Finn and Sean, just by the way that the others were standing, subtly arranging themselves into two factions. Everyone’s faces were neutral, except for Sean, Finn, and a girl that Staci recognized as Meaghan; all three of them were smiling, but their eyes were…different. Mean, a little predatory. Staci quietly inserted herself behind Sean, doing her best not to disrupt the talking.
Finn was as blond as Sean, but had a scar bisecting one eyebrow. And unlike the other girls here, Meaghan had really long hair, down to her knees, pulled back in a tail.
“…you haven’t exactly been pushing yourself for the firm, my lad,” Finn was saying. “You know what I’ve been up to, because you’ve had the benefit of all the new clients.”
Sean shook his head. “It’s risky, and you know it. The old reliable way, we have everything under control at all times, and a steady flow of income. Your way…one slip, and those clients will vanish like snow in summer, and if we’ve started to depend on them, what then?”
Finn shrugged. “No risk, no reward. I don’t see anything to admire in sticking to a rut. Might be the old man will feel the same.”
“Or it might be he’s waiting for you to fall in the shark tank,” Sean countered.
“He won’t be around forever, and he knows it. He’s looking for someone to look to the future; the only way to do that is for someone to help the firm expand.” He theatrically examined his fingernails. “Noncing around town like a movie star certainly isn’t doing it.”
“Blackthorne didn’t get where he is by being a coward,” Meaghan purred, “or by taking foolish risks.”
“Thankfully, none of us are cowards. But I’m having strong doubts about how many of us were raised to be fools.” Sean turned to face Staci; he looked surprised, but in a good way.
“Leaving us already, Sean my boy? C’mon, stick around. You know it’s only polite to share your toys. Even if they are second-hand.”
Staci felt her cheeks burning, and she had the overwhelming urge to smack Finn. But Sean’s eyes flashed darkly and he spoke before she could move.
“That just proves what a poor judge you are, of anything, Finn Blackthorne,” he replied. “You can’t tell a diamond from a bit of glass. But I can. And that is why the old man will always favor me, and my choices.” And he took Staci’s hand, holding it up for Finn to see for a moment. “Let me give you a tour of the house, Staci. Some of my cousins need to brush up on their manners before we allow them in polite company again.”
He didn’t wait for her answer, but then, he really didn’t need to. S
he was only too happy to get away from Finn…and Meaghan. He didn’t rush towards the mansion, he sauntered, as if he owned the place and he could have Finn thrown out at any moment. Behind her, she felt Finn seething, and Meaghan’s amusement.
“What was that all about?” she asked, in a whisper, once they were far enough away not to be overheard.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Sean replied lightly. “My cousin is under the impression that he is my father’s golden boy at the moment. What he doesn’t know is that father likes giving people plenty of rope so he can sell tickets when they hang themselves.”
By this time they were at the French doors leading from the terrace to the mansion. Sean opened one side, dropping her hand to do so, and bowed her in.
They were in a long, shallow room that on the garden side was floor-to-ceiling windows. There were tons of plants in huge pots that looked like they were marble, and each pot had an entire tree in it, plus some smaller plants. There were white wicker chairs, lounges, and tables scattered over the expanse, and the floors were marble tile. “The loggia,” said Sean. “You know how winter can be up here. Keeps you from going insane with cabin fever when you can sit out here.”
Staci couldn’t imagine even getting a bit of cabin fever; the entire mansion was huge, unlike the shack she was currently living in. You could have fit three houses that size just in this room.
Sean led her to the left, in through another pair of French doors. This room had a lot of windows too, and was set up with one big table. The furniture was dark wood, and the walls were wood-paneled, with big mirrors on them. “The breakfast loggia,” said Sean, and she tried not to look startled. A room the size of her whole house just for breakfast?
“The pantry is through there—” He waved at a door at the end. “The gallery is through here. Do you give a crap about art, weapons, heads of dead animals and pictures of old, dead people?”
Only if you do, she wanted to breathe, but instead she shrugged noncommittally. He chuckled. “Well,” he said, his tone faintly mocking, “I might as well let you know all the dark family history.” He waved her through the door nearest them and she found herself in…
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