Star Bright (Bright Young Things Book 1)

by Staci Hart

  So I made plans to tell him that tonight and hoped I wouldn’t scare him off. My phone buzzed on the granite surface of the island, and I snatched it up, already prepared to carry on a new conversation with Levi. But it wasn’t Levi.

  It was Dex.

  I frowned at my screen, partly because the wrong guy had texted me and partly because there was zero possibility that Dex didn’t have an angle. He’d been texting me ever since we’d seen each other at the circus party but nothing inappropriate, nothing forward. Just stupid stuff like we used to send each other when we were friends. Memes or funny things that had made us think of the other. Random gossip.

  But it wasn’t innocent. He’d seen me with Levi, which couldn’t have felt good to anyone but me. Dex was spoiled, a man who got what he wanted and wanted what he couldn’t have. And though we had once been friends, that ship had sailed. If you showed me ex-lovers who were friends, I’d show you one fool and one lovesick hopeful. It just didn’t work. You couldn’t erase those feelings, not with all the years and friendzoning in the world.

  I wondered with more disdain whether or not his girlfriend knew he was texting me.

  My nose wrinkled up, and I set my phone back down as Zeke and Betty wandered in.

  “Look who it is. The Bobbsey twins,” I joked.

  Zeke’s kimono—which I loved so much, I’d tried to steal it half a dozen times to no avail—fluttered behind him, his boxer briefs tight and closer to the brief than the boxer. His platinum hair was perfectly in place.

  He mumbled something that at least rhymed with coffee and sat on a stool, yawning. Betty pulled up next to him, sleepy-faced and hair a dark, wild snarl. She had on matching white eyelet pajamas in a tank and bloomer set, and her eye mask served as a headband as she scrubbed her face with her hand.

  “Morning, sunshine.” I made moves for the espresso machine.

  “What are you so chipper about?” Zeke asked, then groaned. “It’s your steady D that’s got you all Disney princess. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t rub it in.”

  “I’m not rubbing anything in,” I said archly. “Out, maybe. But not in.”

  “You’re the worst,” Betty said from the cave of her arms where she’d buried her head.

  “Hey, don’t blame me because you made a celibacy pact with Zeke. We all have to deal with the consequences of our choices, Roberta.”

  She lifted her head enough to give me the deadliest of looks. “There are too many knives within reach to risk calling me that name.”

  My phone buzzed again. Zeke’s brow rose when I didn’t answer it.

  “Dex.”

  The other brow met its twin. Betty’s head rose.

  “What does he want?” Betty asked.

  “Who knows, but it can’t be good. Don’t worry—I’m not encouraging him.”

  “Good, then you won’t mind me looking.” Zeke snatched up my phone, but before he could read, he thought better of himself and smiled wickedly. “Today must be my lucky day.”

  I snorted a laugh. “I don’t think Dex would sleep with you, Z.”

  He waved a hand. “Oh, trust me, I know. But it’s not Dex. It’s Tag.”

  Betty and I groaned—my stepbrother was a notorious asshole—but Zeke looked pleased as punch.

  “What the fuck does he want?” I swiped my phone from his hands and skimmed his message. “Ugh, he wants to crash.”

  Zeke rolled his eyes. “Don’t act like you don’t like a full house. Are you even capable of saying no?”

  “Shoulda said no to you.”

  He stuck his tongue out.

  Betty groaned again with her eyes glued to the ceiling. “Where is he?”

  “Downstairs,” Zeke and I answered at the same time but with very different tones.

  “Go put on some pants,” I told Zeke.

  “Don’t tell me what to do, Stella Marie.”

  “You know that’s not my middle name.” I shot off a text telling Tag to come up.

  “Well, I hate your middle name and refuse to say it.”

  I made a face at him before putting down my phone to sulk while I still could.

  Tag’s dad and my mom had been married for two years when I was in high school and he was in college. We barely knew each other, but somehow we’d ended up in the same social group, and since he’d just gotten back from Cambodia, he had nowhere to crash. It wasn’t uncommon for him to come here. It was just unwelcome.

  A knock rapped at the door, and Zeke was off his stool in a flash and a billow of silk. He draped himself on an armchair.

  “Subtle,” I said, heading for the door.

  And leaning his forearm on the doorjamb was Tag St. James.

  His smile was straight out of a toothpaste commercial, his eyes a striking shade of blue against tanned skin. Sandy-blond hair, broad shoulders, the whole nine. If I hadn’t been legally related to him for a period of time, and if I didn’t think he was a spectacular douchebag, I’d hit that.

  Problem was, he knew how hot he was. Which didn’t help his cause.

  “Hey, sis,” he said with a crooked smile.

  “Don’t call me that.” I turned around and let go of the door, hoping it hit him in the nose.

  But he just laughed, grabbing his Louis Vuitton duffel bag and striding in. “Ooh, lookin’ good, Betty.”

  “Fuck you, Tag,” she said, sliding off her stool to walk away.

  “Wait—your coffee!” I called after her.

  “I’d rather go coffeeless than talk to Tag.”

  “Missed you too,” he sang, taking her seat, then her coffee.

  Zeke huffed from the armchair and stood with a whoosh. “God, what’s a girl gotta do to get some attention around here?”

  Tag’s laugh was the sort of sound only made by men without responsibility. “Come here, Freaky Zeke. Come give Daddy a hug.”

  “There we go,” Zeke said as he approached, hugging Tag from behind and smushing his cheek against the back of Tag’s head, giving it a conspicuous sniff. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

  “I could make a dick joke, but I’ll let it slide,” Tag snarked.

  “And I could make one back, but I’ll let you have your coffee first.” Zeke sat on his stool again. “So you’re back. Cambodia as boring as everyone says?”

  Tag shrugged. “Been gone three months. At some point, you just want a real hamburger and to order coffee in English.” He jerked his chin at me. “Hey, thanks for letting me crash.”

  “You’re welcome. Zeke took your room though.”

  Zeke smiled. “We can bunk together. Top or bottom?”

  I shook my head at him. “You can have one of the others.”

  “Generous,” Tag said. “Since you’ve got six.”

  Joss wandered in, yawning. “What’s he doing here?” she asked in Tag’s general direction.

  “Came to crash for a while,” he answered. “So what’s new? Where’s the next party, Cecelia?”

  “You’re not invited,” I said, wishing I were that savage.

  “Aww, come on, Stell. Make an exception for your favorite stepbrother.”

  “Ex-stepbrother.”

  “You can be my plus-one, Taggy,” Zeke said. “But you have to let me dress you up.”

  “Sorry, buddy—gotta draw the line somewhere. Don’t want to get arrested for public indecency.”

  Zeke pouted.

  “So party on Saturday. Remy’s having people over tonight, but I’m too wiped to even think about it. What else is new?”

  “Stella has a boyfriend.” Zeke sang the word like a second-grader.

  Tag’s brow rose with his smile. “I heard Dex is shacking with Elsie Richmond, so who’s the new guy?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Zeke beat me to it. “He’s a photographer. With a motorcycle.”

  Tag nodded his approval. “Nice catch.”

  “I thought so,” I said.

  “But he’s leaving,” Zeke added. “Syria, to cover the war.”

&nb
sp; “Heavy,” Tag noted studiously.

  “Very deep,” Zeke added with a brow waggle. “You’ll meet him soon enough. He practically lives here.”

  “Look at you, Stell. You show old Dex.”

  “That’s not why I—”

  Zeke looped his arm in Tag’s. “What are we gonna do today, Taggy? Feed you hamburgers?”

  Tag patted Zeke’s hand on his sizable bicep. “I’d love to, but I’ve got to sleep. It’s been thirty-six hours since I’ve seen a bed and a shower. But tomorrow, we’ll eat the meat.”

  Zeke laid his head on Tag’s shoulder and pouted at me. “Can I have him?”

  “I don’t think he’s up for auction,” I said on a laugh. “Now, will you please go put some pants on? Brunch awaits, and I need a new dress.”

  “What for?” Tag asked.

  “Does a girl need a reason to buy a new dress?” I challenged.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Zeke answered. “Brunch and Bloomie’s. Who could ask for more?”

  “No one,” I said with a smile, grateful for the distraction.

  Because killing time until I saw Levi had become a sport.

  And I was the champ.

  LEVI

  I paced the length of Yara’s office, raking my hand through my hair.

  “I’m sorry, Levi. My hands are tied.” She leaned back in her chair. “Marcella is thirsty for this piece, and she’s not going to let any of us wait to publish. Maybe if the first one hadn’t gone viral. But that was chum in the water, and now she’s not gonna let it go. She wants the next article. Like, three days ago.”

  “Give me one more day.”

  “Levi …”

  “Come on. One day won’t matter. I’m never late, and I never ask for anything. You’ve got to give me this.”

  “No one has to give you anything,” she said firmly but not without compassion. “You’ve been putting me off, and Marcella isn’t happy. She made it very clear that you were to turn the piece in today, and we’re to have it edited immediately.”

  I stopped in front of her desk and planted my hands on the surface. “I just need one more day.”

  She huffed and crossed her arms. “For what?”

  “I have something I need to take care of first.”

  “Does this something have anything to do with Stella Spencer?”

  I drew a long breath through my nose, my teeth clenching and releasing. We’d been spotted all over social media together, though nobody’d had the balls to bring it up until now. “I can’t keep lying to her.”

  “Since when?” she snapped. “If you think you can get the rest of your articles to Marcella without Stella Spencer, then be my guest. But if you can’t, you should think long and hard about what you’re willing to do. Because Marcella threatened Syria if you don’t see the Bright Young Things through.”

  I stilled, all the way down to my heart.

  “I didn’t want to tell you, but I don’t think you realize the severity of the situation.”

  “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

  “And it’s time for you to decide if that someone is you or her. This is journalism, not Match.com. Nobody gives a shit about your love life, and it’s certainly not a priority to this magazine. You know what is?” She leaned in. “Sales. And you know what gets sales?”

  “Stories.”

  “So are you going to get the story? Or are you going to lose your shot at leveling up over a girl?”

  For a moment, I just stared at a nick on the surface of her desk, weighing it all out. But in the end, there was only one answer, and I’d always known it.

  “Promise me the article won’t break until tomorrow.”

  Yara surveyed me with an unreadable expression on her face. “I’ll talk to her. Send me the article, Levi. Now. I’ll have edits back by lunch.”

  I nodded and turned for the door.

  “You’d better be real sure about this,” she warned.

  “Never been so sure,” I said, pushing her door open and storming out.

  Because I was telling Stella the truth tonight.

  And all I could do was hope it wouldn’t bury me.

  15

  Shake On It

  STELLA

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said the words to nothing and no one as I stared at the article on my phone that afternoon.

  On Vagabond.

  About the Revolution party.

  Betty, Joss, and Zeke exchanged glances across the café table. Zeke took a sip of his whiskey with an eyebrow jacked, but Betty set hers down with a clink.

  “This is bullshit,” she said, fuming. “Total bullshit.”

  “It’s one of us.” I shook my head at my phone, once again unable to comprehend more than partial sentences of the article. My brain was too preoccupied with murder.

  Joss’s brows drew together. “Did you keep track of the plus-ones?”

  “No, there’s no real way. Someone would’ve had to take names—there were too many of them to casually remember.”

  “Maybe it was Tuesday Morrison. That guy she’s been bringing is greasy,” Zeke said.

  “It could have been anyone.” My chest ached, my mind skipping. “This is driving me crazy. Like, actually crazy. Do you guys realize just how bad this is? Because we have no control. What if they’re working with Warren?”

  At that, Zeke gave me a look. “If Warren was in on it, the articles wouldn’t be this big, gooey congratulatory thing. It sounds like one of us. I mean, it’s borderline masturbation—whoever wrote this is all in. No way did Warren have anything to do with it.”

  I shook my head and didn’t stop. “He’s going to get ideas. He’s going to send someone in to find a chink in the armor and take us down. What if he plants someone? Someone who will do something that gets us in real trouble? We can’t go through any more bad press, not after Sable.”

  Heavy silence fell over us.

  A few months ago, Sable—one of ours—had come to a party with her junkie boyfriend, track marks in her arm and eyes ringed in red. When Betty, Zeke, and I tried to get her out of the building, away from that asshole, and into a cab, Sable lost it. She took a swing at me, told us all to fuck off, and left.

  We never saw her alive again. She’d overdosed that night.

  It was the start of the shitstorm even though she hadn’t been with us when she died. But instead of blaming the drug-dealing jackhole who had shot her up, everyone blamed the Bright Young Things. The firestorm had died down—other than goddamn Warren, but I didn’t think his crusade had anything to do with Sable. From what I’d gathered, he was just a dick.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We have to figure out who this is. How can we flush them out?”

  When I opened my eyes, Zeke was on his phone, his fingers flying. He had that look, the one that suggested we were about to get in trouble.

  “Zeke,” I warned. “What are you doing?”

  He lifted the phone to his ear and winked at me.

  “Here we go,” Betty said with a smile.

  Joss just watched us, her eyes curious and smiling and the rest of her leaning in with anticipation.

  “Hello,” Zeke said in his deepest voice. “I have a tip to report. No, I can’t give it on the phone. It’s about the Bright Young Things. Yes, I’ll hold.”

  “Oh my God,” I whisperscreamed, resisting the impulse to jump over the table and throttle him. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He held up his finger to silence me. “Yes, hi. That’s right. No, I need to meet with the reporter in person. I understand they’re anonymous, but this isn’t the kind of information I can just hand out. The nature?” He paused, his eyes flicking to me. “I know who Cecelia Beaton is.”

  At that, I flew out of my seat, nearly knocking it over. But before I could get my hands around his neck, he stopped me with one hand, followed by Betty’s and Joss’s arms. Betty put herself between me and Zeke and forced eye contact.

  Calm down, she mouthed,
and I stilled—there weren’t many people on the patio with us, but the ones who were there were staring.

  “Proof? I have her notebook. Yes, it’s a woman. I assume there’s compensation for the exchange? Excellent.”

  Betty clapped her hand on my mouth and looked over her shoulder at Zeke.

  “Okay, sure. Have them meet me at Half Moon diner on Fifth. Seven tonight. Thanks.” He disconnected and set his phone down, smirking at me.

  “What the fuck, Zeke? What in the actual fuck?” I hissed. “Are you crazy? If you tell them who I am—”

  “I’m not telling them anything. You are.”

  My face quirked. “What?”

  Zeke stood, still smiling. “You’re going to Half Moon, and the asshole who wrote the articles is going to show up, thinking they’re getting the scoop. And instead, they’ll get busted.”

  I stilled, gaping for a heartbeat before a smile of my own brushed my lips. “You’re a fucking genius.”

  He curtsied. “You’re welcome.”

  “But won’t they know I’m in charge if I’m the one there?”

  “Just because you’re there doesn’t mean anyone will assume you’re her. Claim you’re just nosy. Tie back your hair. Wear a hat and sunglasses. Sit somewhere you can hide. And don’t say a fucking word. Just watch.”

  “What if I go ape and Krav Maga the fucker to the ground?”

  “First of all, you couldn’t Krav anybody’s Maga with those puny arms. And secondly, you have more willpower than that. Look for somebody to come in alone, wait alone, look nervous, and leave without anyone meeting them. Take some pictures. If we can’t figure out who it is, we’ll look for them at the next party. But we can’t confront anybody, not without raising suspicions. Okay?”

  I drew a long, steady breath and nodded. “Okay.”

  “Good girl. Tonight, we’ll unmask the motherfucker and take them to the mat,” Zeke assured me.

  “And we’re here when it’s over,” Joss said.

  “Can’t you guys just come with me?”