Where Beauty Lies (Sophia and Ava London) (23 page)

“Everyone was so friendly. Even the security guys, once we got everything straightened out. And they took amazing care of Popcorn and Charming. I had no choice. I mean, there was Sloan, who risked everything for us, and her four roommates, who all want to be designers, and the hotel manager and his wife and daughter and his daughter’s best friend, and Mandy the housekeeper whose son has—”

Sophia put up her hand. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to know. You can take this up with the Contessa.”

Ava got pale. “You wouldn’t make me.”

Sophia just smiled and scratched Charming between the ears for the rest of the car ride home.

Hunter met them at the door when they got there, so overcome at Popcorn and Charming’s safe return that he could hardly speak. He’d grabbed Sophia and hugged her and she had been astonished and touched to see that he was shaking.

“I know how much he means to you,” Hunter told her. “I couldn’t bear it if something you loved got hurt. I’m just sorry I wasn’t there to help.”

“Where were you? What was this mysterious errand?” she teased.

“You’ll find out soon,” he said. “Now, I was told I was going to get to have dinner with a bunch of models. What’s the holdup?”

Dinner with the AS Girls at the Contessa’s involved not only fire, as promised, but four chefs from Benihana cooking at tables specially set up in her ballroom.

“I didn’t even know there was a ballroom,” Sophia had said.

“Mostly Toma uses it to stage his self-portraits,” Lily said.

Ava shuddered. “I’ve seen those.” She glanced at Sophia. “We have to remember to talk to him.”

“Right.” She nodded.

“Good luck,” Lily told them. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Ava, but I think he’s found a new love among the AS models. Or a dozen. Last time I was out there he was surrounded by giggling girls.”

“I don’t know whether to be delighted or frightened for them,” Ava said thoughtfully.

“I’m advocating delight on all fronts,” Lily said. “And sake. We’re celebrating the end of a reign of terror.”

“It’s hard to imagine Whitney as the mastermind of that,” Sophia said. She was looking across the room to the table where Hunter was charming a group of the mothers and fathers who had come as chaperones.

“Really?” Lily sipped sake from a blue porcelain cup. “Not for me. But maybe that’s because I knew her in junior high.”

“Everyone is a criminal mastermind in junior high,” MM said. “How much time did you spend sneaking out of the house or making out in bushes?”

“None,” Lily said, looking aghast.

Ava stared at her. “You’re telling us you were a perfect angel?”

“No, I just didn’t waste my time on that stuff. I was too busy stealing cars.”

They’d called the hospital every half hour until they were told that Whitney was out of the ICU. She still wasn’t allowed to have any visitors, but the nurse assured them they would be contacted as soon as she could.

They were back from the Contessa’s, eating ice cream in the kitchen, when Sam came in. Everyone stood and applauded and Sven made him a crown out of pieces of his
Men’s Fitness
magazine.

“I do not easily cut into this,” he said. “But for you, it is just.”

Sam took it sheepishly. “Wow, thanks,” he said. “It’s really special.”

“Is there any news about Whitney?” Ava asked.

“The doctor said she had some internal damage and they were still waiting on brain scans,” Sam said. “No one seemed to think she was going to die, but there were questions about how long it would take her to recover. She did open her eyes once—”

“I’m going to bed,” Lily announced, interrupting him. “I have a big day tomorrow and I can’t afford to stand around the kitchen gabbing all night.” She turned and stomped out of the room, leaving her ice cream unfinished.

Ava and Sophia exchanged perplexed frowns for a moment, but as if they’d simultaneously given a mental shrug and thought,
That’s just Lily,
their attention returned to Sam.

“One of the videos of you saving Whitney that someone made on their phone and posted already has over thirty thousand hits,” Ava told him. “Where did you learn to do all that stuff? Are you a superspy?”

Sam shook his head. “No.” He drew the syllable out, then said, fast, “But I’ve played one on TV. Also a supervillian, a medium villain, and a lot of mid-level thugs.”

“You’re an actor?” Hunter said.

Ava’s eyes got big. “No wonder Lily seems to be allergic to you.”

“I’m not an actor,” Sam rushed to tell them. “I’m a stuntman. Or I was—that’s how I paid the bills while I was in film school.”

“You mean like jumping off tall buildings?” Sven asked, fascinated.

“Those are the high-falls specialists,” Sam told him. “I did that a few times, but those jobs usually go to the specialists. My focus was moving vehicles—trains, planes, motorcycles, cars—so I guess today instinct just took over.” He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “It wasn’t really that big a deal. There are hundreds of guys in New York who could have done it.”

“I think it’s a big deal,” Ava told him.

“And it’s definitely a big deal to Whitney,” Sophia said.

“That’s right, that’s what I started to tell you.” Sam nodded to himself. “Right after I caught Whitney, something weird happened. Her eyes opened for a second and she said, ‘Tell them I couldn’t let him go through with it.’”

“‘I couldn’t let
him
go through with it,’” Ava repeated, shifting the emphasis. “That means there really is someone else involved.”

“And it’s not over,” Hunter said.

LonDOs

Boys who were stuntmen

Boys who fly through the air to save people

Whitney

Sloan Lew

Benihana for forty in your living room

Puppies who lick your face for hours

Kitties who want to sleep wrapped around your neck

Boys who also want to sleep wrapped around your neck

Breaking up with your boyfriend via text

Especially if his response is, “Bummer. Okay, babe. I understand. Gotta go run lines”

LonDON’Ts

Giving away all the VIP tickets

Puppies who eat the Contessa’s hand-milled French soap and a washcloth

20

brokelyn-hearted

Ava woke up to Popcorn’s kisses. “
Mmm,
lavender,” she said to him. “I could get used to this.”

Then Popcorn sneezed and she saw it wasn’t the soap from the night before that she was smelling but the lose talcum powder she’d thought she had put far out of his reach, which he’d managed to find and get, well, just about everywhere.

“Very artistic,” she told him.

He sneezed twice and looked up at her with sad eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that. I thought you learned from the last time that you’re allergic to talcum powder.”

He made a sad noise.

“Were you this naughty with the kidnappers?” she asked him. “No wonder they wanted to—”

Her phone rang. The caller ID flashed
DALTON.
She hesitated.
You have to tell him everything,
she reminded herself.

But only in person,
she answered herself back, picking up the phone and saying, “Hi there.”

The happiness in Dalton’s voice when she answered first made her heart soar, then deflate like a stomped-on I Heart U balloon.

That had been dragged through the mud.

And run over.

“Thanks for your messages yesterday,” she said.
Cool and reserved,
she reminded herself. That was the way to act in this situation. “I’m sorry I was unable to get back to you.”

“Based on the stories popping up on my phone, it looks like you’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, it’s been—”

“It’s really nice to hear your voice.”

Cool!
Ava admonished herself.
Serious.
“It’s the same voice as always. I just wanted—”

“I like it.”

Ava closed her eyes and rested her head in her hand. Why did he have to be so awesome? Next time she was definitely falling in love with someone much suckier.

“How have you been?” she said. That was a reserved sort of thing to ask, wasn’t it?

“Oh, you know, about the same as you. Nonstop excitement and press ambushes. Don’t tell me you didn’t see my tweets about how I thought I was coming down with the same winter cold everyone else has, but then it went away? Hashtag riveting.”

Stop laughing,
Ava ordered herself, but she couldn’t. “I’m glad you’re not sick,” she said, which was not the impersonal, reserved thing she’d planned on saying.

“Thanks. And I have some news for you. I just got to the Wildwood place and everyone’s in an uproar because apparently he had another vivid dream last night and this one told him to change the last dress they’d made.”

Ava forgot about being aloof. “How, exactly?”

“Hang on, I wrote it down.” He put her on speaker. “No wonder it’s so cold up here,” he said, and she heard the sound of furniture being moved around. “Sorry, I’m upstairs in our practice space and I just discovered something ate through the cord on the space heater. Let me just find a light that works.” More furniture moving. “I swear this will be worth your while. And if it’s not, I’ll tell you some jokes.”

“What kind of jokes?” Ava asked. She realized she was smiling stupidly at the phone. Which was not cool and reserved or aloof or mature or any of the other qualities she was supposed to be embodying. Also it was likely to end in tears.

“According to my sister Kiss, bad ones exclusively. When we were younger she used to fine me a dime every time I told a joke that didn’t make her laugh.”

“And you didn’t stop?” Ava said.

“No way,” Dalton told her. “Torturing her was totally worth ten cents.” He paused, then said, “Okay, are you ready. The changes to the dress. First they slashed off the skirt but left the bustle. They used the extra fabric to make a bowling jacket?”

“Bolero,” Ava said, adding in her mind,
with epaulets.

“With epaulets,” Dalton said. “Those are the military things on the—”

“I know what they are.”
And I know exactly how they look,
she thought,
because I designed them.
She had to go tell Sophia. “Thanks, Dalton, that’s great. I have to run now, bye.”

“Wait, Ava,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I—” He paused. “Nothing, I guess. I just feel like there’s something strange going on and I wish I knew what it was. Sometimes you seem—”

You owe him the truth,
the voice in her head said.

But not on the phone,
she reminded it.
In person.
Besides, she needed to go tell Sophia—

Popcorn sneezed again.

“It sounds like I’m not the only one on trend,” Dalton said.

Ava laughed and blurted, “I want to kiss you so badly right now.”

The words popped out of her before she could stop them. They were true but they were completely, totally, 100 percent the wrong thing to say. If she’d been shopping at the Bad Idea Outlet for Girls, she could not have chosen worse.

And as if to rub it in he said, “I can’t tell you how good it is to hear you say that. I want to kiss you too.” But not in his fake sexy voice. In the nicest, sweetest, wrap you in his arms and make out for hours and laugh and whisper and giggle and maybe have caramel corn on the couch under a warm blanket voice.

She felt tears again, but not from laughing. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Wait, Ava—”

“I’m late for something, gotta run, bye.”

She hung up before he could say anything else.

She knew it wasn’t cold in her room but she suddenly felt chilled and alone. Popcorn stood on his legs and put his face next to hers with his paws around her neck.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said, hugging him.

There was a knock on the door and Sophia poked her head around the edge. “Charming ate through the cord on my hair—” She stopped. “Okay, that is like the cutest picture in the world.” Then she must have seen Ava’s face because she came around and sat next to her on the bed and hugged her from the other side.

“Don’t ask,” Ava said and Sophia didn’t. Which was one of the excellent things about her.

When she pulled away, Sophia said, “Can I ask about the new decorating scheme, though? Were you trying to get some of that dirty-snow feeling inside?”

“It’s Popcorn’s idea,” Ava explained. “I like the energy, but I think we might need to work on the presentation.”

Popcorn sneezed.

“I was just coming to see you,” Ava told her.

Sophia rubbed a tear off her sister’s cheek. “Really? Because it looks like someone was making you cry. Tell me who it was and I’ll beat them up.”

Ava laughed. “Remember Jackson Waters?”

“The school’s serial braid puller.” Sophia made a fist and fake punched it into her palm. “Not as well as he remembers the London sisters, I bet.” She chuckled. “I still can’t believe we didn’t get in trouble for putting hydrogen peroxide in his shampoo.”

“No one figured it out. He really believed it was the curse you put on him for touching my hair. You’re that good.”

“We are,” Sophia said.

“And as proof I offer the latest dress in the Christopher Wildwood line, a micromini with a bustle, a bolero, and epaulets.”

“They even took the epaulets? But we just drew those on.”

“Apparently they didn’t realize the bolero was paper either.”

Sophia was staring into space, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it was so—direct.”

“I know. I almost feel like someone is playing a trick on us.” Ava stopped talking and gaped. “Why did you come in here just now?”

“To borrow your hair dryer?”

“Because Charming ate the cord,” Ava said. “I think I know who the ‘he’ was that Whitney was talking about. When she said she couldn’t let him get away with it?”

“The one who left the note,” Sophia said.

“It’s Christopher Wildwood. Popcorn and Charming were held in his house before she moved them to the W for us to find.”