Playing It Safe(76)

“Actually, all I was going to say was … I like it.”

His eyes light up, and he grazes his lips against mine. In the background I hear Josie squealing again, signaling the arrival of her first guests. Which means she’s also probably just finding out that each guest received a personalized Hogwarts acceptance letter. I really outdid myself with those, and it might be my favorite thing out of all this stuff.

I let go of him, and we walk back toward the house. He goes off on his own while I catch up with Lisette, who is overseeing the catering staff in the kitchen. After getting the lowdown from her for a while and confirming she’s got everything under control as usual, I start to walk around and get a lay of the land.

After about a half hour of making sure everything is running smoothly, which thank God it is, I make my way back outside where the kids are all gathering for the first round of Quidditch. Approaching the small crowd of spectators on the edge of the field, I’m trying to squeeze through the last grouping of bodies when I hear a familiar woman’s voice mention my name.

So what do I do?

Yup, I eavesdrop like you know you would too.

“I can’t believe she’s here,” Marisa says, clear as a bell and loudly enough that I can hear, along with anyone else within a five-foot radius.

I shimmy over to her left and around a couple who are cheering for their child so that I’m standing right at the front, keeping Marisa in my peripheral to make sure she doesn’t notice me so she’ll keep talking. And she does.

“Seriously, she’s like white trash, and he’s way too good for her,” she rattles off to the person she’s talking to.

“So why is he with her then?” an unknown woman’s voice asks.

“He’s not … or at least he won’t be for too long,” Marisa answers.

I’m going to freeze right here and remind you all how I had a feeling about her when I first met her—the whole women’s intuition thingy. Yeah, about that. Well, after Alex told me the history behind Marisa, I felt terrible about how I had labeled her a whiny bitch and treated her awfully.

Now is about the time that I say aha! in my head because I was so right about her from the very beginning. Really? I’m trash? Who the f*ck does she think she is? And that nonsense about me not being good enough for Alex? Bitch, please.

Yes, I admit it, I’m in love with him, but that’s not important right now. What’s important is getting Miss Teen USA to shut the f*ck up in the most reasonable way possible in front of all these people without making a scene.

At this point I’m craning my neck sideways to look over to where she’s standing so I can get her attention, but her back’s turned my way. The next thing I know, I get pelted in the face hard by something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s hard enough that it knocks me on my ass until I’m lying flat on the ground.

Well it worked—she shut up.

That might be because everyone is crowding around me to see if I’m okay. My hand is covering the left side of my face, which feels like it’s already black and blue, and I can only see out of one eye when Vanessa crouches alongside of me.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so.” I go to sit up, and she helps me. “What hit me?”

She smirks and says, “A Quaffle ball.”

“Awesome.”

“Come on, let’s get you up and inside to check out your eye.”

Vanessa gets me to stand up and leads me toward the house, but not before I catch a glance from Marisa, who is smiling like the conniving bitch that she is from ear to ear.

“Bitch,” I say under my breath.

“Who’s a bitch?”

“Nobody, never mind.”

“Uh-huh, right,” she says quietly and then turns around to the crowd still standing around staring. “She’s fine. Go back to enjoying the party; we’ll be right back.”

She leads me straight to the bathroom in Alex’s bedroom. Sitting me down on the closed toilet seat, Vanessa proceeds to turn on the water in the sink. She grabs a hand towel, running it under the stream to get it wet. She wrings it free of excess water and then comes over to me.

“Okay, let’s see it.”

I shake my head, afraid of what my face must look like by now.

Growing exasperated at my childish behavior, she starts to pry my fingers away from my face.

She blows a long whistle after the big reveal and says, “Nice welt, sweetie.”

“That bad?”

“Honestly?” She takes a breath and blows on the area for a second or two. “It’s pretty bad.”

I stand up and go to the mirror to see for myself. The left side of my face just below my eye is swollen and already has a purplish hue to it. You have got to be shitting me.

“Here.” She hands me the wet towel. “Put this on it for a little bit to help with the swelling and sit down.”

Feeling defeated because I look like I’ve gone a full twelve rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson, I sit back down on the toilet seat. After a few moments of silence, Vanessa finally speaks up.

“So this has to do with Marisa, huh?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Women’s intuition.” She leans against the wall casually and crosses her arms.

I can’t help but laugh a little at that, but it starts to hurt my face. Plus, now I have a pounding headache, so yeah, it sucks.