Afterparty(66)

Hell’s Gate must be taking a break, because the speakers are blaring a hideous reggae version of “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

Dylan stands there glaring at me, after which he stomps off and we end up on the side of the house, which is terraced, strung with paper lanterns, and studded with astonishingly well-dressed people of the I-have-a-bazillion-dollars-and-this-dress-is-made-of-spun-gold-thread variety.

Dylan says, “I don’t. Fucking. Believe you.”

“I’m sorry! I tried to tell you last week, but you were in such a bad mood.”

“Last week! That’s how long it took you to figure out you should stop making a fool of me?”

“I tried to tell you at the Griddle. I really did.”

Dylan says, “You should. Have. Tried. Harder.”

“Dylan—I know.”

“Did you have fun when I was f*cking jealous of him?”

“Please let me explain.”

Dylan leans back against one of the many random Greek pillars dotting the landscape all over the place, festooned with red ribbon and hearts that look a lot like little pincushions. He says, “Great. Explain. This should be interesting.”

He looks as if he wants to string me up. And in the absence of a workable lie, I blunder into the unfamiliar truth.

“Okay, this is it. I thought that maybe you’d prefer to be with a girl who wasn’t, all right, lying about basically everything. Because you would, right? But when it started to seem as if you might possibly like me, I was just afraid you wouldn’t like me if you knew. Obviously, I blew it.”

I just want to rewind. I want to be back at Strick’s party and for Siobhan to say, Yo, Chelsea, Em has a boyfriend, and for me to seize possession of my right mind and go, Good one, Sib—as opposed to finding Jean-Luc an apartment in Paris with a view of the Eiffel Tower and making him a Facebook page.

Dylan says, “Why?”

There’s no way to say it without drowning in humiliation, no way to paddle in the general direction of decent human being without saying it. So I just say it. “At the time, International Girl of Intrigue with the romantic French boyfriend seemed like a better plan than Virgin Geek Girl from the Frozen Tundra.”

Dylan whistles. “You think I’m a jerkoff who’d like you better if you’re cheating on some guy from Montreal with me?”

“He was from Paris. And I broke up with him before I touched you.”

“Great. Paris. That changes everything.”

Then we look at each other and I hear the ridiculousness of what I just said and he just shakes his head. “Jesus, Emma.”

He sounds so bitter. And angry. And justified. And I have no idea what I can say or do to make this better.

He says, “Every time I talked about him, you stood there and let me? Were you laughing at me behind my back?”

“I would never! I just didn’t think you’d exactly admire me if you knew I was . . .” (This is the place where I don’t want to say “lying” again, or “a liar,” or “pathologically dishonest,” and I just stand there silently until I come up with something slightly less awful yet true.) “. . . making him up.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

I try to touch his arm, but he tenses as if he’s repulsed by my fingertips.

I say, “Don’t do that. If you’re breaking up with me, just break up with me.”

“This isn’t us breaking up,” he shouts. “This is us having a big-ass fight.”

We would appear to be heading toward the far reaches of a patio where we can fight in private when Dylan stops dead and takes out his vibrating phone.

He says, “Not tonight. Aiden. He will not quit.”

He holds up the phone; on the screen, there is a text that says, Look what I’ve got, with a photo of Beach Club Boy, dressed up and wrapped around Siobhan with one arm, aiming his phone at the two of them with the other.

“That’s Aiden?”

“He’d be the perfect man for you. Liar, meet liar.”

How much that hurts, how deep that cuts, and how much I probably deserve it is mitigated by my urgent need to get us out of there. Because that’s freaking Aiden. Because why didn’t I know that that was freaking Aiden????? Because why didn’t I tell Dylan about last night, say, last night? Why didn’t I fix this before what Siobhan set up (only I went along with it, and what kind of excuse it that, anyway?) plays itself out in the form of a train wreck?

Aren’t brothers supposed to freaking resemble each other so an unsuspecting girl gets some slight hint of what she’s doing when she accidentally kisses more than one of them?

“Let’s leave. Dylan! Could we please go? I really need to talk to you.”

“First we find them,” he says. “Then we leave.”

“But they could be anywhere.” Such as Siobhan could be clubbing with Strick or Wade or anyone but Aiden on the Sunset Strip, and Aiden could be back in Scotland.

Dylan says, “They’re in the pool house. I’ve been there fifty times.”

I say, “Could we please talk somewhere? Like now!”

Dylan is racing forward, through crowds of tipsy dancing grown-ups. Waiters are trying to waylay us with offers of food and drink. This would be quite the glamorous party if it weren’t the end of the world.