Chapter 13 JEALOUSY LOOKS LIKE THIS
"Jake will be here all night. This is the plan. Get in the house. No greetings." I told myself.
I got in as he met me at the hallway.
Not Jake but Alexander.
He was already dressed for the party, dark trousers, a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his brown hair pushed back like he had run his hands through it once and decided that was enough effort.
He looked infuriatingly good and completely unbothered by the fact.
He looked at my outfit and I looked back at him.
"What?" I said.
"Nothing," he said.
"You made a face."
"I did not make a face."
"You did."
He exhaled. "There will be photographers inside. Students who will post everything. If you walk in like that...."
"Like what?" I said. "Like a person who got dressed nicely?"
"Like someone who does not belong here," he said. Not unkindly but directly. "Come inside first."
I followed him through the house and up the stairs and down a long corridor that probably had more square footage than my entire home. He pushed open a door at the end.
It was a bedroom. A guest bedroom, large and neat, with a wardrobe along one wall.
He opened it.
Inside, hanging carefully, was a dress. Deep green, simple but clearly expensive. The kind of dress that looked effortless because someone had spent a great deal of money making it look that way.
I stared at it.
"When did you...?"
"Yesterday," he said.
"You bought me a dress?"
"I had someone buy it," he said. "There is a difference."
"Alexander...."
"Put it on," he said. "There are shoes on the floor. They should fit." He moved toward the door. "Come down when you are ready."
He left before I could argue.
I stood alone in the guest bedroom of Alexander Hollander's mansion holding a dress that probably cost more than my school fees and felt something hot move through my chest that I immediately decided not to mind.
I went to the bathroom and put the dress on. The shoes fit perfectly.
I did not think about what that meant. I knew that he had noticed, had paid attention and had known my size without asking.
I did not think about it at all.
The party was already loud when I came downstairs.
The ground floor of the mansion had been transformed. Lights that were usually warm and domestic had been dimmed and replaced with something cooler.
Music bounced through the walls.
Students filled every room, beautiful, expensive and effortless in the way that vampires from powerful families always were.
I stood at the bottom of the stairs and felt every familiar feeling arrive at once.
I felt out of place, too small, too human and too visible in all the wrong ways. Then a warm hand found my waist.
"You look incredible."
It was Jake.
He was beside me suddenly, smelling like expensive cologne and already holding a drink, his brown eyes moving over me with clear appreciation.
My teeth was already out before I knew it.
"The dress," he said. "Whose idea?"
"Mine," I said without hesitating.
He smiled. "Great idea."
He pressed his lips to my cheek and kept them there a moment longer than I'd believe and every uncomfortable feeling I had walked in with passed away.
"Stay close to me tonight," he said against my cheek.
"Okay," I said.
He took my hand and pulled me into the party.
For the first hour, everything was almost fine.
Jake kept his word. He stayed close. He introduced me to people with his hand at the small of my back like I was someone who belonged beside him. He laughed at things I said. He brought me drinks, non alcoholic ones without me having to ask, which meant he had been paying attention, and when the music got louder he leaned down to speak directly into my ear so I could hear him and his breath was warm against my neck.
The plan was working. This was exactly what was supposed to happen.
I kept telling myself that.
I was also keeping track of Alexander across the room without meaning to.
Oh, foolish me!
He was near the far wall. Two girls had found him, Portia, who should not have been invited after what she did to me in the corridor but clearly was, and another girl I recognised from the swim team.
She was tall, dark haired and had the wild kind of beauty that came naturally to vampires.
They were on either side of him.
He had one arm loosely around the tall girl's shoulders and was saying something that made her laugh and tilt her head back and touch his arm.
He looked completely comfortable and completely at ease.
I looked away.
Jake was saying something. I smiled and nodded and handed him back the appropriate reaction and he seemed satisfied.
I looked back across the room.
Alexander's eyes were already on me.
He looked away first. I turned back to Jake.
Alexander's POV:
She was wearing the dress.
I had not been certain she would. Lily had a particularly bad relationship with accepting things from people but she was wearing it.
And it fit exactly the way I had calculated it would when I had stood in that shop yesterday feeling like an idiot holding up a dress and trying to remember if her eyes were more blue or grey in different lights.
They were blue. Very very blue.
I was not thinking about that.
Portia was talking. I could hear her apologies but they were not registering as language. They were just sound requiring minimal response. I gave minimal response.
Jake had his hand at the small of Lily's back.
She was laughing at something he said. It clearly was real laughter, not something performed. I knew the difference. I had studied the difference without intending to over weeks of sitting across from her at lunch.
The swim team girl touched my arm. I looked at her and she smiled.
I smiled back.
Portia said something about the music and I agreed with it and kept my eyes on the correct side of the room.
Not that side but this very boring side where Portia and the swim team girl were talking and the wall was textured and everything was completely fine.
Lily's POV:
Caitlyn arrived at nine.
I felt the room's atmosphere change before I saw her. When Caitlyn Clark entered it, there were heads turning, conversations pausing and the automatic gathering of attention.
She was wearing red. Of course she was always wearing red.
She moved through the room like she had been solely invited and her eyes swept the party once, twice, and then found their target.
Alexander.
She began moving toward him, slowly and deliberately.
The path she took was not direct. She stopped to greet people, laughed at the right moments, touched people's arms but it was absolutely aimed at reaching Alexander.
I watched her navigate around Portia and around the swim team girl.
She appeared at Alexander's side like she had simply materialised there and put her hand on his arm and said something close to his ear.
He turned to look at her. Some strange emotion moved across his face that I could not read from across the room.
Portia's smile went stiff.