And the girl smiles, captivated and wanting to be nowhere but with her Romeo.

Olivia’s perfect. Why have they not given her the lead in anything all these years?

Everyone stands quiet, and after a moment, the curtain over Liv’s mind seems to close again, and she sits up, her demeanor serious once again.

“See, Clarke?” Lizbeth props herself up on her elbows, looking around Liv. “Just like that.”

I laugh to myself, seeing him shifting uneasily.

Lambert claps. “Okay, everyone! Tomorrow. Be here at three!”

Everyone starts to gather their things, chatter filling the room, and I watch as Liv doesn’t come down to me but disappears backstage.

She had to have seen me. I check my phone, seeing I’m twenty minutes late.

I carry the rose, climbing the stairs and veer behind the curtain and down another small set of stairs. I find Liv in a dressing room with the door open as she sits on a stool.

I hover at the door. “I brought you something to remind you of me.”

I hold the rose, and she doesn’t look right away, but after a moment, she glances up.

She eyes the rose, looking sad, and my heart pounds. “Pink?” she asks.

I step into the room, closing the door and stopping in front of her. I lower myself to the floor and to my knees. “Thorns.”

I set the flower on her dressing table and lie my head on her lap, hoping she forgives me. I’m late, and I promised her I wouldn’t be.

“I’m full of thorns,” I say softly. “But there are things about me that I hope are worth it.”

After a few seconds, I feel her hand in my hair. “I hate Romeo,” she says, stroking my scalp. “But I’m starting to understand him. Fuck you for that, Clay.”

I half-smile, because I know she’s bitter, because she’s cracking, and I want that. I want what Trace promised. That the switch would flip, and she’d be mine.

I peel up her sleeve and gaze at the octopus on the inside of her wrist. “This is mine.” I smooth my thumb over the ink. “Forever mine. My piece of you.” And then in a murmur, “‘Within this inch…I’m free.’”

This patch of skin won’t be anyone else’s ever. It’ll be mine when she marries someone else. When she’s eighty. It’s all I really have of her.

I kiss her wrist and tip my head up as she puts one of the costume hats on my head, a top hat like the one in her room.

She regards me, the wheels turning in her head, but before I can ask what she’s thinking, she pinches my chin and leans down.

Her breath brushes my lips, and I can almost taste her.

“Let’s go get you naked,” she whispers.

CAN’T WE JUST go park somewhere? Or go to my house like she suggested?

What was I thinking?

I gaze out the passenger side window, concentrating on keeping my hands on my lap instead of fidgeting, because all of these houses remind me of that feeling I’d been fighting since I was a kid. That there are places I don’t belong.

Smooth roads void of any puddles or potholes. Gates and trimmed hedges.

White houses.

White Rovers.

Lots of white people who will take one look at my last name and think I’m here to clean, cook, or rob something.

I look over at Clay, wishing she would’ve let me drive, so I wouldn’t feel so vulnerable right now with nothing to do; but then I catch sight of her toned, tanned thighs peeking out of her skirt, and I exhale, remembering. Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I shake my head at myself.

She pulls into her driveway, and I look out at the oaks lining the circle, a fountain spilling water in the center. I scan the windows for lights.

Everything appears dark, except for the gaslit lanterns—one on each side of the front door and two more posted farther down the exterior to the left and right. I can’t see the third floor from inside the car, though.

Clay parks and climbs out.

“Are your parents home?” I ask, leaving my school bag in the car and following her.

“My dad, probably not.” She carries her bag, with her keys out as we head for the front door. “My mom won’t bother us.”

She unlocks the door and steps inside, lights immediately illuminating without Clay doing anything. I hesitate a moment as she heads for the small entryway table and drops her keys into a blue glass bowl.

“It doesn’t look like she’s home yet,” Clay says. “Her keys aren’t here.”

The hair on my arms rises, feeling the air conditioning escaping as I inhale the scent of new things.

Or really the scent of almost nothing. Like how a furniture store smells. Or a library or a car dealership. Like places where people don’t live.

My house smells like wet wood, the spiced rum Trace spilled all over the floor last week, and last night’s spaghetti.

I step inside, closing the door behind me, and hit the sensor on the wall, the lights dimming again. I feel a little safer in the dark. Just like Clay.

She spins around, dropping her bag to the floor, and I approach her, the only warm thing in this house.

“Are you hungry?” she asks.

The crystals of the chandelier clink overhead as the air circulates, and the stairwell looms behind her, both rooms on either side of the center hall dark, except for the moonlight streaming through the sheer curtains.

She drops her eyes, and I swear I see a blush.

“My mom always keeps so much food in the fridge,” she laughs, sounding nervous, “I don’t know why. She barely eats, and my dad’s hardly here.”

I don’t want food.

“I want to see your room,” I tell her.

I’m pretty sure she saw mine even before I invited her in. I can’t imagine she resisted the urge at Night Tide.

I’ll feel safer behind a closed door. Hopefully she doesn’t have a chandelier in there, too, and I can forget that I’m in the house of one of St. Carmen’s most influential families.

I cock my head, watching her. But then… I kind of like that I’m here. In the house of one of St. Carmen’s most influential families.

About to fuck their daughter.

I keep my smile to myself, loving that she’s suddenly nervous like it’s our first time.

Turning, she rounds the table and heads up the stairs, my eyes memorizing her body as I follow. When we reach the top, she veers left, and we head down a hallway, over hardwood floors decorated with white Persian runners and portraits on the walls in silver frames. Two blond kids on a beach, building a sandcastle. A little boy on her dad’s shoulder as Clay and her mom cheer next to him at a Florida State game. The two kids making faces for the camera under the water, in a pool.

Clay stops at the first door on the right, but I’m already staring ahead at the first door on the left, several feet farther down the hall. Dark blue, wooden letters that read HENRY hang on the door above a tin sign warning of “Gamer At Play—Do Not Disturb, No Girls Allowed (Except Mom)”.

She opens her door, but I tip my head toward her brother’s room. “Show me.”

She shifts, looking uneasy, but doesn’t budge.

I study her. “When’s the last time you were in there?”

“I don’t go in there.”