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group and Mr. and Mrs. Ryan, all hanging out near a big table covered in fruit and sandwiches.
"Which bright side would that be?" I asked.
"You have an exciting story to tell when you get home!" Kiran said, lifting her palms.
"Yes, but I already have plenty of exciting stories thanks to Sabine," I told her lightly, ignoring the twinge in my chest as I said the girl's name. "I wanted to leave here with only boring stories. Boring, passing-out-in-the-sand-and-getting-sunburned stories."
Upton put his arm around me. "I believe we can still accomplish that goal. Although no sunburns. I don't want to see that adorable nose of yours peeling," he said, touching his fingertip to my nose.
Kiran groaned and Upton and I laughed as we arrived at the table. Gage walked right over to me and smacked me on the back.
"Starting to think you're a cat, Brennan," he said. "Nine lives and all the jazz." Once again, he wore nothing but his board shorts and a smile. Considering his sexual history and lack of an edit feature on his tongue, I supposed I shouldn't have been surprised that he was such an exhibitionist. He popped a grape into his mouth and held it in his teeth, showing it to me for a second before crunching into it.
"Ew," I said.
"I'm serious," he said, grabbing another grape. "I think you should let it all ride on Casino Night. You're, like, the luckiest farm chick on earth."
"Or the unluckiest," Paige put in as she stopped by with Daniel.
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"It all depends on how you look at it," Taylor said as she added gobs of mayo to a turkey sandwich. "I prefer the 'glass is half full' approach."
"Yeah, well, no glass or plate is half full for long around you these days," Paige said with a sniff before moving on.
Taylor's jaw dropped slightly, and she looked down at the sandwich for a moment as if the sight of it suddenly made her ill. But then something in her expression shifted and she took a big bite out of it, defiantly staring after Paige as she chewed. That whole out-of-Billings freedom kicking in again, I supposed.
"So exactly how fancy is this Casino Night thing? Are we talking Legacy fancy, Oscars fancy, or Cannes fancy?" I asked Kiran, picking up a wedge of watermelon. I couldn't imagine it was Cannes fancy, but I threw it in there just to show her I knew that the French film fest was the ultimate in red carpet. Something I'd learned after living in Billings for a year and a half with my fashion maven friends. "Because I still don't know what to wear."
"Don't worry," Kiran said with a wink. She snagged a bottle of water out of a big silver bucket filled with ice. "I've got you covered," she added, tapping my forehead with the bottle.
I was about to ask her what that meant when Sienna shoved aside the sliding glass door and trudged out, looking grim. Mrs. Ryan walked over to her and wrapped her up in a hug, her ever-present silk jacket billowing in the ocean breeze.
"All settled, dear?" she asked.
"Yes, thank you. I appreciate your letting me stay here," Sienna
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replied, her arms crossed tightly around her black-and-white sundress.
"You moved in?" Noelle asked.
Sienna nodded. Her face was pinched with worry and exhaustion as she approached us. "It's morbid, staying in Poppy's hotel suite without her. It's way too still."
"Of course it is," Noelle said sympathetically. She patted the girl on the back as if she understood. Then she made an exaggerated eye roll as she turned around to face us again and grabbed a sandwich. Kiran, Taylor, Tiffany, and I pressed our lips together and hid our faces to keep from laughing.
"So no one's heard from Poppy yet?" Daniel asked.
Silence. The hush felt cold and foreboding.
"Stop this now," Mrs. Ryan said, putting her arm around Daniel from the side. "The island police are looking into the matter, and I'm sure that Poppy will be fine. In the meantime, would anyone like a tour of the garden?"
I caught Noelle's eye. Why would anyone want a tour of her garden?
"Say yes," Upton said under his breath, reaching past me for a plate. "She lives to give tours of her garden."
Why would I humor this woman? She had been nothing but rude to me since we'd arrived.
"Sure. I' d love a tour!" Amberly said, putting her water bottle down and straightening the skirt of her fifties-style blue dress.
"What about you, Reed? You've never seen it before," Paige said loudly, smirking. "My mother's plants are to die for."
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I glanced at Noelle for help.
"Don't look at me. I've been on the tour," she said as she gathered some fruit onto her plate.
"Go ahead! It'll be fun!" Kiran cheered drolly.
"Upton?" I asked hopefully.
He laughed and grabbed a soda from a separate bucket. "You're on your own, I'm afraid. No one needs to take that tour more than once."
Tiffany rolled her eyes and sighed. "I'll go with you," she offered, wiping her hands with a linen napkin and placing her empty plate down on the table.
"We'll come, too," Graham offered, knocking Sawyer on the shoulder.
"Thank you," I mouthed to Tiff and the Hathaway guys. The more the merrier, when it came to a task like this. Who knew what kind of accusations and insults Mrs. Ryan would toss at me if I were alone with her and Amberly?
And so we were off. Paige, Daniel, and their father all, for no apparent reason, decided to come along. There was definitely a weird vibe in this family. Like the four of them couldn't stay out of one another's sight for very long. Sometimes I wanted to get away from my family so badly I locked myself in our basement. Or went away to boarding school.
The garden was on the west side of the mansion, surrounded by a copse of trees that provided shade for the plants that needed it. It was really rather beautiful, with huge beds of artfully arranged flowers
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and not a weed in sight. As we strolled along, I made sure to stick next to Tiffany. Amberly and Paige walked a bit ahead while Graham and Sawyer slid in behind us. Daniel brought up the rear, walking with his hands behind his back, watching his mother at the front, as if riveted by her every word.
Like I said--weird.
"Every plant in the garden is indigenous to the Caribbean," Mrs. Ryan recited, clasping her hands together and wringing them. Wow, this woman was tightly wound. "It's the most extensive garden of its kind on the island and has been photographed for several botanical and lifestyle publications."
"Oooh. I'm impressed," Graham joked in a whisper, earning a punch in the arm from his brother. I smiled. The gesture made me miss my older brother, Scott. I wondered what he was doing back in Groton right then. Probably convincing my parents to return my Christmas gifts and give the cash to him, since I hadn't bothered to come home.
"Listen, Reed, I never got a chance to apologize," Tiffany said under her breath as we slowly picked our way along the broken-slate path. "I'm sorry about what happened at Billings after Thanksgiving."
My heart felt warm for a moment, then sickly as I remembered that awful night when I'd walked back into my dorm and found every one of its residents gathered in the parlor without me. The night Noelle had announced that I'd been voted out.
I almost said, "It's okay." An automatic reaction. But then I realized, it wasn't okay. I understood that they had thought I'd betrayed
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Noelle, but no one had even bothered to hear my side of the story--that, as far as I'd known, Noelle and Dash hadn't been together anymore. That even if they had stayed broken up, it never would have happened again. I felt too awful about it.
"Yeah. What happened there?" I asked.
Tiffany bit her lip. "I don't know; Noelle was so determined.... She said it wasn't her idea to vote you out, but I think she talked Shelby into bringing it up."
So it had been Shelby Wordsworth. Interesting, but not that surprising. Portia Ahronian's preppy roommate had barely spoken to me before I was president. Then she became my biggest fan until
Noelle returned, when she promptly went back to spending all her time kissing Lange butt. She had more faces than a world clock. And with her, whatever Noelle said, went. Although, to be fair, that applied to most of the Billings Girls.
"I just think she couldn't handle being around you after that video and, to be honest, I sort of understood. I know now that I didn't have all the facts. None of us did. Well, except Sabine." She frowned, as if the very thought of Sabine made her uncomfortable. I knew the feeling. "Anyway, if I could do it over, I wouldn't have voted you out. I'm sorry."
"Thanks," I replied. "I'm glad you said something. I've been feeling--"
"Ladies? Am I boring you?" Mrs. Ryan interrupted loudly.
Tiffany and I both paused, snagged. Graham and Sawyer stopped behind us.
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"Sorry, Mrs. Ryan," Tiffany replied.
I looked around, surprised at the ground we had covered without my noticing. We had arrived near the tip of a bluff overlooking the ocean. My knees went weak, looking at the edge I'd almost gone over. To my left, the pathway forked off toward a tree that stood all by itself, surrounded by a ring of rocks in the dirt. There was a big X etched into its trunk.
"Why is this tree marked?" I asked, taking a couple of steps toward it.
"I wouldn't get any closer if I were you," Mr. Ryan said grimly.
I froze, my hands coming together nervously. "Why not? "
Mrs. Ryan's smile was all condescension. She stepped past her husband and Amberly to stand in front of me. "Because that is a manchineel tree," she said, looking me in the eye. "It's highly poisonous. Eating its fruit can kill you, and simply touching its sap will blister your skin. So you might want to take a step back."
"Yeah, Reed. We wouldn't want you to get hurt," Paige said sarcastically.
I walked back over to Tiffany, hugging my arms, my heart actually pounding because of a tree. "If it's so dangerous, why keep it around?" I asked.
Mrs. Ryan chuckled, shaking her head. "Because my collection wouldn't be complete without it. This is one of the island's most notorious plants." She looked me up and down derisively. "You know, Miss Brennan, when you're visiting a foreign land, it's customary to learn a little something about the place before you arrive. It's common courtesy, really."
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She brushed by me and rejoined her husband at the front of the tour. I felt a twinge in the back of my throat at being publicly scolded yet again.
"Wow. She really doesn't like you," Graham said.
He was speaking some serious truth. I didn't get it. Was it really all about Billings? If she cared so much, why hadn't she attended our fund-raiser or the hearing where we were almost disbanded?
Luckily, the tour seemed to be almost over. As we turned back toward the mansion, we passed by a small greenhouse with some pots, bags of soil, and trowels set up on a table outside. Next to that was a workbench with a broken birdhouse on it, ready to be mended, and a couple bags of birdseed.
Thinking about my morning songbird, I glanced over my shoulder at Daniel. He was the nearest Ryan to me, and also the only one who had yet to be outright mean to me--no matter his reputation. "Do you know where I can buy some of that? "
He grabbed a small paper bag off the potting table and quickly filled it with seed. "It's all yours," he said, handing it over.
"Really? Thank you," I said, surprised by how generous he was being, considering his mother's obvious dislike of me. "That's so nice of you."
"It's just birdseed," Daniel replied, amused.
"Are you children planning on catching up anytime soon?" Mrs. Ryan called out, annoyed as always.
"Children?" Sawyer said under his breath as he fiddled with the broken birdhouse. "What are we, kindergartners?"
"Yes, Mother," Daniel called back, ignoring Sawyer's comment.
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He took the birdhouse out of Sawyer's hand with a pointed glare and placed it back where it had been.
Daniel's mother shook her head, as if she were fed up, and continued along toward the house. He chuckled fondly, like her behavior was somehow humorous, and walked along, cutting in front of me, Tiff, and the Hathaways.
"Is it just me or is there something weird about this family?" I whispered.
"Oh, it's definitely not you," Tiffany replied.
"They're out of one of those bad horror movies," Graham joked, putting his hands out in front of him like a screen. He adopted a deep narrator's voice. "On the surface, the Ryans seem like the perfect family, but beneath their shiny gilded veneer lies a deep, dark secret. . . ."
"What's the secret?" I asked, playing along.
"There isn't one," Sawyer said, shoving his brother. "He's just being a dork."
"God! Grow a funny bone, man. You don't always have to be so damn literal," Graham groused, shaking his head as he walked ahead of us.
Sawyer blushed and shrugged, embarrassed. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his black cargo shorts and rushed ahead to catch up. I looked at Tiff.
"Yeah. They're a weird family too," she said in an accepting way.
After the tour we rejoined the rest of the group. Upton slid his arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him. I ignored the general
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glowers of the female population and hugged him back. Even Mrs. Ryan eyed us disapprovingly. I supposed I could add PDA to my list of crimes in her book. But the new Reed was not taking anything for granted. Especially not Upton. Especially not after what had happened that morning.
"Sienna's on the phone with Poppy's mother," Upton whispered, nodding toward Sienna, who had walked away from the group for more privacy.
My heart skipped a beat, wondering what was being said. Had Poppy been found? Maybe she was with her parents in Antigua. Please let it be something that simple. Everyone waited in relative silence until she finally flipped her phone closed and returned.
"Well, they're not worried," she said, sounding almost disappointed as she forced a smile. "They say she does this all the time-disappearing without notice."
"See? What did I tell you?" Upton said, looking at me. "Even her parents think she's fine."
"They're not even going to look for her?" Mrs. Ryan asked, her hand going to the ornate gold necklace at her throat. It looked almost too heavy to wear.
"It doesn't sound like it," Sienna said, tucking the phone into her clutch.
"What kind of parents are they?" Mrs. Ryan asked, looking at her husband.
"Calista," he scolded, putting his hand on her back.
"So, Jet Skis?" Paige suggested, stepping forward.
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"Yes, right." Daniel looked around and cleared his throat. "I think I have enough for everyone."
"He has fourteen Jet Skis?" Amberly asked.
"I'm a collector," Daniel replied with a sniff. "I buy at least three new models each year."
"Well, you can count me out," I volunteered, dropping down on a lounge chair. "I'm not up for any more high-speed sports today."
"You have to come," Upton entreated.
Noelle stepped up next to him and looked down at me. "You do realize the alternative is hanging out around here," she said under her breath, "with the Ryans."
I glanced over at Paige and Daniel's parents, who gazed steadily back at me as if they knew what I was thinking. I reached my hands toward Upton, and he obligingly pulled me up.
"Okay, then! Jet Skiing it is."
Honestly, I may have even gotten back into Misty's saddle if it would have gotten me away from those two creeps.
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CHAPTER 23 SANE LOGIC
Jet Skiing was way better than horseback riding. Rather than being at the mercy of an animal, I had complete control over my speed. Within fifteen minutes, I was racing with the guys, weaving in and out, jumping their wakes. Skipping over the water with the salty spray hitting my face and my wet hair whipping back was the most exhilarating feeling. If I ever won the lottery, I was going to buy myself a beach house and get
one of these bad boys. Or two.
But not twenty of them like Daniel. That was overkill.
"You're a bit of a daredevil, aren't you?" Upton shouted, racing up next to me.
"What?" I shouted back with a laugh, veering around Daniel and Paige, who had slowed just ahead of us. Upton shot between the two of them--a rather close call as far as I could tell--and zoomed out to catch up with me.
"You're quite good with that thing!" Upton shouted.
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"You're not too bad either!" I replied.
I revved the engine and sped toward the open ocean, daring him to follow me. Of course he did. I was on one of Daniel's older models, so Upton quickly jumped ahead, laughing over his shoulder. I pulled back and turned, cutting a wide arc so I could see the shore. As soon as I did, I became mesmerized by the gorgeous view of the island and slowly pulled to a stop. My Jet Ski let out a kind of coughing sound while I idled.
Just ahead of me was a pristine white beach enclosed by palm trees and wild vegetation. Beyond that were the rocky cliffs that seemingly climbed up into the sky. And above it all, looking like some sort of modern castle, was the Ryan's estate. Upton pulled up next to me.
"What's up?" he asked.
I pushed back my wet hair. "I just wanted to take it all in for a second."
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Upton said. "I've been coming here my whole life, so I suppose I've stopped noticing."
"How can you not notice this?" I said, throwing up a hand toward the shore where the water grew lighter and greener in color as it lapped against the sand. "This is freaking paradise!"
"Freaking paradise? How poetic," Upton teased with a laugh.
I blushed, feeling unsophisticated. But the moment quickly passed. Who cared? I was who I was and Upton liked me. I noticed that Noelle, Tiffany, Kiran, Taylor, West, and Dash were heading to the shore and felt a sudden surge of independence. I didn't want to be the girl who was always tied to her guy. The Billings Girls, former and current, were the people I'd come here to be with.