Page 13 of Burning Daylight

Lately, she’s been up in arms about me taking myself too seriously. She goes on and on about seizing the moment while I have a few days left to do so. Before college is over and I’m on my way back home to “Mommy and Daddy.”

Her words. Not mine.

Her family runs the Second Circle Market chain of grocery stores, so while she knows what it’s like to grow up with money, she’s not one of the founding families.

She’s close enough to understand the world I live in, but distant enough to resent it. Plus, she can’t stand how tightly my parents hold the reins to my life, and she hates even more how easily I let them.

I guess it’s hard to understand the level of passivity someone develops when it’s all they’ve ever been taught.

“Did you hear me?” She smacks the back of my notebook, and my pen jerks mid-word, turning my “s” into a squiggle.

Sighing, I close the story I’m working on and glance up.

She looks beautiful, like she always does, her curvy silhouette highlighted by the sliding glass door that opens to the California ocean behind us, her long, straight blond hair and suntanned skin shining in the afternoon light.

“What?” I ask.

She snaps her fingers in my face. “Iknewyou weren’t listening to me, jerk.”

I bat her hand away. “I heard you, I was just hoping you’d let me hermit in peace.”

Felicity laughs. “If I did that, you’d end up a cranky old woman with twenty cats and no friends.”

“I’m allergic to cats.”

“Oh, yeah.” She pauses, frowning. “But I love cats.”

“Guess that means we can’t be friends anymore,” I deadpan.

“Please, I forced my way into your life when we were four and haven’t left since. I’m basically a permanent limb now,” she replies.

“More like a tumor,” I mutter.

“Semantics.” She flicks her hair over her shoulder. “Which is why it’s extra insulting you think you’ll get out of coming with me tonight. Please, Jules. One night of fun. I’m dying here.”

The guilt hits hard, and I let the fight drain out of me. “Fine. I’ll go.”

“Yes!” She fist-pumps, her thin blond eyebrows arching high. “Will you actually enjoy it, or will you be a moody bitch all night?”

I sigh, running a hand through my hair, the dark strands tickling the backs of my arms. “I learned a long time ago that when it comes to you, resistance is futile.”

She gasps. “Was that aTrekreference?”

Felicity’s been obsessed withStar Trekfor years, after she watched a marathon with my brother Paxton one weekend at my house. I’ll never forget it because it was the only time they’ve ever gotten along.

“I dabble.”

She splays a hand across her chest. “I have trulyneverbeen prouder.”

Stretching my arms above my head, I lean back until a satisfying crack punctures the air. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“It’s this?—”

“Wait,” I interrupt, throwing my palm in the air. “More importantly,whoare we going with?”

Don’t say Keagan. Don’t say Keagan. Don’t say?—

“Keagan and some of his friends.”