Page 58 of The Other Side of Paradise

“Uh… uh-huh.” I guess that was what I’d done too. I looked out over the railing.

“So, should I be on the lookout for a girl who looks like me?”

“Um… isn’t that a little weird?” I said, my voice strangled. She laughed.

“This whole thing’s weird. I burned bridges with my family to hang out with my sister and her hookup who her ex tried to cheat with and her hookup’s friend. What’s a little more weirdness?”

“Okay, I mean, touché, but still…” I fidgeted with my drink, squeezing it between my hands, and finally, I sighed, hard, hanging my head. “Stella, I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t think I’m going to find a girl for a… fling, or something like that. Not like this. I’m just gonna be thinking of you.”

“It’s worth a try, right?” She really didn’t sound at all bothered. To say this was not how I expected things to go was an understatement. My brain told me she’d hate me and my body fantasized that she’dexperimentlike BB had said, but no part of me had imagined she’d just go,oh, cool, okay, I’ll find you a girl who looks like me.Who did that?

“I mean. I guess?”

She laughed as the music picked up from the rooftop, and she stood up, turning to me with her eyes gleaming, nodding towards the roof. “I love this song,” she said. “Wanna go dance?”

“Dance,” I said flatly, like I’d never heard the word.

“Great way to find some cutie.”

“I think most people here are straight. Just statistically. It’s a little different than picking up a guy.”

“Worth a try. Even a straight girl would be lucky.” She winked, and I felt it like a brick to the head.

Would she?Woulda straight girl be lucky? Because there was one straight girl I was… I was…

Jesus Christ. What in the absolute flying fuck was going on?

“Okay,” I said weakly. “Yeah. Sure. Worth a try. Let’s go dance.”

Chapter 17

Allison

We didn’t find any other girls. I wasn’t trying to. Neither was Stella, really.

We joined the floor up on the roof and we danced, Stella sticking close to me, and she leaned in close at points to whisper what I thought of this girl or that girl. I never even looked.

I didn’t care, anyway, and it wasn’t long before she stopped asking, just dancing, moving between the floor and the side of the party, a million people around as it packed fuller for the night but we only talked to each other. And when it was almost midnight and we left, Stella was a little bit tipsy on a good two drinks, so I offered to drive her back to the resort—it was only a ten-minute walk, but I didn’t want to ditch her while a little drunk to go walk alone at midnight.

Yeah, right. I just wanted to squeeze in a few more minutes with her. Either way, though, she beamed at me and said, “You’re an angel, Allison.”

“I’m patently not. I’m like a scruffy little demon that got kicked out of hell for not even being good at evil and now just kind of drifts around.”

“I bet you could be good at evil, if you committed yourself.”

I laughed, opening the passenger side door for her on my car, the parking lot quiet around except for the distant thump of music from the top of the building and the sounds of bugs and birds in the trees. “That’s a great compliment. Especially coming from you, the one who’s actually evil. Now get your evil self in the car.”

“Whew, flirting hard.”

I was. I shouldn’t have been, but I was. I closed the door for her when she got in the passenger side, and I took the time walking around the car to try to wedge my thoughts back into place.

I was just taking Stella back to her room to make sure she got there safely. There was nothing weird to read into this whole… thing, tonight. She was just looking for some fun dancing.

God, I was so fucking confused.

I got in the driver’s side and started the car, just a few minutes down the road to the resort, where there was still quite some party going on at the poolside bar, but luckily Stella’s room was around the other side, and I got to park on the far side, under the shade of the tall palms around the spa center.

“Walk me to my room, I’m too drunk and I’ve forgotten my room number,” she said.