Page 18 of Unveil

“Didn’t know which one you’d want me to wear.” He nods toward my outfit and grins. “White it is.”

“Fitting,” Bart snickers.

“Why is it fitting?” I frown.

“Don’t mind him.” Zy sets his drink down and ties the white mask on. “He’s an asshole. His whole family is. My mom barely claims them.”

Bart purses his lips but then seems to think it over before shrugging like he agrees. Moving on, he points at my ring.

“Now that you’re getting hitched, what’s next?”

I bristle, but with my dad’s warning ringing in my head, I fumble over what to say.

“She’ll join the New Orleans Ballet Corps,” Zy answers in my silence, flabbing-the-freaking-gasters out of me. He squeezes me into a side hug, beaming with pride.

But I scoff, Dad’s warning be damned.

“No. I’m doing no such thing.”

His face falls. Guilt needles me, but seriously, how does myfiancéknow so little about me?

“Really?” he asks. “But you’re so talented.”

There it is. The expectations. God, I can’t wait to get out from under their weight.

When you’re in the public eye, there’s this weird phenomenon where people stop seeing you as a person and start seeing you as a thing they’ve taken a stake in. Choosing not to pursue something you’re “so talented” in becomes “unable to hack it” or “a waste of potential” just because you’re not living the life they’ve already bizarrely mapped out for you. They don’t care about your dreams if they don’t align with theirs.

Those are strangers, though. It hurts most coming from someone who’s supposed to know you, and the disappointment in Zy’s frown makes me feel like I’m actually screwing up.

I curl in on myself, holding my stomach. “I don’t know. I guess I’ve always wanted to travel. Be on the open road? Explore the mountains where my Momma’s family is from?”

Why are these questions? Just answer the man.

A song plays for half a measure. Then he bursts out laughing, putting more gusto behind it than necessary and making me jolt.

“Oh my God, you got me good. Your dad would kill me if I let you do that.”

“Letme?” Anger twists my lips, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he and his cousins double over laughing like my hopes and dreams are a comedy show.

“I’m serious,” I insist. “I wanna get out, explore, maybe hike the Appalachian Trail.”

“Hike?” Bart sneers. “Sweetheart, you wouldn’t last a day in those mountains.”

I prop my hands on my hips. “Watch me.”

The challenge thrums a defiant chord in me. If I could, I’d stomp off right now to start learning about backpacking. Just to prove the asshole wrong.

Zy pulls me in. “Come on. Why would you ever leave NOLA? Your friends, your family, your home?”

“I…”

I swallow.

Play the part.

I shake my head and pitch my voice higher. “You’re right. I’m being silly. New Orleans is home.”

“There ya go. You’ve come to your senses.”