Page 8 of Unveil

“Benny!” she yelps.

“Sorry, Loose. It was either Brylie’s straight liquor or your middle school Screwdriver. See ya!” He starts but stops to point hard at me. “I mean it about Zy.” He backs up, pointing two fingers between his eyes and mine. “Don’t get me in trouble.”

“I won’t!” I raise my hands in mock surrender.

“Kinda hard to do that if she’s breaking up with the guy,” Brylie mutters.

“Bry!” I whisper-shout, but Benoit’s thankfully already out of earshot.

“What?” She shrugs while Lucy huddles closer to us both as we wait for my turn to bow. “Maybe Benny will be able to convince you to do it.”

“Areyou gonna do it, tonight?” Lucy asks.

“She should,” Brylie says. “The Troisgarde girls need guys who are obsessed. Anything less and he’ll never be able to stand toe-to-toe with our dads.”

I groan, “Agree, except my dad actuallylikesZy.”

Even Lucy grimaces at that. “Eww.”

“That’s the worst,” Brylie agrees. “Any guy my dad is even nice to instantly gives me the ick. I swear they only like the boys we don’t.” She shudders for effect. “But my Spidey senses are telling me you’ve gotta do it quick, Lu. Something’s up. I can feel it.”

Benoit’s name is called, and we look around, only to find him laughing with Nox and three girls in tutus fromCinderellaandSleeping Beauty.

“Typical,” Brylie snorts. “You’re up soon. What’ll it be? Single or sad?”

I arch a brow. “‘Single or sad,’ Bry? Really?”

She lifts a shoulder. “I said what I said.”

Lucy gives me a knowing smile, so I answer her instead of the prickly one with the humor drier than a desert. “My cutoff is midnight. I refuse to be with someone at twenty-two who makes me feel”—I tug at my suddenly too-tight bodice—“unwanted.”

Lucy pouts. “We want you.”

“Thanks, Loose,” I snort. “But I’m already in one platonic relationship with?—”

“And last, but not least, our Bordeaux black swan,” the emcee announces.

“Oh, gross.” I grimace at the phrasing and my stomach twists. “He wasn’t supposed to say that. Now I look like a narcissistic bitch.”

“Oh my God, no one thinks that,” Lucy laughs.

“Who cares?” Brylie slaps me on the ass, making me squeal before she pushes me toward the curtain. “It’s your last bow, babe. Make it count.”

“Don’t break a leg,” Nox calls from the back.

“Butthead!” I shout over my shoulder as I stop at the red fabric wall.

“GiselleandSwan Lake, danced by Luna Bordeaux!”

I sweep through the curtain, rise en pointe, and perform one last fouetté. The fact that I nail it, even after a couple of shots, goes to show I’ve danced my whole life. The crowd goes wild, nearly deafening, as I land and bow.

Tears blur the sea of friends and family who’ve supported us. And I quickly open the curtain to wave everyone out to soak in this moment too. It’s not mine. It’s all of ours.

We bow together, our pride, nostalgia, and anxiety over the future palpable. The emotions swell in my chest like a balloon.

I shouldn’t even be here for many reasons. For one, I was supposed to be a junior like Brylie and Nox. But I couldn’t wait to start my life, so I took my core curriculum over summer breaks.

Part of me also expected to get kicked out before I ever got my degree. I didn’t think I’d make it to high school graduation, let alone college. After all the shit my friends and I have pulled, we should’ve been expelled several times over. It was mostly harmless stuff. Tourist pickpocketing, underage drinking, trespassing…