Page 63 of Wherever You Are

I clear a lump in my throat. “Do you always define words for people?”

“Only for people who need definitions.”

Boom. Mic drop.

Maggie would love his burn towards me. She once tweeted:All I want for Christmas is for Connor Cobalt to insult me. Please and thank you.It’s supposed to be an honor. At least, to the online community. For everyone off Twitter and Tumblr, I don’t think they’d appreciate being called stupid, and I doubt he’d care.

I try to nudge my already pushed-up glasses. “Do you have…an extra car I could borrow?” I risk asking him, of everyone, but if someone else stood on this driveway, I’d definitely be asking them first.

Because Connor analyzes all of my words, all of my edgy movements, and my quick glances to Lo.

“We have many cars you could borrow,” he says, “but Lo will want to ride with you.”

“No, no, that’s okay. Never mind.”

He’s sounsurprised by my reaction. It’s kind of unsettling.

Thankfully, Lo pockets his phone and approaches us. “So what’d we decide?” He appraises my Honda from afar, hood closed but still broken.

“I don’t know. We couldn’t fix it…” I trail off as a limousine pulls to the curb and then idles. Exhaust gurgles out.

Lo swings his head to Connor. “When did you call your driver?”

Connor Cobalt’s limousine.It’s nearly as famous as Lily’s Wampa cap. Jane Cobalt wasbornin that limo. It’s like this sacred relic. I’m stunned silent.

“The same time Ryke lifted the hood of her car,” Connor answers.

My brother laughs into a small smile, and he pats his friend’s shoulder. “Goddamn, you make life easier.”

“It’s what I’m here for.” Connor spins his attention onto me. “I trust my driver. I’ve known him for years, so you’ll be safe by yourself. I’ve already given him your address.”

It takes me a solid minute to find words. “Thank you.” I say my goodbyes to Lo, and he tells me to text him when I reach my apartment.

I dazedly enter the limo, the black leather seats perfectly intact and shined. A few water bottles sit unopened in a refrigerator section.

The limo rumbles to life, and the driver takes me home. I check my Twitter messages to find a new one from@garrisonwither.

How’d it go? You okay?

I message back:Strange … but good, I think.

I hope.

I lean back and look around this limo, and I imagine all of them here with me. Lily, Loren, Connor, Rose, Ryke, and Daisy—and I wonder how many places they’ve been. How many conversations they’ve had right here. Days and weeks and years ago.

I sit in a place that has held thousands of memories for infamous people—people that I can call family. I have trouble accepting this as reality. I feel like I’m part of someone’sPrincesses of Phillyfan fiction.

But this is real life. My life. Canon.

14PRESENT DAY – December

Smoky Mountains

GARRISON ABBEY

Age 22

“Ithink us being together—like sexually and not just seventeen-year-old chaste friends—is starting to finally click with your brothers,” I say on the porch of the lake house. It’s this huge place that the Calloway sisters and their husbands all share and use every Christmas and other holidays and generally when they want to escape Philly and the paparazzi.