Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler (the read aloud family .txt) 📕

Chapter Seventeen

NOW

“Who has the highlighter?”

I pass the compact to Gia and get back to focusing on my eyebrows, which, despite having been waxed the day before, look like they could use another pluck or twelve. Or maybe they’re overplucked. I can’t keep up with eyebrow fashion.

“The liquid, not the powder,” Gia says impatiently, and I shrug. Homecoming has arrived way too fast, and despite having a great dress with an awesomely poufy tulle skirt and enough sequins in the bodice to put the night sky to shame, I’m having an impossible time getting excited for the primping portion of the evening.

“Here, here.” Kiki hands her the bottle and shoves me gently out of the way so she can examine her earring options in the mirror. “Which ones do you guys like better?”

I scrutinize her lobes. Kiki almost never swaps out the pearl studs her parents gave her for her seventeenth birthday, so it takes a second to adjust to anything sparkly in them. “The dangly ones are definitely more interesting, but the diamond studs are classy.”

“Okay, so do I wanna be interesting or classy?” she asks, turning her head from side to side.

“You’re always interesting,” Shannon says sweetly. “Maybe try classy for once.”

The rest of us crack up at her burn, including Kiki. “Better not mess with what’s already working for me,” she says, taking out the diamond and handing it to Shannon. “Classy is boring.”

Shannon puts the studs back in her jewelry box, this massive antique thing her parents bought her for getting a five on the AP U.S. History exam. Half her room is filled with little trophies like that—a Kate Spade bag for her first all-A report card, a fancy ballerina painting for landing the principal role in her fifth-grade recital, a pair of Louboutins from when her team came in first in Model UN. To her credit, Shannon always shares—diamond studs, pricey makeup, and even the fancy barrette I’m wearing to hold my curls off my face.

“I bet your date will look classy,” Shannon says, sweeping a minuscule clump of mascara from her otherwise perfect lashes.

I snort. “By date do you mean the podcast app on her phone?”

The other three girls exchange glances. “Pretty sure she means her actual date,” says Gia, carefully rubbing the liquid highlighter onto her browbones.

“I’m sorry, what?” I cross my arms over my chest, the pink sequins that cover the strapless bodice digging into my skin. “Since when do you, Akiko Takayama, have a date? And how am I only hearing this five seconds before we get into the limo?”

“It’s no big deal, drama queen,” she says with a snort. “I’m going with Jasmine.”

Hmm, I thought my hearing was OK, but it’s clear something is malfunctioning, because there’s no way that I was just informed on the night of the dance that Jasmine Killary is going to be in my limo as one of my best friends’ dates. “I’m sorry, you’re going with who?”

There’s a collective whoosh of air intake as both Shannon and Gia suck in their breath. “Wow, Lar,” says Gia, flicking an imaginary piece of dust from her silver cocktail dress, “it’s the twenty-first century. This is really not a big deal.”

It takes me a few seconds to realize that Gia fucking Peretti is giving me a lecture on homophobia, and this is all so twisted and ridiculous that I could die. Next to her, Shannon is shaking her head in similar disbelief and it takes everything in me not to scream.

How is this my life?

I exhale sharply and clap my hands together. “Okay, let’s try this again. Kiki! I am very happy for you that you have a date! And it’s cool that it’s a girl! I just don’t understand how the fact that you have a date—of any gender—somehow did not come up before now. With me, at least.”

She shrugs. “It was kind of last minute, but she wasn’t going with anyone, and I was gonna be seventh-wheeling with you guys anyway, so.”

“Great,” I manage through gritted teeth.

Mercifully, the doorbell cuts through the tension filling the room and Gia squeals, effectively ending any conversation. We each take one last look at ourselves—and do one last lip gloss application—before heading out to the staircase to let our dates fully appreciate our glamorous descent.

“We’re going as friends,” Kiki murmurs just loud enough for me to hear, and I catch the flash of her smirk as she passes me so she can be the first to walk down.

Her words slash sharp and hot at my insides as the layers of her statement hit me.

Layer one: Kiki absolutely knows about my feelings for Jasmine, and maybe even knows about our history.

Layer two: Kiki put herself out there as queer to test the waters and wanted me to see that Shannon and Gia passed with flying colors.

But Kiki doesn’t know about the party, the song, how Jasmine basically told me to fuck off in front of an entire room. She doesn’t know how much deeper I got in with Chase. She’s clearly more of a romantic than I thought, or at least a better friend, but even Stratford’s greatest detective is missing some pretty important pieces to this case, and there’s no filling them in now.

Especially when I reach the top of the stairs and see Jasmine standing at the bottom.

She looks … radiant. There’s no other word for it. She’s wearing a two-piece dress that’s all glittering gold on top and matte on the bottom, short enough to show off long legs that glimmer with a little bit of that lotion I love. She’s wearing a fancier set of gold bangles than usual and they match the earrings that march up her lobes. Even her eyes look like liquid gold, lined with kohl. It feels like someone has reached into my chest and squeezed the shit out of my heart and I have to stop staring at her, but I can’t.

Not until I hear