Brutal Blueblood

Sera said to me, taking my hands, “it’s going to be totally fine. It’s not like Owen is going to kiss you under the mistletoe or something. I promise you will still live out your life Owen-kiss-free.”
I wasn’t sure what passed over my face then—shame or alarm—but Sera and Aurora both reacted at the same time, their mouths forming round little Os.
They stared at me.
“Tanith,” Sera said slowly. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Even though we were alone at the top of the stairs, I glanced around to make sure no one could hear us. “It’s complicated,” I finally admitted. “The kiss thing.”
Two pairs of eyes—Aurora’s eagle gold and Sera’s shimmery dark bronze—blinked at me.
“He kissed me after my Preston interview,” I said. And then I waved my hand like it was no big deal. “A short one. It wasn’t anything like Ibiza.”
“Wait,” Aurora said. “He kissed you in Ibiza?”
“On my boat?” Sera said, sounding horrified. “He harassed you on my own fucking boat? Oh my God, I’ll kill him.”
“No, no, we’ll have Sloane kill him, darling,” Aurora said, rubbing a soothing hand over Sera’s shoulder. Sera took a calming breath and nodded.
“Yes, you’re right, Rory. We’ll have Sloane kill him. And she’ll kill him so dead that they’ll never find all the pieces, not even when Keaton’s family’s henchmen search for them. And then we’ll kill him a second time.”
Affection warmed my blood, but as much as Sera and Aurora’s loyalty meant everything to me, I didn’t want them to get the wrong idea. “There wasn’t any harassing,” I clarified quickly. “On the yacht, I mean. I kissed him—I wanted to kiss him. A lot.”
My cheeks were so hot now I was sure they were singeing the air around me.
Sera narrowed her eyes at me—a queen assessing her subject. “Does this have anything to do with your abrupt decision to spend the semester away from Pembroke?”
I considered not telling them the full truth, but they were going to yell at me for hiding the kisses anyway, so I might as well give them the whole story.
So, quickly and with as much dignity as I could muster, I recounted the whole story about what happened on the yacht instead of the much-abridged version from before, and then outside the Preston Media building two days ago.
“Okay, we definitely have to kill him now,” Aurora said.
“And pour his pity-hot-chocolate all over his corpse,” added Sera.
“And then sear your initials into his super-dead skin so he’ll never forget who you are even in the afterlife.”
I held up a hand. “I appreciate the murder talk. Truly. But murdering aside, can you understand why I don’t want to go back down there?”
Sera and Aurora shared a look, and then suddenly their arms were linked with mine and I was being gently marched down the stairs.
“We are not letting Owen ruin this party for you,” Sera said.
“What you need,” Aurora declared, “is someone cuter than Owen to flirt with.”
“No, guys, I don’t flirt—”
“Not Rhys,” Sera said over me as if I hadn’t spoken. “He’s the fucking worst.”
“Same with Phineas,” Aurora agreed. “And he’s probably balls deep in some random girl right now anyway. What about Chad?”
“Stop it with the Chad already,” Sera said, the eye roll apparent in her voice. “No one wants to put their mouth on a Chad.”
“What? I think he’s hot. And friendly. Which makes him a million times better than any Hellfire boy.”
We were on the main floor of the house now, heading into the crush of the party. The air smelled like fresh evergreens, and small pretty fires burned in very old and expensive fireplaces.
“Rory,” Sera said with infinite patience, “we are better than Chads. Chads grow up to be the kind of politicians that get caught in hotel rooms with two hookers and an ‘eight ball’ of blow. How about Felix?”
“I don’t want to flirt with anyone—” I protested.
“Felix is perfect,” Aurora interrupted. “He’s hot and it will piss off Owen so much. Hey, Felix! Over here!”
Owen’s brother turned, giving us a crooked grin from across the room. He said something to Chad and the other person he was talking with and made his way over to us.
With his loosened tie, rumpled hair, and lazy grin, he was beyond cute—although my mind immediately conjured up the contrasting image of Owen in his tailored suit, the fabric hugging his tightly muscled frame perfectly.
I could so easily imagine his bored stare . . . and those firm, full lips pressed together in cool displeasure . . .
“Ooh, look, there’s mistletoe,” Aurora murmured, nudging me so I’d see the clutch of glossy leaves and berries hanging above us.
“Rory, obviously, I’m not going to—”
“Well, hello there,” Felix said as he reached us. His grin widened as he took us in, and for a moment as he looked at me, his lower lip caught between his teeth. I could feel Sera and Aurora discreetly touch each other’s hands behind my back, the universal best friend code for did you see that??? “I’m glad to see everyone survived the deadly ice-skating excursion.”
Unlike Owen’s eyes, which brought to mind winter oceans and glacial caves, Felix’s were the color of a summer sky. Easy, open, carefree. Like he was someone who lived to have fun.
I wanted to have fun too. I didn’t want to be the girl hung up on the cold, rich asshole. I wanted to be the future editor of Gotham who’d spent her youth kissing lots of fun, handsome boys. In a move Sera had taught me sophomore year, I raised my eyebrow and let the corner of my mouth curl the slightest bit.
“I’ll be expecting my Olympic medal any day now,” I replied.
He laughed. It was a warm sound, effortless, perfectly at home among twinkling Christmas lights and champagne. Nothing like the dark, icy liquid of Owen’s voice.
“You know, I could be persuaded to tutor you,” he said, all dimples and charm.
For a moment, I wondered what it would be like to date someone like him. He’d call, text,