Gluttony

What an idiot.

Of course Kane was right, Harper thought bleakly. Of course this was where the secrets came out to play-everyone drunk all the time, never sleeping, pushing themselves to the limit, letting their guard down. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

It was her disaster. What if they found out somehow? The image forced itself back into her head, the one she’d been trying to forget-the one she’d driven hundreds of miles to escape. Her hands on the wheel, her foot on the gas pedal, the world spinning. The flames.

They all pitied her now, which was bad enough. If they found out she’d been the one behind the wheel, if Adam found out…

She told herself she didn’t care what he thought, not anymore. But she knew he could never forgive her for being a murderer. Why should he? It’s not like she had found a way to forgive herself.

Two days, she thought. Forty-eight hours. If she could survive, stay sane, stay hidden, keep the real her-the unforgivable her-under wraps for the weekend, it would be a sign. She had hoped for a vacation from the torment of her life, but maybe that wasn’t what she needed. Maybe she needed one final test, proof that she could put the past behind her and focus on normal life, that she could live with keeping quiet, that she could go on, even here. She would survive Vegas, and that would be proof-she could survive anything.

“Forget the drama, guys,” Kane said, drawing the group toward the exit. “We’re wasting valuable party time.”

“I’m, uh, thinking I might get some sleep,” Miranda said, staring at the ground.

“Yeah.” Adam’s gaze was fixed on the ceiling.

“Maybe they’re right, Kane-” Harper began.

“What the hell is this?” He pointed ahead of them to the giant neon sign blinking a few feet away: MIDNIGHT MAGIC BUFFET-24-HOUR FEAST. “It’s two-for-one drinks night. What are we waiting for?”

“No more drinking tonight,” Adam said. “Not for me.”

Kane gaped at the three of them as if they’d sprouted antennae. Then he nodded with sudden understanding. “I get it.” He grinned. “I spooked you. Look. I’m sure none of us have any secrets…”

He turned to Harper, who met his stare without flinching. He knew what she had to lose-and she knew he was daring her to chicken out.

“But let’s just say, hypothetically, we all do,” he continued. “So I suggest a pact. We’ll hit the buffet and drink to it. Anything we find out about each other this weekend… well, it doesn’t count. All secrets forgotten as soon as we leave the city limits. After all, what happens in Vegas-”

“I don’t drink to lines that are so old, they have mold growing on them,” Harper snapped.

“What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” Kane finished, arching an eyebrow. “Agreed?”

They nodded, and they shook on it. Not that it mattered. Harper knew she was the only one with a secret that really meant something-and there was no way in hell she was risking exposure. Pact or no pact.

“Good. Let’s get some cocktails and make it official,” Kane ordered, charging toward the buffet. “Eat, drink, and be merry, folks, for tomorrow-we do it all over again.”

Reed was buzzed.

But it wasn’t the drugs. It was her. It was the blond hair, the blue eyes, the cotton-candy lips-all of it like a doll, a picture in a magazine. Picture perfect, but so real, and so unpredictable, starting with her inescapable, unbelievable choice: him. From honor roll to rolling blunts, from superstar to slacker- he didn’t even remember how she’d woven her way into his life. She’d just appeared. As if he’d been asleep and then, on waking, there she was. Part of him.

After Kaia… Beth had helped him. Not to forget-never, he had promised himself. But Beth had helped him survive the remembering. To live.

He had never asked her why she was hanging around the slums of his life, maybe because he knew it wouldn’t last. But Reed had never before cared about the future. Why start now?

“Guess I should have changed into a bathing suit,” Beth said, stretching out on the edge of the pool and skimming her bare toes across the water. “We could have gone in the hot tub.”

Reed had only ever been in one hot tub in his life, and it was a part of his life that was over now. It’ll be fun, he heard Kaia’s voice say, somewhere in the depths of memory. Promise.

“I don’t do bathing suits,” Reed said, and-except for that one time-it was true. He gestured down to his black AC/DC T-shirt and dark, well-worn jeans, his standard uniform. “This is it.”

Beth stood up, her long legs mostly bare beneath the sheer pajama shorts, and joined him on the lounge chair. He scooted over to give her room, but she barely needed any, stretching out alongside him, wrapping an arm over his chest and twining her legs with his. The pool area was nearly empty.

“You can’t see the stars here,” she mused, resting her cheek against his to look up at the sky. “Too many lights. It’s weird.”

They’d both grown up under the bright, too-clear desert night sky, where civilization-or what passed for it in Grace-faded away just after nightfall. The city haze was disconcerting, like the sky was closing in on them-or like the stars had disappeared altogether. “Get used to it,” he warned her. “Next year…”

“Yeah, next year.” She fell silent, and in that silence, he saw it all: graduation, summer, and then the day she packed up her stuff and moved to L.A., to college, leaving him to his deadbeat, dead-end life. “About that…,” she murmured. “I’m not going.”

Reed didn’t say anything.

“I’m not-it’s not what I want anymore,” she said softly, and he could feel her arm tighten around him. She was still searching for the stars. “Maybe if I’d gotten into Berkeley, things would be… maybe if a lot of things had happened, or hadn’t happened, or-” She stopped, and shivered against him. He began rubbing his hand up and down her arm. “It’s not me anymore,” she finally said. “It’s not what I want.”

“So next year, you’re just going to…?”

“Stay in Grace. Stay with-” She turned away from the sky, toward him, and rested her hand gently against his cheek. “I know we don’t really talk about-I mean, we’ve never, about next year, but I thought you might… be… happy.”

Happy that she’d given up the only dream she’d ever had, to get the hell out of Grace and move on to something better? Happy that, ever since they’d gotten together, she’d never talked about what she wanted or where she was going, had just lain around on the couch with him listening to his music and smoking his pot? Happy that, unlike him, she had a real future, and she was giving it up?

“Yeah,” he said, tipping his head forward and kissing her, still overwhelmed by the taste and feel of her lips, as much as he had been the first time. “I guess I am.”

They stuffed themselves on prime rib, shrimp cocktail, fresh fruit in a honey-lime yogurt sauce, jalepeno poppers, garlic-roasted pork loin, fried chicken wings, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, several hearty helpings of chocolate cheesecake and, since none of the half-asleep Midnight Magic staffers seemed to doubt their flimsy IDs, several pitchers of beer.

Merry was an understatement.

“Thish is awesome,” Miranda slurred as they stumbled up the Strip back to their hotel. All her ridiculous fears about secrets and lies had long since been forgotten. “I love Vegas.”

“Viva Las Vegas!” Harper shouted, flinging her arms in the air. “We love you!”

No one even bothered to stare.