“Parker’s here, too,” I tell her. As if to confirm this, there is a crash of breaking glass in the kitchen, and my sister shouting something that sounds demonstrably like ASSHOLE.
“Maybe I’ll hold off,” Li says. “This chocolate is too good to be thrown at someone’s face.”
“This way,” I tell her.
When I get back into the piano room, the sheet music is all stacked in a neat column alongside Johan’s violin case, like an office tower built over the Guggenheim.
“Johan, Li. Li, Johan,” I say.
As Li is shaking his hand, she asks, “And how do you two know each other?”
“Mass transit,” Johan replies, offering no further explanation.
The noise from the kitchen has reached the decibel level known by musicologists as hollering. The doorbell takes this as its cue to ring again.
I assume Ilsa will use this as her excuse to leave the kitchen.
She does not.
“I’ll get it,” I say. As if either Li or Johan could be viable candidates for the task.
I figure it’s going to be Jason, but when I open the door, I find someone who is not even remotely Jason. On the hotness scale, Jason may have been a firecracker…but this guy’s the sun. He is wearing clothes, but my body reacts like he isn’t. My gaze rises from his strong shoulders to focus on his face.
“Hello,” I say. And it sounds like hell, because the oh comes out so low.
I see he has one of our invitations in his hand. This has to be one of Ilsa’s guests.
Then his other hand gets my attention.
Because—
It has a sock on it.
A white tube sock with green button eyes.
And a red-stitched mouth.
And brown yarn hair.
“I hope we’re in the right place,” the sock says.
It has a disturbingly attractive voice. English as a second language…with Sexy Beast being the first.
“Excuse me?” I say. Because nine out of ten times, when you’re confronted with a sock puppet, that is the only valid response.
“This is Ilsa’s party, isn’t it?” the sock continues. I look up at the godlike guy, and his lips aren’t moving.
“It is Ilsa’s party,” I say. I am not talking to the hand. I am talking to the hot guy who is looking at me like his hand isn’t talking to me. “I’m her brother, Sam.”
“Nice to meet you,” the sock says. It holds out its hand. Which is his pinkie. Under a sock.
I look at the guy, as if to say, You can’t be serious.
He looks back at me, as if to say, This is my life choice and you must respect it.
I shake the sock’s hand-pinkie.
“I’m Caspian,” it says. “This is Frederyk. He met Ilsa when he was playing basketball. I am not allowed to accompany him on the court, so I missed the chance to meet her. But I am happy to meet you now.”
“Come in,” I say. “Please.”
I am fairly certain that Ilsa’s wild card is a bit more wild than she imagined.
Or she’s fucking with me.
Which isn’t nice.
She knows how I get.
She knows.
“What a lovely home,” Caspian tells me, looking around with his button eyes.
“Thank you,” I say.
Can she be fucking with me?
No. Yes.
If this is an act, he’s really good at it.
“I must admit that I knew you were Ilsa’s brother. I have heard such lovely things about you.”
No. No no no. That’s too much.
“Did she put you up to this?” I ask Frederyk. “She did, didn’t she? This is going to end up on the Internet, isn’t it? Where’s the camera?”
Frederyk smiles sweetly at me.
No. This is my life choice and you must respect it.
“You’re even cuter than she said you were,” Caspian tells me.
Wild. Card.
I don’t know whether to take them—him—straight to the kitchen or back to the piano room.
“What the hell?” a voice intones.
Six eyes—two of them buttons—turn to the still-open front door.
“I’ve only been here six seconds, and already I’m bored,” KK bitches.
Hard as it is to believe, she’s wearing a French maid outfit, too.
five
ILSA
“ASSHOLE!” I shriek at Parker after he makes the most provocative and completely absurd request I’ve ever heard from him. I take an icy beer glass from the freezer and lob it directly toward his high-top ’fro head. He quickly ducks. The glass hits the kitchen tile behind Parker’s head and shatters, as it always does. It’s been so long since Parker and I have had this kind of fight, all the old broken beer glasses have been replaced, and I don’t remember where to buy these particular ones anymore. Hopefully Czarina won’t notice we’re down to three German beer glasses in the freezer. Hopefully this level of fight no longer heats me so hard I want to jump Parker’s bones immediately after breaking something.
“Chill. The. Fuck. Out,” Parker tells me, but he’s completely unfazed, which agitates me even more. He walks to the pantry, pulls out the broom and pan, and begins sweeping the broken glass into the broom pan, way too comfortable with this old habit. “Do you want to do it or not?”
“NOT!” I declare, because my pride is speaking for me.
But my heart longs to do it. My body literally aches for it.
“Come on, Ils,” he says, laying on his sweetest voice, which he knows I can never resist. If I was wearing a button-down blouse, the button at my boobs would pop open right now, just from hearing Parker use this particular cajoling tone, which worked so effectively on me in the past. “Once more, for old times’ sake.”
“I don’t remember how,” I lie. It’s so long since I’ve done it. Like, since Parker and I broke up.
There have been other boys since. I even did it with KK once. But none could do it with me like Parker could. And the KK time involved a lot of Jäger shots to get me into position.
Parker dumps the broken glass into the trash, then steps behind me and lightly gyrates his pelvis against my rear. “Of course you remember,” he whispers in my ear. The feel
