Chapter Thirty-four
The
clean-up
By midnight, everyone was leaving. The lights
were low, the music played softly and tons of people were paired off, eating,
drinking or playing party games in the pool. It was obvious Bingley and Shiloh
were the school’s hottest new couple. They sat together at the edge of the pool.
Bingley kissed Shiloh’s hand as everyone else was talking or finishing off
their drinks.
Darcy noticed this out of the corner of
his eye and didn’t like it. He’d been pretending to be into Mackenzie but it
was only to keep up the sham and make Paige jealous.
The whole evening was a disaster.
He’d been blanked by Paige after she’d played
hot then cold all night. What did she
expect? Of course he was going to walk off to make her jealous.
The truth was, after seeing her dancing
with Rys, he was the jealous one. He’d
never admit it. He still had his pride. His pride had been hurt. He’d never
really had to make the first move for any girl and Paige was really getting to
him. Just to spite him, she’d made moves to leave with her sister – and Rys
Wickam in tow.
Mackenzie also saw her brother kiss Shiloh
on the hand and looked at Darcy.
“Maybe it’s time I did something about
this. Just because we invited the riff
raff in doesn’t mean we have to let them stay!” she said, just softly
enough so only Darcy could hear.
Paige blew her party whistle.
“It’s over everyone, time to help with the
clean-up.”
People started to leave, quickly.
“I knew that would get them going,”
Mackenzie said. She was quite sober by now and thinking clearly.
After most people had left, Mackenzie
ushered Amadeus out. He complimented her garish house on all the great
sculptures and how bangin’ it was to
be at an American Party. He was quite out of it too and Paige and Shiloh rolled
their eyes.
“Oh that’s nothing compared with Darcy and
Blair’s place in Australia,” Mackenzie said sweetly. “That place is a real
mansion,” Mackenzie said pointedly.
Amadeus tried to lean on Paige and Shiloh and Darcy saw this and didn’t
like it. Paige heard Wednesday say
through the window as they walked to their ride, “Blair would have come if it
weren’t for the presence of Rys. I heard Darcy Donovan telling Mackenzie. Now I
totally understand why everyone says he’s the hottest guy on the planet.”
This made Paige think again. Perhaps there
really was something not quite right with Rys. Maybe even Mackenzie was telling
the truth, for once.
