“God.” He half groaned, half laughed. “Why are you forcing me to be an asshole?” Someone called his name from inside the penthouse, and he held up a finger, keeping his gaze locked on Piper. “There’s just nothing to you, okay? There are thousands of Piper Bellingers in this city. You’re just a way to pass the time.” He shrugged. “And your time has passed.”
It was a miracle Piper kept her winning smile intact as Adrian sailed away, already calling out to his friends. Everyone on the roof deck was staring at her, whispering behind their hands, feeling sorry for her—of all the horrors. She saluted them with her glass, then realized it was empty. Setting it down on the tray of a passing waiter, she collected her Bottega Veneta satin knot clutch with all the dignity she could muster and glided through the throng of onlookers, blinking back the moisture in her eyes to bring the elevator call button into focus.
When the doors finally hid her from view, she slumped back against the metal wall, taking deep breaths in through her nose, out through her mouth. Already the news that she’d been dumped by Adrian would be blasted across all the socials, maybe even with video included. Not even C-list celebrities would invite her to parties after this.
She had a reputation as a good time. Someone to covet. An “it girl.”
If she didn’t have her social status, what did she have?
Piper pulled her phone out of her clutch and absently requested a luxury Uber, connecting her with a driver who was only five minutes away. Then she closed the app and pulled up her favorites list. Her thumb hovered over the name “Hannah” momentarily, but landed on “Kirby,” instead. Her friend answered on the first ring.
“Oh my God, is it true you begged Adrian not to break up with you in front of Ansel Elgort?”
It was worse than she thought. How many people had already tipped off TMZ? Tomorrow night at six thirty, they would be tossing her name around the newsroom while Harvey sipped from his reusable cup. “I didn’t beg Adrian to keep me. Come on, Kirby, you know me better than that.”
“Bitch, I do. But I’m not everyone else. You need to do damage control. Do you have a publicist on retainer?”
“Not anymore. Daniel said me going shopping doesn’t need a press release.”
Kirby snorted. “Okay, boomer.”
“But you’re right. I do need damage control.” The elevator doors opened, and Piper stepped off, clicking through the lobby in her red-soled pumps, eventually stepping out onto Wilshire, the warm July air drying the dampness in her eyes. The tall buildings of downtown Los Angeles reached up into the smoggy summer night sky, and she craned her neck to find the tops. “How late is the rooftop pool open at the Mondrian?”
“You’re asking about hours of operation at a time like this?” Kirby griped, followed by the sound of her vape crackling in the background. “I don’t know, but it’s past midnight. If it’s not already closed, it will be soon.”
A black Lincoln pulled up along the curb. After double-checking the license plate number, Piper climbed inside and shut the door. “Wouldn’t breaking into the pool and having the time of our lives be, like, the best way to fight fire with fire? Adrian would be the guy who broke up with a legend.”
“Oh shit,” Kirby breathed. “You’re resurrecting Piper twenty fourteen.”
This was the answer, wasn’t it? There was no better time in her life than the year she turned twenty-one and ran absolutely buck wild through Los Angeles, making herself famous for being famous in the process. She was just in a rut, that was all. Maybe it was time to reclaim her crown. Maybe then she wouldn’t hear Adrian’s words looping over and over again in the back of her head, forcing her to consider that he might be right.
Am I just one of thousands?
Or am I the girl who breaks into a pool for a swim at one o’clock in the morning?
Piper nodded resolutely and leaned forward. “Can you take me to the Mondrian, instead, please?”
Kirby hooted down the line. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Piper crossed her legs and fell back in the leather seat. “How about we have everyone meet us there?”
Chapter Two
Jail was a cold, dark place.
Piper stood in the very center of the cell shivering and hugging her elbows so she wouldn’t accidentally touch anything that might require a tetanus shot. Until this moment, the word “torture” had only been a vague description of something she’d never understand. But trying to not pee in the moldy toilet after roughly six mixed drinks was a torment no woman should ever know. The late-night Coachella bathroom situation had nothing on this grimy metal throne that mocked her from the corner of the cell.
“Excuse me?” Piper called, wobbling to the bars in her heels. There were no guards in sight, but she could hear the distinctive sounds of Candy Crush coming from nearby. “Hi, it’s me, Piper. Is there another bathroom I could use?”
“No, princess,” a woman’s voice called back, sounding very bored. “There isn’t.”
She bounced side to side, her bladder demanding to be evacuated. “Where do you go to the bathroom?”
A snort. “Where the other non-criminals go.”
Piper whined in her throat, although the lady guard went up a notch in her book for delivering such a savage response without hesitation. “I’m not a criminal,” Piper tried again. “This is all a misunderstanding.”
A trill of laughter echoed down the drab hallway of the police station. How many times had she passed the station on North Wilcox? Now she was an inmate.
But seriously, it had been one hell of a party.
The guard slowly appeared in front of Piper’s cell, fingers tucked into her beige uniform pants. Beige. Whoever was at the helm of law enforcement fashion should be sentenced for cruel and unusual punishment. “You call two hundred people breaking into a hotel pool after hours a misunderstanding?”
Piper crossed her legs and sucked in a breath through her nose. If she peed herself in Valentino, she would voluntarily remain in jail. “Would you believe the pool hours weren’t prominently posted?”
“Is that the argument your expensive lawyer is going to use?” The guard shook her head, visibly amused. “Someone had to shatter the glass door to get inside and let all the other rich kids in. Who did that? The invisible man?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Piper vowed solemnly.
The guard sighed through a smile. “It’s too late for that, sweetheart. Your friend with the purple tips already named you as the ringleader.”
Kirby.
Had to be.
No one else at the party had purple tips. At least, Piper didn’t think so. Somewhere between the chicken fights in the pool and the illegal firecrackers being set off, she’d kind of lost track of the incoming guests. She should have known better than to trust Kirby, though. She and Piper were friends, but not good enough for her to lie to the police. The foundation of their relationship was commenting on each other’s social media posts and enabling each other to make ridiculous purchases, like a four-thousand-dollar purse shaped like a tube of lipstick. Most times, those kinds of surface-level friendships were valuable, but not tonight.