"Sir, are you sure you're in the right place." I'm stopped at the door by an asshole in shiny shoes and uniform.

"Yes, I can read. Now, if you'll excuse me," I push past him.

I brush my shoes off on the rug before stepping onto the hard tile. I hear my feet echo when I walk but, blame it on how quiet everything is here.

They'd have more guests if they didn't charge a thousand dollars for a damn pillow.

"Um- can I help you?" A lady at the desk asks when she sees me standing in the middle of the lobby.

"Yeah, you can actually." I walk over to her, "I'm here to see Heather, but I don't know what floor she's on."

"Heather Blakely?" The lady furrows her eyebrows at me and scrunches her nose up like I'm lying.

I nod, "yeah, that's her."

"Can I get your name, sir?" She says, disbelief still laced in her voice.

"Leo Rylin."

She sighs and turns away from me, moving toward her intercom. "Ms. Heather, there's a guest here to see you. He says his name is Leo Rylin."

"Thank you, Edna, send him up please."

Edna looks skeptically at me before sighing.

"You heard the girl," I shrug, "now, what room?"

I watch as she presses a button before focusing back on me.

"Down the hall, sir. The concierge will take care of you."

I nod and follow in the direction she pointed. Though, her instructions sounded vaguely threatening.

I approached a man wearing red from head to toe with gold buttons down his coat. "The Blakely guest, I presume." His eyes scanned over me.

"The elevator guy, I presume," I say in response.

He narrows his eyes at me once more before opening the elevator, "after you."

I watch as he enters a code into a keypad below the elevator buttons.

"This is some high tech rich people shit, huh?" I furrow my eyebrows.

"Enjoy your visit, sir." The concierge says simply before stepping out of the elevator.

"Oh, did I mention I have a fear of being trapped in an elev-" the doors close before I can finish my sentence. "Great..."

It counted up so many floors that I thought it may never stop. I mean, I don't even know which one I'm supposed to be getting off on. Now that I think about it, they didn't even give me a room number.

The elevator finally lands on a floor, and my eyes widen when the doors pull apart.

There's an elevator in your fucking suite.

"Leo!" Heather smiles and runs up to me, "what took you so long?"

"I told you the people here don't like me very much."

"I'm sorry they gave you a hard time," Heather sighs, "don't think too much of it, they'll get used to you the more you come around."

"...how long do you expect to be tutoring me?" I narrow my eyes at her.

"Until the exam, at least that's what Ms. Chang said."

"That's if I pass the exam."

"You will," Heather says sternly. "Now, do you want anything before we get started?

"Got any soda?" I raised my eyebrows.

"...no." She pauses, "we have sparkling water, I think it's flavored...do you want that?"

"...I'm good, thanks anyway."

"We can just head up to my room then," Heather leads me to the stairs.

I follow her up, admiring the way the stairs curve and the designs on the railing. I can't lie, it'd be sick to have a place like this.

"This is your room?" My jaw practically falls to the floor. "This isn't even the size of my living room."

"It's nothing really," she says modestly, "you should see Audrey's room."

"I'll pass," I shake my head and continue wandering through her room, making sure not to touch anything visibly expensive. Though, I didn't think twice about picking up the photos. "Aw, look at you," I laugh and show her the picture of what looked like the five-year-old version of her wearing giant pink shades and sporting the peace sign.

"Whatever," she snatched the picture out of my hands, "those were my favorite pair of Armani sunglasses."

"Why would you buy designer sunglasses when you could've gotten a pair just like them out of the drug store around the corner from my house?"

"Shut up and sit down so we can finish this by 1:30." Heather motions to the spot across from her on her bed.

"Hey, you're the one who wanted to do this today," I say defensively. Don't make it seem like you're doing me any favors.

"Yeah, because I'm busy the rest of the week, and I have plans later."

"Plans with evil Audrey?" I say slyly.

"Don't call her that. You don't even know her," she frowns disappointedly.

"Oh, my bad, maybe we'll become pals when she stops rolling her eyes at me," I say sarcastically. "We can throw slumber parties and talk about life."

"Whatever.

"No, really. How's my future best friend forever doing, huh? Is she going to keep it?"

"Keep what?" Heather furrows her eyebrows at me.

"The baby, obviously," I scoff. "My friend Danny saw her and some dude outside the abortion clinic. He said it looked bad, so, maybe she changed her mind."

You're her best friend, she would tell you....right?

We both look up when the door opens. "Heather," a cold voice emits from a tall, thin woman with high cheekbones and dark red lipstick.

"Mother..."

"Shouldn't you be getting ready for the Kendal's brunch soirée?" She crosses her arms.

"I will when I finish up with Leo." Heather's voice is laced with irritancy.

"There is no time for Leo, Heather. You spend enough hours on this," Her mother says sternly. "Now, Leona and Geoffrey are expecting us to be prompt, so handle your guest, dear."

Heather scoffs, "actually-"

"It's fine, Heather. I'll leave-"

"Leo can come with me. The invite says a plus one is allowed, and he was just telling me how he's starving."

"I bet he is," Her mother grimaced at me. "I do not believe that would be a good idea, however. I'm sure he has better things to do."

"No, and we can finish studying on the way there. He did come all this way, after all," Heather smirks deviously at her mom. "Don't you want to go Leo?" She asks but doesn't look at me, clearly not wanting to lose the stare down they've got going on.

"Um- I don't know..."

"You'll go, won't you?" Heather turns and gives me a desperate look. "...please," she mouths.

I'm going to regret this.

"Yeah...sure, why not?"

I can give you ten reasons why not right off the top of my head. The most immediate being that we're going to a place full of centrals who hate my guts.

"Heather, he doesn't even have the proper attire," her mother utters through gritted teeth.

"I think he looks fine." Heather shrugs and stands up from off of the bed, "now, will you excuse me? I need to get ready." She closes and locks the door.

"Thank you," I say politely when the chauffeur opens the door for me.

"Heather, wait." Leo grabs my arm and stops me from getting out of the car.

"Yes?" I turn to face him.

"I know you're using me to piss off your mom, and I'm not mad, more power to you-" He hesitates and sighs.

"But?"

"You know how your friends are, and you know how you get around your friends. We talked about this. When we're alone, we're cool, everything is fine...we can tolerate each other. You know, but when we're around our friends..."

"That all goes down the drain."

"We're strangers again," Leo adds.

"So, what are you saying? You want me to have him take you home?" I motion toward the chauffeur who is still waiting patiently outside the car.

"Nah, I can catch the subway."

"Nonsense, Leo. How about you come in, have a drink, have some food, and then my driver will make sure you get home safely. Deal?"

"Why does this deal still leave me at this fucking party?" He chuckles as he shakes his head but follows me out anyway.

Yes, I want him here to piss off my mom, this is true. However, I also want him here to piss off Audrey and Jace while simultaneously being my moral support.

"It'll be fun, I promise," I whisper to him as we walk into the building, letting the hostess show us to the ballroom.

"Are you sure you're on the list this time?" Leo teases as we get in the line to check in.

"You're hilarious, you know that?" I say sarcastically, and he laughs in response

Audrey is standing with Trevor near the champagne table, and when we make eye contact, she "discreetly" points toward me and Leo. Trevor glares, and I look away as if I didn't notice.

"May I have your names, please?" The lady with the clipboard asks.

"Heather Blakely and guest."

"Alright, you're all set. Please, head in," She says with a smile.

I take a deep breath and link arms with Leo, "keep close, okay?"

He gives me a confused look but nods.

"I hate this, you know that?"

"Then, here, have a drink." I take a glass of champagne off a waiter's tray and hand it to him.

"I'm going to need something way stronger than this to deal with your friends." He makes that assumption before even tasting it. "Speaking of," Leo nods toward Trevor approaching us.

"Let's go find a table." I try to pull him away, but Trevor intervenes.

"Rylin," He says with a smile. "I would've invited you myself, but...why would I do that?"

I scoffed, "don't you have anything better to do, right now?"

"Don't you have a boyfriend to go bother?" He bit back, "Leonardo and I have some things to discuss. Guy stuff, so run along." Trevor shooed me away while taking Leo in the opposite direction.

I stood there crossed armed and glaring because they weren't that far. I could make out pieces of the conversation, but it wasn't enough for me to understand.

"Fuck off, it's gone, and fuck you for even having it," Leo spat.

"Watch who you're talking to. I can have your ass serving 20 to life, and I bet they'd love you in prison, pretty boy."

"Does your girlfriend know you're gay?" Leo narrowed his eyes at him.

"You can't afford to be having this conversation with me, scrub," Trevor scowled and walked away from him.

Leo turned to me and I mouthed "what the hell was that?"

He didn't get a chance to respond before someone else was stealing my attention.

"Are you mad at me or something?"

"Hello to you too, Jace," I sighed.

"Why'd you bring him?" Jace asks.

"He has a name, and he can probably hear you. So, let's talk somewhere else," I say quietly.

Jace huffs and motions for me to follow him. I knew where he was leading me, I've been to his house enough times. So, I walked ahead of him and pressed the elevator button to make this trip faster.

We said nothing as we stepped in. We didn't even speak when we entered his living room. When we got to his bedroom, however, the shouting started.

"Do you think dangling that burnout in front of me is going to get you anywhere?"

"Well, it got me to your room, didn't it?"

"What do you want from me, Heather? Why are you acting like a child?"

"Why do you only want my attention when it's being given to someone else?" I ask frustratedly.

"Oh, come on. Now, you're making up things to justify being fucking annoying!"

My eyes widen in shock before glaring in anger. "And you're blaming me so that you don't have to admit to being a self-involved slut!"

"What are you-"

"I know about your little fan club of freshman, I know about Rayanne, I know you look at other girls, Jace. You think of temptation as a challenge." He clenches his jaw as I corner him. "Just how much can I flirt with them before It's considered cheating? Just how much can I touch her before I can't help but fuck her?"

"Heather, you know I love you. Why are you looking for a fight?" Jace says calmly.

"I'm looking for a fight? You won't even hear me out?" I ask, but he stares at me instead of responding. "Forget it..." I put my hands up in surrender, accidentally knocking off a picture frame he had on his dresser.

I roll my eyes but crouch down to pick it up.

"Don't worry about it-" Jace tries to stop me, but I continue anyway. I furrow my eyebrows at the smaller picture that fell out of the frame when it hit the ground. It was hidden in the back, and I quickly regretted letting my curiosity get the best of me.

"...tell me again how I'm completely insane and making things up," I say as I stare at the dirty picture he has of Alison.

"Babe..." Jace says lowly.

"Tell me again how you love me..."

"It's nothing, it was just for laughs. Ethan's an asshole, and I let him convince me to keep it for him, honest."

"I've got to go, Jace. Leo is waiting for me downstairs." I begin to walk out but snap back around when I hear Jace's footsteps. "Don't follow me."

He cowers back, giving me the opportunity to rush to the elevator and get in alone. My breath quickens as tears well up in my eyes. I wipe them away furiously and take deep breaths to calm myself down, not wanting my face to flush enough for it to be noticeable.

The door opens, and I immediately put on a fake smile, nodding at anyone who makes eye contact with me.

"Leo?" I call out when I reach the banquet room.

"He left," Audrey answers, instead. "He shouldn't have come in the first place." She says in disgust before walking away from me.