Party Foul - Abby Knox Page 0,18

in the festive holiday lights that festooned the wide banister. Levi’s palms started to sweat. He didn’t know if he was supposed to just stand there or bow or something.

How had he ended up here? Literally, he’d handed his keys over to some teenager in a valet jacket, then been shown inside a glittering foyer by someone who looked like a member of the Secret Service, who checked his name off a guest list. When the would-be Secret Service agent spoke Levi’s name into the mic of his headset, yet another stranger had walked over and escorted him to the foot of the sweeping staircase to wait for Fiona. Christmas trees of varying sizes, placed in random spots around the foyer created the illusion of a magical winter forest. The golden ornaments and white lights reflected off the polished marble floor. He felt like he was on another planet. He may as well have traveled backward to the time of knights and princesses, and this may as well have been a castle. That’s how foreign all of this felt.

But then, he remembered who he was. He was a Spanos. His father had spent his life working the docks that kept this city running. His mother was a nurse. His grandfather had worked construction and helped build the Ecco Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Newcastle. Before this very house was here, before the laws were passed to strip protections of public beaches, Levi had spent summers on this stretch of seashore, breaking into the abandoned lighthouse at Sunset Ridge with his miscreant friends.

Every nerve inside him settled. Nobody belonged here more than he did.

When he focused his eyes on Fiona, none of that stuff mattered in the moment. Fiona was not just head to toe gorgeous, she glowed so bright everything around her seemed hazy.

Her hair was done up in a mass of curls with sparkling accents worked into them and tendrils hanging down to frame her sweet face. Around her shoulders she wore a furry white wrap. Between her hair and toga-style dress, she looked like a winter snow goddess.

People around Levi stopped their conversations. Some people murmured in astonishment under their breath.

A few photographers snapped.

If Levi didn’t know any better, he would swear that she smiled demurely at him as if she truly did belong to him. A part of him for a split second believed it. He believed, or she had tricked him into believing, that she was looking at him like a woman looks at the man she is head over heels in like with. He wouldn’t say “in love with.” He wasn’t even sure what that meant.

And then he remembered what he was doing here. She hadn’t intended to trick him into believing this was anything but an illusion. She was playing her part.

Still, he pressed pause on this blip in the matrix and let himself feel it. He allowed himself this experience of a woman looking at him like she was so into him that there was no other person in the room. He let himself feel good. Accepted. Like he was an upright citizen of Ivy League caliber and, of course, she was his date. He wasn’t Levi Spanos, ex con, he was something else, a known quantity in this room full of people who measured everything in terms of dollars and cents. He dared to let himself pretend for a moment, imagine what it would be like to be her legitimate boyfriend.

Levi gave himself permission to imagine, as he lost himself in the glittering spirit that descended toward him, what it would be like to be invited to dine with her fine family. Get invited to join them on vacations on their yacht. Surely, there was a yacht owned by them at the marina. These were obviously yacht people.

He imagined for a second exchanging gifts with her under the Christmas tree, handing her a gift box containing a piece of jewelry that she’d been eyeing in a boutique window on River Drive. Of course, this family would probably wear matching pajamas. For some reason, this is where the fantasy broke down. Levi didn’t wear pajamas.

Forget the fantasy. You don’t have to pretend. You want her? Fuck that yacht and fuck matching pajamas. Just go and get her.

He jogged up the stairs up to meet her on the landing halfway.

Fiona took his offered arm, and they descended the rest of the stairs together while everyone watched.

She looked pleased with the way he’d been looking