for her to come back here. It might keep her out of trouble while I’m gone.”
There were far fewer temptations for Jada in New London than in New York City, but the fact that he was looking after her so closely was still a double-edged sword to me. I was glad she’d had someone watching her back while I’d been off playing college science geek. Jada’s world, for all its enormous wealth and privilege, seemed darker than ever.
“Tami told me last night to let them know if I needed a break, so I’m pretty sure she and Saul could watch the place for the weekend. I’ll check,” I said.
He nodded in acceptance, and my heart squished together with anticipation that it shouldn’t have. Going to New York with them…being close to Dawson for several days in a row…it was the opposite of smart. It was like putting an acetic acid too close to a flame. It was sure to explode.
Dawson
FEELS LIKE TONIGHT
“From the moment you came into my life
You showed me what's right.”
Performed by Daughtry
Written by Gottwald / Sandberg / Solomon
This was the stupidest thing I’d done in almost five years.
Even stupider than carrying Violet upstairs, laying her in my bed, and watching her sleep all night.
My eyes kept flitting to the rearview mirror, taking in Violet who’d insisted on squeezing herself into the pretty much nonexistent back seat of my Aston Martin. Jada was in the passenger seat, rambling about our “bon voyage” dinner Dax was arranging and the even bigger, Great-Gatsby-style party she was planning to throw for us if we beat the record.
When I’d said a Gatsby party felt clichéd, Jada had laughed and said it was only because I’d never seen her throw a costume party before. At least it was distracting her from the other issues in her life.
Jada’s phone rang, and she talked for a few minutes. After she’d hung up, she twisted in her seat to take us both in. “That was Yuriko. She’s drafting some costume ideas and wants us to meet her at the studio tomorrow to take measurements.”
I shot her a glance. “I have two comments to that. First, you keep acting as if we’ve already won when we haven’t even departed, and second, I already have a tux.”
She stared at me for a moment before dissolving into a fit of laughter that made her wipe her eyes and hold her stomach.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You being all humble like you aren’t going to beat the record, as well as you trying to use that same old tuxedo.”
“You had no problems when I wore it in Italy at the museum gala.”
I glanced at Violet in the mirror. I could almost hear her thoughts whirling, taking in the time Jada and I had spent together and making more assumptions. The fact that she’d asked me if I loved Jada had hit me in the pit of my stomach. As if I would do something like that―fall for her best friend. But I also understood it. Jada and I had kept our relationship vague on purpose. There’d even been a moment last year when I’d had to kiss her, but we’d both stepped away once the coast was clear, brushing our lips as if it had been poison touching them instead of each other.
“Dawson, Dawson, Dawson,” Jada laughed. “Your tuxedo is sleek and sexy, but this is a roaring twenties party. You can’t show up in a modern tuxedo.”
“Come on. There isn’t that much difference between them,” I guffawed. “Your gowns, I get, but a tuxedo is a tuxedo is a tuxedo.”
Jada laughed again, turning fully around in her seat to meet Violet’s eyes directly.
“Do you see what I’ve had to put up with while you’ve been away getting a degree? This imbecilic idea of what fashion is and isn’t.”
Violet was smiling when I risked looking at her again, and the look curled up inside my chest, making me want to keep it forever. I had the sunroof open, and the sunlight lit her hair, making it glow like a silken halo. Her pale skin shimmered. Violet was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid my eyes on. I’d had a lot of women prance through my line of sight in the five years I’d been racing boats with Dax and traveling with Jada. Expensive women. Women who had their bodies nipped and tucked into the image of beauty they wanted, as well as ones who didn’t give two cents about the