“For the love of God, please close the curtains.” I groan.

He shakes his head defiantly, hands on his hips. “It’s a beautiful morning and you will leave your room today.”

“Whatever for?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. “Because…it’s a beautiful day?”

I grab the covers and pull them over my head. “Good night. Close the curtains as you leave—”

“Vance.” He tries to stop me.

“Elias, what? I’m here, okay? I am here, in the middle of nowhere, wasting away. I don’t exist. So let me bloody well not exist.” I grab my pillow and pull it onto my head.

He sits at the edge of my bed, and he says softly, “Your mother called.”

Of course she did.

“She wants to speak with you.”

Oh, she wants to speak with me now, but she had nothing to say when my stepfather banished me here?

That’s rich.

She tried to confront me before I left last week, and we ended up having a row. She said some nasty things. I said some things back. That was when it was decided that my stepfather’s best friend, Elias Rodriguez—my godfather, essentially—would look after me in the interim. My stepfather certainly wouldn’t. He paid more attention to the movies he produced than to his own son.

Tragic, I know.

It’s just so hard being Vance Reigns, heir to Kolossal Pictures, prince of Hollywood, et cetera, et cetera.

Whatever.

I figure if I ignore Elias long enough, he’ll leave, and finally he does and closes the door behind him. If I never talk to my mother again, it will be too soon. She can leave voice mails all she wants.

I don’t care whether it’s a beautiful day. I don’t care what I’ll be missing. I don’t very well care about any of it. I just want to exist here, do my time out of the media, and leave. It’s not as though I wanted any of this to begin with.

Yes, I like a little bit of chaos. And yes, I might have gotten into some easily preventable trouble more often than not. I mean, wouldn’t you want to shake things up now and again if everything you ever did was watched over, quite meticulously, by not only your overbearing mother but also hundreds of thousands of fans?

I suppose I could have called a taxi for Elle after the Starfield: Resonance wrap party. I could have just ignored the paparazzi. I could have not lost control and careened my Tesla into a small reservoir half a mile from where Elle wanted to be dropped off.

But I’d be out of my mind to think that was the tipping point. It was an amalgamation of all of it—the late-night parties at the flat, the clubbing, the revolving door of men and women throughout my dating life. The stunt with Jessica Stone last year at ExcelsiCon didn’t help matters, either.

Everyone loves the allure of a bad boy. They love him right up until he crosses that invisible threshold. They cheer him on, they fall in love, they protect him—

Until, suddenly, they don’t.

And then they become the villain. The cautionary tale.

In other words: me.

ANNIE AND QUINN ARE WAITING FOR ME outside Quinn’s house at the end of a beautiful tree-lined street. We’ve all been together for as long as I can remember. One day we all sat on the same tire swing in kindergarten, the one under the big oak tree in the corner of the yard, and—well—that was it. History was made and the bonds of friendship forged, and we didn’t even have to go to the summit of Mount Doom to do it.

I can’t imagine a single day of my life without either of them.

My best friends wait at the edge of the driveway as I pull up. “Hurry, hurry, hurry!” I say as Quinn and Annie climb into the back seat. I lift the drink carrier with two coffees over the passenger seat and hand it to them. “Java Hutt took way longer this morning.”

Annie pulls her springy red hair back into a scrunchie and buckles up. “Can we blame Java if we miss homeroom?”

“I’d rather miss first period,” Quinn says, taking the two coffees. They hand one to Annie. Quinn is one of the best-dressed people I’ve ever met. They’re stylish and cool, the kind of person you wish you could dress like. For instance, today they’re rocking plaid straight-legged pants, suspenders, and a Starfield T-shirt. They pull a lock of their short teal bob behind their ear. “I didn’t do the reading for Gunther’s class.”

“Oh, the one on microorganisms?” Annie asks. “I can give you my notes.”

I scoff, pulling out of the driveway. “There are more doodles on your notes than actual notes.”

“I get bored!” Annie shrugs, then leans up behind the driver’s seat. “And don’t think you can just get away with not telling us what happened last night. I tried calling you for hours and it went straight to voice mail! We thought you’d died.”

“I was already writing the eulogy,” Quinn agrees. “What happened to you? Annie said you got fired.”

“I did. And it’s…complicated.”

I watch my two best friends exchange a look in the rearview mirror, and both of them lean forward between the seats, prodding me to go on.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

Quinn takes a long drink of their iced Americano before they say, “Try me.”

Last night, as Dad and I were leaving, Mr. Rodriguez did ask us to keep this arrangement to ourselves. Which, I mean, we will. Annie and Quinn are basically an extension of myself, aren’t they? Best friends always are.

I trust them with my life.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone,” I said gravely, and my two best friends exchange another look.

Annie says, “I think we’re going to be late to homeroom.”

To which Quinn says to me, “Go on.”

I start with Vance’s dog, Sansa, running out in front of my car, and how I followed her into the castle-house. How I found the library, and the book, and how I ended up in the pool and having to owe over a thousand dollars because of my sticky fingers. And then I told them about Vance, and Mr. Rodriguez, and our agreement. I go the speed limit as I tell them, knowing the exact ten-minute drive to my paid parking spot.

The high school is smack in the middle of town. Down the road is the middle school, and the elementary school sits at the end of Main Street like a hundred-year-old spooky remnant of ye olden days. I mean, the high school looks just as ancient, but at least it was built in the ’50s and has central AC. The elementary school still has window units. I shiver, remembering this past summer.

Barbaric, putting snot-nosed kids through the armpit of hell. As I recount last night, I honestly can’t believe it happened myself. It sounds like something out of a rom-com—and I guess it would be, if the hunk hiding out in the castle was anyone other than Vance Reigns.

“I can’t believe General Sond is here,” Annie mutters in disbelief. “Do you think I could get an autograph? A selfie? A letter from him to put on my stan Tumblr?”

“You still keep up with that thing?” Quinn asks, perplexed. “Even after he got into all that trouble?”

“Don’t police my morals!” Annie playfully elbows them in the side, and adds, “But seriously, can I get an autograph? I know the perfect fanart he can sign.”

“Not the one with the—”

“Oh yes, that one.”

I massage the bridge of my nose. Now I remember why, last night as I lay awake in bed, I debated on whether to tell my best friends, and how much to tell them. I turn into the school parking lot as Quinn tries to talk Annie out of getting Vance to sign that fanart (not like he’d sign anything, but I don’t want to ruin their fun yet), until Quinn pops up between the passenger and driver’s seat and says, “So, theoretically, you could still have that video.”

“Video?” I ask as I pull into my assigned parking spot.

“You know, if your phone still works.”

“Oh my God—the video! I’d die to see it. To see him in all of his bad-boy glory,” Annie adds with a heavenly sigh. “I wonder how sexy he is?”

Too sexy, I think, hesitating, before I take my phone out of my pocket and pull up the video. I hit play and hand it to them. The video goes through my adventure through the dark of the house, to the pool, and then—a little garbled since my phone is old, but still clear enough—I hear Vance say, “What are you doing here?” and then I shriek and make a run for it, and then he shouts, “Wait—stop!”

Right before I slam my elbow into his nose and take a dive into the pool.

The video ends there.

My best friends stare at my phone for a moment longer. Then Annie takes a sip of her caramel macchiato with soy and says, “Garrett’s going to lose his mind when he finds out.”

I quickly take the phone back. “He’s not going to. And you two can’t tell anyone!”

“But—” Annie begins.

“Promise? Pinky swear?” I add, lifting my pinky.

Grumbling, Annie hooks her pinky to mine, and then Quinn does. They’ve never tattled on any of my secrets before—not about Dad and me losing the house after Mom passed, or having to sell her Starfield collection to pay for the funeral costs, so I don’t think twice about them blabbing here. They’re not the type.