As the three of us made our way back to the lobby and the double doors leading to the ballroom, neither Nick nor I said a word. He stopped right outside of the doors. “I hate parties,” he grumbled. Then he pushed the door inward. “And I am the best damn brother in the world.”

As the dull roar of the gala washed over us like a wave, I couldn’t help thinking that maybe he was.

“Don’t be such a baby,” I told him. Once upon a time, I might have been right there with him, grumbling and feeling ten kinds of out of place, but tonight, I found that I didn’t hate parties at all.

The first thing I saw inside the ballroom was the band. A male singer was crooning. A female singer with turquoise hair stepped up to the mic beside him. My thoughts flicked briefly to the dance Nick and I had shared, but before I could even entertain the idea of a repeat, I saw a familiar figure on the dance floor that banished all other thoughts from my head: Walker Ames—and he was dancing with a girl I immediately recognized as Victoria Gutierrez.

I’d been told once that the Ballad of Lily Easterling and Walker Ames was epic. At the moment, a more appropriate descriptor would have been awkward. Lily was too polite to kick up a fuss about one little dance. Walker was too charming to let on that he realized, 100 percent, that she was bothered.

The entire dynamic set Nick’s teeth on edge. The thin white shirt he wore made it easy for me to see the tension in his muscles every time Walker so much as opened his mouth. Walker wasn’t the Ames who’d put Nick’s brother in a coma—but for a year, Walker had believed that he was and hadn’t done a thing to make it right.

I couldn’t expect Nick to get over a thing like that. How was it Victoria had referred to him? Rough around the edges. Angry at the world.

“Come on,” I said, placing a hand on the back of Nick’s shoulder. “Let’s go.”

A moment passed, and then I felt his shoulder muscles loosen under my touch. He let me lead him away from Walker—and Lily.

“Is this the part where we mingle?” he asked gruffly. “Or dance?”

I’d come into this evening open to the possibility of a second dance, but that was before I’d touched his hair. Before I’d noticed those long, long lashes.

Before he’d been kind to Lily, even though it meant fighting back his resentment toward Walker.

“Beats me,” I said flippantly. “If you were looking for a tour guide who actually understands high society, you could have chosen better.”

That got a begrudging smile out of him. “I think I chose okay.”