Like an extremely mature eighteen-year-old grown-ass woman, I stick my tongue out at her.

She chuckles. “I don’t blame you. Man, he’s pretty. Everything and everyone here is pretty.”

I see exactly what she means. There’s literally not one unattractive person in the room. It’s eerie. There are people of varying size, shape, nationality, and gender, but what everyone seems to have in common is looking like they came out of a Vogue photoshoot.

“Then we must be pretty too, or they would have kicked us out,” Lily declares.

I grin.

Once I start paying attention to the people more than the art and interior design, I feel some probing stares, like they can’t really place me, but no one seems hostile. That doesn’t stop me from feeling like I’m an imposter, in the wrong clothes, in the wrong house. I don’t belong here.

“As I live and breathe. Lily Trueman, here on my street.” A tall guy with an incredible physique his vest does nothing to hide approaches my roommate, smirking.

I see her stiffen, which is a little out of character, given nothing really seems to get to her.

“Cross,” she sneers, with a glare I wouldn’t have thought her capable of.

He only grins wider. “Want to introduce me to your pretty friend?”

“Not particularly.”

Ignoring her, Cross offers me his hand. “Hector Cross. You’ll have to give me your name or I’ll call you Barbie.”

“What is it with old, unusual names in this town?” I wonder. “And I’m Claire. Definitely not Barbie.”

So far, I’ve heard Aurelius, Darius, Markus, Magnus, and now, Hector.

“Well, Claire, you can blame the name on those guys.” He waves in the general direction of a group assembled on one of the comfortable-looking dark green sofas.

Unless I’m mistaken, the Markus, Marius, and Aurelius are amongst them.

“The Kellers’ grandfather was a palaeophile, way into lost civilizations, dead languages, that type of stuff. He called his kids Arlo, Augustus, and Marcella. They, themselves, chose Grecian names for their kids after that. The daughter married Eriks Goltz, the most loaded man in town. He sets trends. So, my sheep of a mother decided to hop on the trend. I just go by Cross.”

“Hector suits you,” I say, because, well, the golden tan, the pile of defined muscles, dark hair, and ever-changing amber-hazel eyes definitely give the impression of strength.

“Please don’t encourage him. His head is plenty big enough,” Lily begs me.

I’m definitely trampling over some history, and I certainly don’t want my new friend to be mad at me, so I take my cue, hooking my arm around her elbow. “We need to find Keller; he has our drinks.”