“No doubt,” David said, just as Ryan muttered, “Yup.”

“But . . . I believe in you guys. And I hope you believe in me. So.” I took a deep breath and held out my hands. “Why don’t we see what’s coming for us next?”

The school was still quiet. Teachers wouldn’t start arriving for another half hour, and the janitor who had replaced Mr. Hall was on the other side of the building.

Ryan took my hand and then, with a little more hesitation, took David’s. “What’s going to happen?” he asked. “Are we all going to stand in a circle and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”

David held my eyes for a long moment before rising to his feet. “Not quite,” he replied.

And then he placed his palm in mine.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

HUGE THANKS to Jennifer Besser for loving this weird little book first, and to my agent, Holly Root, for not blinking an eye when I said the words “it’s like Legally Blonde meets The Terminator!”

I’m also massively grateful to Ginny Bakkan, Hunter Chapman, Ashley Parsons, Andrea Poole, and Rachel Waters for sharing everything they knew about debutante balls with me. Sorry I took your memories and covered them in Hawaiian Punch and violence, but such is the risk of being friends with a writer! Thanks too to Jennifer Sauls for coming up with the perfect tagline!

Thank you as always to my mom, who signed me up to be an Azalea Trail girl when I was six and had a special dress made just for the day (even if a fever kept me being an Azalea Trail girl in what I like to refer to as the Most Tragic Thing That Ever Happened to Me). Mama, no one is as rebellious and belle-a-licious as you, and I love you.

Hugs and snuggles and kisses to John and Will for being the best little family a girl could have, and for understanding when I locked myself in the dining room during our vacation to Scotland so that I could finish this book. There are not many men who would be patient when a visit to the Loch Ness Monster is on the line, but y’all didn’t complain once.

And lastly, huge, obscene, downright embarrassing amounts of gratitude to my editor, Arianne Lewin, who helped me knock this book down to its foundations and rebuild something much more befitting a Queen Bee like Harper. You may be a New Yorker, but you will always be an honorary belle to me, and I am so, so thankful that I get to work with you!