He shrugged. “Whatever, I make this look good.” He’d posted a silly selfie to Instagram. Might as well get something out of the ridiculous thing.

“Becky definitely seems to think so,” Cherisse quipped, giggles starting up again.

“You did that on purpose.”

“You can’t prove it either way. I thought you were the older ladies whisperer? I’m sure whispering in her ear would’ve been quite...effective.”

Oh, she was truly devious, just as he’d always known, and Keiran wasn’t even annoyed about it.

Before he could formulate a reply, Laney’s voice rang out. “Attention, all. I hope you’ve filled your bellies and loosened those inhibitions because now,” she paused dramatically, “we have the games.”

“Games?” He was realizing that simple didn’t apply here. Was this another thing Cherisse had failed to mention?

“Uh, those didn’t exist last year.”

They both looked across to where Laney was waving them over, then glanced at each other, hesitating to leave the safe zone that was this orange tree they’d found themselves under.

Keiran took the plunge and offered his arm. “M’lady, shall we?”

Cherisse hesitated for a beat before sighing, then taking his arm. Keiran ignored the feel of her skin against his and marched them towards the games zone.

#

CHERISSE

The game turned out to be a scavenger hunt. Each team of three—Cherisse, Keiran, and Becky had been teamed up, much to Keiran’s dismay and Cherisse’s delight—was given plastic eggs with clues inside. Once the whistle sounded, they had to open their eggs and dash off, using the clues to find the golden eggs. The team with the most won the whole thing.

This bunch took the game seriously, grown people dashing off, bumping into their competition as they took off to solve their clues and find the eggs. Their scrambling to get the most eggs was successful. They won the prize, which was hotly contested by several super-competitive people who felt their team had an advantage of some kind because Laney had blatantly been rooting out loud for them. Cries of cheating went ignored as Laney silenced the dissenters with a sweep of her hand.

“Brunch is brutal,” Keiran whispered in Cherisse’s ear as one extremely vocal guest stormed off.

“Bye, Carl,” Laney sang out after the retreating man. “Who keeps inviting that guy anyway? Never liked him.”

Keiran snorted. “Holy shit, Laney’s awesome.”

Cherisse chuckled. “She is one of a kind. Also, super-rich, so no one dares cross her. They’re always glad to get invited. I guarantee you Carl’ll be back next year. My mom’s gonna be pissed she missed this.”

“How’d they even meet? They seem so different.”

It was true. Laney and her mother were complete opposites, personality-wise. Laney with her don’t-care attitude—which Cherisse suspected she’d had to adopt to deal with those who side-eyed her out-and-loud queerness—and her mother, who was so wrapped up in appearances. Cherisse had gotten a lot of that from her mother—it had been driven into her head enough times to take root—but her mom took it to the extreme sometimes. Her mother, Laney, and Remi’s mom had somehow gravitated towards each other in school and had remained friends ever since. There was an epic tale of Laney verbally destroying another girl who decided to bully Cherisse and Remi’s moms, and thus, the friendship was born. At this point, Cherisse wasn’t sure what was fact and what had gotten embellished over the years, but it sounded like something Laney would do.