“You lied to me,” Lou said, taking the champagne bottle from my hand and carefully fixing her lips to the spot where my mouth had been. A shiver twitched my shoulder blades and my nipples hardened. “That’s what I was pissed about. I thought we told each other everything.”

“Everything,” I repeated, thinking of all the lies I’d told over the last few weeks. All of it spurred by the biggest lie—not that Lou would call it a lie, exactly, the fact that she’d kept the Lady from me. But all the same, it was, in its own way. Loyal Lou, who loved the Lady. Loved her so much, she kept her closer than anyone. Even after all we’d done together. “Like the name of the Lady Upstairs.”

Lou set the bottle down between us. She studied her toes in the pool, swishing her legs back and forth. The water was a cloudy yellow in the night lights, and it bounced light back under her chin. “It’s the only thing I can’t tell you,” Lou said finally. “You know that.”

“The only thing.” The champagne was warm, and too sweet, but I liked the burn of the bubbles on my lips. I took two more swigs for courage. “Okay. How was Mischa the other night? Was she a good lay?”

Lou gaped at me, then glared. The freckles jumped on her nose as her face went pale. “Great,” she said. “I came six times.”

I choked on the champagne. “Six?”

“Of course not, you asshole,” Lou said, still glaring at me. The humidity from the pool was causing her hair to frizz and a fine sheen of sweat appeared on her upper lip, her hairline. Her shoulders dropped and she shook her head. “Christ, do you remember when our conversations didn’t always end in arguments? I’m not sure I do.” She was silent for a moment, and then she said, more to herself than to me, “How did it all turn out like this?”

I didn’t have anything to say to that. The champagne bottle was going more quickly than I’d expected, and I could still feel Carrigan all over me, could still smell him on me. I wondered if Lou could, or what it would make her feel if she did. She’d care because it was Carrigan, of course—would she have cared if it had been anybody else? I stood up, and I could feel Lou’s eyes flick up at me. Her mouth dropped open to ask what I was doing, and then I dove into the pool.