I flinch. That stupid fight by my locker. Did everyone see through it? Could they tell it was a lover’s quarrel? Or did Laurel start a rumor?
I set my jaw, thinking yet again of Mary’s giggle. She’s just a friend—hmph. “Nope,” I say breezily, giving Garrett’s khaki-clad knee a squeeze. “I’m definitely single.” Then I clear my throat. “And you?”
Garrett nods. “I’m single, too.”
I look down at my shoes. “I mentioned to Char that we were going out tonight.”
Garrett’s shoulders crunched up and then relaxed again. “Charlotte and I are better off as friends. She knows that.”
He pulls up alongside the curb in front of my house and shifts the car into park. Unfastening his seat belt, he turns to me. “So . . . bye,” he says, his voice husky.
“Bye,” I say, but I don’t move. I take in his bright, warm expression and the sparkle in his eyes. I grin, then lean in and kiss him lightly on the lips. The kiss is soft, calm, warm.
There aren’t any fireworks or that fizzy champagne feeling I always had when I kissed Thayer. Still, a tiny frisson of excitement blooms in my chest.
The excitement lasts as long as it takes for me to step out of Garrett’s car and onto the stone-lined path to my front door. And then, as his car growls off, the floodlights on our porch click on, illuminating Madeline and Charlotte. Charlotte’s arms are crossed at her chest and Madeline’s hip is cocked. Their expressions are stony.
And just like that, I know I’m in trouble.
4
WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS STAYS IN THE HANDBOOK
Charlotte exhales heavily, and Madeline’s Prada stitched ballet flats scrape the wide terra-cotta stones of my front doorstep. Cicadas chirp an accusing, rhythmic chorus.
“What up, bitches?” I say breezily.
Madeline arches an eyebrow and purses her lips and I flush briefly. I can swagger all I want, but I did just kiss my friend’s ex. Still, she said she was over him. She said I could go out with him. I don’t deserve this kind of attitude.
“We’re glad you’re home from your date.” Madeline snarls slightly on the word date. “We wanted to talk.”
“Okay.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Talk.”
Madeline puts her hands on her slender hips and fixes her blazing sapphire eyes on me. “We want to initiate a new member into the Lying Game.”
I take a step back, certain at first that I’ve heard her incorrectly. “Um, ladies, you know we’re an exclusive club.” The Lying Game is three people: Charlotte, Madeline, and me. That’s the way it’s been since we created it in junior high. “Did you actually have someone in mind?”
Charlotte steps forward, close enough that I can smell her Chanel Chance. “Laurel.”
I burst out laughing. Laurel playing buddy-buddy with my friends is one thing, but joining the Lying Game? Never. “Good one, guys. Nice. Laurel. Right.” I shake my head. “Can we talk tomorrow? I’m tired.” I reach an impatient arm out to the doorknob.
But Mads and Char don’t budge. Their expressions are resolute, unchanging. Slowly, it sinks in. “Wait, you’re serious?” I blurt, my voice cracking more than I want it to.
Madeline twirls a lock of ebony hair around her index finger. “We think she’d be an asset to the group. And have a heart, Sutton—she’s beside herself about Thayer. We should do something nice for her, don’t you think?”
I want to roll my eyes. Once again, Laurel gets to milk this whole “Thayer’s gone” thing to the hilt while I have to endure the pain quietly. “Do something nice, yes,” I argue. “But not ruin our club to let her in.”
“We wouldn’t be ruining anything,” Madeline says. “And anyway, Laurel has proven herself. She helped with that Christmas prank, remember?”
I stare at them in disbelief. “Yeah, because that was my Christmas present to her. It wasn’t an invitation to the group.” Laurel had been begging to be part of the Lying Game practically since its inception, and I’d finally thrown her a bone and let her help us steal the Christmas tree from La Encantada Mall. It wasn’t even a particularly good prank, but Laurel acted like it was the cleverest thing in the world.
Then I turn toward Charlotte, realizing something. “Is this your way of getting back at me for going out with Garrett tonight? You said you were okay with it.”
Charlotte shrugs and turns away, her auburn ponytail smacking her in the face. All of a sudden, I can see she’s totally not okay.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I say. “But that doesn’t make it okay to let Laurel in.”
“She’s being a really good friend right now,” Charlotte says simply.
She doesn’t elaborate. It seems that, in what she’s left out, she’s implying I’ve been a bad friend. I consider protesting about Garrett once more, but I’m not sure there’s much use.
Then I whirl toward Madeline. “And why would you be mad at me?”
Mads just stares at me and suddenly my palms begin to tingle. What if she knows I spoke to Thayer during the search party . . . but didn’t bother to mention that he was okay? The only way she could know that, though, is if Thayer called and told her himself. But why would he sell me out that way?
“I’m not mad at you, Sutton,” Madeline says in a clipped voice after a moment. “Like I said, I just think Laurel would be a good asset to the club.”
“Well, I don’t,” I say. “And as the Lying Game leader, what I say goes.”
Madeline raises a finger. “Not this time. I’m invoking the Sudden Death Clause.”
I cough. “Pardon?”
“The rule we set up for testing new members. The member who opposes the proposed new initiate has to go head-to-head with her in a series of dares. If you win, Laurel’s out. But if Laurel wins, she’s officially a part of the Lying Game. For good.”
A siren shrieks in the distance. The neighbors’ sprinklers kick on with a steady hissing sound. “That’s not in the rules,” I say in disbelief.
“Oh yeah?” Madeline cocks her hip again, then pushes open my front door. “Let’s go have a look at the handbook.”
I shove past her and sweep inside. “Great. Let’s.”
I lead them inside and up the wide-planked staircase to my bedroom. As I slam the door, I catch sight of the Scooby-Doo stuffed animal Thayer won for me at the fair last year propped up on my bed. I get a pang, remembering the day it happened, but then I push it down deep. I had a great date with Garrett tonight . . . and Thayer’s with someone named Mary. Maybe we’re both moving on.
I pull the handbook from a locked drawer in my desk. It’s an oversized scrapbook filled with scribbled notes, clips from any news mentions of successful pranks, receipts, props . . . basically a Lying Game Greatest Hits and how-to collection. The back pages of the book are computer printouts of our rules and minutes. Some pages are wrinkled and stained with age, like the ones detailing the original rules, but as I flip through, newer pages show clauses we’ve added over the years: like not messing with anything super-valuable, for one, like Char’s dad’s Ferrari, or not pranking on birthdays. I still have to fight back the urge each time one rolls around.
On the very bottom of the very last page, I find it: scrawled in red ink in Charlotte’s handwriting, almost like an afterthought, is the Sudden Death Clause. And it reads exactly like Madeline said it did, word for word.
“I don’t remember this at all,” I say, suspicion bubbling inside me. “When did you write this?”
“I don’t remember,” Charlotte answers. She points at the book. “But since it’s there, it’s gospel.”
It seems like they’re trying to hold in a giggle. My stomach lurches. There’s no way the Sudden Death Clause is legit. My friends wrote it here when I wasn’t looking—or maybe wasn’t around. Perhaps they were in the house with Laurel earlier tonight while I was out, and they hatched this plan then. I can just picture them sitting around Laurel’s room, giggling about their brand-new Sudden Death Rule, Charlotte running in here and writing it into the book as quickly as she could. Who knew how they got my lockbox open, but Laurel probably had a solution for that; I’ve caught her snooping around my room hundreds of times.
I clench my hands into tight fists. I’ve never felt so betrayed. Mads and Char are supposed to be my best friends, not Laurel’s. Do they now prefer her, too, just like everyone else does?
Suddenly, tears rush to my eyes, and I have to blink to hold them back. Madeline glances at Charlotte, giving her a worried look, almost like she realizes they’ve gone too far. But the last thing I want is for my friends to see me crying—or to know they’ve hurt me. It’s kind of like how I handled Thayer: be strong, carry on, move on. Thayer can’t bring me down, and they can’t, either.
I straighten up. I’ll honor this stupid Sudden Death Clause—if I don’t, I’ll look like a wuss and a coward. And I’ll win. There’s no way I’m going to let my baby sister beat me.
“Get Laurel,” I growl.
Madeline scampers from the bed, knocking Scooby to the floor in the process. I hear a knock at Laurel’s bedroom door, and then a split second later, my sister appears in my doorway, her honey-blonde hair perfectly straightened and her eyes bright with expertly applied makeup. It’s like she did herself up knowing this moment was coming. Once again, I feel a bolt of betrayal, as sharp and acidic as lemon juice in a wound.
She looks at me cautiously for a moment. I give her a steely stare. “I’ve decided to indulge your silly little whim,” I say primly. “We’ll go head-to-head on some challenges, even though it’s a really stupid idea. You’re going to lose.”
“Yes!” Laurel chirps. She turns to Mads and Char. “So what’s our first challenge? Something in town? Something at school?”
Charlotte laughs. “Oh, we’re not doing this in Tucson,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. “As Sutton always says, the Lying Game has standards. Sudden Death is not just an ordinary prank war.”
“So what are you saying?” I ask impatiently. Personally, I would like Sudden Death to be ordinary. The sooner we get this ridiculousness over with—and the sooner Laurel is ousted from the Lying Game, once and for all—the better.
Charlotte grins knowingly. “I think we all need a change of scenery.”
I consider this. “Road trip?”
There’s a wicked twinkle in her brown eyes. “We’re going to Vegas!”
Vegas. An image of the glittering lights of the Strip pops up in my mind involuntarily and I feel a ping of excitement in spite of myself. “That has . . . potential.”
“Right?” Charlotte jiggles up and down excitedly. “It’s the best timing ever, with school ending. Mads and I told our parents that we were going to cheer on the science team at their meet, which just happens to be taking place there this weekend.”
