Shade Me by Jennifer Brown

Author:Jennifer Brown
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

17

I HAD EXPECTED Lujo to be swank, but this place was swank to the extreme. I could practically smell the money when I walked in, and had the lights not been turned down so low, I might have been blinded by all the ice draping the customers. So many of them. Young ladies hanging all over old geezers. Older ladies surgically made young again. Middle-aged men in suits, their hair slicked back with product, their money clips flashing as they motioned for waiters.

It wasn’t the kind of place where you might spot Lindsay Lohan or a Kardashian, but it wasn’t stodgy, either. Not like the golf clubhouses that dotted the suburbs or the old-world Italian restaurants with their candelabras and red velvet. Lujo was modern, plush, with black, angular booths and white suede seat cushions. Trendy tableware and flashy drinks. The thump of EDM beneath the conversation as waiters hurried, their eyes turned upward in a way that suggested they saw and knew nothing.

I stood in the doorway, tugging on the hem of the denim miniskirt I’d put on. It was the nicest item of clothing I owned, and it was so far beneath Lujo, it wasn’t even funny. I scanned the crowd for Dru, but didn’t see him.

“May I help you?” a snooty hostess wearing all black asked. She wrapped her stilettoed black fingernails over the edges of a menu, smiling at me as if to humor me.

I stepped toward the podium, wobbling a little on my heels. “I’m here to meet someone.”

Her eyebrows arched, but she didn’t consult any sort of list.

“Dru Hollis?” I said, my voice turning up into an annoying question mark as I said his name. As if I were unsure that Dru was who I was actually meeting. I cleared my throat. “He’s expecting me.”

She studied me for a moment longer—very skeptically—and then nodded. “Right this way.”

I followed her as we wound through the tables, the music getting louder as we made our way toward the back corner of the room. She stepped to one side and waved her hand toward the table.

“The Hollis booth,” she said.

Jesus, they had their own booth? Suddenly the black sequined tank top I had paired with my skirt felt as shabby as a garbage bag. I tilted my chin upward and scooted past her, my bare legs sliding over the suede of the bench. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

“Can I get you something while you wait for Mr. Hollis?” she asked, the note of bitchiness still saturating her words. “Something to drink?”

“Just, um . . . water,” I said, hating the way her pert little smile seemed to be mocking me. I wanted to get up, yank her perfect blond ponytail right off her head, and feed it to her. You’re no better than me, I wanted to scream, and I wanted to do something to prove it. But in a place like Lujo, there really was no proof. Here, everyone looked better than me. “Thank you,” I said again, trying to convey everything I was thinking by making my eyes as dead as possible.

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