Hallie felt a sharp kick in the back of her seat. “You don’t have to answer that,” Grace spoke up quickly.
“No, it’s cool.” Brandon drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “There was an ambush, I got hit by shrapnel.” He shrugged. “I was lucky. Some of the other guys . . . they weren’t so lucky.”
“Sorry,” Grace murmured from the backseat.
Brandon shrugged again. “It happens.”
Silence lingered in the car until Brandon turned the radio up, and they drove the rest of the way without any more awkward conversation. Hallie stared out the window, guilty — and embarrassed for feeling guilty. It wasn’t her fault! She’d been expecting a story about a bad surf wipeout, or a crazy stunt with his buddies, and instead, Brandon was, like, Captain America. Protecting and Serving. No wonder he was so awkward and withdrawn: the guy was probably wracked with post-traumatic stress, or survivor’s guilt, or something like that.
But as they turned off the freeway, all of Hallie’s unease melted away. “Grace, look!” she cried, gazing at the ocean: clear and blue under the fading sunset sky. The road wound along the very edge of the beach, rocky shoreline and pale sand falling away on their left as they headed up the coast.
“Pretty special, huh?” Brandon smiled over at her, but Hallie was too busy drinking it all in to respond. The horizon stretched, limitless, in the distance, a world away from the stormy San Francisco skies that always hung so low with fog. She craned around to see as they passed north into Malibu, past houses squeezed together on the side of the road — jutting out over the beach on spindly stilts.
“Imagine waking up every day to that view,” Hallie breathed. She made a new promise: screw that Spanish compound in the hills. When she made it big, she’d buy a place here, with the ocean right on her doorstep.
They followed the winding highway along the shore until Brandon eased off to the side of the road, opposite one of the modern houses: stacked cubes, all chrome and glass. “Here we are,” Brandon said. “The famous de Santos compound.” His voice seemed to have an edge to it; a faint curl to his lip.
“Who is this guy?” Hallie asked, climbing out of the Jeep.
“Girl. Her name’s Ana Lucia.” Brandon waited for them to grab their stuff, and then led them across the busy highway. “She was a couple of years below me in school. So, your age.”
“Awesome!” Hallie strode on ahead. “I can’t wait to meet everyone.”
Inside, the music seemed to shake the very foundation of the house with a heavy bass; the party spilling in from outside as girls in bikinis scampered through the hallways, and guys wearing expensive shades poured cocktails from a kitchen countertop covered in bottles of liquor. Hallie drank it in, glad she’d already perfected her nonchalant stare.
“Everyone’s so . . . shiny,” Grace murmured beside her. “It’s like we walked into the middle of a magazine shoot.”
She was right. The kids around them were all glowing with a Hollywood gloss that seemed to Hallie to be equal parts orthodontics and golden tan. “We did.” Hallie grinned. “Look.”
Over in the lounge area, two girls were bouncing on a white leather couch as an older guy photographed them with an old-school camera. They clutched their chests to keep their bikini tops in place, shrieking with laughter.
“Watch out for him.” Brandon paused to glare over at the photographer. “He’s a total perv. Has this website, Friday Night —”
“United?” Hallie finished excitedly. “I read it all the time! He does the best party pics!”
Grace screwed up her face. “All those girls collapsed in the bathroom with glitter all over them? Eww.”
Hallie ignored Grace, and filed the photographer’s face away for future reference. One of the last big stars of his site now modeled for Prada and Gucci, and had a column in some style magazine about her international jet-setting adventures with the fashion elite. Not bad for a girl whose main claim to fame was wearing a lion hood — and not much else — in a series of gritty club-hopping snaps.
“The guys are probably out back.” Brandon nodded ahead. The whole rear of the house was sliding glass panels, pushed back to reveal a multilevel deck crowded with people. “I can introduce you around.”
Hallie felt a flutter of nerves. “Just a sec.” She stopped at a mirror in the hall and quickly touched up her lipstick. New city, new scene to conquer. And conquer it, she would.
She made to follow Brandon out, but Grace caught her arm. “Please don’t drink too much, or go off with strange guys, or do anything stupid.”
Hallie gave her a withering stare. “What do you take me for?”
“You,” Grace replied.
Hallie pulled free. “I’ll be fine. You’re the one who needs to not embarrass me.” She caught up with Brandon as he stepped outside. The deck was even more crowded: kids lounging in groups, splashing in the hot tub, and clustered in front of a makeshift stage area as a group of guys set up speakers and sound gear. A rickety wooden staircase led down from the deck onto the beach, where more people were partying on the sand; a volleyball game in progress.
“So these are your friends?” Hallie asked, following Brandon through the crowd. It looked like she was wrong about his beach-bum look: the guys here all wore designer polo shirts, or skinny denim, or were bare-chested over board shorts.
“Not exactly,” he replied. Hallie barely had time to wonder what that meant before Brandon stopped by a group in the corner. It was the prime spot, Hallie quickly noticed: loungers and canopies, with a full view of the rest of the party. Two shirtless guys with artfully mussed hair were trying to rouse a trio of girls clicking at their cell phones with matching distracted expressions.
“Hey.” Brandon approached, low-key. There was a beat, then one of the guys laughed.
“Brandon Mitchell, what the hell?” He enveloped Brandon in a backslapping hug. “We haven’t seen you in forever! Thought you’d run off to Mexico, or, like, rehab or something.”
“Nope. Still here.” Brandon had his hands bunched in the front pockets of his pants. He turned to Hallie. “This is Hallie, she and her sister just moved to town. They’re Auggie Jennings’s nieces, or cousins . . . ?”
“Something like that.” Hallie switched on her brightest smile. “Hey!”