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I wiped

"You really need to get laid," Will whispered in awe

Max rested his enorht, ht"

"Oh, shut the fk up," I hissed, shoving his hand away and starting to walk down the beach "It may be my mistake but you’re all just as fucked If Chloe wins this week you’re all toast Every man in the world is toast and will suffer like no one has suffered before I don’t like it--didn’t plan it--but those are the stakes we’re all now facing"

Max shook his head, falling into step beside et laid, Ben Chloe hasn’t been herself this week, either Maybe your strategy here is off"

I slowed to a stop again "What are you talking about? You saw her last night; she was being a royal pain in the ass How is that ‘not herself’?"

"All this e business has definitelya pain in the arse," Max said "You two are the most volatile people I’ve evertwo cartoon characters having a go at each other And the Chloe Mills I’ve heard stories about would have ripped off your tackle and et what she wanted She would have tied you to a chair and tortured you until you were begging her to fk you What’d she do last night? Wear a short dress? Shake her tits in your direction? That’s the sa all the rules and fking her all over RMG? I don’t buy it"

"I--" I started, blinking dumbly

"Will, tell him your nerdy theory," Max said "It’s really quite brilliant"

Will took a step closer, leaning in conspiratorially "Have you ever heard of the cale weather occurrence when everything goes co the sound of that and how it could relate to Chloe, but curious despite ot this really intense expression, like everything he was about to tell you was thehe’d ever heard He sort of bent at the knees, using his hands to gesture wildly, draht have "So vapor and heat rise, drawn up toward the center of a stor it up and over the highest clouds You followinga thread of anxiety for part," Max assured , but it co it war in a stable airthe air totally still The cal Will on the back like he’d just explained the y ever told

I frowned "What are you saying?"

Max reached out, put a solid grip on ,your bird in check But we’re all waiting for your little bomb to explode"I watched Chloe like a hawk the rest of the day, and as terrified as I was to adive ot back to the room and showered alone When I kissed her bare shoulder, she s look in her eyes like I would either be fked to within an inch of my life or eaten for breakfast She rapped in a towel, skin still damp from her shower as she blow-dried her hair She didn’t comment on the fact that she was nad, she didn’t ask to "help" et dressed She didn’t ask , and I was completely confused

When the waiter messed up her order at breakfast, she didn’t react When her aunts insisted on following her around with a ca so far as to film her from the opposite side of the bathrooested Chloe wear her hair down instead of up for the ceremony, Chloe had only responded with a pained smile

By this point I could practically smell the storm in the air, and we hadn’t even started the rehearsal yet"What do youcoordinator before quickly glancing to Chloe She was about thirty feet down the beach, pacing A feords had floated back to us at first but now she was sort of strangely silent, ar the sand

I frowned, but quickly shotcoordinator, Kristin, as she launched into an explanation

"It’s going to be fine, Bennett," she was saying, words delivered in a way I’, but only resulted in pissingyou screamed at someone You became the loudest and squeakiest wheel; you let everyone know that anything less than perfect was unacceptable You slammed doors and fired people You didn’t stand there in your little blue Chanel suit and pearls and tell the cyborg bride and clueless groom that it would be fine

"There’s been a tiny little proble clothes"

Small accident Tiny little proble of dread that had begun clawing its way up ars were opened we realized there’d been so had been pressed It’s a , Bennett I wouldn’t even bother you with it if Chloe hadn’t been there and seen it for

herself"

So Chloe had already seen bags of wrinkled wedding clothes and hadn’t gone nuclear I sighed, blinking across the beach to where a fes of te had already been set up Chloe’s aunts were sitting on either side of Will, who had his hands folded in his lap and lookedtense In fact, he looked a lot like he was deciding if he could bolt and escape this event entirely Hanna was chatting with Mina but would look over occasionally to glance at hiest shit-eating grin I’d ever seen She was going to make an excellent ally in the years ahead

Max and Sara were offsomewhere I actually rolled my eyes when I realized they hadn’t made it down fro for the rehearsal to begin, talking a themselves

"So what happens now?" I asked

Kristin s’s already been taken back to

the cleaners and it will be done in theoff to is tohit a little close?"

"It shouldn’t be--"