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of my dress.  After two rounds, we were all rosy-cheeked and laughing.  Emily Rocha asked for the story of how Jackson and I met and squealing with delight, Sloane told its censored version.
    She had brought me to one of Sofie’s big galas and had gotten quickly too drunk, leaving me to fend for myself, which proved difficult once Dane McNulty found me.  He had introduced himself and immediately begun talking about a new building he’d purchased in SoHo, asking me if I wanted to see it.  It had been an upscale clothing store beforehand and several nice pieces were left behind.  He had a feeling I’d look great in them with “that incredible body.”  Needless to say, the way he spoke to my breasts made me uncomfortable, so I wound up recoiling and excusing myself, wandering out into the hall of the posh restaurant and up a winding marble staircase.
    I found a half-naked Jackson in an empty room up there.
    I froze and stared, unable to tear my eyes off of the strange man with the perfect face and perfect body.  It felt like a daydream.  I barely processed his stammer about why he was changing into a different tux.  It felt as if I was actually blushing to death so I wound up running out.  He chased after me, apologized, and then insisted he get me a drink downstairs – as if seeing his ripped body in grey boxer briefs was some sort of traumatizing experience for me.
    “Whew.  I don’t know how I would’ve reacted if I met Jackson like that, but I definitely wouldn’t have run away,” Emily fanned herself.  “I can say that because I love Erik with all my heart,” she added hastily.
    As Sofie cooed something about me being “darling,” I eyed Sloane – the only other person who knew that I wound up having sex with Jackson in the back of his car that night.  It had been dirty, carnal, like nothing I’d ever done in my life.  Fear had pulsed in my stomach the entire time he’d grasped fistfuls of my dress, piercing me with a hot, hard pleasure I’d never felt before.  I was twenty-two at the time and until then, had only experienced unremarkable sex.  I’d never so much as spoken to a man who looked like Jackson, nor had I slept with someone I’d only just met.  I’d never experienced a real orgasm let alone two in one go.  But in that first night with Jackson, I crossed all of those things off my list.
    Even the nicest girls have a nasty side, Sloane had told me.  It just takes the right man to bring her out.
    I had a feeling that was true.  My first time with Jackson had been unabashed and wild, but only because it felt right with him.  It wasn’t in my nature to do such a thing with anyone else.  I wasn’t that open.  But with Jackson, I had felt an instant pull.  A connection in the way he spoke and moved.  He had lost his father in the same way I’d lost mine.  He resented yet missed his brother in the same way I did my sister.  By the time we touched for the first time – his hand on the curve of my waist – it had felt as if I’d known him for ages.  It felt as if his hand belonged there.
    With a happy sigh, I leaned back, letting Sloane take my bejeweled hand in hers.  “Look at where we are, Lara,” she murmured, resting her head on my shoulder.  “We couldn’t even dream this life in middle school.  We didn’t know it could be this beautiful.”
    It was true.  In middle school, we had fantasized about moving to New York and finding rich boyfriends.  We invented stories of where they would work and what kind of parties they went to.  But we were from a small, dead town named Margaret, population three thousand twenty-four.  Our imagination only went so far.  We couldn’t imagine the true luxury of being with our boys – the shining penthouses in Chelsea, the glittering galas under eighty-foot ceilings.  The connections to anything we could possibly want – courtside seats, private shopping trips, flights to Mallorca on a gleaming G6.  We had a