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to the beauty queen that she spend a Saturday being a paper pusher. What’s next? Friday night at the old folks’ home?
    “That could work,” Mel said. “They usually separate the dogs and cats anyway, right?”
    “I’m planning to be there,” Paige told Mel. “I can pick you up, if you need a ride. You too, Jess.”
    I sat there, stunned. Paige was definitely a power player among these girls. Not in a bad, Lexy kind of way either. She was totally nice and down-to-earth, and I’d already noticed how the other girls looked up to her. Looked up to Cassie too. Plus, Paige had just graduated, and yet here she was offering up rides to piddly high schoolers she’d just met. Could she be any cooler? When I grew up, I wanted to be like Paige Ellis.
    Or Cassie Steele. Or Sarah Jane Peterson. Or really, anyone but me.
    Kyra leaned her head back against her lavender pillow embroidered with a fancy K. “It’s so nice being here, just us,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve been able to relax all week.”
    This time, when I nodded, it wasn’t just because I could relate to sleepless nights of finals anxiety. It was because I agreed with her sentiment about us.
    For once, I actually felt like an us. Or part of an us, anyway. Which really brought the bizarreness home for me. I mean, come on. A bunch of good-girl Populars who mingled outside their assigned groups—cheerleaders, jocks, brains, an actress who’d already earned her SAG card —and managed to make an outsider like me feel welcome? Despite my lack of a social life and my do-gooder ways? It was enough to give a girl hope that she might finally, by some strange twist of fate, fit in. Most of the girls were socially out of my league, but if I could hang with them for one evening, maybe I could do it again sometime.
    And yet…
    How on earth had I gone from being Lexy’s emotional punching bag and Heather’s big snub to having a group of awesome girls treat me like a normal human being all in one day? Especially when we were camped out in the very place where Lexy hung her tall, pointy hat?
    Too many years spent as an outsider made me suspicious. There had to be a catch. In my experience, there always was. Nothing was ever this easy.
    I’d already scanned the rec room looking for hidden cameras or microphones that Lexy might have planted. Not being obvious about it, but Lexy had to know everyone was there, right? Decking it out seemed like her style. So I paid attention to our surroundings, even getting other peoplesnacks as an excuse to check out the bar area up close.
    But everything looked kosher. Felt kosher too, with nothing sending off a danger signal. And I had a pretty well-tuned danger meter when I was paying attention to it. Tonight? I had it tuned to extra-high frequency. Maybe gadgets were too high-tech for a hands-on girl like Lexy. Either way, I vowed not to let my guard down like I had at The Grind. No way would she catch me off guard twice.
    Despite the Lexy connection, Cassie and the girls had done nothing to make me doubt Cassie’s words of welcome. If my paranoia was front and center, I couldn’t blame them for it. Lexy, maybe. But not them.
    Paige’s yawn spread like wildfire, and we began to form lines outside the various Steele bathrooms, laughing like old friends as we endured the nightly rituals that made us girls.
    I ended up in the upstairs hallway waiting my turn, half listening to people rattle off their favorite spring-break hot spots.
    “I don’t think you can beat Daytona for action,” Gwen said. “I found a pickup volleyball game on the beach every day while we were there.”
    “I’ll take Manhattan over Daytona any day.” Cherie, the resident actress, shifted her Clinique bag to her other hip as we waited. “Broadway, baby.”
    I leaned against the faux painted wall, my eyes settling on the room across from us. Light from the hallway spilled into a neat and tidy space with a color-blocked comforter and a soft