The dresses had multiplied across Camille’s bed like they’d bred while she wasn’t looking — silk over sequins over something backless she didn’t even remember buying — and she stood in the middle of it all in nothing but a robe, staring at the wreckage of her own indecision.
The knock came without warning, and so did Kelly.
“Tell me you’re not still deciding what to wear.”
Camille didn’t even turn around.
“Fuck you.”
“I haven’t said anything yet.”
“You were about to.”
“And I would’ve been right.” Kelly swept past her toward the mirror, already dressed, already glowing — emerald satin skimming every curve she owned, a slit at the thigh that seemed less an accident of tailoring and more a statement of intent.
She turned once for her own benefit, watching the fabric catch the light, and looked, for a moment, thoroughly pleased with the universe for making her.
“So.” She spun to face Camille, arms wide.
“Rate me.”
“You look beautiful.”
“That’s it?” Kelly’s face fell into mock outrage.
“Beautiful?
That’s all I get?”
“What do you want, a eulogy?”
“I want the poem I deserve.”
“You’re impossible.” But there was a smile tugging at the corner of Camille’s mouth despite herself — small, reluctant, the first one that had felt easy all day.
Kelly noticed.
She always noticed.
But instead of chasing it, she let her eyes drift to the chaos scattered across the bed and blinked.
“Okay.
What happened here?”
“I can’t decide.” Camille held up two dresses like offerings to a god who wasn’t listening.
Kelly studied them for exactly three seconds.
“Black.”
“Cam.” A hand landed on her shoulder, gentle where her voice hadn’t been.
“When in doubt, you choose black.
It doesn’t ask permission to be beautiful.
It just is.” She steered Camille toward the bathroom with the particular authority of someone who had never once been told no and didn’t plan on starting tonight.
“Fifteen minutes.
If you’re not out by then, I’m confiscating your jewelry as collateral.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
Fifteen minutes later, the door opened, and for the first time all evening, Kelly had nothing clever to say.
Camille stood in the doorway in black satin that fell just above her knees, the fabric skimming her collarbones and settling at her waist like it had been poured there rather than sewn.
Silver heels.
A thin chain at her throat.
Curls she hadn’t bothered to tame, framing a face that had cried more in the last fourteen years than most people cried in a lifetime — and somehow, tonight, none of it showed.
“I have officially become jealous of you,” Kelly breathed, hand pressed flat to her own chest.
“Stop it.”
“I’m serious.
You look—” Kelly circled her once, slow, like she was appraising something rare.
“Illegal, Cam.”
A startled laugh broke out of Camille before she could stop it.
“Kelly.”
“What?
If I looked like that, I’d never want to stay out home.
I’ll go outside, anywhere to make sure this gorgeous body, gives men the hard time they deserve”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“No.” Kelly grinned, wide and unbothered.
“I’m honest.” She snapped her fingers, spun to the dressing table, and returned with a small glass bottle, misting it once over each of Camille’s wrists before she could protest.
“There.
Now you smell like someone about to ruin lives.”
“Same thing, where you’re concerned.” Kelly looped their arms together, already pulling her toward the door.
“Every man in that room is about to have a very bad night, Cam, and I don’t feel even a little sorry about it.”
They were halfway down the staircase, laughter still hanging warm between them, when a voice cut clean through it from below.
“My,” Helen said, not looking up from her magazine at first, though her eyes found them soon enough — traveling slow from Kelly’s heels to the hem of Camille’s dress, cataloguing, the way she always did, for something to correct.
“Haven’t the two of you made quite the entrance.”
“Good evening, Mrs.
Helen.” Kelly’s smile didn’t so much as flicker.
“I hope you don’t mind.
Just the one party tonight.”
“One party usually becomes another.”
“I suppose it does.” Kelly’s smile only brightened.
“Actually — I was hoping you’d join us.”
For one unguarded second, Helen looked almost caught off balance.
“Unfortunately,” Kelly added, all false apology, “it’s a party for young adults.”
Silence settled over the foyer like dust.
Camille bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, eyes fixed on the marble at her feet, not trusting her own face.
“Perhaps,” Kelly said, then with a mocking tone “they’ll organize one for distinguished ladies next time.
I’ll be sure to mention it to the committee.” Kelly was already tugging Camille toward the door, unbothered, victorious.
“Don’t wait up — I’ll have her home before midnight.”
Helen’s mouth opened around whatever retort she’d been saving, but the door was already swinging shut behind them, and the two of them were half-running across the gravel like teenagers who’d just gotten away with something they hadn’t technically been forbidden to do.
Camille didn’t breathe out until they were both inside the car, and even then, it came out as laughter — real, unguarded, the kind she hadn’t let herself have in weeks.
“You are going to get us both banned from that house.”
“Please.” Kelly turned the key, grinning like she’d won a war nobody else knew was being fought.
“I am that house’s greatest threat, and she knows it.”
The gates rolled open ahead of them, and the Wilson estate shrank into the rearview mirror — all its silence, its careful distances, its rooms that had never quite recovered from what happened in one of them fourteen years ago.
Camille let her head fall back against the seat and watched the streetlights slide by in long gold streaks, and for the length of one car ride, she let herself believe the lie that tonight might actually be simple.
Ahead of them, the city was already lit up and waiting — indifferent, glittering, and entirely unaware of what it was about to hand her.