The thing about the Olsen twins' parties was that, no matter who you were or who you decided to come with, you just had to make an entrance.

I knew that. Grace knew that. Julia had conveniently forgotten about that.

Unfortunately for her, Grace decided that the only way our grand debut was happening was if she made Julia her personal makeover project. Armed with an insurmountable power of persuasion for such a tiny person, she barked out an order to drive her back home, leaving the two of us no other choice but to listen.

If rooms could reflect people, Grace's bedroom was the perfect candidate. It was small but compact, each single item lined up in a delicate orderly fashion. Her wardrobe was color-coded and each piece of clothing flawlessly ironed, her nail polish collection assorted by the level of glimmer and sparkle, and the sheets on her bed fresh and clean like she ran a five-star hotel in her spare time. There were no posters or pictures pinned to the ivory walls, and the only central piece allowed in her private haven was a painting of Marie Kondo she had once found at a backyard sale. If my friend was to be believed, she had only paid five dollars and forty-five cents for the privilege of adding it to her possessions.

But Grace also had a secret in her bottom closet drawer, and nobody but she knew what was hiding in its camouflaged compartment. The only reason I suspected clandestine operations was because she snapped the drawer shut whenever I caught her rummaging through its goods.

"I think I can find something that will fit you. You're six-two, right?" Grace stroked a spot on her chin with her thumb as she scrutinized Julia, eyeing her from head to toe like she was virtually taking her measurements. Neither of her friends had any confidence in her math skills, but I didn't have the heart to remind her of that.

Julia crossed her arms, and her plaid flannel shirt wrinkled on her stomach. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Our lovely dictator simply grinned.

One hour later, Julia was wearing shimmery taupe eye shadow, a bright purple lipstick, and Grace's short-sleeved, button-up tunic which barely reached her midriff. She still kept on her dark jeans and her size-thirteen Doc Martens for obvious reasons, but thanks to Grace's spectacular makeup skills, she could have easily passed for Wonder Woman's cousin.

"You look amazing!" Grace squealed and hugged her, and after we both gushed about how much the eyeshadow made her smoldering eyes pop, Julia stopped complaining. I could have sworn I saw a hint of a smile inspired by the flood of compliments.

"I still don't see the point, but whatever," she scoffed as she fixed her shoelaces. "What if I need to touch my face?"

"You will not touch your face under any circumstances. Any," Grace repeated, her expression so serious that you'd think she planned on handcuffing Julia behind her back to beat all the odds. "If a mosquito lands on your nose, call me or Liz to get rid of it."

Julia opened her mouth to protest, but Grace beat her to it. "I'm not kidding, Jules. Abstain from gay Tumblr memes for a few hours, please."

"Got it, boss," she rolled her eyes before they landed on me. Her neck craned back in surprise. "Wait a minute. Where did that outfit come from?"

I glanced down at the scarlet heels and the short yellow polka dot dress I had put on while Grace was doing her magic on Julia, acting like I didn't remember changing clothes.

"Oh, this old thing? I keep it in my truck," I grinned and did a little twirl for the effect. "Have you seen Crazy Rich Asians? Peik Lin always has a party outfit ready in her car in case something exciting happens."

Both of them stared at me with their mouths gaping open – Julia like I was batshit crazy, and Grace like it was the smartest thing she'd heard in a while.

My phone buzzed then, and I clicked on the newest notification with interest. It took me a while to recognize the person in the photo, and my gaze roved over the curious, telltale features. Her pupils were unusually enlarged, and crimson lipstick was smudged over her upper lip, almost like someone took a paintbrush and just smeared it over her mouth in one simple stroke.

"I think we should hurry," I told them as my cheeks turned pale.

"What's wrong?" Grace extended her arm and held her palm up in expectation.

"Amber just tagged us in an Instagram story," I showed them the screen. "She's at the party. And I think she's smashed."

⁂

Finding Amber proved to be much harder than we had thought.

The spacious house was brimming with guests, most of them people I'd never met before. We had searched everywhere – in the main room, in the hallway, in the pantry, in both bathrooms, even at one of the private balconies which we probably weren't supposed to have the access to. The last place we put under a microscope was the bluestone paver patio. I squinted at the overcrowded pool, the fluorescent lights dancing in front of me while the girls combed the deck chairs. I regretted my choice of the area when an athletic guy propelled himself from the diving board, and I only narrowly avoided being splashed by leaping to the side. Grace and Julia soon joined me, and since none of us managed to locate our intoxicated friend, we simply gave up and returned to the safety of the indoors.

Big mistake. The booming sound system shook the walls with eardrum-piercing power, and I could hardly hear myself think, let alone recognize the words coming out of Grace's mouth.

"What did you say???" I tried to outshout Camila Cabello as she encouraged Shawn Mendes to call her señorita.

"I said, Julia and I are going dancing," Grace yelled half an inch from my face, and I recoiled from the inner-ear damage. "You coming?"

I signaled them no, and Grace nodded and pulled Julia into the flouncing crowd.

The kitchen seemed like an obvious place to scout next. I had no access to the Olsen mansion's layout, but it didn't take me too long to find it – I simply followed the trail of potato chips crumbs, expertly avoiding all the paired-up couples in my way. My elbow bumped against a shoe storage cabinet, and I rubbed it in pain as I passed the threshold.

I barely took one step when a flying monkey jumped from one of the upper cabinets and landed straight onto my shoulder.

Naturally, I screamed, which only inspired the primate to bury its claws in my bare arm flesh.

"God, stop yodeling," one of the Olsen twins addressed me from a tulip dining chair, too busy with hand-rolling cigarettes to give me a proper look.

"Yodeling? It hurts!" I glared at him but winced when the monkey pulled at my hair tie. It instantly produced a high-pitched scream of frustration when its efforts turned out fruitless.

The twin let out an exasperated sigh and stood up to head my way. He fearlessly protruded his own limb to offer it to the beast for sacrifice and waited with his arm hovering in the air.

It didn't work.

"Whoa, bananas," another voice yawped, and Manuel came into my view. "When did you get a monkey, Ezra?"

"It's a capuchin," Ezra explained, still trying to discourage the primate from climbing up my face. "It's our cousin's. We're taking care of him while he's on a cruise."

Manuel seemed fascinated. "What's his name?"

"Edward Cullen."

The creature perked up at its name, and Manuel stopped with his pilsner glass midway to his mouth. "What a weird name."

"I see it," Ezra shrugged. "His face is pale and he likes to draw blood."

The monkey pinched my neck skin, and I couldn't help but yelp. "Can someone please get him off me?"

The blond guy rolled his eyes and reached into the snack basket. After rifling through its assortment, he finally found what he was looking for and opened the package to lure in the capuchin. The vampire leapt from my shoulder and landed on the kitchen table, then started excitedly jumping around and reaching for the treat with its tiny, dangerous hands.

Manuel inspected the package as Edward Cullen munched on the bar. "A fruit flat? Should he be eating that?"

His friend raised his eyebrows. "Why not? It's gluten-free."

Not in the mood to argue with his logic and feeling even more thirsty after this unexpected brawl, I headed for the cooler placed in the middle of the room. Most drinks were alcoholic, but I found a can of Coca Cola poking behind a wine cooler and plucked it out. Its icy exterior cooled my flushed skin, and I already felt calmer after the first sip.

"The beer is in the living room," Ezra informed me, sounding personally offended by my choice. The guy clearly wasn't my biggest fan tonight.

"I drove here," I provided an explanation and dangled my car keys before putting them back into my pocket. No use.

"So leave the car here and come back for it tomorrow."

"How would I get home, then?"

He gave the rest of the fruit bar to the eager monkey and leaned against the nearest kitchen chair.

"Couldn't that hot friend of yours drive you? She doesn't drink, right?"

I blinked in confusion. "Who, Julia?"

"No, the other one. You know," he made a rounding movement in front of his chest area. "The gifted one."

"I have no idea who you're talking about," I lied and took another sip of my coke.

"Oh, come on. Is she single?"

I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, but I never got to flaunt my wits. Two things happened at the same time: Aiden entered the room, and Edward Cullen lunged for my neck.

Well, not my neck, exactly. But he did screech and lunge in my direction, meaning I shrieked and instinctively threw my hands up, meaning the two-thirds-full coke can I was holding flew up in the air, meaning its contents spilled all over me and my beautiful polka dress in a very America's Funniest Home Videos manner.

I couldn't move at first. Instead, I stood there soaked, and sticky, and on the verge of tears. Not because of the dress, but because the stupid animal I'd never met before clearly had something against me, and out of the three baboons currently present in the room, two of them were halfway to rolling on the floor from laughter.

But not Aiden. His attention flew from the guys to me to the monkey and then back to me, darting so fast I almost missed it.

"What happened?" he asked. Instead of answering, I bolted out of the room.

I made a beeline for the bathroom and locked the door behind me, and the simple action immediately muffled the techno music currently blasting from the speakers. At once I reached for the toilet paper, taking three, four, a dozen sheets. I started tapping my dress as fast as I could, but the damage had already been done, the fabric now permanently tainted in dark caramel patterns. Mortified and completely dejected, I flushed the soaked mass down.

My pulse pounded in my ears. Get to your happy place, I thought, grasping the porcelain-white sink and closing my eyes shut. I fantasized I was in a projection room instead, sitting in a velvety seat in the middle of the row and two-thirds back, the perfect position in a large majority of movie theaters. The music was playing, quiet but melodious background score which slowly introduced the movie title screen. The projection flickered: the magic was beginning.

The vivid imagery helped, and when I regained my sense of reality, I could hear the weird techno smash-up again. Now strangely calm, I straightened my back and started fixing the messy baby hairs which had escaped the constraints of my hair tie. I couldn't fix the dress, but I could at least look like I didn't give a damn.

"Liz? Are you there?" a familiar voice sounded on the other side of my little sanctuary. The knob rattled, but when nothing happened, Aiden spoke up again. "Can you open the door, please?"

I sighed and turned the key to let him in.

"Are you okay?" he asked after he closed the door behind him, his eyes immediately drawn to a big, round splotch that covered most of my front. "Oh."

"Oh is right," I muttered. "I hate Edward Cullen."

His eyebrows flew up. "I didn't know you had such strong opinions on the Twilight saga."

"Didn't they tell you?" I laughed as I straightened my dress. "That's the monkey's name."

"I'd never seen that bloody monkey in my life until three minutes ago," he confessed and leaned against the tiled wall, scratching his neck. "I think it's ridiculous they have it. Capuchins shouldn't be kept as exotic pets."

"Well, we can absolutely agree on that. I just don't know what this one had against me."

"Your perfume," Aiden blurted out, then sheepishly grinned.

"Excuse me?"

"You smell kind of fruity. Well, and kind of like a soft drink now, too," he added. "Maybe he thought you were hiding food in your pockets."

"Oh," I repeated myself. "That never occurred to me."

Aiden was certainly turning out to be more complex than I thought him to be. First I found out that he wanted to apply to NYFA, and now he was suddenly observant, too?

The wonders never ceased.

"Anyway," Aiden cleared his throat, "I just wanted to tell you that your dress is kind of see-through now."

My lips parted. "Wait, what?"

"That sounded wrong, huh? I didn't see anything, I swear," he claimed as he suddenly became very interested in the ceiling. "But the lights at their pool are kind of strong, and if you, um, don't intend to flash everyone..."

"Definitely not," I blushed.

"Yeah, well. You'd better change then."

"But I don't have anything here," I panicked. The clothes I'd worn at the movie theater stayed back at Grace's place. "I guess I could text my friends and go home. Do you think the twins would mind if I borrowed a towel? I would give it back, of co—"

I didn't finish my sentence. Instead, I stared at bare-chested Aiden, the navy blue t-shirt he was wearing now loosely hanging from his hands.

"Why did you take off your clothes?" I asked him, my voice strangely high-pitched.

"So you can put it over your dress. Should be wide enough, right?" he spread it to prove his point. "And it should also cover most of that stain, too."

"But what are you..." I stopped, then cleared my voice before continuing. "What are you going to wear?"

He shrugged. "I thought about taking a swim, anyway. It's really hot tonight."

A hot guy just took off his clothes for me. A hot guy I had a crush on, too. It definitely wasn't how I imagined it, but considering the circumstances, I would have said it was even better.

I closed my mouth and tried to appear nonchalant, painfully aware that I could no longer deny my feelings for Aiden. The guy sent my heart racing like it was a character in Mario Kart.

"So yeah, here you go," he presented me his t-shirt after I didn't say anything for a full minute. Way to appear like a hapless mess, Liz.

After I finally swallowed the lump in my throat, I took his generous gift and pulled it over my still-wet dress, covertly sniffing it as the material tickled my nose. I'd never thought that I could find the smell of sandalwood sexy, but weirder miracles had happened.

"It looks cute on you," he grinned and pointed at the bathroom mirror. "See? And you don't have to go home now."

I didn't even glance at the mirror.

Aiden West thought I was cute.

Correction: Aiden West thought I was cute while wearing his t-shirt.

I had watched way too many romantic comedies not to recognize what was happening. This was it: the moment. Any minute now, he was going to casually lean in, tuck a strand of my hair I had previously missed behind my ear, and then press his lips against mine. The signs were there. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down as his eyes drifted over my face. His bare chest rose and fell heavily, tanned and defined and one hundred percent devoid of that blasted wolf tattoo he was rumored to have. My lips slowly parted. We were at a party. We were alone. We were—

We were not alone. A rowdy couple barged in and almost collided with Aiden, missing him by a single inch.

"Oops," the guy uttered, laughing and picking the girl up from the floor. "We didn't know it was occupied."

"No, no, no," I whispered as my gaze fell on familiar curly hair and a pair of shiny, gold teardrop earrings. Amber dusted off her mini skirt, freezing in place as soon as she noticed me.

"Liz?!" and then as her eyes glided to the person next to me, "Aiden?!"

He raised his hand in a 'hello' gesture while I fumed. "Amber, where were you? We've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Sure you were," she giggled. She glanced at Aiden and bit her lower lip, amateurishly holding in her opinion. "Hi, Aiden."

"She drank a lot," Troy explained while he slowly let her down, seeing as she'd previously been hanging from his bicep. His own cheeks seemed rosy, but his speech at least wasn't slurred.

"So you led her here to take advantage of her?" my anger flared up, and Troy instinctively took a step back.

"Uh, no. She said she was feeling—"

And there it was – the retching sound. I pivoted quickly and saw my friend hugging the toilet, gripping its seat like it was a lifeboat. I had no time to think. I quickly grabbed her hair and held it up as she continued to eject the contents of her stomach, gently patting her back in what I hoped were comforting sequences.

I glared at Troy. I suddenly felt like blaming him for most of her problems. "How much did she drink?"

"Not much, I swear. She had like one wine cooler. But she also downed a shot of tequila earlier."

"You let her drink tequila?" my voice went up.

"Okay, Mom," Amber's voice croaked. "I'm fine. I just forgot to eat."

I clenched my teeth shut, ordering myself to keep it together. Like an angel sent from above, Aiden passed me some paper towels and a bottle of water he had acquired in the meantime. I didn't even notice he had left the room.

"Thanks," I attempted a grateful smile, then helped Amber get up. The volcano seemed to have calmed down, silently counting until the next eruption.

"Drink this," I ordered and placed the water bottle into her clammy hands. She grimaced at the fluid but obeyed.

"Okay, I'm fine." An index finger shot up. "And now we're going dancing."

"No. Now we're going home."

"Why are you so boring, Liz?" Amber whined and stumbled before she put her hand over her mouth. Thankfully, it was a false alert this time, but I still peered over her head and exchanged concerned looks with Aiden and Troy.

"Do you need a ride?" Aiden volunteered, feeling for keys in his right pocket. I shook my head before he took them out.

"No need. I'm sober."

My best friend defiantly crossed her arms. "I'm not going, Liz. Troy was just about to take me home and show me his penis collection."

"His what?"

"My penny collection," Troy grinned, his eyes glimmering with pride. "I have like three hundred of them. You won't believe it, but I found the 1943 Lincoln coin two weeks ago. In freakin' Walmart!"

"Okay," I blinked. I was about fifty-seven percent sure this whole party was some bizarre dream and that I was seconds away from waking up, but just in case I wasn't, I still wanted to take Amber out of there. "Well, Troy... may I call you Troy?"

"That's my name," he stammered. Maybe I had overloaded the system.

"So, Troy, is there any chance Amber could see your penis— penny collection some other day? Because I think she's drowsy and ready to drop off."

"I am not drowsy," she protested.

Luckily, Troy caught on and kissed her on the forehead. "Oh, yeah. I think you are a bit drowsy, sweetheart."

Sweetheart? Aiden must have been part of this dream too, because both of us turned shell-shocked at this strange new development. The last time Troy had a girlfriend longer than five days was never, and if my memory wasn't faulty, I caught him exchanging saliva with Naomi barely two days earlier.

"We have to go, Romeo. Romeos," I saluted at Aiden, not sure why. I still had a very hard time keeping my eyes on his face, and I wanted to slap myself. What was wrong with me? Why did I suddenly have the urge to objectify this beautiful boy? It wasn't even the first time I saw him without a shirt, for heaven's sake.

I offered my arm to Amber for support, and lucky me, this time she finally took it. She winked at Troy before we left the bathroom, and I made a mental note to have an adult conversation with the non-inebriated Amber tomorrow.

We took barely two steps out when Grace and Julia ran toward us, both of them panting and overly excited. If facial expressions could talk, I was sure that mine was sighing 'what now?' in exasperation.

"A monkey just peed on Parker," Julia exclaimed, proud like she had something to do with it.

Yup. This was definitely a dream.