Love and Chaos by Gemma Burgess

I laugh gaily, trying to look dumb and charming. “My boyfriend will be down any second.”
    The bartender nods, and serves it up in a huge chilled plastic cup.
    Taking big frantic gulps—ah, sweet sugar rush!—I glance around, hoping I look like I belong. I need Internet access so I can e-mail Pia, beg her to get me on a flight home, maybe help me get an emergency passport.… God, I wish I’d talked to her more lately. She’s my best friend, but I never tell her what’s going on with me. I don’t even know why. I just always keep everything secret.
    “Hey, can I buy you a drink?”
    I turn around. Older guy, early thirties, accent. South American, maybe Spanish. Supermacho, in that almost pretty way Spanish guys often are, with dark brown eyes, ridiculously thick eyelashes, and perma-stubble.
    “All good here.” I hold up my drink.
    “Shame,” he says. “All I’ve wanted to do since I got here was meet a blond girl in a white bikini, and buy her a drink.” He makes a sad puppy face.
    “Oh, okay. I’ll have another Coca-Cola.” And maybe he’ll pick up my tab.
    “I’ll have the same.” The guy nods at the bartender. “I’m Gabriel,” he says.
    “Angie.”
    “I’d love to ask you out for dinner, Angie. But I have to go back to New York tonight. My sisters have to be back in the city for some school thing.”
    I turn around. Two petulant-looking teenage girls are sitting on the sofas behind us. Both have long, swishy brown hair, deeply tanned skin, and are texting furiously.
    Then I remember something.
    “I thought there were no flights to New York tonight?”
    “Ah,” he says, picking up his drink. “Well, I have my own airplane.”

 
    CHAPTER 9
    A few hours later, I’m sitting on board a Gulfstream, halfway back to New York.
    For some reason, taking a stowaway back to New York isn’t fazing this family at all. I borrowed a pair of jeans and a sweater from Gabriel and a pair of fluffy slippers from his sister Lucia. I look baggy and weird, but it’ll keep me from freezing until I get back to Rookhaven. Gabriel has been on the phone for the past half hour, and his sisters and I are tucked up in the corner under blankets, all cozy with gossip magazines, herbal tea, and plates of peanut butter cookies. Being around the girls, and listening to their chatter, has put me at ease for the first time all day. It’s almost like being at Rookhaven.
    “I am completely over Bieber,” says Amada. She’s twelve, wears braces, and though she says things with total self-importance, her eyes dart around nervously when she talks. It’s adorable.
    “Bullcrap. Bieber was practically your first word! You cried at his concerts!” says Lucia, who’s fourteen. She’s incredibly shy, and talks to Gabriel and Amada loudly and sarcastically to, I think, impress me. I admired her customized jean jacket earlier—she layered a vintage Jordache sleeveless denim vest over a leather jacket, and the result is unbelievably stylish—and she blushed for about ten minutes. God, I would not go back to being a teenager for anything.
    Then again, being twenty-two isn’t exactly working out that great for me, either. My birthday is coming up way too soon. I really thought I’d have a real career and a serious boyfriend by now. A life, in other words. A life that didn’t include being invited to parties and paid to sleep with the host.
    Ugh. Don’t think about it.
    “Where are your things?” asks Gabriel, coming over to talk to me for the first time since takeoff. “How can anyone travel in just a swimsuit?”
    If you ever get the chance to hear someone from Madrid say “swimsuit,” I highly recommend it. I shrug and try to act nonchalant.
    “I’m just that kind of girl, I guess.”
    “Cool, calm, and collected.”
    “Mm-hmm.” If he only knew the chaos inside me. I turn back to my magazine. “Wow, does anyone actually like Angelina Jolie? Because I just do not get that whole thing.”
    “She is a goddess,