Chapter 1 REID “You live with your parents?” If you’re a celebrity and over twelve, people don’t expect you to live with your parents, if they even imagine that you have parents. Movie stars are believed to spring fully formed into apartment-acquiring adulthood. Older girls are the worst offenders when it comes to these expectations of independence, and the one leaning against me now is no different. Her question is whispered in response to me shushing her as I’m trying to fit the key in the lock and get the two of us into the house and into my room without any interference. Now she’s giggling, both hands over her mouth, muffling the sound—though maybe I can’t hear her because my ears are still ringing from the concert in which she was on stage with an electric bass in her skilled hands while I watched from the VIP section. I squint at her, because I’m swaying and she’s swaying and our movements are not synchronized. “I said I was turning eighteen tonight, not thirty. Where do you expect me to live?” There’s no rancor behind the slurred words, and luckily she seems to deduce as much from my tone. “Okay, okay, Jesus. I forgot what a baby you are.” I arch a brow at her as the key slips into the dead bolt with a metallic scrape.