Feather Bound Read Online Free Page A

table and sipped it calmly. She preferred the real deal, but figured fake IDs were tacky at a funeral.
    â€œAs usual, your tact astounds,” I said before scanning the reception. It’d been an hour already. Drunken socialites, mingling, mingling, busboys serving those little sandwiches, and yet more mingling. But no Hyde. He hadn’t shown up yet.
    Because he won’t, because he’s dead. Dead and buried and fully decayed. It was impossible for Hyde Hedley to be breathing when Ralph Hedley himself had confirmed him dead to the press all those years ago. They buried his body in the very cemetery I’d just left. It was ridiculous. The guy was clearly a jackass trying to stir shit. Asshole.
    And yet he knew my name.
    â€œBut no, seriously, Dee.” Ade shifted in her seat so her judge-y glare could get a better angle. “You honestly think that the guy you met at the cemetery is someone who’s been dead for years? And you’re thinking this while being fully sober?”
    â€œI know. It sounds stupid.” I’d been trying to convince myself of that for the past hour.
    â€œNo, it sounds like old wounds tearing open.” She tapped my chest with a finger. “Hyde Hedley.” She laughed. “You liked that kid a lot. I know. We all knew. You were all ‘ooh’ in love or whatever.”
    My face flushed. “What? Ew, no!”
    â€œYep. Totally imprinted on him.” Ade snorted. “That one Christmas break I caught you planning your wedding. You had lists .”
    I slumped in my seat. “I recall no lists.”
    â€œLook, just drop it, Dee. It’s only natural that you’d think about him at his dad’s funeral, but your zombie boyfriend fantasies just aren’t healthy. It’s been years. You need to let shit go.”
    She was right.
    â€œWanna play ‘Spot the Celeb’?” Ade smoothed her long hair over her shoulders and flicked her head past me. “Look. It’s totally that judge on Sew or Die !”
    â€œHoly crap, really ?”
    â€œYep. Two o’clock. See her?”
    I had to stand to see over the sea of heads, but I found her: a woman with a white-blonde bob and some pretty insane earrings on top of that. Seriously. They dangled from her ears like thin streaks of pure gold. They probably were.
    â€œBeatrice-Rey Hoffen? Hoffer? Hoffer-Rey?” I shook my head.
    Neither of us were that into fashion really, but watching designers spiral into major depressive episodes on an almost periodical basis while being given increasingly ludicrous challenges day after day made for fun Thursday nights. Beatrice Hoffer-Rey was on Sew or Die because she was the editor in chief of Bella Magazine : published, of course, by Hedley Publications.
    And, you know, I was the daughter of a guy who packaged drinks at a warehouse, so obviously I didn’t feel out of place here in the slightest.
    â€œHey, Dee, remember that one episode when she pushed Vogue ’s creative director into a fountain because of some perceived slight?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œI loved that episode. Oh!” She’d yelped because of the young man who’d snuck up behind her and slid his hand up her shoulder. A sharply dressed young man. One of plenty in the vicinity, of course, but this one had a name I actually remembered. Why wouldn’t I? His stepmom had pushed Vogue ’s creative director into a fountain on reality TV.
    â€œHey,” he said.
    â€œAnton?” Ade strategically let a girly little flutter into her voice. She always said that some guys just needed the ego boost.
    Anton Rey. Beatrice Hoffer-Rey’s stepson. Ade had pointed him out to me as soon as we’d arrived at the reception. I only recognized his perfectly styled blonde coif because it somehow always ended up tangled in some model’s willowy fingers if his countless Page Six appearances were any indication. And yet, while I could barely