Free The A-List by Zoey Dean Page B

Patrice was going to ignore her, Cammie would do likewise. In her mind, Patrice was just that bitchy woman who lived in her house.
    Cammie had kept her end of the bargain. Her step-mother, on the other hand, had taken every opportunity she could to make Cammie’s life a thing of misery. Nothing was off-limits: the guys she saw, her brains, grades, clothes.
    Patrice eyed Cammie’s cleavage and sniffed. “A little obvious for a wedding, Cammie. You look like you’re peddling it at Hollywood and Vine.”
    Jealous cow. Cammie made her wrist limp and quickly shook it back and forth. “What’s this?”
    “I have no idea,” Patrice replied coldly.
    “Your neck wattle. Time for a little touch-up, Patrice. But I’m sure you’ve got Dr. Birnbaum on speed dial.”
    “You’re a bitch, Camilla.”
    “Takes one to know one.”
    Clark Sheppard chuckled. Typical. Cammie knew her dad liked to pretend that their sparring was all in fun. Cammie crossed her arms and turned away from her stepmother. A couple of rows in front and a little to the left, she could see Ben and Anna seated together. Ben’s mom and dad, Dr. and Mrs. Dan Birnbaum, had joined them. Ben and Anna were deep in conversation, and Ben cut his eyes back toward Cammie for a moment. She gave him a slow, sultry smile.
    Good, she thought. Very, very good.
    The truth was that Ben Birnbaum was the first boy Cammie had really, truly, deeply fallen for. Not that she’d ever told him that. He’d never said “I love you” to Cammie, and she wasn’t about to say it first. But she did love him. She’d even come close to breaking her never-wake-up-away-from-home rule for him because he made her feel so safe. She’d never let on to her so-called best friends that Ben was more than hot sex, either. Cammie wasn’t about to give anyone that kind of power over her.
    She snuck another look at Ben’s pickup chick. Frankly, after the public humiliation that record producer asshole had just put her through, Cammie was amazed she’d stuck around for the ceremony. That could only mean that the girl had some balls and that Ben really was into her, even though they’d only just met. Shit.
    “Hey, Cammie.”
    She turned to the friendly male voice behind her and saw Adam Flood slip into a seat his parents had been saving for him. The year before, Adam had been the new guy at school. Loose-limbed and cute in a Ben Stiller way—if Ben Stiller had been about six inches taller and habitually dyed his hair different bizarre colors—Adam was so funny and nice and nonthreatening that he’d effortlessly worked his way onto the school A-list. It didn’t hurt that he quickly became point guard on the varsity basketball team, spoke Russian, and was a nationally ranked chess player. Since the last time Cammie had seen him, Adam’s hair had gone from Elvis black to semiblue.
    “Nice ’do,” Cammie told him, smiling.
    “It’s awful,” Mrs. Flood commented, though she had a loving look on her face when she said it. Adam had once told Cammie that his parents had met in law school at the University of Michigan. A couple that had met in law school, gotten married, had kids, and lived happily ever after? To Cammie, it seemed like some kind of fairy tale.
    The Floods had moved from Ann Arbor to Beverly Hills, and Adam’s parents had joined a prestigious entertainment law firm. They handled Jackson Sharpe’s legal work and lived a few blocks from Cammie. Cammie figured they had to be reasonably wealthy, yet they were utterly unpretentious—almost unheard-of in Cammie’s social circle. Their home was quite a bit smaller than Cammie’s. Mr. Flood drove a Prius. His wife drove a Saturn. As for Adam, he didn’t even have his own car, which was completely unheard-of for a teenager in Beverly Hills.
    Cammie liked to spend time with the Floods; it was like studying prehistoric relics from another age, where families stayed together and actually seemed to like each other.
    Adam gazed around