Free Game On by Monica Seles

absolutely none off of it. That’s it, that’s the one.”
    â€œHey,” Cleo said, getting off the floor and sitting beside Maya, too. “That is garbage. Every word of it. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or don’t have, or how refined you are. He’s not better than you, Maya. And if he thinks that, you don’t want him anyway.”
    Maya wasn’t used to Cleo being so emotionally supportive. She was taking on this cheerleader role hard-core.
    â€œBesides,” Cleo continued, “if you don’t have a chance with Travis, it’s obviously because of what Jake told him about you.”
    Maya fell face-first onto her pillow. And screamed.
    â€œToo mean?” Cleo asked. Maya didn’t even have the strength to lift her head up and glare at her.
    â€œYou’re worried about making an impression on Travis Reed?” Renee asked, throwing her a lifeline. “I’m going to make sure you make an entrance he’ll never forget. You’re going to go as me.”
    â€œExcuse me?” Maya asked, her face muffled by the pillow.
    â€œWell, not as me, exactly,” Renee said. “I’m not that vain. I mean all dolled up. You’ll look smoking hot, and you’ll get the added bonus of seeing just how much work goes into looking like this.”
    Maya laughed. “Smoking hot? I don’t think there’s enough stage makeup in the world to pull off that transformation.”
    Renee sized Maya up, her interest suddenly piqued by the challenge.
    â€œWe’ll see about that,” Renee said.
    Maya could not believe she was here. She couldn’t have orchestrated it if she’d tried, but somehow, inexplicably, Maya Hart was inside Nicole King’s villa. She had cracked Wonka’s factory.
    The party was still hours away, but Renee needed those hours to prepare. She was going to transform Maya. Into what, only Renee knew. And that scared Maya. But if it meant she could finally make some kind of impression on Travis Reed, she would happily submit.
    Obviously what she was submitting to was something extraordinary, because it required tools found only in Renee’s laboratory. But before they could get to her bedroom, they would have to make their way through the rest of the villa. And the rest of the villa was mind-blowing.
    Maya felt every bit the trespasser, and though she tried to look nonchalant, she wasn’t blind. As they walked through the place, she could see it was dripping with cash. It was also massive. The furniture, Renee told her, was imported from “somewhere in Africa.” It clashed “the right way” with the state-of-the-art projection system in the living room. Over the couch was a Picasso that Maya convinced herself was a fake so she wouldn’t start freaking out. In the end, Maya felt she was trespassing not into someone’s home, but onto a movie set.
    â€œNicole?” Renee called out. Maya held her breath in the silence, waiting.
    â€œHm, she’s not home,” Renee remarked.
    Maya was at once relieved and disappointed.
    â€œMy room is just back here,” Renee said. She led her down a hallway, past an open bedroom door.
    â€œThat’s Nicole’s room,” Renee said.
    As she walked past it, Maya craned her neck to see inside. Even if Renee hadn’t told her whose room it was, Maya would’ve known. Maybe it was the fact that it was big enough to fit her entire family. Maybe it was the tennis bag next to the raised, hyperornate canopy bed. Or maybe it was the giant Andy Warhol–esque painting of Nicole hanging directly above it. Maya was pretty sure Warhol died before Nicole was born, so he couldn’t have painted it himself, but if anyone could raise the dead to do her bidding, it would be Nicole King.
    Finally, they arrived at Renee’s bedroom. It was equally enormous, but what left Maya speechless was her closet. Correction,