“Don’t add more lip stain now!” Nick leans forward from the back seat of the car to squawk at me. “If Jordan hits a bump in the road, your look will be ruined.”

I ignore him and daub a little more crimson onto my mouth.

“Bump!” warns Jordan, and I lower my hand just before the car jolts.

“All good,” I reassure Nick.

“Thank god.” The leather squeaks as he shifts back again. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous. I’ve been here before. Got the Evite and everything.”

“Evite?” Jordan glances back at him. “I didn’t get an Evite. No one gets an Evite, Nick. People just show up. It’s word of mouth.”

“But—that doesn’t make any sense. I know I got an Evite.” After a few seconds of silence he shoves his phone over Jordan’s shoulder. “Look.”

“Fool, I’m driving.” She glances at the screen and shrugs him off. “So you’re the only person in the county to get an invitation. Lucky you.”

“Isn’t that weird though?” Nick retreats to the back seat again. “I wonder why. It’s not like I’m anyone special.”

I wince inwardly at his words. Nick lives at the end of this very road, in a modest little neighborhood much cheaper than ours, tucked into a rocky cleft. The neighborhood has no view and a stormwater drainage problem, which is why my aunt and uncle were able to afford it. They’re struggling artists with a few patrons in Asheville and Greenville and the surrounding area, and they barely make enough to hold the house. Nick’s Fiat was a gift from my parents for his eighteenth birthday a couple years ago. If they hadn’t been so generous, he’d probably still be taking the bus or riding his bicycle everywhere—and a bike is not an easy mode of transportation in the mountains.

As a kid, before our fortunes changed, I used to envy Nick. When my family would drive up to visit his, it was exciting, glamorous. He had a pool—an old, smallish one, but still, his family seemed unattainably wealthy in comparison to mine. After each visit, I had to return to our tiny two-bedroom in the Ashmore Valley apartment complex.

Ashmore Valley was a drab, treeless maze of tenement buildings in Easley, South Carolina, halfway between the lush, vibrant city of Greenville and the artsy mountain city of Asheville. The owners of the complex cared so little for improvements that the siding had long since faded from hopeful blue to the same sun-blasted gray as the cracked pavement. The apartment interiors were full of cracks, too—thin cracks in the drywall, wider ones along the baseboards, moldering cracks in the grout between the shower tiles, and thread-thin cracks through the porcelain of the sinks. The worst hid beneath the footworn carpets. Earwigs and centipedes slithered up through those crevices, searching for crumbs and respite from the sweltering heat. Since the air conditioning was broken more often than not, the bugs didn’t improve their lives much by crawling into our home. I used to long for the rare weekends when I could play video games in Nicky’s blessedly cool house, or swim in his pool.

Now I have my pick of the enormous, luxurious pools and other amenities in our community, and my parents’ house is twice as big as Nick’s. I enjoy my life, but I’ve always had an itching discomfort over the way our roles have reversed.

“You are special,” I tell Nick defiantly.

“Thanks, precious. But it’s weird, isn’t it? That I’m the only one who was invited.”

“A little strange,” I admit. “Maybe the guy who owns the house has a crush on you. Maybe he saw you last time and decided he had to see you again.”

“But I’ve never met him. And he doesn’t usually show up to his own parties. Or if he’s there, he doesn’t introduce himself to anyone.”

I frown, glancing at Jordan. “Is that true?”

“Yup.” The gold paint on her cheekbones gleams in the light of a passing car. “I asked around. No one I know has actually met him.”

“How strange.”

“Maybe you’ll meet him tonight.” Jordan nods ahead. “Here we are.”

I crane my neck for a better view as she makes the turn. The house is a bonfire of golden windows and smoke-blue shadows. A broad driveway sweeps around it on the right, and Jordan nudges her Jaguar into the line of cars inching toward the parking area at the back. When we find a space, it’s far from the rear entrance of the house, but that doesn’t matter because the party spills into the grounds, too, under white canopies and latticed gazebos strung with Edison-style bulbs. People flutter through the gardens, looking half-translucent as they cross the streaming paths of light. The house looms over it all, an incandescent monstrosity, the pulsing multistory heart of a party that seems to sprawl for acres.

“Wow.” I stare up at the shining windows. I haven’t even stepped out of the car, and I can already feel the beat of the dance music throbbing in my bones. “This is really it?”

“Yup.” Jordan throws the car into Park. “This is Gatsby’s place.”

Shock blazes like cold fire along my veins. “Wait, what?”

“Gatsby’s house. The guy who hosts the parties.”

“Gatsby—what Gatsby? I mean, what’s his first name?”

Jordan quirks an eyebrow at me. “I’m not sure. He likes to go by his last name, I guess. Who cares?”

“I don’t care,” I reply hastily. “I just… I would have liked to know.”

“O-okay.” Jordan drags out the word, a clear sign she thinks I’m being weird.

And I am. I’m being ridiculous, because there’s no way someone who owns this house and throws these extravagant parties could be the boy I knew eight years ago in Podunk Easley, South Carolina. That Gatsby wore secondhand sneakers and faded Beatles T-shirts. He drank moonlight and told fantastical stories and touched my shoulder with something like reverence.

This Gatsby coincidentally shares his last name, but they’re two different people. They have to be.

Nick opens the car door for me and invites me out with a flourish. He gets super courteous when he’s nervous, but for once I don’t feel like teasing him about it. I unfold myself from the car slowly, tugging down the hem of my dress a little. It’s a wispy, gauzy lavender thing that comes to midthigh, and I’ve got glittering flapper beads and a feathered headband, too. Jordan said the theme for tonight was Roaring 2020s, though how she knew that without an invitation is beyond me.

“Daisy.” Jordan snaps her fingers in front of my face. “You’re zoning, babe.”

“This place is huge,” I reply. “I was overwhelmed for a second, but—” I draw in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of heavy southern florals, burnt sugar, woodsmoke, and something meaty and savory. “Let’s do this.”

The best way to party is to hurl myself into it, like diving into a pool, and then flow with whatever current comes my way. Forget the name Gatsby, forget expectations and careers and futures. It’s time for fun.

I clutch Nick’s and Jordan’s hands. “I want to dance. Come on, beautiful people—come dance with me!”

The music tugs at us, beating from the interior of the house, and I race toward it, pulling Nick and Jordan along. Jordan twists her hand free after a second, slowing her pace to a jaunty walk, but she laughs indulgently as Nick and I rush into the house. We sweep through rooms, past clouds of golden balloons and tables covered with catered delicacies that smell like spice and heaven. I’m floating in a haze of scent and sound, dizzy and delighted—and then we break out into the dance room, a cool cavern bathed in blue shadow, sliced with shifting beams of pink and purple light. At the head of the room there’s a platform with a live band, a mix of guys and girls with wild hair, fake horns, and about twenty necklaces each. They’re playing modern songs with a reckless jazz twist, and I’m so here for it.

There must be a hundred people in the space, which is perfect. At smaller parties, dancing can be so awkward. It’s tough to push through your inhibitions, to stretch that film and pop through to the other side where you can feel the magic of the music. But with a big crowd like this, slipping into that zone is as easy as breathing. I maneuver myself and Nick deeper into the crowd, and then I let go.

A new song begins, and the music bursts over us like a sparkling wave, undercut with bone-deep, earth-melting bass. There are moments, magic moments, when everyone senses the spell of a song, when all the souls in the room quiver with desire, when a fresh flood of energy roars through our veins because the song is just right, synchronized to the rhythm inside us, promising something we desperately, desperately need. We aren’t individual people anymore—we are a great pulsing heartbeat, throbbing faster and faster, reaching for that something at the crest of the music because maybe if we dance hard enough, fast enough, our souls will float out of our bodies and we won’t have to worry about careers and ambitions and if the effort will even be worthwhile. The bass shivers and hammers underneath all those worries like an earthquake, until they crack and splinter into a thousand bits of shale, and we grind them into dust under our heels as the music carries them away.

I dance until my heart is booming like thunder through my entire body and there’s sweat slicking my spine under the lavender dress.

“I need a break, Nicky,” I eventually gasp, brushing my cousin’s arm with my fingers. His dance partner is a black-haired guy with the delicate beauty of a K-pop idol—but there’s an edge to the guy, too, a challenge in the dark eyes that meet mine. His lip hitches in a vicious half smile, daring me to take Nick away.

“You keep dancing. I’m fine,” I tell Nick, and he nods gratefully, locking his fingers with the other man’s.

I shrug off a slight sense of abandonment, an echo of nerves. I don’t need an escort to find a drink. What is this, the eighteenth century? I’m Daisy Finnegan, and I can get my own freaking drink.

Tom used to insist on me staying right by his side wherever we went—or staying put wherever he placed me. He’d leave me with a kiss and a “be a good girl,” and then return and snap his fingers when he was ready to leave. But he can’t tell me what to do anymore, can’t snap his fingers in my face or wriggle his way into my head and tangle up my thoughts until I’m not even sure what I want.

Now that I’ve stopped dancing like a wild witch on the solstice, I can see that I actually know a number of people here—former high school classmates or their younger siblings, and some people I’ve met at other parties, movie nights, or game nights. Looks like not everyone left the mountain for college and career. Not everyone worships at the altar of big cities and flashy jobs. Maybe I’m not such a weirdo after all.

“Hey, Daisy!” It’s McKee, another parkour enthusiast who helps Jordan with some of her videos. I met her senior year of high school and we follow each other on TikTok. She and her girlfriend, Bek, have their arms wound across each other’s shoulders.

“Hey, hotties!” I grin at them. “Did you see Jordan’s latest video?”

“Yeah.” McKee dismisses the video with a wave. “An easy day for her. But she got a lot of attention with it, thanks to somebody’s way-too-sexy voice.” She pokes my arm. “Bek and I must have watched it a hundred times, right, babe?”

Bek nods, smirking, and my face warms.