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"Am I?" he said, raising his eyebrows.

"Haven't you figured it out yet?" I said. "Everyone loves you."

Upton pulled back a bit to see me better. "Evenyou?"

I sighed, my heart full. "Yes. Even me."

He smiled. "Oh, bollocks."

"What?" I asked.

"I'd really like to kiss you," he said.

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I grinned and lifted my right arm. There was a wide band of white skin that had been protected by my blindfold most of my days on the island. "You can kiss me there."

He tilted his head, brought my wrist to his lips, and kissed the spot on the inside, right near the heel of my hand. A shiver of delight raced up my arm.

"Good?" he asked.

"Perfect," I replied.

So he kissed it again. And again and again and again. Until I dissolved in a fit of giggles and forgot all about the island, the kidnappers, the sunburn, and everything bad in the world.

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ROOMIES

I rinsed the two-hundred-dollar-an-ounce moisturizing masque from my face and blotted my sensitive skin with a towel. When I looked into the mirror, Kiran was staring at me from over my shoulder, a red silk robe cinched around her waist. It was her product, after all, so she had a vested interest in making sure it had done the trick. Unfortunately, her disappointment was written all over her face.

"Well, at least we got your hair looking normal," she said in a resigned way.

"Shut up!" I said, whipping the towel at her.

"I'm just kidding!" she replied, her arms crossed in front of her face to protect herself. "You look a thousand percent better."

"Really?" I glanced at my reflection. After two days my face was almost entirely healed, except for my nose, which was red and peeling. My lips were still cracked and they stung 24/7, but the blisters were gone, which made eating a lot easier. And kissing. Which

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Upton and I had tested out earlier that evening while Caroline was on a break.

"Really," Noelle said, appearing in the bathroom doorway. "By the time we get back to Easton you'll be almost recognizable."

Easton. A little shiver went through me at the thought of seeing Josh again. Had he heard about what had happened? I had a feeling that none of the girls had called him, and guys, as a rule, were less reliable gossips. I had to believe that if Dash, Gage, or "West had reached him with the news he would have called me. Or at least e-mailed. But there was nothing. Over two weeks since I'd seen him and not one word.

Not that it mattered. I had Upton. And Upton was there for me every day.

"Come on. Taylor's mixed a special color for you and she won't shut up about it," Noelle said. She gathered her hair up atop her head and shoved a hair pick into it to hold it there. Which it miraculously did.

I followed her and Kiran back into my room, where Taylor, Tiffany, and Amberly were hanging out, flipping through magazines as Noelle's iPod blasted music from the dock on my dresser. Noelle had pulled in a few of the chairs from the dining room, and Taylor had set up a foot spa in front of one of them. Laid out on the floor was her professional manicure/pedicure kit with dozens of tools perfectly lined up and ready to go.

"I never understood why you learned to give pedicures," I said as I took a seat in the chair. The muscles in my feet let out an almost

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audible sigh as the warm, bubbly water closed around them. "Don't you guys all go to salons to get them done?"


Tags: Kate Brian Private Young Adult