shrugged, sliding a nervous glance at Ivy. ‘It was . . . quite enjoyable. I suppose.’
Ivy growled. ‘Come on, Holly. What do you have to say?’
Holly had kept her head bowed, polishing the Frisbee with her T-shirt as the others talked. Now that she finally looked up, though, Olivia could see that her cheeks were flushed.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go. There’s something I forgot to do at home.’
Olivia started to get up. ‘Are you sure? If you want any help –’
Holly said nothing. She just walked away quickly, waving a hand in farewell.
Olivia watched her leave, feeling her shoulders sag. This isn’t how the day was meant to be. She had to find a way to make Holly feel more a part of the group. But what could she do? She looked down at the picnic blanket, and the cakes that Holly had carefully arranged on a plate.
Well, she thought, Holly did seem really keen on my baking . . .
‘Hey, everyone.’ Olivia turned back and gave the rest of the group her best Hollywood smile, trying to block out the scowl on Ivy’s face as she watched Holly leave. Tomorrow, she thought. I’ll fix everything tomorrow. Olivia just had to set her plan in motion.
‘How about a baking party?’ she said.
She was pleased to see Ivy’s eyes light up immediately.
‘Great idea! I’ll make some of these macaroons – they’re yummy. So moreish.’ Ivy was looking pointedly at the macaroons and then at Brendan, back at the macaroons and straight into Brendan’s face again.
She may as well be waving a placard in the air saying, ‘Please start eating normally again, Brendan!’ Olivia thought.
He smiled and shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Ivy,’ he drawled. ‘They’re kinda difficult to bake, you know. Takes someone who really knows what they’re doing.’
Olivia held her breath and waited. She watched her sister’s cheeks as they went from pale to pink to red, her hands clenching and unclenching.
‘I’m sure I can try,’ Ivy said after a long pause, her voice all sweet and un-Ivy. Olivia was shocked. Ivy must really want to be nice to Brendan now that she’s back.
His shoulders were shaking with suppressed laughter, then he burst out into a fit of coughing and had to turn away. When he straightened back up, he looked from one twin to the other.
‘Sounds like a great idea!’ he announced. ‘When do we start?’
Chapter Two
An hour later, the twins were sitting in front of the computer in Ivy’s bedroom, surrounded by posters of Ivy’s favourite metal band, The Pall Bearers, and beautiful art prints of Transylvanian castles and clouds of bats.
Even the comfort of her favourite decorations didn’t make Ivy feel any happier about the task Olivia had set her: emailing Holly to invite her to the baking party. On the way home from the park, Olivia had persuaded Ivy that the invite should go from the two of them together.
‘It’ll smooth things over,’ she’d said. ‘You’d really like her if you gave her a chance. Who knows – you might even bond over cupcakes. Maybe you’ll teach her to like red and black icing!’ Eventually Ivy had agreed.
Of course I did, Ivy thought, and shook her head ruefully. When have I ever managed to resist Olivia ? From the outside, Olivia might look like the softer, gentler twin, but she had a core of solid steel, especially when it came to making others happy.
‘I hope it goes well,’ Olivia said now, nervously biting her lower lip. Sunlight streamed into the room past the dark-red curtains, making her pink minidress and strappy sandals look even more out of place against the black-painted walls and goth decor of Ivy’s room.
‘As long as Brendan eats, I’ll be happy,’ Ivy said. That was the important thing about this baking party, she reminded herself, even if it did mean having to hang out with Holly again: it would be the perfect opportunity to feed Brendan up after his illness. He hadn’t eaten a thing at the park – not even his own macaroons! She sighed as she watched Olivia type the email message from both of them. ‘Did you notice how he –’
Her words were cut off by the sound of Olivia’s phone buzzing to life. Ivy couldn’t help seeing the name on the display as the phone vibrated beside the keyboard. Her gaze flew to her sister’s shocked expression.
Jackson’s calling !
‘I’ll just . . .’ Olivia picked up the phone, staring at it as if it were a wild animal that might attack her at any moment. The pop-song ringtone sounded a second time. ‘I’ll just . . .’ she said again, before hurrying out of the room and closing the door.
A moment later, Ivy heard her sister murmuring in the hallway. He’d better not hurt her again, Ivy thought fiercely. She liked Jackson, but it had taken Olivia ages to recover after his megastar lifestyle had driven them apart. Seeing her sister upset was pretty much the one thing Ivy could not bear.
Biting down on her worry, she distracted herself with Holly’s email:
Come if you want, but don’t feel you HAVE to . . .
Sigh. Of course she couldn’t really say that, no matter how much she wanted to. Instead, she deleted and started again, summoning some of Olivia’s cheerleader pep:
We’d love to see you !!!
Were three exclamation points too obviously fake? Ivy tapped one black-nailed finger on her desktop, trying to make up her mind.
Before she could make any changes, though, Olivia stepped back in the room, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.
‘That was Jackson,’ she said. ‘Did you know it was Jackson? You probably knew it was Jackson.’
‘Well –’ Ivy began.
Olivia didn’t wait to let her answer. ‘He was calling from a photo shoot, and he said it made him think of me.’ She perched on the edge of the chair beside Ivy, almost shivering with tension. ‘Do you think that means something? It probably doesn’t mean anything. But . . .’
Her words were tumbling over each other so quickly, Ivy gave up on trying to break in. Olivia might not have vampire super-strength, but right now she was talking with full vampire-style super-speed.
‘He said the shoot was themed around dreams coming true, and it made him wonder . . . didn’t my dreams come true when I went to Hollywood?’
Ivy winced, thinking of Olivia’s starring role in the movie Eternal Sunset. The only thing ‘eternal’ about the movie was the delays caused by Hollywood industry strikes. The movie had been put on hold indefinitely and Olivia’s dreams of building a career had stalled. She’d come back home and Jackson had moved on with his celebrity life. Now Olivia was stuck in limbo – or Franklin Grove, as they usually called it.
‘He sounded really wistful, like . . . like he was missing me.’ Olivia’s eyes glimmered, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she talked even faster. ‘I didn’t know what to say to that. So I thought, just to break the tension, I’d mention that book Holly was talking about at the picnic.’
‘Bare Throats at Sunset ?’ Ivy groaned. ‘Now there’s a romantic subject.’
‘That’s not the problem.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘He said he’d look out for it, but Ivy – the strangest thing of all was what he said just before hanging up.’ She finally stopped talking, her blue eyes wide and filled with panic.
Ivy frowned, feeling