The Cunningham's and the Montgomery's have since long been feuding with one another. Dating decades back, the two families separate advertising companies in New York City have been competing to win over the most clients and become the most acclaimed...
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IT was so fucking dumb.
It was so fucking dumb that all I could think of as the elevator dinged and I got back to the penthouse floor was Theo and the fact that he showed up at my family's annual Halloween party to tell me that he loved me. And to read his note, which he said I'd know where to find. I totally knew where to find it and I walked into the apartment with the intention of going straight to my room.
But my mother got to me first and stopped me with her hand on my arm.
"Juliet," she said, and when she called me by my real name, it was just annoying. Nothing like when Theo opted to call me Juliet rather than Ava; he spoke my name and it didn't annoy me, it just made me long for him a bit more. He spoke my name, my actual name that I'd grown up detesting because of everything it associated with, and he made it seem like less of a harrowing detail and more of a sweet sentiment.
"Where were you?" she asked.
I made up a lie quickly. "Someone was trying to be buzzed in, so I went to check it out. Turns out they were just some kids pulling a prank." I shrugged and backed away from my mother's hand.
"I expect you will be out soon," my mother said. "Your father has business inquiries that have arrived and he'd like it if his wife and kids were present." I knew she was just saying that as an excuse to keep an eye on me. She hardly peeled her focus off of me these days after she caught me and Theo at The Met even though I'd lied and told her it was nothing.
I smiled to reassure her even though I didn't care to. "I'll go find Will." It was a half-truth.
So I slipped away from my mother to look for Will. Really, I went to look for Will and Matteo and Nic. I knew he was here, too, I'd seen him when he took off his mask as the elevator doors closed. That's when I knew it was Theo in the elevator with me. I mean, I should have guessed.
We had a thing for elevators.
Also, I couldn't believe the irony that he was dressed up to look like Leonardo Dicaprio's Romeo. It made things just a thousand times more ironic that I happened to be dressed with angel wings. Like that wasn't the biggest fucking coincidence of all time. I wanted to hate it because the tale of Romeo and Juliet was so tired, but I couldn't bring myself to. For some reason, I liked the irony. Because we didn't take it seriously and think of ourselves as a real manifestation of Shakespeare's play, we took it and laughed about it. Theo could joke about being Romeo all he wanted and I wasn't bothered.
I walked through the apartment trying to sneak past anyone and everyone who knew me, family friends I couldn't waste time talking to right now. I had to find Nic. But I didn't see him or my brother and Matteo anywhere.
After not being able to find any of them for over 15 minutes (I'd gotten sidetracked at one point by a family friend who refused to stop trying to talk to me even when it was obvious I was in a rush), I slipped away into the hallway where my room and Will's were. Will's bedroom door was shut and I decided that it would be decent to knock considering Matteo was probably in there, too. It was still weird to think of them together even though they weren't really... together. At least that was where they were at. So I knocked.
