Sloane Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d said too much. But who was Stella going to tell, her loser sister? Besides, she loved a rapt audience. Every time she spoke, she imagined herself up onstage, delivering the lines to a theater full of enamored fans. This was better than when she’d played Nellie in South Pacific .
    â€œSophie’s secret is the funniest,” Cate went on. “She still plays with Barbies.”
    â€œNo!” Stella gasped.
    Cate raised her hand up as if she were being sworn in at court. “She has a whole collection of them—she keeps them under her bathroom sink. She says she never plays with them, but every time I go over there they’re in different outfits.” Cate cackled, remembering the last time she’d looked under Sophie’s sink. One Barbie had her hair in a French braid and was wearing a neon green wet suit.
    Cate eyed Stella, her perfect blond ringlets swinging as she threw back her head and laughed. Cate loved the Chi Beta Phis, but Stella was different. Stella would never buy Barbies or cover up a spray tan streak with a giant Band-Aid. It was nice to finally have…an equal.
    Â 
    The deck was lit by tiki torches. Chenille blankets were draped over the padded teak couch and the big chaise lounges, and citrus-scented candles sat on the small side tables, making the warm night air smell like lemonade. There were bowls of each girl’s favorite snack: Terra Chips for Priya, apple-and-brie sandwiches for Blythe, and gummi bears for Sophie. Mojito and cosmo mocktails sat on the coffee table in pink polka-dotted martini glasses.
    Tasteful and elegant, but it doesn’t seem like I tried too hard, Cate thought.
    She had been waiting for tonight all summer: the night she’d get to hear the full story of how Blythe met Jake Gyllenhaalin Mykonos, the night they’d finally steal Priya back from her camp bestie—some French girl named Audrey who had tried to convince her to wear power-washed denim—and the night she’d tell them all about Charlie, her first kiss. They’d spent two blissful days together on Kapalua Bay beach in Maui, snorkeling and laying out near the coconut groves, sipping virgin piña coladas. Sophie was going to be so surprised, she’d choke on her retainer.
    Cate laid out five sleeping bags in a spiral on the roof deck, then stood back to admire her work. Four of them were perfect pink plaid, with mauve lining that matched Cate’s couch. The fifth was Winston’s old camping bag from the eighties, a huge battered black thing complete with a hood. Cate cringed. It looked like they had invited a dead body to the sleepover.
    Cate pulled her iPhone out of her pocket to text Blythe.
    CATE: DO U HAVE AN XTRA SLEEPING BAG 4 STELLA?
    Her phone instantly buzzed with a reply.
    BLYTHE: IM @ YR DOOR. Y??? IS STELLA COMING???
    Cate frowned down at the glossy screen of her phone. Ever since she’d heard Emma’s spawn were moving in, she’d complained to her friends nonstop about the injustice. She didn’t want to seem like a total schizo, suddenly falling all over her new sister and inviting her to their sleepover.
    Just then the intercom next to the door crackled and Winston’svoice called out in the warm night air. “Cate—your friends are here.” Stella walked to the sliding glass door, tugging it open.
    â€œYou should wait here.” Cate stopped her. “ I’m excited you’re coming to the sleepover, but I don’t know how Priya, Sophie, and Blythe are going to take it. Let me warn them first.” She smiled sweetly, then slipped through the door and descended the stairs to greet her guests.
    Warn them? Ohh-kay. Stella shrugged off the weirdness and dipped her finger into the yellow candle wax. She rolled it in a tiny ball and flicked it off the roof. On a terrace across the street, a man in blue silk shorts smoked a cigar. A car alarm blared in the distance. New York, Stella realized, had