"Cheer up, Janie. Frowning gives you wrinkles," Nicole piped up as the trio entered the hotel's ballroom. It was decorated to perfection, which was expected considering who the hostess was, and by the looks of the guests in the room, it was apparent that Charlotte was probably going to surpass her target goal for donations. What Jane was most concerned about was getting her hands on one of the glasses of champagne that seemed to be circling around the room. She figured that the only way to kill this hangover and make the next couple of hours less boring was to start her buzz for the day early. To do that, though, she was going to need to get away from her father and stepmother, and the opportunity came sooner than she could have hoped for. Only a few feet into the ballroom did they stumble upon Mr. Huntington and his wife, Janice. Her father was very good friends with Sebastian Sr., which was the main reason why she was such good friends with Sebastian Jr. The two couples shared more than just having teenage children, though, and the distaste that Jane and Seb shared for their stepmothers was something they bonded over. Sebastian was no where in sight though, so after putting on an insincere smile and making a few minutes of small talk with the couple, she excused herself.
By now, Sienna had responded to her, saying she was at one of the back tables. Jane headed there, and unfortunately didn't cross paths with any cocktail waitresses before she found the blonde. Despite not feeling very cheerful, Jane smiled upon seeing her friend and wiggled her way into an empty seat beside her. "You look cute. Where's your dress from? You literally did wayyyy too much shopping without me over the summer and I'm jealous." Before Sienna could respond, Jane's attention was redirected to her phone that was vibrating inside of her clutch. "I think I should be the Queen Bee. Everyone is obsessed with me!" She joked with a dramatic roll of her eyes as she fished into the bag to retrieve it. When she saw the name flashing on her screen, she stared at it for a moment with confusion. She and Vincent weren't close. He was attractive and obnoxious, fun to have around at parties, but he broke her best friend's heart and had now ruined any bit of respect that Jane had for him by doing it with Sydney. She didn't think he had ever called her before this whole fight, and didn't think there was any reason for him to be calling her now. Without hesitation, Jane blurted out, "It's Vincent?" in a tone laced with enough confusion to make it sound more like a question than a statement. "You stay here and do your boring government leader association whatever it's called thing, and I'll tell you what he says!" It was wrong to leave Sienna hanging like that, but her friend hadn't even given her the story on what went down. She was owed an explanation and vowed to get it after this unexpected phone call.
When she had hurried far enough away from Sienna's table, she answered the call. "Hello?"
"Jane? It's Vincent."
"I know, I have caller ID."
"Right, right. Got a second to talk?"
"As long as it doesn't end in me sleeping with you too, then sure, I guess. What's up?" With a glass of champagne in hand, she was now feeling more patient. What harm could a little gossip do? Especially when she was getting it straight from the source.
"Well, I'm guessing you heard about... everything by now, and you know, you're closer to Sydney and Sienna than anyone else. I figured that maybe you've already heard both sides of the stories and can help me--"
"Um, I'm not going to 'help' you with anything after what you did to my friends."
"I just want to know who I should talk to. Sydney won't speak to me and I know I should have told her that Sienna knew about what we did right away, but Sienna promised she wasn't going to say anything. And then she did, and I guess it brought back all of the feelings of everything I did wrong to her, and I already apologized for all of that but--"
Jane sighed. "What do you want me to do, Vincent? Pick which one I think 'deserves' you? Because if that's the case, then I think that they both deserve far better than you. Sienna loves you. Everyone knows that. I don't want to say that it'll be easier to get her to forgive you, but I don't think she can stay mad at you for as long as Sydney can, and--"
"So I should talk to Sienna first, then? Even though I already apologized to her after all of this happened in the first place?"
"It's obviously still bothering her, and like, I can understand why since you still hang out with Sydney one on one. It's one thing to hang out in a group with her there because obviously it's like, impossible to completely ignored Sydney unless you want to have no social life, but hanging out with her one on one is so suspicious. And especially now that everyone knows what you two did, it just is like a slap in the face for Sienna to have to deal with that publicly."
"No, you're right, you're right. I mean, I wasn't hanging out with her one on one the other day."
"Are you the Vale's private chef now, or something?"
"What? No. Oh, that snapchat? That... that wasn't hanging out. It didn't start that way, at least. Look, that's not the point. So I'm going to talk to Sienna and see where that goes. That's your advice, right? So when she gouges out my eyes I can come back and blame you?"
"We both know that she's not going to do that to you. She's probably saving that aggression for your mistress."
"Very funny. Alright, well, thanks for the help."
Jane hung up before he even got half of his last sentence out. She had spotted Piper a few feet away and allowed her attention to stray from reporting back to Sienna to the redhead who she hadn't seen in what felt like forever. She hadn't even noticed Piper's text that had come in mid-call, but was glad to see her and her smile proved that. "Pipe! Yay, I'm so glad you're here too. I need someone who isn't in this stupid student government club to complain about how boring this is to. And my dad and Nicole are here, so I don't even think I'll be able to level out the boredom with these," she added, sipping her champagne glass. "Are your parents here too?" She asked, only now glancing down at her phone and reading the girl's text about wanting to talk. "Ooh, I just saw your text. What's up? I feel like I haven't spoken to you forever since you went MIA yesterday!"