Jason sipped his gimlet, his serious look gone. “So did you fall in love a lot in Iceland?”
Aria shook her head. “I had some boyfriends, but I’ve only been in love once.” She clumsily took another swig of wine. She’d hardly eaten anything today, and the wine was taking hold fast. “It was with my AP English teacher. Maybe you heard about it.”
A crease formed between Jason’s eyes. Maybe he hadn’t.
“It’s over now,” she said. “Honestly, it was a disaster. He was asked to leave his teaching position…because of me. He left town a couple of months ago and said he’d keep in touch, but I haven’t heard from him.”
Jason nodded sympathetically. Aria was surprised how comfortable it felt to tell him this. Something about him made her feel safe, like he wasn’t going to judge her.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked.
“Only once.” Jason tipped his head back and swallowed the rest of his drink. The ice rattled against the empty glass. “She broke my heart.”
“Who was it?”
Jason shrugged. “No one important. Not now, at least.”
The bartender brought Jason another gimlet. Then Jason poked Aria’s arm. “You know, I thought you were going to say the person you were in love with was me.”
Aria’s mouth fell open. Jason…knew? “I guess it was really obvious.”
Jason smiled. “Nah. I’m just really perceptive.”
Aria signaled the bartender to refill her wine, too, her cheeks blazing. She’d always taken extra precaution to hide her crush from Jason, certain she’d die if he ever found out. Now she kind of wanted to crawl under the bar.
“I remember this one time when you were waiting outside the journalism barn at Rosewood Day,” Jason explained gently. “I noticed you right away. You were looking around…and when you saw me, your eyes lit up.”
Aria gripped the bulky wooden lip of the bar. For a second, she’d almost thought Jason was going to bring up the time he gave her Ali’s Time Capsule flag. But he was referencing the day she’d waited outside his journalism class, wanting to show him her dad’s signed copy of Slaughterhouse-Five. That had happened the Friday before they all sneaked into Ali’s backyard.
Then again, maybe Jason didn’t want to bring up stealing Ali’s flag. Maybe he felt guilty about it.
“Sure, I remember that day,” Aria mustered. “I really wanted to talk to you. Except the school secretary got to you first. She said you had a phone call from a girl.”
Jason squinted, as if trying to see the memory. “Really?”
Aria nodded. The secretary had taken Jason’s arm and guided him toward the office. And now that Aria thought about it, the secretary had also said, She says she’s your sister. But hadn’t Aria seen Ali earlier that day, heading into the gym locker room? Maybe it was Jason’s secret girlfriend calling, knowing that the only way the Rosewood Day staff would page him was if she said she was a family member. “I figured it was a beautiful and mature girl you actually wanted to speak to, not a crazy sixth grader,” Aria added, blushing.
Jason nodded slowly, recognition flickering over his face. He muttered something under his breath, something that sounded a lot like, Not exactly.
“Pardon?” Aria asked.
“Nothing.” Jason downed the rest of his second gimlet. Then he eyed her coyly. “Well. I’m glad you’re making your crush a little more obvious now.”
A ripple cascaded down Aria’s back. “Maybe it’s more than a crush,” she whispered.
“I hope so,” Jason said. They smiled shyly at each other. Aria’s heart thudded in her ears.
The front door whooshed open, and a bunch of Hollis students paraded in. Someone in the corner lit a cigarette, blowing filmy smoke into the air. Jason checked his watch and reached into his pocket. “I’m really late.” He pulled out his wallet and fished out a twenty, enough to cover both their drinks. Then he looked at Aria. “So,” he started.
“So,” Aria echoed. And then she leaned forward, grabbed his hand, and kissed him the way she’d wanted him to kiss her years ago outside the journalism barn. His lips tasted like lime juice and vodka. Jason pulled her close, kneading his hands in her hair. After a moment, they broke apart, grinning. Aria thought she might faint.
“So I’ll see you later,” Jason said.
“Definitely,” Aria breathed. Jason strode across the room, opened the door, and was gone.
“Oh my God,” Aria whispered, turning back to the bar. A huge part of her wanted to climb up on the bar stool and scream to the whole room what just happened. She had to tell someone. But Ella was busy with Xavier. Mike wouldn’t care. There was Emily, but Emily might be a buzzkill, determined to believe that Ali was truly good at heart and Jason wasn’t.
Her phone began to bleat. Aria jumped and stared at it. One new text message, the little window said. The sender was Caller Unknown.
Aria’s excitement instantly dimmed. She looked around the packed bar. People sat on couches, deep in conversation. A college-age guy with dreadlocks whispered to the bartender, every so often gazing in Aria’s direction. A draft wafted from the back of the room, making the candle flames bow to the right. It was as if an unseen back door had just open and shut.
One new text message. Aria ran her hands through her hair. Slowly, she pressed read.
Enjoy your gimlets? Well, sorry, darling, but the fantasy’s over. Big Brother is hiding something from you. And trust me…you don’t want to know what it is.
—A
15 EN GARDE, KATE
An hour later that same night, Hanna idled outside the Montgomerys’ freaky modernist house, waiting for Mike to emerge. Earlier this afternoon, she’d called her dad at work and asked if she could please go to the library tonight to study for a French test…without Kate. She needed to be alone to sufficiently memorize the long list of irregular verbs, she explained.
“Fine,” her father agreed gruffly. Thankfully, he was loosening up on his go-everywhere-Kate-goes rule—yesterday, he’d let Hanna shop for Meredith’s baby shower present alone too. It appeared that he’d also allowed Kate to do some private baby gift shopping…at the very same store. Immediately after Hanna had received her get-out-of-Kate-jail-free pass from her dad, she’d texted Mike and told him she wanted him to take her on a date…one-on-one. What her dad didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
She stared out the window at the small cubic lights over the Montgomerys’ front porch. It had been ages since she’d been to Aria’s house, and she’d forgotten how strange it was. The front of the house had just one window, positioned off-kilter above the stairwell. The back of the house, on the other hand, was nothing but windows, stretching from the first floor to the third. Once, when Hanna and the others were in Aria’s den watching a family of deer traipse through her backyard, Ali gazed at the huge windows and clucked her tongue. “Don’t you guys worry about people spying on you?” She gave Aria a nudge. “But then, I guess your parents don’t have any secrets they don’t want anyone to know about, huh?” Aria had blushed and left the room. Hanna hadn’t known why Aria had gotten so upset, but now she did—Ali had discovered that Aria’s dad was having an affair, and she was torturing Aria with the information, the same way she used to torture Hanna about binging and purging.