Perfect Mistake (Privilege 3)

She and Tahira both laughed, looping their arms together as they waltzed out. Ariana slammed the door behind them and clenched her fists, annoyed that Kaitlynn had managed to get the last laugh. But at least she had gotten the last slam.

That had to count for something.

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VERY RIGHT

Saturday night. Saturday night and Ariana was sitting alone in her dorm room, staring out the window at the winking lights of the APH campus. Brigit was having dinner with Adam. Maria had gone out with some friends from the Washington Ballet. Soomie had tagged along with Landon to some awful--sounding album--signing thing in the city. Lexa was taking in the opera with Conrad. Even Kaitlynn was out on a date. Ariana should have been out on a date as well. But she couldn't be. Because the boy she liked was still Lexas territory, and would be until Lexa and Conrad were officially together.But was that even true? Ariana wondered. What was the appropriate hands--off time before a girl could move in on her friend's ex even if the girl had a new boyfriend? Were she and Palmer going to have to continue sneaking around until they were off at Princeton together?

Just thinking about Palmer made Ariana groan with longing. She crossed her arms on her desk and put her head down. This was so

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unfair. Why did she have to fall for Palmer, of all people? She wondered where he was right then. Was he out having fun as well? Or was he, perhaps, somewhere inside the dorm? Somewhere alone, thinking about her as well.

Every inch of Ariana's body tingled. Screw this. Lexa was out on a date, for God's sake. With an incredible, hot guy. She pushed herself up, got halfway to her door, then hesitated. Lexa would die if she found out about Ariana and Palmer. But she wanted to go find him so badly her fingertips hurt.

Lexa would just have to not find out.

Ariana opened the door and strode out into the hallway. She took the elevator down to the first floor, walked over to the Alpha tower elevator, and took it all the way back up to the top, where Palmer's room was located. Just yanking open the heavy door that separated the boys' rooms from their common area made her feel powerful and free. She heard the sound of raucous boy laughter coming from one of the rooms. A bunch of guys playing video games, no doubt. Ariana hoped Palmer wasn't with them. Drawing him away from a pack of guys would be awkward, not to mention very public.

She walked over to the closed door at the end of the hallway and knocked. Seconds later, it opened. Palmer stood there in a black T--shirt and gray shorts. He smiled.

"I thought you'd never get here."

He opened the door wider and Ariana slipped inside. "How did you know I was coming?"

"I didn't. But I was hoping," Palmer said.

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Then he closed the door behind them. Ariana's heart caught.

"Isn't that against the rules?" she asked, her heart fluttering in her throat.

Palmer pulled her to him. His body felt hard and strong against hers. "Do you really care about the rules right now?" he asked gently.

Ariana just smiled.

"Yeah. That's what I figured," Palmer said.

And then his lips were on hers and she was lying back on his bed and he was tugging off her shirt and she was sliding her hands over his chest and the lights were off and the sheets were soft and his body was perfect and she knew this was right. . . and Ariana simply let go. Because right then, nothing else mattered.

Not Lexa, not Stone and Grave, not Kaitlynn, not her future, not anything.

Nothing, nothing, nothing . . . but how very right this was.

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COMING TOGETHER

Ariana sat at her desk on Sunday morning with Allison's handwriting sample in front of her, meticulously re--creating the girl's slanty print in a new, clean notebook. Brigit had somehow managed to tear a page out of Allison's chem notebook, which was a stroke of genius. Without it, Ariana wouldn't have known that Allison slanted her "equals" signs down or that she used a small circle in place of an x when multiplying. Any other writing sample would have been useless.Brigit was the goods.

And it was no wonder Allison was failing chem. A ton of her compounds were wrong. She had written down glucose as C9H12O9 instead of C6H1206. Ariana shook her head and started correcting the errors. A cheat sheet would look totally bogus if it was wrong.

Suddenly memories of last night rushed upon her unbidden and she blushed from head to toe. Her fingers trembled and she set her pen down, taking a deep breath.

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