“Ana?” Palmer prodded.
Ariana blinked, dragging herself back from a gondola in Venice, wrapped in Jasper’s arms.
“What? Oh, sorry. Sure. Of course. I’d love to see Phoenix,” she lied.
“Will you guys excuse me for a second?” Lexa asked, rising.
Both Conrad and Palmer got up from their chairs, well-trained gentlemen that they were. Lexa sauntered off toward the bathroom. The second she was out of earshot, Conrad leaned across the table.
“She keeps bringing up Lillian,” he whispered to Palmer. “Do you think that has something to do with all the crazy hand washing?”
Ariana’s blood froze in her veins. “What has she been saying about Lillian?” she asked, even though she was appalled by the fact that Lexa’s boyfriend started talking about her behind her back the second she was gone.
“Nothing in particular,” Conrad said, lifting a shoulder. “But she keeps reminiscing about the girl. As if they were lifelong friends or something. We only knew her for a month.”
“Maybe she’s wigged about Lillian leaving so abruptly,” Palmer said, looking off in the direction of the bathrooms. He narrowed his eyes. “Maybe . . . maybe she found out something about Lily’s mystery family that she hasn’t told us! Maybe she doesn’t think that Lillian left because she couldn’t handle the workload.”
“What do you mean?” Ariana asked, breathless. She could barely believe she was having this conversation.
“Maybe she suspects foul play,” Palmer said.
Ariana laughed, but the sound was shrill. “Foul play? What is this, Harriet the Spy?”
Palmer turned up his palms. “We all thought it was sketchy that we couldn’t find anything out about Lillian’s family. Maybe they were connected. Like to the mob or something.”
“Whatever you say,” Ariana said, rolling her eyes in an exaggerated way. She hoped they couldn’t see her heart pounding through her flimsy dress material.
“Whatever,” Palmer said, frustrated. “All I know is, if that’s the case, I’m glad the girl’s gone. The last thing we need is to be friends with someone who’s caught up in a scandal.”
Ariana felt an uncomfortable twist in her gut. “Why? What’s the big deal?”
Palmer took a sip of his wine and placed the glass down next to his bread plate. “It’s just that I don’t think I could ever be friends with someone who’d let themselves get involved with stuff like that.”
Ariana felt as if she’d been slapped. “Sometimes it’s not the person’s fault, you know. Sometimes the situation is out of their control. Stuff happens.”
Palmer and Conrad both snorted laughs. “That’s the lamest excuse in the book.”
Lexa returned to the table at that moment, all smiles, and the guys greeted her happily, as if nothing had been discussed in her absence other than Ariana and Palmer’s lame upcoming trip to Phoenix. Ariana took a long swig of her wine and sat back, annoyed. She couldn’t believe Palmer could be so judgmental, could dismiss her argument out of hand like that. She knew better than anyone that sometimes bad things happened to good people. If he didn’t understand that, then what kind of person was she dating?
As Palmer launched into the list of things they could do together in Phoenix—catch a Diamondbacks game, go for a hike in the desert, see a concert at Red Rocks, where his dad had a permanent box—Ariana couldn’t help wondering what Jasper was doing right then.
And how much more fun he was having doing it.
“So . . . what are you working on, exactly?” Ariana asked Soomie as she and Lexa stepped into their friend’s room after returning from their double date.
Soomie blew out a frustrated sigh and dropped a hole punch on the floor with a clatter. She sat in the center of her wool throw rug, surrounded by strips of pale wood, bottles of glue, scissors, an X-Acto knife, and a set of blueprints. Her normally sleek hair was back in a messy bun, but half of it had fallen out in stringy clumps around her face.
“She’s supposed to make a balsa-wood plane for physics class,” Maria replied. She was leaning back against the desk chair, her arms crossed over her chest. “I think Mr. Crandal has finally found the project to stump the great Soomie Ahn.”
“He has not,” Soomie snapped. “I don’t care if I have to stay up all night. This thing will win.”
Maria raised her hands in surrender as Ariana and Lexa exchanged disturbed and amused glances. Soomie reached for a section of balsa wood that appeared to be fashioned into a plane’s wing. Her finger shook, and Ariana saw that her palm was sweaty. This project was obviously stressing out Soomie.
“Do you need any help?” Lexa asked.
Soomie shot her a look that could have killed Frankenstein’s monster in his tracks.
“Don’t ask her that,” Maria said, shaking her head. “I nearly lost a finger asking her that.”