hear about your little friend Sergei?"
Ariana's heart all but stopped. Daniel glanced up at her.
"They found his body in the lake. Idiot went up there by himself and apparently drowned." Daniel sounded
amused.
"That's awful," Ariana said, forcing her features into a look of surprised horror even as relief flooded her
body. An accidental drowning.
Perfect.
Daniel's brow knit. Suddenly he was all serious. "I know. But it makes you think, doesn't it? Could have been
one of us. We're up there all the time. Someone could stagger out there drunk and bam!"
Ariana jumped in her seat.
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"The ice breaks and that's it. Over," he said, shaking his head as he looked at the menu.
"Well, maybe we should start hanging out somewhere else," Ariana suggested, her mouth dry.
"Yeah. Maybe."
Ariana's skin felt tight. She closed her eyes against the garish light that poured over them from the swinging
lamps overhead. She hated everything about being in this place with him: the sound of screaming children and
cooks yelling out orders, the dizzying black-and-white checkered floor, the smell of grease hanging thick in
the stale air. She took a slow, deep breath.
Why did she have to do this? No one gave a crap about Sergei. Daniel had just made that perfectly clear. So
why, why, why was she here?
Ariana clutched her arm and breathed in and out. Keep it together. This is all for Thomas. I have to stick to
the plan. There's too much at risk.
"Anyhow, Coach told me he got a call from the head coach at Harvard the other day," Daniel said. "They
want me to play there in the fall. The guy said he was really impressed with what he saw when he came down
for homecoming. "He closed his menu and slid it to the edge of the table.
"That's great," she said brightly, resting her forearms on the table between them and leaning toward him.
"I'm really proud of you." The words spilled from her mouth effortlessly, as if they'd been scripted.
"Only problem is, my dad doesn't want me to play during my first
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semester." Daniel lifted the gigantic plastic cup in front of him and took a polite sip of water. "He thinks it'll