I ignored the implied insult in that statement.
“Noelle! I'm with Thomas, remember?” I said. I no longer cared that she didn't want me to be with Thomas. The fact that he had mysteriously disappeared kind of negated all other concerns.
Her expression turned hard. “Right. And Thomas is . . . where?” she asked, looking around.
“I... I don't know,” I said, my stomach responding with a clench. Over her shoulder, I watched Ariana, Kiran, and Taylor approaching, clearly interested in the topic of our private tete-?a-?tete.
“Exactly. Some boyfriend, bailing and not even telling you where he's going. Or that he's going,” she said. She rolled her eyes
13
again and took another sip of beer, allowing this to sink in. “Look, Whit is a great guy. He's a nice guy.”
“Unlike some people,” Kiran said snarkily.
Even with his mysterious disappearance they couldn't let their disdain for Thomas go. They had never liked him. They never would.
“Plus, Whit can give you things,” Ariana put in. “Things you might not otherwise have access to.”
Give me things, huh? Well, color me curious.
Ariana gazed at Whit with her clear blue eyes and I wondered if he felt it. If it gave him the chills the way it always did me.
“Like what?” I said.
“Like a life,” Kiran said with a snort.
“Kiran!” Ariana scolded.
“Just go talk to him,” Noelle said. 'You don't have to marry the guy."
I took a deep breath and drained the last dregs of my beer, all the while keeping an eye on Whit. He seemed nice. Polite and mature. Plus the guys clearly loved him. And yeah, maybe he was a little overweight, but who was I to judge?
“Bring him some of this,” Kiran said, handing over a spare flask of her Hayes Special. “Whittaker loves my recipes.”
The flask was ice cold and sleek to the touch. I held it in one hand, my beer in the other. Maybe it was time to give a Billings- sanctioned guy a chance. After all, I was a Billings Girl now too. It seemed high time I started acting like one.
14
SOMETHING TO IMPRESS
“It was eye opening, I have to say, living among the locals,” Whittaker said as we strolled away from the clearing. “They have nothing. Nothing but a wooden bowl and a cup of rice to eat, but they have spirit, you know? Such spirit.”
“So you slept in the village?” I asked, keeping my eyes trained on my feet. I was on the fourth beer now, and things were starting to get the slightest bit bleary. “That's so cool.”
I couldn't remember whose idea it had been for us to go off alone and get to know each other. His? Mine? Noelle's?
“Oh, no. We went back to the hotel, of course,”Whit said. “Do you realize the number of diseases one can pick up in a place like that?”
I looked up waiting for him to acknowledge the irony. “But I thought you said you lived among them.” Just then, my foot hit a rock and slid, twisting my ankle inward. I stumbled and fell sideways into Whittaker. “Oh. Whoops!”
“Are you quite well?” he asked me, using both meaty arms to steady me.
15
I cleared my throat. Around me the trees tilted and swayed. “Yes. Quite,” I said, mimicking his tone. Who talked like this?
“Perhaps we should sit,” he suggested.