Even though every ounce of Emma’s be-nice-and-don’t-make-trouble being wanted to wave and smile, she steeled herself, thought of Sutton, and shot Nisha a bitchy look. Outrage flashed across Nisha’s face. After a moment, she whipped her head around, her ponytail smacking the face of the girl behind her.
A cautious feeling flitted through me. Nisha and I clearly had issues—big issues.
Not that I had a clue what they were.
Chapter 6
WHO CAN RESIST A BROODER?
Nisha’s driveway was quiet and peaceful. Crickets chirped in the bushes, and the air was cool against Emma’s bare skin. Bluish light from a TV flickered in the window of a house a few doors down. A dog barked behind a block-wall fence. Emma’s pulse began to slow, and her shoulders slowly fell from their crunched position by her ears. She pulled out the BlackBerry and stared at the screen. The message was from Clarice: GOT YOUR NOTE. EVERYTHING OKAY? LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED ANYTHING.
Emma deleted the message, then refreshed her inbox again. No new messages. Then she looked across the broad highway. A big floodlight shone across the Sabino parking lot. Emma gulped. The park bench was now empty. Had someone taken her stuff? Where was Sutton? And what was she supposed to do when this party ended? Her wallet had been in her bag. Now she had no cash. No ID.
Swish. Emma turned around and faced Nisha’s house. No one was in the driveway. Then, a stiff thwock echoed through the air, a soda can opening. Emma pivoted again. A figure stood on the front porch of the house next door. There was a large telescope by his side, but he was staring straight into Emma’s eyes.
Emma backed away. “Oh. Sorry.”
The guy stepped forward, his prominent cheekbones catching the light. Emma took in his round eyes, thick eyebrows, and closely shorn hair. His mouth was drawn into a straight, tense line that seemed to say back off. He was dressed more casually than the boys at the party, wearing frayed hiking shorts and a threadbare gray T-shirt that showed every contour of his well-muscled chest.
I recognized him, but of course—I should’ve been getting used to this by now—I didn’t know why.
Giggles emerged from Nisha’s backyard. Emma glanced over her shoulder, then back at the boy. She was intrigued by his sullen slouch, and by the fact that he didn’t seem to care that a party was raging next door. She’d always been a sucker for the brooding type. “Why aren’t you at the party?” she asked.
The guy just stared at her, his eyes two huge moons.
Emma walked down the sidewalk until she was right in front of his house. “What are you looking at?” She gestured to the telescope.
He didn’t blink. “Venus?” Emma guessed. “The Big Dipper?”
A small noise escaped from his throat. He ran his hand against the back of his neck and turned away. Finally Emma pivoted on her heel. “Fine,” she said, trying to sound as breezy as possible. “Hang out by yourself. I don’t care.”
“The Perseids, Sutton.”
Emma turned back to him. So he knew Sutton, too. “What are the Perseids?” she asked.
He curled his hands around the porch railing. “It’s a meteor shower.”
Emma crossed toward him. “Can I see?”
The guy stood motionless as Emma walked through the yard. His house was a small, sand-colored bungalow with a carport instead of a garage. A few cacti lined the curb. Up close, he smelled like root beer. The porch light shone down on his face, revealing striking blue eyes. A plate containing a half-eaten sandwich was on the porch swing, and two leather-bound books were on the ground. The tattered cover of the first book said The Collected Poetry of William Carlos Williams. Emma had never met a cute guy who read poetry—not one who’d admit it, anyway.
Finally he looked down, adjusted the telescope lens to Emma’s height, and stepped out of the way. Emma stooped to the eyepiece. “Since when did you become an astronomer?” he asked.
“Since never.” Emma tilted the telescope to the big, full moon. “I usually just give the stars names of my own.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
Emma flicked the little lens cap, which hung from a black string off the eyepiece. “Well, like the Bitch Star. There.” She pointed to a small twinkler just over the rooftops. A few years ago, she’d named it for Maria Rowan, a girl in seventh grade who’d spilled a puddle of lemonade under Emma’s desk in Spanish and then told everyone Emma was incontinent. She’d even translated it into Spanish, incontinencia. Emma had fantasized about rocketing Maria into the sky, just like the Greek gods used to banish their children to the underworld for all of eternity.
The guy let out a cough-like laugh. “Actually, I think your Bitch Star is part of Orion’s belt.”
Emma pressed her hand to her chest, like an offended southern belle. “Do you talk to all the girls like that?”
He moved a little closer to her, their arms nearly touching. Emma’s heart jumped to her throat at the effortlessness of it all. For a second, she thought about Carter Hayes, the captain of the Henderson High School basketball team, whom she’d adored from afar. She’d crafted tons of adorable things to say to Carter in her Ways to Flirt list, but whenever they were alone together, she’d always somehow found herself talking about American Idol. She didn’t even like American Idol.
The guy tilted his head up to the sky again. “Maybe the other stars Orion carries around could be the Liar Star and the Cheater Star. Three naughty girls who were dragged by their hair to Orion’s cave.” He looked at her meaningfully.
Emma leaned against the railing, feeling the words carried some special connotation she couldn’t possibly decipher. “It sounds like you’ve done a lot of thinking about this.”
“Maybe.” He had the longest lashes Emma had ever seen. But suddenly his gaze felt less flirty and more . . . curious, maybe.
And suddenly a flash about him came to me. It wasn’t a memory exactly, just an odd mix of gratitude and humiliation. It disappeared almost immediately, nothing more than a glimmer.
The guy broke his gaze away and vigorously rubbed the top of his head. “Sorry. It’s just . . . we haven’t really talked since . . . you know. A while.”
“Well, there’s no time like the present,” Emma said.
A whisper of a smile appeared on his lips. “Yeah.”
They looked at each other again. Fireflies danced around their heads. The air suddenly smelled like wildflowers.
“Sutton?” a girl’s voice called through the darkness.
Emma turned. The guy’s shoulders stiffened.
“Where did she go?” someone else asked.
Emma smoothed her hair behind her ears. She peered across the front yard and saw two figures in Nisha’s driveway. Lilianna’s black Doc Martens clonked as she walked. Gabriella held her iPhone outstretched, using a flashlight app to lead the way.
“Be right there!” Emma yelled back. She glanced at the guy. “Why don’t you come over to the party?”
He made an indignant scoff. “No thanks.”
“Come on.” She kept smiling. “I’ll tell you all about the Slutty Star, the Nerd Star . . .”
The girls reached the end of the guy’s driveway. “Sutton?” Lilianna yelled, squinting in the porch light.
“Who is that?” Gabriella called.
Slam. Emma whipped around. The guy was gone. The dried wreath that hung on the front door shook back and forth, the lock closed with a click, and the blinds on the big bay window to the right quickly twisted shut. Okaaaay.
Emma walked slowly off the porch and across the yard.
“Was that Ethan Landry?” Gabriella demanded.
“Were you talking?” Lilianna asked at the same time. Her voice rippled with intrigue. “What did he say?”
Charlotte appeared behind the Twitter Twins. Her cheeks were flushed, and her forehead looked shiny. “What’s going on?”
Gabriella paused from texting. “Sutton was talking to Ethan.”
“Ethan Landry?” Charlotte’s eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Rebel Without a Cause actually spoke?”
Ethan. At least I could now put a name to his face.
And so could Emma. But then she took in the girls’ confused looks. Leave it to her to instantly bond with a guy who wasn’t one of Sutton’s preapproved friends. At that, she pulled out her phone again. There still weren’t any new messages or texts.
Charlotte’s gaze felt like a piercing-hot laser; Emma had a feeling she had to come up with an explanation—fast. “I think I’ve had too much to drink,” she blurted.
Charlotte clucked her tongue. “Oh, sweetie.” She grabbed Emma by the arm and steered her toward the long line of parked cars. “I’ll take you home.”
Emma straightened up, relieved Charlotte had bought her story. Then she realized what Charlotte was offering. She was going to take her to Sutton’s home. “Yes, please,” she said, and followed Charlotte to her car.
It was a relief to me, too. Back at my house, maybe we’d finally get some answers.
Chapter 7
THE BEDROOM EMMA NEVER HAD
Charlotte pulled her big black Jeep Cherokee alongside the curb and shifted it into PARK. “Here we are, Madam,” she said in a fake British accent.
She had driven Emma to a two-story stucco house with big arched windows. Palms, cacti, and a couple of beautifully maintained flower beds covered the gravel front yard. Flowers in big stone pots lined the archway to the front door, wind chimes dangled over the front porch, and a terra-cotta sun sculpture hung over the three-car garage. Etched into the side of the mailbox at the curb was a simple letter M. Two cars sat in the driveway, a Volkswagen Jetta and a big Nissan SUV.
I could only come up with one word for it: home.
“Someone sure got the short end of the twin stick,” Emma muttered under her breath. If only Becky had ditched her first.
“What was that?” Charlotte asked.
Emma picked at a loose thread on her dress. “Nothing.”
Charlotte touched Emma’s bare arm. “Did Mads freak you out?”
Emma regarded Charlotte’s red hair and blue dress, wishing she could tell her what was going on. “I knew it was them the whole time,” she said instead.
“Okay.” Charlotte turned up the radio. “See you tomorrow then, drunky. Remember to take lots of vitamins before you pass out. And, hey, sleepover at my house on Friday? I promise it’ll be good. My dad’s still out of town, and my mom won’t bother us.”
Emma frowned. “Your dad’s out of town?” The man she’d seen at Sabino Canyon popped into her head.
A worried look crossed Charlotte’s face, the first crack in her armor Emma had seen all night. “He’s been in Tokyo for the past month. Why?”
Emma ran her hand along the back of her neck. “No reason.” The guy on the trail must have been someone else.
She slammed the car door and walked up the driveway. The air smelled citrusy from the orange and lemon trees in the front yard. A silver windsock flapped on the eaves of the front porch. The swirling patterns in the stucco reminded Emma of icing on a cake. She peeked through the foyer window and saw a crystal chandelier and a grand piano. Small reflective stickers on an upstairs bedroom window said, CHILD INSIDE. IN CASE OF FIRE, PLEASE RESCUE FIRST. No foster family had ever bothered to put those stickers on Emma’s windows.