Burned

Page 17

 

  She’d chosen this restaurant, too, clicking through San Juan nightlife websites and picking the place that seemed the most romantic. Other kids from the boat had the same idea: In the corner were two couples from Tate. Across the way, Lanie Iler and Mason Byers snacked on fritters. And Naomi Zeigler had just sat down with a bunch of girls from Rosewood Day, shooting Spencer a nasty look when she spotted her and Reefer together. Spencer gritted her teeth at Naomi’s clonelike turquoise dress. What, had Naomi spied on her while she was getting ready?

  Then again, Spencer was the one on the date with Reefer, wasn’t she?

  But on the heels of that dart of triumph came a stab of dread. Perhaps Naomi had followed her here because she was A.

  Swallowing her worry, she took the fork from Reefer and daintily tried a bit of ceviche. A sharp, acidic flavor hit her first. Then she tasted something cool and mild. “It’s okay,” she decided.

  “Have the one with the chilis. ” Reefer pushed another bowl closer. “It’s amazing when you make it with real chilis, not the dried kind. I was on a ceviche kick for a while a few years ago. I’m trying to remember my favorite recipe …” He tapped on his iPhone, tilting it toward Spencer. REEFER’S RECIPES FROM A TO Z, read the screen. Ceviche, naturally, was filed under C.

  Spencer snickered. “You’re so organized. ”

  Reefer covered the screen with his hand, looking embarrassed. But Spencer wasn’t surprised. He kept his pot supply in little individual, carefully labeled drawers. Earlier, when he’d opened his wallet for his fake ID, his cards were alphabetized, an AAA membership at the front, a business card for Justin Zeis, Personal Trainer, in the back.

  “I like everything in its place,” he admitted. “I can’t stand it when things are messy. ” He bit into a chip. “You can say it. I’m a dork. ”

  Spencer leaned forward on her elbows. “If you’re dorky, then so am I. All of the money in my wallet has to be in order according to the serial number on the front of the bills. If it’s out of order, I panic. ”

  Reefer’s eyebrows rose. “How long have you been doing that?”

  “Since my first allowance. And before that, I arranged my bath toys along the side of the tub by height and color. ”

  Reefer grinned. “I used to sort my LEGOs by size and theme. And I insisted on ironing my school clothes myself—I hated how my mom did it. ”

  “I still iron my jeans sometimes,” Spencer admitted, then felt a little self-conscious for saying so.

  Reefer chuckled. “When I first got into botany, my mom gave me a spice rack to organize my seeds. I woke up several times a night to check to make sure no one had put them in a different order. ”

  Spencer grabbed a chip and popped it in her mouth. “I begged my father to let me do his filing. He thought there was something wrong with me. ”

  “You would have been such an asset to the Ivy Eating Club,” Reefer joked. “A perfect secretary. ”

  “Too bad that’ll never happen. ” Spencer stared morosely at the salt on the rim of her margarita glass. She’d been so desperate to get into Ivy, but after the pot-brownie fiasco, it was clear that would never happen.

  When she felt Reefer’s large, warm hand cover hers, she looked up in surprise. “You’ll have way more fun at Princeton without being part of an eating club, you know,” he said softly. “I’ll make sure of it. ”

  “You will?” Spencer dared a smile.

  “Of course. We’re going to have an amazing time. I know tons of fun things to do—things that are much cooler than what those Ivy people are into. ”

  Spencer’s heart thumped. He’d said we. Like they were going to be a couple. Maybe even an exclusive couple.

  A trumpet blared in her ear, and she turned. The jazz band stood next to their table for a private serenade. The guitarist strummed a slow rhythm. The drummer shook a maraca. The singer launched into song. Even though the lyrics were in Spanish, Spencer recognized the melody as “I Only Have Eyes for You. ”

  “You’ve got a beautiful girlfriend, man,” the singer said in a broken Spanish accent between verses.

  “I know,” Reefer said, glancing at Spencer cautiously, as if he’d said too much. Spencer smiled giddily. Girlfriend? She tried it on like it was a dress, and it felt pretty damn good. She smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

  “Want a picture?” A waitress materialized with a Polaroid camera. Spencer and Reefer leaned close and smiled. The flash went off, and the device spat out a photograph. Spencer took it from the waitress and laid it on the table to dry.

  Reefer stood and offered his hand. “Want to dance?”

  “Yes,” Spencer breathed.

  They chose a spot on the dance floor close to the pool, and Reefer wrapped his arms around her.

  “I never took you as the dancing type,” she murmured as they swayed.

  Reefer made a tsk noise with his tongue. “You should know by now that looks can be deceiving. I like to dance—especially if it’s with the right person. ”

  Spencer’s heart thudded as he leaned closer to her until his nose grazed her cheek. She swallowed nervously, then tipped toward him, too. The trumpeter let out a series of notes as their lips touched. Spencer shut her eyes and tasted lime and ceviche and salt. Tingles shot through her body.

  They pulled away and grinned. A muscle twitched by Reefer’s mouth. But then, a half-second later, his gaze focused on someone behind Spencer.

  “Mind if I cut in?”

  Naomi’s angular face swam into view. She stared sweetly at Reefer, her head cocked and her lashes fluttering.

  Spencer stiffened, wanting to say no. But before either of them could move, Naomi nudged her body in front of Spencer’s, grabbing Reefer’s hands. Spencer tried to hold her ground, but then Naomi gave Spencer a little shove with her hip. Spencer staggered backward. Her heel caught on the uneven stones, and she wheeled her arms for balance. The moments in the air felt like an eternity, and suddenly her body hit cold water with a loud splash. Water gushed into her ears and drenched her dress. Her butt hit the bottom of the pool, and she quickly pushed off and swam to the surface, coming up sputtering.

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes and looked around. The music was still playing just as loudly, but a lot of people on the dance floor had stopped and were staring at her. Waiters froze in place, trays in hand. Reefer’s mouth hung open. Naomi’s eyes were wide. After a moment, she stepped carefully toward the pool’s edge.

  “My goodness, Spencer, are you okay?” she said in a fake-concerned voice. “You should be more careful!”

  Spencer wanted to grab Naomi’s ankle and pull her in, too, but Naomi had already glided back to Reefer, assuming, perhaps, that they were going to continue dancing. But Reefer turned to a waiter, who rushed forward with a towel.

  Spencer climbed out of the pool and let Reefer wrap the towel around her shoulders. “That was weird,” he murmured, oblivious, as he ushered her back to their table. “Maybe we shouldn’t have danced so close to the pool, huh?”

  Not with Naomi around, Spencer thought bitterly. Her phone beeped from inside her tote, and she bent down. One new message from Anonymous.

  She glanced behind her. Naomi stared out the window, her phone in her lap. There was a wisp of a smile on her face, as if she was keeping a delicious secret.

  Spencer eyed Naomi, who was now gliding toward the exit with her head held high, as if her job here was done. Then Spencer peered down at the text.

  If you know what’s best for you, Spence, you’d stay away from him. There are plenty of fish in the sea. Or, after I get through with you, the prison yard. —A

  15

  A PICTURE’S WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

  On Friday morning, Aria and Noel stood in the ship’s kitchen at separate workstations. In an attempt to do something together, they’d signed up to volunteer in the all-natural, all-organic kitchen. Little did they know they’d be assigned to the breakfast shift at
6 A. M.

  Aria peeked into Noel’s bowl and frowned. “I think you put too much flour in the batter,” she whispered, glancing surreptitiously at Bette, the large woman who was in charge of the kitchen.

  Noel’s brow furrowed, and he peered at the laminated recipe next to him. “It said twelve cups for this size of a batch. I think that’s what I did. ”

  Aria fluffed the batter with a fork. “I think it’s supposed to be thicker. It’s way too flaky. ”

  Noel snickered. “You’re flaky. ”

  He tickled Aria’s side, and she swatted him with an oven mitt. She had to admit the early morning breakfast thing was fun: They were the only kids in the kitchen, there was a romantic classical-guitar station on the radio, and the air felt fresh and clean, not yet tropically humid. True, Aria hadn’t realized most of her kitchen chores would involve handling meat: removing thousands of strips of free-range turkey bacon from the freezer, frying up lumpy grass-fed beef sausages, even dealing with something called scrapple, which she was convinced contained pig snouts—albeit organic pig snouts. But even that was a small price to pay for having some solid Noel time.

  Noel poured more milk into the batter. “Hey, since we’re up early, we should go for a walk on the beach. I could show you the rap Mike and I are going to do for the talent show on Sunday. ” He nudged her.

  “That would be great!” Aria said, but then bit her lip, remembering. “But I can’t today. I promised I’d mini-golf with Graham this morning. ”

  “Oh. ” Noel stared into his bowl. “That’s cool. ”

  Aria tossed another tray of bacon onto the griddle. It sputtered loudly. “I’m really sorry. If you’d asked me earlier, I could have rearranged things. ” They’d had dinner with a big group of kids last night. Aria and Noel had barely talked.

  “I said it’s fine,” Noel said stiffly. “You sure are spending a lot of time with that Graham guy, though. ”

  Aria wrinkled her nose. That Graham guy? That was something her mom would say. “It’s not like I’m into him. He’s one of those guys who dresses up in armor and goes to jousts. ”

  “But is he into you?”

  She laughed. “Definitely not. I’m trying to get him to talk to his crush, in fact. His old girlfriend died, and he’s too shy to talk to her on his own. ”

  Noel looked up, surprised. “How did she die?”

  Aria bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. “Um, I’m not really sure. ”

  Really, she shouldn’t have told her friends about Graham, either—they couldn’t get it out of their heads that Graham might be A. Yesterday evening before dinner, when they’d met to go through their hula routine, Emily had told her she’d seen Graham lurking around one of the halls. And Hanna, who was hanging out with them even though she was now doing an act with Naomi, remarked that it seemed like Graham didn’t have any friends on the cruise—he was always sitting alone at meals. “What if he came aboard for other reasons—like stalking us?”