Then Aria’s eyes focused on someone behind her. She clamped her mouth shut.
“Hey,” said a gravelly voice behind Emily.
Emily turned. Maya. “Hey,” she answered, nearly dropping her cup. “I…I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I didn’t either,” Maya said. “But my brother wanted to. He’s here somewhere.”
Emily turned to introduce Aria, but she was gone.
“So is this Maya?” Ben reappeared next to them. “The girl that’s turned Emily to the dark side?”
“Dark side?” Emily squeaked. “What dark side?”
“Quitting swimming,” Ben answered. He turned to Maya. “You know she’s quitting, right?”
“You are?” Maya turned to Emily and grinned excitedly.
Emily shot Ben a look. “Maya didn’t have anything to do with that. And we don’t have to talk about it now.”
Ben took another big sip of beer. “Why not? Isn’t it your big news?”
“I don’t know….”
“Whatever.” He clapped his heavy hand on her shoulder a little roughly. “I’m going to get another beer. You want another?”
Emily nodded, even though she only ever drank one beer at parties, max. Ben didn’t ask Maya if she wanted a drink. As he walked away, she noticed his saggy jeans. Yuck.
Maya took Emily’s hand and squeezed. “How’s it feel?”
Emily stared at their entwined hands, blushed, but kept holding on. “Good.” Or scary. Or, at some moments, like a bad movie. “Confusing, but good.”
“I have just the thing to celebrate with,” Maya whispered. She reached into her Manhattan Portage knapsack and showed Emily the top of a Jack Daniel’s bottle. “Stole it from the liquor table. Wanna help kill it with me?”
Emily gazed at Maya. Her hair was pulled off her face, and she wore a simple black sleeveless shirt and an army green cargo skirt. She looked effervescent and fun—way more fun than Ben in his saggy-butt jeans.
“Why not?” she answered, and followed Maya toward the woods.
21
HOT GIRLS—THEY’RE JUST LIKE US!
Hanna took a sip of her vodka lemonade and lit another cigarette. She hadn’t seen Sean since they parked his car on the Kahns’ lawn two hours ago, and even Mona had vanished. Now she was stuck talking to Noel’s best friend, James Freed, Zelda Millings—a beautiful blond girl who only wore clothes and shoes made out of hemp—and a bunch of squeally, cliquey girls from Doringbell Friends, the ultra-hip Quaker school in the next town over. The girls had come to Noel’s party last year and even though Hanna had hung out with them then, she couldn’t remember any of their names.
James stubbed out his Marlboro on the heel of his Adidas shell-tops and took a swig of beer. “I heard Noel’s brother has a ton of pot.”
“Eric?” asked Zelda. “Where’s he at?”
“Photo booth,” James answered.
Suddenly, Sean darted through the pines. Hanna stood up, adjusted her hopefully slimming BCBG slip dress, and tied the straps of her brand-new pale blue Christian Louboutin sandals back around her ankles. As she ran to catch up with him, her heel sunk into the dewy grass. She flailed her arms, dropped her drink, and suddenly she was on her butt.
“And she’s down!” James called out drunkenly. The Doringbell girls all laughed.
Hanna quickly scrambled up, pinching her palm to keep herself from crying. This was the biggest party of the year, but she felt way off her game: Her dress felt snug around her hips, she hadn’t been able to get Sean to crack a smile during the car ride over here—despite the fact that he’d scored his dad’s BMW 760i for the night—and she was on her third calorie-laden vodka lemonade and it was only nine-thirty.
Sean held out his hand to help her up. “Are you okay?”
Hanna hesitated. Sean was dressed in a plain white T-shirt that accentuated his strong-from-soccer chest and flat-from-good-genes stomach, dark blue Paper Denim jeans that made his butt look awesome, and ragged black Pumas. His blondish brown hair was messily styled, his brown eyes looked extra soulful, and his pink lips extra kissable. For the past hour, she’d watched Sean bond with every guy there and carefully avoid her.
“I’m fine,” she said, sticking her lip out in a Hanna-patented pout.
“What’s the matter?”
She tried to balance in her shoes. “Can we…go somewhere private for a while? Maybe the woods? To talk?”
Sean shrugged. “Okay.”
Yes.
Hanna led Sean down a path to the Manhood Woods, the trees casting long, dark shadows across their bodies. The only other time Hanna had ever been here was in seventh grade, when her friends had a secret rendezvous with Noel Kahn and James Freed. Ali made out with Noel, Spencer made out with James, and she, Emily, and Aria sat on logs, shared cigarettes, and miserably waited for them to finish. Tonight, she vowed, would be different.
She sat down on a thick patch of grass and pulled Sean down with her. “You having fun?” She passed her drink to Sean.