“No. I'm fine,” I said, stand­ing. “I just re­mem­bered that I left my his­to­ry text in my room and I... I need that for class. I bet­ter go.”

“Okay, then. I'll . . . see you lat­er?” he asked, lift­ing him­self out of his chair, ev­er the gen­tle­man.

“Sure. Yes. Def­inite­ly,” I said.

But even as I shoved my way out in­to the sun­shine, I was for­mu­lat­ing a plan. There had to be a way for me to get to the Lega­cy with­out Whit­tak­er. There just had to be.

175

PRE-?PAR­TY

That evening I paused out­side Noelle and Ar­iana's room. I had just heard voic­es com­ing from in­side and had au­to­mat­ical­ly stopped to lis­ten. It was a re­flex. Now that I knew the ex­tent of their se­crets, part of me was dy­ing to un­cov­er more. But I couldn't make out any­thing oth­er than mur­murs and laugh­ter, and then I re­mem­bered I was here to ask a fa­vor. Eaves­drop­ping was prob­ably not the best way to en­dear my­self. I straight­ened up, steeled my­self, and knocked.

“En­trez!” Noelle an­nounced.

In­side the lights were dim and can­dles flick­ered on ev­ery avail­able sur­face, fill­ing the air with their musky scents. Noelle, Ar­iana, Ki­ran, and Tay­lor were all gath­ered in a cir­cle in their pa­ja­mas and robes. Tay­lor sat in one of the desk chairs, pulled close to Ar­iana's bed, while the oth­ers were seat­ed on the mat­tress. Ar­iana held up a wine­glass and Ki­ran tipped a bot­tle over it, fill­ing it with deep red liq­uid.

“Reed! So good to see you!” Noelle trilled. “Come! Have wine! We're play­ing I Nev­er.”

176

I Nev­er. These girls had noth­ing bet­ter to do than play I Nev­er? On a weeknight? Shouldn't they be read­ing or writ­ing pa­pers or per­haps plot­ting to have some­one else boot­ed out of school? Be­hind me, in Ar­iana's clos­et, I could feel the pres­ence of the trunk and the com­put­er as if they had been dipped in ra­dioac­tive waste and were now throb­bing bright­ly like a bea­con, mock­ing me. Re­mind­ing me of what I had done. What I knew.

“I nev­er . . . got drunk and bribed my fa­ther's pi­lot to fly me to Rome so I could have re­al pas­ta!” Tay­lor an­nounced.

“Oh!” Noelle cheered.

Ki­ran clucked her tongue. “No fair get­ting so spe­cif­ic!” she said, then downed half her wine.

Her fa­ther had a pi­lot. Her fa­ther had a pi­lot who would fly to Rome on a mo­ment's no­tice.

“Come on, Reed! What have you nev­er done?” Noelle asked mirth­ful­ly.

“Ac­tu­al­ly, I want­ed to talk to you guys about some­thing,” I said.

“Not un­til you give us an I nev­er,'” Ar­iana said, her eyes gleam­ing.

Great. Noth­ing like be­ing put on the spot. I racked my brain for some­thing, any­thing, that wouldn't make me sound to­tal­ly lame.

“I nev­er . . . had sex in a car,” I said fi­nal­ly.

Noelle spit out a laugh and drank the rest of her wine, as did Ki­ran and Tay­lor, laugh­ing the whole way. Ar­iana, how­ev­er, just smiled.

177

“Re­al­ly, Ar­iana?” Ki­ran asked, non­plussed. “Not even a limo? They can be very com­fort­able.”

“I'm gonna start call­ing you Prude,” Noelle put in.

Ar­iana sim­ply sighed, as if this was all just too pedes­tri­an, and set her glass aside. “What's go­ing on, Reed?”

“Noth­ing. It's just. . . it's about the Lega­cy.”

A mu­tu­al look was ex­changed be­tween the four of them. “Pull up a chair,” Ki­ran said, lift­ing the wine bot­tle.

I crossed over to Noelle's desk chair, cleared about ten c

ash­mere, silk, and an­go­ra sweaters on­to her bed, and car­ried the chair over. As I set­tled in, I had their full at­ten­tion. This was odd.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
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