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“Oh my God,” Emma whispered. Just then, Nisha turned and stared right at her and Ethan. A chicken satay skewer dangled from her fingers, forgotten.
“Come on.” Before she could think, Emma grabbed Ethan’s hand and pul ed him through the crowd. She ditched her champagne flute in a big trash barrel and wound around the guests, nearly upending a waitress’s tray of cheese puffs. A man in a blue ruffled suit and a teal cowboy hat sneered at them over his martini, as though they were two children escaping the scene of a schoolyard scuffle. But Mr. Tuxedo opened the double doors for them placidly, as though he saw people fleeing from art openings al the time. They scurried down the stairs into the twinkling Tucson night.
Only when Emma had safely reached the street did she turn around to see if Nisha had fol owed them. There was no one at the entrance.
Ethan straightened his jacket and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. Al of a sudden, Emma burst into giggles. Ethan chuckled, too.
After a moment, she grew serious. “Nisha definitely saw us.” Emma flopped on a green city bench and heaved a sigh.
“Who cares?” Ethan asked. He sat down, too.
“I care,” Emma answered. “She’l tel my parents I snuck out.”
“Are you sure that’s al that’s bothering you?” Ethan glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “You wouldn’t mind if she saw us . . . together?”
Emma’s stomach flipped over. “No, of course not. Would you?”
Ethan stared at her without blinking. “What do you think?”
Jazz music drifted out from the party. Across the street, a stray cat darted between the tires of a parked car. Ethan moved a little closer so that their legs touched. Emma wanted so badly to kiss him, but her body trembled with nerves.
“Ethan . . .” She turned away.
Ethan laid his hands in his lap. “Okay, am I
misinterpreting things?” He sounded both sheepish and annoyed. “Because sometimes it seems like you real y want to . . . you know. But then you always pul back.”
“It’s . . . complicated,” Emma said, trying to keep her voice steady.
“How?”
Emma bit her fingernail. She’d always wanted a serious boyfriend. Back in Vegas, she’d even named a star in the sky the Boyfriend Star, hoping it was a sign that she’d final y meet the person with whom she was meant to be. But now she was torn.
“It’s this life I’m living right now,” Emma started hesitantly, a lump hardening in her throat. “I love being with you. You make me laugh, and you’re the only person I can be myself with—my real self. I’m Sutton to everyone else.”
Ethan glanced up to meet Emma’s gaze. His eyes were huge and imploring, but he waited for her to go on. “I’m pretending to be a dead girl, Ethan,” she said. “And I’m being threatened, and you’re the only person who knows about it. I don’t have my own life right now, which makes this . . . bad timing.” She’d always thought excuses like
“bad timing” were made up, occupying the same file as “It’s not you, it’s me.” But this was real. She did have feelings for Ethan, strong ones, but she didn’t know how to be with him when her life was in such upheaval. “And what if we start something and it ends badly? What if we get in a fight?
Then I’l have no one again.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “Maybe, when I’m final y free of al this we can . . .” She trailed off.
Final y, Ethan exhaled loudly. A frown marred his lips.
“Are you saying that if we got into a fight, if we broke up, I’d abandon you? Do you real y think I’d do that?”
Emma raised her palms to the air. “Breakups can be ugly.” Then she sighed. “I like you so much. But there are so few people I can trust—and you’re the only one I can rely on. I can’t jeopardize that. Not now.”
Ethan turned away, saying nothing. Emma stared at the parked cars across the street. A cleaning service cal ed Clean Machine had stuck flyers under each of the windshields. A convertible cruised by with its radio blasting hip-hop.
“I think we need to keep it as friends,” Emma whispered into the darkness, afraid to look at Ethan head-on. “At least until I can figure out this mess and live my own life again.”
Next to her, Emma felt Ethan’s body slump from the weight of her words. “If you think that’s best,” he said slowly.
“I do,” Emma insisted in the strongest voice she could manage.
Without answering, Ethan rose and reached into his pocket for his car keys. Emma fol owed behind him to the Honda, feeling like someone had scooped out her insides with a big ladle. Had she just ruined everything?
As she swung into the passenger seat, a crackling sound made her turn. Her eyes scanned the dark road. Then, she spied something moving in the bushes across the street near the bench where they’d been sitting. The cherry-red tip of a lit cigarette glowed in the darkness. It dangled, disembodied, as though held by a ghost.
“Ethan,” she whispered, grabbing his arm. But as soon as Ethan twisted around to look, the spooky burning cigarette vanished.
Chapter 16
An A for Effort
After tennis practice the fol owing day, Emma threw her gear into the hatchback of Laurel’s VW. “Ahem,” Laurel whispered, nudging Emma’s side. “Looks like you have an anti–fan club.”
Emma swung around, and her stomach dropped. Two figures stared from the gym doorway, their mouths angry red slashes. It was Nisha . . . and Garrett.
