Page 20 of Dirty Liars
I offer her a sympathetic smile, but don’t know what to say to that. She picks her book back up and puts her nose in it. I want to tell her the boys might be there too, or at least Blair, but I know she’ll start lecturing me about how I should stay away from them … so I don’t.
Better for her to be jealous than worried, I think as I head out.
I can see a group of people by the boathouse as I come closer to it. They’re talking and laughing, and I can hear familiar voices. Victoria appears from the darkness and comes toward me with a bottle of wine in her hand, a big smile on her face.
“There you are! I was beginning to think that you weren’t going to come!” she chastises me gently, hugs my shoulders, and then hands the bottle to me. “Have a drink. You need one.”
I shake my head. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that I need to have my wits about me tonight. “No thanks, it will give me a headache.”
Victoria shrugs her shoulders and takes a big swig off of the bottle. “Okay. More for me, then!”
She walks me toward the group and as I draw near to them, I see Alisha and Laura first. Alisha is draped over a boy I’ve never seen before … but the others standing behind them in the darkness are impossible not to recognize. The holy trinity. Astor and Wills both give me cold looks, but Blair grins as he strolls lazily toward me and wraps his arm around my shoulders, pushing Victoria off of me in the move. She laughs and saunters over toward Astor, offering him the bottle of wine, and whatever else he might like to taste. I notice that once again he’s not watching her. He’s watching me.
He needs to stop that, and soon, or Victoria isn’t going to like it.
“There’s my girl.” Blair murmurs in my ear, brushing his lips against it as he speaks. A shiver runs down my neck and I draw in a deep breath. I hate that he has any kind of effect on me at all.
“I’m not your girl,” I tell him earnestly and try to pull away from him. He closes his hand tighter around my shoulder, stopping me.
“You are if I want you to be, and I want you to be, at least for tonight.” He laughs softly and nuzzles me again. I twist away from him and cross my arms over my chest.
“I want to win the lottery, but that’s not going to happen tonight either.” I smart off to him.
He chuckles and plants his hand flat on his chest. “Oh heartbreaker! We’ll just have to see what this night has in store for us.” There’s something almost sinister in his voice, and it makes my blood run a little hotter. Somehow I think he knows it, because he’s laughing as he watches me; so sure of himself, so cocky, so teasing and mysterious. I know exactly what he’s thinking, really thinking, and it leaves me wary about him.
“Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with remover to remove, oh no. It is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken,” Astor recites Shakespeare’s sonnet perfectly as he walks toward me. There’s a smirk on his smug face, and I want to slap it off.
He stops in front of me and takes a long pull off of Victoria’s bottle. “Did you get your paper turned in on time?” he asks, taunting me coldly.
I narrow my eyes at him and remind myself that I need to be channeling Sadie, and not acting as myself. Teddy wants to shove him down onto the rocks. I have to find a healthy compromise that doesn’t crush my soul.
“Did you fill your daily quota of being a complete jerk?” I snap back at him. His eyes narrow and he presses his lips into a thin line.
“Just welcoming you to the school.” He shrugs indifferently. Then he raises his voice so that everyone in the group can hear. “In fact, I think we need to really make it official.” He laughs icily, and the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck rise.
Wills and Blair come to stand beside him.
“The lighthouse?” Wills asks with a chuckle.
“Oh yeah. Definitely the lighthouse,” Astor answers as he laughs and takes another swig of wine.
As if on cue, the old building swims into sight through the thick fog. Its light catches on the boys’ backs for a second, illuminating their silhouettes and leaving their faces cast in shadow.
If ever there were an omen, this is it.
The light passes, and I look back up at the tower in the distance. Whatever is about to happen, it isn’t going to be good.
CHAPTER9
I’m tooafraid to ask them what they have in store.
Astor, who obviously loves being the center of attention, is positively shining in the limelight. He continues to speak loud enough that everyone can hear him clearly.
“We’re all going, and when we get there, we’re going to have a little party. An … induction into Hawthorne Academy, by yours truly, no less.” Here, he turns to me. “Now, you should know that being inducted into the Hawthorne Academy by a genuine Hawthorne is an honor. You should be grateful.” He eyes me intensely.
“Oh, I’msograteful.”
“You won’t be sarcastic for long.” He laughs again. “Shall we get going?”
