“Sure,” I say. Blake drops his hand and I add, “Just a friendly disagreement over Blake’s hat.” He’s wearing an Atlanta Falcons cap that’s offensive to any die-hard Carolina Panther fan. But he’s one of the few guys at our school who could get away with wearing it.

Horowitz latches on to my explanation after I give a nod of reassurance. Enough of Sweethaven’s population are rabid sports fans to make what I said plausible if not believable. My classmates—denied good gossip—react with disappointed sighs when he begins shepherding us all back to the bus.

Before I slip among them, Blake’s fingers brush mine and he whispers to me, “I need to know what happened with Carey that night you came to my house. Please, Q.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jamie gets her revenge that night, and I hate that Blake was right about antagonizing her.

After volunteering to get ice (anything to escape Night #2 in a fifteen-foot by fifteen-foot box shared with three other girls doing their best to ignore me), I’m locked out of our hotel room. I know it’s not an accident. I figure it out after my fifth knock elicits a spurt of laughter from the room, and one of the mocking voices belongs to Jamie.

I seriously loathe high school and wannabe mean girls and idiotic field trips.

A quick walk down the hall to Mrs. Peringue’s room and my roomies will be in a load of trouble. Then I could look forward to sleeping with my eyes open while Janet, Amery, and Danielle plot to do me in after a little prodding from Jamie. The others are not as malicious as she is, but Jamie has a way of looking like a leader to the clueless, and they’re happy to follow. What’s the point?

I sigh. Nothing to do but wait them out and hope they eventually let me in. No sense in desperately hanging out in the hall, though. Barefoot, I turn on my heel, taking the ice bucket with me. I hope they really wanted that ice and die of thirst.

A bellman eyes me when I step off the elevator, and I hold up the ice bucket and shrug as if to say, My parents sent me to get ice. What’re you going to do? There’s a sign for an indoor pool, so I head down the hallway. I test the door to the pool, thinking it will be locked, requiring a room key which I obviously don’t have, but it opens under my touch.

The shrieks of two kids echo in the long, well-lit windowed room as they play Marco Polo in the shallow end of the pool. Their parents watch from a nearby table, but the room is otherwise empty. This seems as good a place as any to hang out for a while.

I pad to the edge of the deep end, set my ice bucket down, roll up my jeans, and plunk both legs into the heated water. Leaning back on my forearms, I stare out the wall of windows where my reflection is superimposed on the night skyline.

I’ll give the girls an hour to get over their prank, and then I’ll sick Mrs. Peringue on them. And then they’d better hope they don’t fall asleep, because I have a camera and plenty of batteries. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch them drooling. Hello, Yearbook. We’ll see how they like having their pictures posted for the world to see.

“Hey. Mind if I join you?”

Blake stands over me in olive green board shorts and a T-shirt that says IF LIFE GIVES YOU MELONS, YOU MAY BE DYSLEXIC. I’m not even surprised to see him. It’s that kind of night, that kind of week, that kind of life. I shrug, too tired to fight the overwhelming tide, and he sits, sinking his legs into the water too.

He nods at the ice bucket at my side. “What’s up with that?”

“Fool’s errand,” I mutter. He looks confused. “Jamie. She and the others locked me out of our room.”

He winces, but at least he doesn’t say “I told you so.” “Sorry.”

“You should be,” I say. My nasty tone startles him, but he relaxes when I add, “Now you’re subjected to my ugly feet.” I wave them, swirling the water. “My shoes are in the room, probably filled with lotion or toothpaste.”

Straight-faced, he shakes his head in pity at my submerged legs, but his eyes smile. “You do have the ugliest feet I’ve ever seen. Your right pinkie toe creeps me out the way it looks like it’ll swallow the others.”

He’s said this to me before, making Carey and me laugh while we lazed about his house watching TV. That day, he’d wiggled the toe in question and I’d fought back a shiver, pretending his touch had no effect on me. Now I shove him with one foot, splashing him a little.

“Shut up, jerk.”

His laugh sands the rough edge inside me, and I smile.

He stills, staring at me in that intense way he does. “I missed that,” he says finally, lifting his eyes from my mouth.

“What?”

“Your smile. You never smile anymore.”

And just like that, reality dismisses my smile. “Yeah, well, I don’t have a lot to smile about.”

We’re both silent then, watching the mother call her kids out of the pool. The family gathers their things, the youngest whining the whole way to the door about life not being fair. I swish one leg in a circle and then the other, watching the water ripple toward Blake in chaotic rings. How wrong is it that I missed the way he stares at me?

“I got a letter from Carey,” I say without thinking.

He sucks in a breath, the only sign he’s heard me, until I turn to look at him. He’s choked up and way too happy about a simple letter. It hits me what he may be thinking—that Carey was found. I grab his hand.

“No! He sent it before he went missing.”