“A. Is. Here!” Aria repeated. “This might be our big chance!”
Spencer looked at the crowd of kids in the lobby. “I…I have to go.” With that, she darted through the revolving doors and sprinted across the parking lot.
Aria turned to Hanna. “Spencer ran out of here like she was A,” she half-joked.
“I heard she’s a finalist in some big essay contest.” Hanna pulled out her Chanel compact and began dabbing at her chin. “You know she gets manic when she’s competing. She’s probably going home to study.”
“True,” Aria said quietly. Maybe Spencer was right—maybe A would do something worse if they searched the stands.
Suddenly, someone whipped her hood off her head from behind. Aria swirled around. “Mike,” she gasped. “God.”
Her brother grinned. “Did you get a photo of the lesbo action?” He pretended to lick the picture of Emily and Maya. “Can you get me Emily’s digits?”
“Absolutely not.” She surveyed her brother. His STX lacrosse cap smashed down his blue-black hair, and he was wearing his blue-and-white Rosewood Day Varsity lacrosse windbreaker. She hadn’t seen him since last night.
“So.” Mike put his hands on his hips. “I hear you got kicked out of the house.”
“I wasn’t kicked out,” Aria said defensively. “I just thought it would be better if I stayed away for a while.”
“And you’re moving into Sean’s?”
“Yeah,” Aria answered. After Ella had told Aria to leave, Aria had called Sean in hysterics. She hadn’t been fishing for an invitation—but Sean had offered, saying it wouldn’t be any trouble at all.
Hanna’s jaw dropped. “You’re moving to Sean’s? As in, his house?”
“Hanna, not by choice,” Aria said quickly. “It’s an emergency.”
Hanna cut her eyes away. “Whatever. I don’t care. You’re going to hate it. Everybody knows that staying with your boyfriend’s parents is relationship suicide.” She whirled around, pushing through the crowd toward the front door.
“Hanna!” Aria protested, but Hanna didn’t turn around. She glared at Mike. “Did you have to mention that when she was standing here? Do you have no tact at all?”
Mike shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t speak PMS.” He pulled out a PowerBar from his pocket and started to eat it, not bothering to offer Aria any. “You going to Mona’s party?”
Aria stuck out her lip. “Not sure. I haven’t thought about it.”
“Are you depressed or something?” Mike asked, his mouth full.
Aria didn’t have to think about it too hard. “Kind of. I mean…Dad left. How do you feel?”
Mike’s face changed from being open and jokey to hardened and guarded. He let the paper fall to his side. “So, last night I asked Mom some questions. She told me Dad was seeing that girl before we went to Iceland. And that you knew.”
Aria put the ends of her hair in her mouth and stared at the blue recycling can in the corner. Someone had drawn a cartoonish pair of boobs on the lid. “Yeah.”
“So why didn’t you tell me about it?”
Aria glanced at him. “Byron told me not to.”
Mike took a violent bite of PowerBar. “It was okay, though, to tell Alison DiLaurentis. And it’s okay for her to say it in a video that’s all over the news.”
“Mike…” Aria started. “I didn’t tell her. She was with me when it happened.”
“Whatever,” Mike grunted, colliding with the shark mascot as he pushed angrily through the natatorium’s double doors. Aria considered going after him but didn’t. She was reminded, suddenly, of the time in Reykjavík when she was supposed to baby-sit Mike but had gone off to the Blue Lagoon geothermal spa with her boyfriend, Hallbjorn, instead. When she returned, smelling like sulfur and covered in curative salt, she’d discovered that Mike had set half the backyard’s wood trellis on fire. Aria had gotten in deep trouble for it—and really, it had been her fault. She’d noticed Mike eagerly eyeing the kitchen matches before she left for the lagoon. She could have stopped him. She probably could have stopped Byron, too.
“So this one’s yours,” Sean said, leading Aria down his mahogany-floored, immaculately clean hallway to a large, white bedroom. It had a bay window with a window seat, gauzy white curtains, and a white bouquet of flowers on the end table.
“I love it.” The room looked like the Parisian boutique hotel room her family stayed in the time her father was interviewed on Parisian television for being an expert on gnomes. “You sure it’s okay for me to stay?”
“Of course.” Sean gave her a demure kiss on the cheek. “I’ll let you get settled.”
Aria looked out the window at the pinkish, late-Tuesday sky and couldn’t help comparing this view to hers at home. The Ackards’ estate was nestled in the deep woods and surrounded by at least ten acres of untouched land. The nearest property, a castlelike monolith with medieval-style turrets, was at least three football fields away. Aria’s house was in a lovely but rickety neighborhood close to the college. The only thing she could see of her neighbors’ yard was their unfortunate collection of birdbaths, stone animals, and lawn jockeys.
“Everything okay with the room?” Mrs. Ackard, Sean’s stepmother, asked as Aria drifted downstairs into the kitchen.
“It’s great,” Aria said. “Thank you so much.”