City Secrets (21 page)

“All right,” the waiter said. “And for you, miss?”

“I'll take the grilled chicken and the soup of the day,” I said.

“Fantastic,” the waiter said. “We have a delicious lobster bisque that I'm sure you'll enjoy.” The waiter closed his notepad and dipped his head at us. “I'll be back as soon as possible with your orders.”

“Thank you,” Heather and I said.

I glanced around, trying not to look as if I was scanning the place for celebs, even though I
so
totally was.

“Even if Scott Ryder would happen to walk by,” Heather said, “he'd be so scared of you and your Oh-my-God-I'm-totally-gonna-freak face. Chill.”

“Right, sorry,” I said. I picked up a breadstick and dipped it in the olive oil.

“And
no
double dipping,” Heather said. “Eww.”

“You'd definitely catch something from me
now
, especially since, I don't know, I've been using your lip gloss and we've been living together for almost a week.”

Heather rolled her eyes at me and tore off a piece of breadstick. The waiter served our soup and salad, and we downed them.

People on the outside probably thought we
hated
each other and couldn't begin to understand why we were hanging out together or even friends. But the way Heather teased me wasn't the same anymore. She wasn't attacking me with personal digs that would have made me furious or on the verge of tears. We were bantering back and forth, and it was meant to be playful—not to hurt anyone.

I was surprised to look up a few minutes later and see our waiter—they served food fast at an upscale place like this.

The waiter set down our plates and collected our soup and salad bowls.

“I'll be back to check on you in a few minutes,” he said.

“Thanks,” Heather and I said.

Heather took a bite of fish, and I started on my chicken. It. Was. So. Good. I'd never thought herb-roasted chicken could taste this good. I kept taking bigger bites, then glanced at Heather as I felt her eyes burning into me.

“I'm not doing the Heimlich on you if you choke because you're shoveling food into your face,” Heather said.

Yeeeah, okay. She was kind of right. I slowed down and enjoyed my food. The lobster bisque had been amazing, just like the waiter had promised, and I loved the Perrier water. I think it ruined my taste for any other kind of sparkling water.

I raised my fork to my mouth and turned to Heather. “This place is really awesome—”

I stopped midsentence when I saw Heather's eyes widen. She turned to me.

“Um,” she said. “Uh.”

I'd never heard her talk like that.

“What? What's wrong?” I looked up and almost dropped my fork.

 18 

PAIGE AND TWO OF HER FRIENDS WERE WALKING toward us. They were following a waiter, who set menus down on a table just a few feet away from Heather and me.

Paige hadn't seen us yet. I didn't know what to do! She was going to spot us eventually, and then what? If she wanted to talk to me alone, I wasn't sure I was ready for that. Even though I knew I couldn't keep avoiding the situation forever, I still didn't feel ready to talk about it. Especially not when I was having such a fun dinner.

I kept my eyes off Paige's table and concentrated on my food. Every few seconds I felt Heather's eyes on me. I wanted to ask her what I should do, but it wasn't her fight. She'd already given me enough advice. And there wasn't anything to do. If Paige
had
seen me, she wasn't
approaching me. So maybe she'd gotten the hint from my nonresponses to her texts that I wasn't in a place where I wanted to talk and I'd come to her when I was.

“She has to know better than to come over here,” Heather said, her tone low. “She's with her group of friends and you're with me. It would be so uncool if she came over.”

Heather had just finished her sentence when movement across the room got my attention.

Paige, standing, whispered something to her friends and started walking in our direction. She, too, was dressed for Butter in a silver and black bandage dress. I couldn't help looking at her face, and our eyes were locked as she walked over to my table.

“Sasha,” Paige said, her voice soft. “Hey, Heather.”

Heather opened her mouth, probably about to say something snarky, but I didn't need her to get involved.

“Paige,” I said. “Heather and I are in the middle of dinner. I know you want to talk about what happened, and we will, but now's not a good time.”

I saw the hurt on Paige's face and it made me feel awful, but she'd been horrible to me the night of the party. I wasn't ready to talk yet.

“Sasha.” Paige's green eyes stayed on mine. “Please.
Can we just step outside for two seconds? We can definitely talk more at school, but please, just let me talk to you for a minute.”

I paused. Part of me wanted to say yes. But a bigger part said no.

“Sorry,” I said. “I hope you have fun with your friends. But Heather and I are finishing our food, and then we're going back to her place. We'll talk at school.”

“Bye,” Heather said to Paige in a cheery tone.

I didn't want Heather being mean to Paige, so for Paige's sake, I hoped she just walked away.

And with a defeated look, that's exactly what she did.

 19 

HEATHER AND I FINISHED OUR DINNER AT Butter and left. I couldn't wait to get out of there and back to Heather's. We didn't talk about Paige for the entire car ride. Heather seemed to sense I didn't want to talk about Paige—and she was right.

We got back to her penthouse, changed, and met up in her room.

“Want to have popcorn or something and watch reruns of something dumb but entertaining?” Heather asked.

“Def,” I said.

I noticed Heather staring at her phone.

“What's up?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Heather said. She paused. “Well, I don't
know. Troy and I have been texting a lot and I was thinking about calling him.”

“You should!” I said. “Just be supercasual and say hi and ask what he's doing.”

“Isn't calling him like, weird, though? Would he think that was strange if I just called him instead of texting like we've been doing?”

I shook my head. “No way. I think he'd be surprised and happy that you called. Just do it.”

Heather got up from her chair and walked over to her phone. She put her hand on it, then yanked it back as if the phone were was hot.

“Nah, never mind. I'll just text him later.”

Heather's cheeks turned the same color as her bright pink T-shirt.

“C'mon. Heather Fox doesn't get scared of anything. Call him. He might not even answer—you never know.”

That seemed to make Heather relax a little. “That's true. Hopefully I'll just leave a message and that'll be it.”

“Right. And if he answers, you're not going to be on the phone forever. Just chat a little and tell him you have to go do something. Then there won't be awkwardness or anything.”

Heather took a deep breath. “Good idea. Okay. Whatever. I'm calling him.”

She grabbed the phone and scrolled through her address book for his number. I hid a smile. I understood how she felt about being nervous, but it was also amusing to see her this intimidated by a
boy
. The girl would jump stone walls, gallop her horse at top speed across a pasture, and deal with her crazy dad. But a boy? Terrified.

Heather sat beside me on her bed and held the phone between us so we could both hear. It rang once and then she pulled the phone away from her ear and ended the call.

“What are you doing?!” I asked. “You just hung up!”

“I know!” Heather flopped onto her back and covered her face with a pillow. “Omigod. I just called him and hung up. That was superlame.”

“Uh, yeah, but I think you have a little more to think about than it being ‘lame.'”

“What're you talking about?” Heather uncovered half her face.

I held up her phone. “There's this magic thing called caller ID. He's going to see you called him since you're already in his address book.”

The pillow went back over Heather's face.
“Omigod!”
Her scream was muffled.

I reached over and touched her shoulder. “He might think you called him by accident. I dial the wrong people all the time.”

Heather took the pillow off her face and sat up. “Of course
you
do, Silver. But . . . yeeeah. Maybe he'll think it's a mistake and not even wonder about it. He'll probably just text me like always.”

“Maybe. Let's watch TV and forget about it,” I said. “Unless you really want to call him and not hang up this time.”

Heather shook her head. “No, thanks. I'll pass.”

She got up and grabbed the TV remote. She turned on our fave channel and sat cross-legged next to me. I leaned back against her headboard, relaxing. So she might not have talked to Troy, but at least she'd called him. Sort of.

Buzz!

Heather and I both jumped as her phone lit up between us.

“It's Troy!” Heather screeched, looking at the screen. “Omigod! What should I do? I can't answer it!”

“You have to! Or it'll look like you did call him and chicken out. Just answer it and be cool.”

Heather stared at the phone for another second before she grabbed it and answered.

“Hey, Troy,” she said, her voice a little higher than usual. She listened for a few seconds, then laughed.

“I was such a dork,” she said. “I started to call you and dropped my phone.”

Good line,
I thought. Heather could totally do this.

I wanted to give her some privacy while she was on the phone. I motioned toward her laptop.

“Can I check my e-mail?” I mouthed.

Heather nodded, not even listening to me. She was too distracted.

I picked up her laptop and sat in the chair by the sliding glass door. I opened it and pulled up Hotmail.