Page 125 of Nowhere to Hide
“You didn’t fix it,” Sloane says, watching Niko set Theo loose again.
“I wanted to.”
“I know.” She smirks. “But he found his feet. They all do, if you let them.”
That seems to fire the starting gun, and the whole night tips over into something looser and warmer. So when Sloane takes my wrist and pulls my chest to hers, she’s already laughing, one hand on my shoulder and the other on my back.
“I’m told you can’t dance,” she informs me.
“I really can’t.”
“Let’s find out.”
I’m exactly as bad as advertised — graceless, half a beat behind — and she grins and pulls me closer and won’t let me stop. But that’s okay, because everything’s gone warm and loud and far away, and I lose track of how long we’ve been out here.
Someone pops a champagne bottle.
Ivy ends up on Seb’s shoulders.
I missed the exact moment it happened. Seb has the long-suffering face of a man who knew, the second she said just for a second, that it would not be just for a second. Ivy has a champagne bottle in each hand and is conducting the band with both.
And it all feels right.
thirty-three
SLOANE
We leavethrough the side doors because Luca has commandeered the event and is refusing to let any of our group go until they commit to an afterparty at Ironwood House. Rowan and I have decided we have other plans.
“Your sister,” I say, pulling my coat on, “is going to be in a campus security report by morning.”
“She’s already in two.” He says it without looking up, buttoning his own coat, and I laugh because he’s not kidding. “Fewer than I expected.”
We cut across the quad toward Sterling, my heels clicking on the frozen path. The whole walk, I’m waiting for what usually kicks in — the scan, the mental checklist, who saw us leave, whether someone’s going to text someone who’ll text someone else.
It doesn’t come.
I keep walking and it just doesn’t come.
I look sideways at Rowan. His hands are in his pockets, breath clouding in front of him. Under the lamplight, his face is flushed from the dancing, or the champagne, or the part where he told his father and Patrick Cross and half the donor class to go to hell inside the same hour.
It was hot.
His phone buzzes in his coat pocket, and he pulls it out without breaking stride. I catch the screen before he can angle it away — not a text, just a calendar alert, gray and bloodless:Canceled: Call — G. Mercer.
He looks at it a second, then locks the screen and puts it back in his pocket.
“Who’s Mercer?” I ask, though the timing answers it for me.
“A scout. We had a call set up.” He shrugs. “Guess we don’t anymore.”
“Rowan, that’s because of?—”
“I know why.” He glances at me, voice plain. “I chose this. I chose you. A canceled call doesn’t change that math. There’ll be other doors that close, and I’m okay with that.”
And the wild thing is, I believe him.
“My place is closer,” he says, when we reach the fork in the path.
