but I manage. Then I take a deep breath and hope that Charlotte will understand what I’m about to do. “To answer your question,” I say, slinking closer to Garrett, “I’d love to hang out. How about tomorrow?”
And naturally, Garrett says yes.
3
A LITTLE FRIENDLY CONVERSATION
On Monday night, Garrett and I are at Bella Vista, a restaurant in Tucson nestled at the highest point of a winding, windswept hilltop. The entire dining room is paneled in squeaky-clean, floor-to-ceiling windows so that everyone dining can enjoy the breathtaking views of the fiery sunset behind the Santa Catalina Mountains. Once night falls in earnest, the sky will be studded with glittering stars, making the whole restaurant feel like it’s floating. Around me, the air is heady with garlic and saffron, and the room is alive with bustling waiters in crisp white button-downs, wine and sparkling water splashing against crystal stemware, and the low murmur of conversation.
The waiter sets down a simmering pot of albondigas, veal meatball tapas. Garrett slides the pot toward me. “Ladies first.”
I blush. “Thank you.”
Garrett has been so attentive to me during this dinner—signaling the waitress when I dropped a fork, switching seats with me because mine was in the direct line of the setting sun, asking again and again if I wanted anything more to eat or drink. He’s the kind of guy who’d hold open car doors, who’d bring flowers.
Thayer didn’t do any of that stuff. He and I rarely went out at all since we kept things quiet, but if we did, we went to hole-in-the-wall taco joints far up the highway so no one would see us.
I shudder, shaking off the thought of Thayer entirely. Before this moment, I hadn’t thought of him once.
I spear a chunk of fluke ceviche and return my focus to Garrett. “I love this place. I’ve had a couple birthday dinners here, but haven’t been in a while.”
“Me neither.” Garrett looks around. “My dad knows the owner, though.”
“So that’s how you got this amazing table for us?” I tease. “And the sangria?” Not only had Garrett scored the best table in the place, a little two-seater tucked into a grotto, but we’d barely been seated when our waiter brought over a pitcher of sangria without asking to see our IDs.
“Naturally.” The corners of Garrett’s lips curl into a smile. “I told my dad I was taking a beautiful girl out for dinner. He made it happen.”
I blush at the word beautiful. “I think my last visit was in the summer, when I got home from tennis camp.”
“You go to tennis camp every year, right?” Garrett asks, dunking a slice of toasted bread into a shallow dish of olive oil.
I nod, a little surprised that he knows that about me. Did Char say something?
I feel a twinge of guilt thinking about Charlotte. I hadn’t wanted to talk to her about Garrett during the search party—which, of course, had turned up nothing—so I’d called her repeatedly after we left. She’d only gotten back to me at lunch today at school. “I’ve been so busy with your sister,” Char had apologized. “We’re brainstorming about other ways to find Thayer. You know, flyers around town, or maybe setting up a website, or even just an email for tips, or something. What do you think?”
I had frozen. Laurel’s been talking to my friends about how to track down Thayer? “Nice of you to involve me.”
Charlotte laughed. “Be nice. We tried to call you yesterday, but you didn’t pick up.”
“When?” I’d asked. My phone had been on all day. I didn’t miss any calls.
“And Laurel has been really sweet and supportive about Thayer,” Charlotte went on, not answering. “That’s what matters right now, right?”
I bristled. Was everyone against me? First Thayer telling me to be nicer to Laurel, now Char? I changed the subject and got to my original point. “So, I wanted to talk to you about Garrett. You’re over him, right?”
Char had snorted. “Completely. Honestly, I was never even that into him to begin with. He’s been a ball of moods after that whole Louisa thing.”
I wasn’t sure if that was true—Charlotte shut herself in her room after Garrett dumped her. And she’d told me about Garrett and his sister, Louisa—something had happened to her at a party—but I was fuzzy on the specifics. Still, I decided to believe that she’d moved on. “So it wouldn’t bother you if he was dating someone else?”
“Of course not,” she said emphatically.
“Good. Because he kind of asked me