Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,44

argument made perfect sense. It was true that when she’d made me late in the past, it was because I’d been unwilling to put on the brakes myself. As long as I trusted her to listen to me when I said it was time to go, there was no reason I couldn’t spend the next hour or so doing a little shopping. It would get my mind off some of my troubles, and, as she said, I could set an alarm on my phone to make absolutely sure I got home before dark.

I’m not sure I was completely convinced by my own rationalization. But I went anyway.

* * *

Piper has money coming out her ears, so she tends to be a high-end shopper. Myself, I’m more of a bargain hunter. Not because my parents didn’t have money but because they’d instilled their own innate frugality in both me and my sister. Since we were shopping specifically for Piper, I thought we’d go to a fashionable stretch of Walnut Street, where there was a mix of trendy chain stores and exclusive boutiques. But I could tell right away that wasn’t where we were headed.

“Where are we going?” I asked her, already feeling a niggle of unease. Everything about this little scenario was strange, from Piper’s surprising appearance on my doorstep to her ugly new hairdo, and I remembered Luke telling me she’d been acting strange lately, even pushier than normal.

Piper smirked at me. “You’ll see when we get there.”

I glanced at my watch. We’d eaten up a bunch of time already walking to Piper’s car, since she’d parked three blocks away. “The further we get from my house, the less time we’ll have to spend shopping.” The stores on Walnut Street would have been a short drive, assuming we didn’t have too much trouble finding somewhere to park, but we were already well past them and now had less than a half hour before sunset.

“Relax, Becks,” she said, as she ran a red light. Someone honked indignantly, and Piper responded almost absently, flipping them the bird. “We’ll have fun, I promise.”

I frowned at my best friend and rechecked the security of my seat belt. “Are we really going shopping?” I asked. I was already sure there was something else up, but I had no idea what it might be.

Piper turned her head and winked at me, and I flinched at how close she came to smacking into some pedestrian who was trying to cross the street.

“Watch the road!” I snapped at her. Whatever she was up to, I knew I didn’t like it. “What has gotten into you?”

“Remember how I said the other day that I had to find some way to set you up with a guy? Well, I found a way.”

I suspect my eyes nearly bugged out of my head. “What? What are you talking about?”

“I met a guy last night at a party.”

At the rave she went to without Luke, she meant. But I didn’t want to explain how I knew about that, so I didn’t say anything.

“He is seriously hot,” Piper continued, “and he’s also seriously unattached. He was hitting on me last night. I told him I was unavailable but I had a friend I thought he would like. So we’re meeting him at the Bourse for coffee, then going to a movie.”

For a moment I was stunned speechless. Piper had never pulled anything remotely like this before, and I felt like I was being ambushed. I was certainly willing to entertain the idea of letting her set me up with someone, seeing as it was nearly impossible for me to meet guys on my own. But at a time and place of my own choosing. The Bourse was about as far away from my house as you could get and still be in the heart of Center City. And if I was going to risk being out after dark, it sure as hell wouldn’t be for some movie at the Bourse Ritz, which showed art films and documentaries. I’d let Piper drag me to one once and had been so bored I practically fell asleep.

“You lied to me,” I said, when I was finally capable of speech.

She shrugged, no hint of apology on her face. “I’ve known you a while, Becks. You wouldn’t have come if I’d told the truth.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t have!” I answered with some heat. “And for your information, that’s my prerogative.”

Piper turned a corner and the Bourse came into view.