“Yeah,” Dahlia said. “Like hobbies and stuff.”
Well, she was about to be disappointed. “I work at a drugstore after practice for a couple of hours and all Saturday afternoon. Between that and homework, I don’t have time for much. I guess I like hiking.” I threw that in because Jasper and I did take his dog hiking sometimes, and I didn’t want to sound boring. “What about you?”
She licked her lips in thought. “Oh, I don’t do a whole lot either. But I am a fan of hiking.”
That was a clear opening. “We’ll have to go sometime.”
For a moment, I worried she’d backtrack and give me some version of “I’m not saying yes to hiking with you now, but I’m not saying no to hiking with you later.”
She turned her dark eyes on me. “I’d love to. We should plan something.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Looked like Jasper was right about my chances with Dahlia after all. That’s when I remembered my situation. I wasn’t free to plan outings. “I can’t go anywhere for two weeks. I’m grounded.”
I cast a look back at my family’s table. Madeline stabbed her spoon into her ice cream with a barely masked glare in my direction.
Dahlia’s mouth twisted in contempt. “Jasper told me you were grounded. It’s too bad you got in so much trouble when all of it was Madeline’s fault. What a witch.” Dahlia went on to say other things about Madeline, some of which I might have agreed with last week. Now, Madeline and I were working toward a common goal, and I was afraid she could somehow lip-read and knew what Dahlia was saying about her.
“Is Madeline’s father anything like her?” Dahlia asked.
“I don’t know. I just met the guy.”
Dahlia openly stared at the table. Whatever else she was, she wasn’t subtle, and it had just occurred to me that things could get bad really fast with my fake girlfriend sitting across the room.
I pushed my chair away from the table and stood up. “I should go back to my family.”
Dahlia pulled out her phone. “What’s your phone number so we can set up the hike?”
If my mother or Madeline’s father glanced over and saw me exchanging phone numbers with Dahlia, I’d have a hard time explaining it. “Jasper can give it to you.” I gestured behind me. “I’ve got to get back.”
Dahlia blinked, perplexed by my answer, and put her phone on the table.
I thought I’d made a clean getaway until she called out in a voice laced with promise, “Looking forward to the hike!”
I didn’t have to see my mother to tell she’d heard. Everyone in the ice cream shop had heard. I felt their gazes on me as I returned to my family’s table and sat down.
My mother aimed a pointed, questioning look at me. “What hike is that girl talking about?”
I waved a hand behind me, dismissing the comment. “Oh, that? Jasper was giving me a bad time, and I told him to go take a hike. He said if he went hiking, he’d take the rest of us with him.”
I wasn’t sure if she bought my explanation. She peered around me to look at their table. “Who are the girls with Jasper?”
“The blonde is his girlfriend, and the one with the black hair is her friend.”
A flicker of disbelief went across Mom’s face. “Jasper is out with his girlfriend, and they brought her friend along? That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?”
Yeah. It was. I gave her the first explanation that came to mind. “They were going as a group, but her date canceled at the last minute, so Jasper and Amelia decided to take her with them anyway.”
“That was nice of them,” Mom said, and perhaps I was only imagining the trace of suspicion in her voice. “Most people wouldn’t want to tag along on somebody else’s date.”
Claire sullenly slumped in her seat and blew out a breath in agreement. “That’s what I’ve been saying all night. But you dragged me here anyway.”
Madeline didn’t say anything. She just stabbed her ice cream with her spoon again.
Okay. It had been a mistake to talk to Dahlia, but it also would’ve seemed weird if I had refused to go with Jasper when my mom told me it was all right. Plus, Dahlia would’ve thought I wasn’t interested in her.
Madeline ought to understand that instead of sending me looks of barely restrained anger. She didn’t say much the rest of the time we ate ice cream, and her father kept glancing between us.
I didn’t know how to fix the situation and rambled on about work, school, and the next football game. I tried to involve Claire, but she was hardly any help. Finally, we all finished eating and loaded ourselves back into the Seibolds’ Cadillac.
