I whipped my head around. It looked like ... but maybe I was ... only it had been so telling. The smallest of gestures, one hand touching another, yet even from across the room the intimacy of that covert caress rocked me back on my heels. I needed to compare notes with someone, make sure I wasn’t reading too much into it. Except the person standing closest to me was Alex Ritter.
“Oh,” I said, as curiosity gave way to chagrin.
“What?” He tried to see past me. Grabbing his arm, I spun him around to face the opposite direction.
“Have you seen the mural? It’s likeThe Last Supperbut with all these sci-fi characters.” I pointed at the crude painting that graced the restaurant’s back wall. “The owner is really into that stuff. Hence the name of this place.”
“I thought mung was a type of bean.”
I nodded much too eagerly. “Yes, but there was some bad guy named Ming the Merciless, so ... you know. A play on words.”
Alex looked from me to the mural. I wasn’t sure he was buying my attempt to distract him.
“That’s Spock,” I continued with false cheer, “and Chewbacca and that robot guy—”
“It’s a Dalek.” His gaze shifted to my hand, still gripping his sleeve, but he made no move to break free. “You seem nervous, Merrily.”
“No! Well, maybe a little. But only because of Trivia Night. Nothing else.”
He shifted so that we faced each other. “Are you sure?”
“Take your seats, everyone,” said Dr. Pressler. “It’s time for the third round.”
I seized on the diversion. “We better, you know—”
“Find the seats we don’t have?”
“Yes,” I agreed, too wound up to invent a better excuse. I led him to another corner of the room, from which it would be much harder to see Van and Phoebe’s surreptitious flirtation. Whatever his past transgressions, Alex didn’t deserve to be publicly betrayed. Especially after the way he’d taken my part with Anjuli.
“They call this the Melee Round,” I told him. “If none of the teams know the answer, anyone can weigh in.”
He favored me with one of his lazy smiles. “Madness.”
I shrugged; he’d see for himself soon enough.
“Our theme for this evening’s final round is popular culture.” Dr. Pressler savored each syllable, as if she were licking the words off a spoon. Groans erupted from all sides.
Alex bent to whisper in my ear. “It’s like their worst nightmare.”
“Pretty much.”
While he surveyed the unhappy faces surrounding us, I snuck a glance at Phoebe and Van. The handsy business seemed to be at an end, at least for now. I wanted to walk across the room and ask my sister how she could be with someone who was already in a relationship. It was such a blatant moral failing. That must be why Addie had been withdrawn lately: the weight of knowing her twin had become the Other Woman.
I was so busy making sure Alex didn’t notice anything untoward, I barely heard the first few questions. We were standing close enough for him to nudge me with his elbow any time he found a response particularly amusing, such as Noreen guessing the Beatles when the answer was Justin Bieber.
“Even I knew that one.”
I feigned surprise. “You have hidden depths.”
He gave me another of those looks—pleased? intrigued?—that made it difficult for me to remember what we’d been talking about. Somewhere far away, a voice read the next question.
Suddenly I snapped to attention. “Wait, what?”
Alex shrugged, hands in his pockets. No one else seemed to know the answer either. Obligingly, Dr. Pressler repeated herself. “In this best-selling popular novel turned feature film, heroine Allie Calhoun suffers from which devastating disease?” She set down the index card, sliding her reading glasses to the end of her nose. “Bonus points if you can name the title of the work in question.”
I turned to Alex. “I know this.”
He started to raise my arm. “Shout it out.”
