“Just don’t say anything,” he added, waving his hands at me. “I can’t let Robin find out . . . not like this.”

That was my second mistake—believing this secret could stay hidden.

This was bad. Marriage-destroying, friendship-crushing, end-of-the-world bad.

Chapter 8

Aria

SUNDAY EVENING

As long as Aria Fischer had known him, Ryan Thompson had always been a combo genuine science/science-fiction geek. One wall of the basement game room in his parents’ house paid homage to three sci-fi flicks from the 1950s. A vintage poster of The War of the Worlds, a bona fide classic, hung between repro lobby cards for two kitschy B-movie favorites, Flight to Mars and Killers from Space. Mystery Science Theater 3000, which celebrated and skewered exactly that kind of show, flickered on the big-screen TV in the corner. With his goofy grin and curly cap of hair—not to mention his social awkwardness—nerd was too charitable a word to describe Ryan, in most circumstances. But tonight, thanks to the wine Aria had generously sampled—her teenage eff you to the pedestal her parents had put her on—she didn’t mind the nerdiness so much. In fact, she had always found Ryan to be kind of cute, and this feeling grew on her as their conversation smoothly flowed like the forbidden alcohol down her throat.

Sitting cross-legged on the carpet, they leaned against the foot of the sofa, chuckling at the wisecracks of Joel Robinson, Tom Servo, and the MST3K gang as they watched Women of the Prehistoric Planet. The lacquered coffee table in front of them was littered with pale rings of condensation from their red Solo cups and a dust of snack crumbs from the mostly empty bowls of chips and cookies.

Ryan lifted the bottle of wine he’d snuck out of the wine cellar, offering it to Aria. “Want to finish this off?”

She knew she shouldn’t. She had been pouring herself glass after glass to the point where she’d lost count. It was her first time drinking, but she already knew she was drunk. Too drunk to act like she wasn’t.

She nodded anyway and offered him her half-full cup. “Sure.”

As Ryan poured, Aria admired the ripple of his arm muscles, developed over years of playing Little League and high school baseball. His parents had made him play, insisting he couldn’t spend all his time indoors poring over science journals, playing video games, and binging on old sci-fi movies. It had paid off. The more her eyes roved his body, the more she found to appreciate. Brains and brawn with a touch of sensitive in one attractive package. You didn’t find that very often.