“Kiss him,” I whispered, feeling like the singing hermit crab in The Little Mermaid. I was all out of my own first kisses, so I had to root for Emma now.

A woman in a magenta dress bumped into Emma. “Sorry,” she slurred, her eyes glazed and her cheeks a boozy red. And Emma pulled away, giggling.

“So how do you know so much about crashing art openings?” Emma said, smoothing the front of Sutton’s dress. “I thought you were anti-party.”

Ethan strolled to a bank of windows at the back of the gallery that overlooked a stone terrace festooned with Christmas lights. “I’m not. I’m just against the kind of party with spiked punch and body shots. It’s so . . .”

“Juvenile?” Emma filled in for him. “But sometimes that’s a part of having a social life. Sometimes you just have to grin and bear it to have friends.”

Ethan drained his glass of champagne and set it on a side table. “If that’s the price I have to pay, then I’d rather be alone.”

“What about girlfriends?” she asked nervously. She’d wracked her brain for days, thinking of how to ask him this.

A tiny smile danced across Ethan’s lips. “Yeah, I’ve had a few of those.”

“Anyone I know?”

Ethan just shrugged and sank into one of the angular leather chairs that could’ve been an art exhibit themselves.

“Were any of them serious?” Emma pressed as she settled next to him and cradled a soft, overstuffed pillow.

“One was. But it’s over now. What about you?” His gaze canvassed her face. “Did you leave anyone behind in Vegas?”

“Not exactly.” Emma stared at her lap. “I had some boyfriends, but nothing was too serious. And then there was this one guy, but . . .”

“But what?”

Emma’s throat tightened. “It ended up being nothing.”

She hated lying, but she didn’t want to get into her embarrassing fiasco with Russ Brewer, whom she’d made the mistake of liking. After he’d asked her out, she’d prepared for the date, borrowing a dress from Alex, wearing the last-season Kate Spade shoes she’d scored at Goodwill, rewashing and restyling her hair three times to get it right. But when she’d gone to the mall entrance, Russ wasn’t there. Instead it was his ex-girlfriend, Addison Westerberg, and her posse, their laughs high, horrible cackles. As if Russ would date the foster girl? they’d teased. It had been a setup. Not, in fact, unlike a Lying Game prank.

Ethan opened his mouth, perhaps to say more, but suddenly his eyes widened at something behind them. “Shit.” He leaned forward and clamped down on Emma’s arm.