“Uh…ja,” Aria said.
“What’s that, a Finnish sex grunt?” James grinned.
Aria rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure ja was Finnish for yes, but of course these guys wouldn’t know that. “Have fun playing with your balls.” She smiled wearily.
The boys nudged each other, then ran off, flicking their lacrosse sticks to and fro even before they hit the field. Aria stared out the window. How ironic. This was the first time she’d ever been flirty with a boy in Rosewood—especially Noel—and she didn’t even care.
Through the trees, she could just make out the spire that belonged to the chapel at Hollis College, the small liberal arts school where her dad taught. On Hollis’s main street there was a bar, Snookers. She sat up straighter and checked her watch. Two-thirty. It might be open. She could go have a beer or two and find her own fun.
And hey, maybe beer goggles could make even Rosewood boys look good.
Where Reykjavík’s bars smelled like freshly brewed lager, old wood, and French cigarettes, Snookers smelled like a mixture of dead bodies, festering hot dogs, and sweat. And Snookers, like everything else in Rosewood, carried memories: One Friday night, Alison DiLaurentis had dared Aria to go into Snookers and order a screaming orgasm. Aria had waited in line behind a bunch of preppie college boys, and when the bouncer at the door wouldn’t let her in, she cried, “But my screaming orgasm is in there!” Then she realized what she’d said and fled back to her friends, who were crouching behind a car in the parking lot. They all laughed so hard they got the hiccups.
“Amstel,” she said to the bartender after crossing through the glass-paneled front doors—apparently there was no need for bouncers at two-thirty on a Saturday. The bartender looked at her questioningly but then set a pint in front of her and turned away. Aria took a big sip. It tasted bland and watery. She spit it back into the glass.
“You all right there?”
Aria turned. Three stools down was a guy with messy, blondish hair and ice-blue, Siberian husky eyes. He was nursing something in a little tumbler.
Aria frowned. “Yeah, I forgot how beer tastes here. I’ve been in Europe for two years. Beer’s better there.”
“Europe?” The guy smiled. He had a very cute smile. “Where?”
Aria smiled back. “Iceland.”
His eyes brightened. “I once spent a few nights in Reykjavík on my way to Amsterdam. There was this huge, awesome party in the harbor.”
Aria cupped her hands around her pint glass. “Yeah,” she said, smiling, “they have the best parties there.”
“Were you there for the northern lights?”
“Of course,” Aria replied. “And the midnight sun. We had these awesome raves in the summer…with the best music.” She looked at his glass. “What are you drinking?”
“Scotch,” he said, already signaling to the bartender. “Want one?”
She nodded. The guy moved three stools down next to her. He had nice hands with long fingers and slightly ragged fingernails. He wore a small button on his corduroy jacket that said, SMART WOMEN VOTE!
“So you lived in Iceland?” He smiled again. “Like for a junior year abroad?”
“Well, no,” Aria said. The bartender set the Scotch down in front of her. She took a big, beer-size gulp. Her throat and chest immediately sizzled. “I was in Iceland because…”
She stopped herself. “Yeah, it was my, uh, year abroad.” Let him think what he wanted.
“Cool.” He nodded. “Where were you before that?”
She shrugged. “Um…back here in Rosewood.” She smiled and quickly added, “But I liked it over there so much better.”
He nodded. “I was really depressed to come back to the States after Amsterdam.”
“I cried the whole way home,” Aria admitted, feeling like herself—her new, improved Icelandic Aria self—for the first time since she’d been back. Not only was she talking to a cute, smart guy about Europe, but this might be the only guy in Rosewood who didn’t know her as Rosewood Aria—the weirdo friend of the pretty girl who vanished. “So, do you go to school here?” she asked.
“Just graduated.” He wiped his mouth off with a napkin and lit a Camel. He offered her one from the pack, but she shook her head. “I’m gonna do some teaching.”
Aria took another sip of the Scotch and realized she’d finished it. Wow. “I’d like to teach, I think. Once I finish school. Either that or write plays.”
“Yeah? Plays? What’s your major?”
“Um, English?” The bartender set another Scotch in front of her.
“That’s what I’m teaching!” the guy said. As he said it, he put his hand on Aria’s knee. Aria was so surprised she flinched and nearly knocked over her drink. He pulled his hand away. She blushed.
“Sorry,” he said, a little sheepishly. “I’m Ezra, by the way.”
“Aria.” Suddenly her name sounded hilarious. She giggled, off balance.
“Whoa.” Ezra grabbed her arm to steady her.
Three Scotches later, Aria and Ezra had established that they’d both met the same old sailor bartender at the Borg bar in Reykjavík, loved the way bathing in the mineral-rich blue lagoon hot springs made them feel sleepy, and actually liked the rotten-egg sulfur smell of the geothermal hot spring water. Ezra’s eyes were getting bluer by the second. Aria wanted to ask if he had a girlfriend. She felt warm inside, and she was pretty sure it wasn’t just from the Scotch.