Read Wicked for Free Online

Ali? But Aria hated to think that way. She’d never sensed anything weird between Ali and Jason. He’d always seemed so protective.
    And then it hit Aria. Of course. Ali didn’t have problems with Jason; she’d simply made that up as a way to earn Jenna’s trust and get her to spill what was going on. She’d done the same thing with Aria, acting all empathetic and devastated when she and Aria had caught Bryon and Meredith making out in the Hollis parking lot. Once she knew Aria’s secret, Ali had held it over Aria’s head for months. And she’d done the same thing to her other friends. Only, why had Ali cared about something dorky Jenna Cavanaugh was hiding?
    Fifteen minutes later, Aria reached the gallery. The art opening was being held in an old, lofty farmhouse in the woods. As she parked Ella’s Subaru on the gravel embankment and got out, she heard rustling. The sky was so black out here.
    Something made a strange squawking noise off in the woods. And then…more rustling. Aria took a step back. “Hello?” she called quietly.
    A pair of curious eyes stared back at her from behind a dilapidated wooden fence. For a moment, Aria’s heart stopped. But then she realized the eyes were surrounded by white fur. It was only an alpaca. As several more trotted to the edge of the fence, batting their enviably long eyelashes, Aria smiled and exhaled, figuring the farm must have a whole herd of them. After months of being stalked, it was hard to shake the paranoid feeling that someone was watching.
    The inside of the farmhouse smelled like freshly baked bread, and a Billie Holliday song was playing softly over the stereo. A waitress carrying a large tray of Bellinis swept past. Aria eagerly grabbed a glass. After she downed the whole thing, she looked around the room. There were at least fifty paintings on the walls, with small plaques bearing the title, artist’s name, and price. Thin women with angularly cut dark hair loitered in clusters near the appetizers. A guy in dark-framed glasses talked anxiously to a buxom woman with a beet-red beehive. A wild-eyed man with frizzy gray hair sipped what looked like a glass of bourbon, whispering something to his Sienna-Miller-look-alike wife.
    Aria’s heart thumped. These weren’t the normal, local collectors who came to Rosewood art openings—people like Spencer’s parents, who dressed in business suits and carried thousand-dollar Chanel purses. Aria was pretty sure this was the authentic art world, maybe even from New York City.
    The exhibit featured three different artists, but the majority of the onlookers were gathered around abstract paintings by someone named Xavier Reeves. Aria walked up to one of his only pieces that didn’t have an enormous crowd of people around it and assumed her best art critic pose—hand on chin and frowning like she was deep in thought. The painting was of a large purple circle with a small, darker purple circle in the middle.
    Interesting, Aria thought to herself. But honestly…it looked like a giant nipple.
    “What do you think of the brushstrokes?” someone murmured behind her.
    Aria turned around and found herself looking into the soft brown eyes of a tall guy in a ribbed black sweater and dark blue jeans. An excited jolt shot through her body, leaving her toes tingling in her scuffed satin flats. With his prominent cheekbones and super-short hair that stood up in a tuft at the front, he reminded Aria of Sondre, the hot musician she’d met in Norway last year. She and Sondre had spent hours in a fisherman’s pub in Bergen, drinking homemade whiskey and making up stories about the mounted trophy fish that hung on the pub’s wood-paneled walls.
    Aria assessed the painting again. “The brushstrokes are very…powerful.”
    “True,” the guy agreed. “And emotional.”
    “Definitely.” Aria was thrilled to be having an authentic art critic conversation, especially with someone so cute. It was also nice to not be around Rosewood