I burst out in a laugh. I couldn’t help it. He was just so...so...weird. “You’re nuts, you know that, right?”
His answer was a lopsided smile behind his camera.
“Trust me, this is gold,” he said when he pulled back to look at something on his camera. He took another shot of me when I scowled. “You’re gonna thank me.”
By Monday at lunch, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to thank Will or kill him. It was a toss-up.
“OMG, you look amazing!” Emma gushed.
I dipped my head. “Keep your voice down,” I whispered.
Not that it would help. People were already looking to see what all the commotion was about.
“He’s a genius.”
“I wouldn’t say genius,” I muttered.
“I would. Look at you!”
I was looking. I was staring actually.
Don’t ask me how, but Will finagled his way into my social media accounts. Okay fine, he didn’t hack my computer or anything, but somehow at the end of the night, he managed to get my password from me, and...I still wasn’t quite sure how. It had involved teasing and laughing and a whole lot of smiles.
I frowned down at the screen.
Maybe he was a genius.
An evil genius.
All I knew was, my once boring, barely used Instagram account was now flooded with pictures and likes and comments and hashtags and…
I looked good.
“Told ya you were gorgeous.”
My head snapped up, and I found that Will had slid into the seat beside mine at the lunch table, forcing poor Charlotte to scooch closer to Max.
“You...you…you made me look…”
“Fun?” he finished, his brows arched. “Beautiful? Sexy?”
My mouth flapped open and shut, but no words came out. I was too shocked.
Yes. Yes, he’d made me look….all of those things. “It’s magic,” I finally blurted out.
He laughed, and my other friends started talking amongst themselves about these pictures that had suddenly shown up this morning.
“Not magic, just skill.”
My brows hitched up as well. “Skill in magic?”
He laughed, but...I hadn’t been joking. I wasn’t sure how else to explain these pictures. He’d managed to make me look like someone else entirely. He’d caught me mid-laugh with my eyes crinkled up and my head tipped back. He’d somehow made me look flirty and carefree and…
Nothing like me.
I was still thrown by what I’d seen. Like casting a glance in a funhouse mirror, it was me...but it wasn’t.
And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
I blinked and straightened, all at once remembering my manners. “Thank you. I mean...I don’t know why you did this for me but…” I glanced back down at the photos that classmate after classmate had been commenting on all morning. “Thank you.”
He stood up and ruffled my hair, making me feel about eight years old before he walked away, and I was forced to take my ponytail out and redo it.
“Do you think it worked?” Lulu asked.
All eyes were on me. Even Max seemed interested in my answer. The secret that I had a crush was officially out. Emma, Max and I had gone over to Avery’s house to help her with her health baby assignment, and Emma had spilled the beans.
They still didn’t know who I liked, but still.
Charlotte eyed me curiously as she nibbled on her sandwich. “Did your crush take notice?”
I glanced down at the comments. None from Justin, although Bobby had commented with flame emojis which I assumed meant ‘hot.’ I shrugged. “I'm not sure.”
“He will,” Emma said. “I mean, how could he not?”
“Avery’s gonna be so mad she missed this,” Max said.
“Where is she, anyway?” Lulu asked.
I answered because I’d seen her in health class just this morning. “I think she headed to the nurse’s office to try and get some sleep.”
The others all winced in sympathy. Poor Avery had taken the advice of these stupid magazines by concocting a bonding opportunity for her and her crush.
It...wasn’t going as planned. Poor thing was beyond exhausted taking care of a fake baby that refused to sleep through the night.
“I’ll give her the lowdown next time I see her,” Emma said. “It’ll cheer her up to hear about Hazel’s success with these ‘how to catch a crush’ strategies.”
“I wouldn’t deem it a success yet,” I said.
“Of course not,” Lulu added, grinning as she scrolled through some more photos that had popped up on Will’s account that he’d tagged me in. “You two are just getting started.”
I frowned. “Nope. That was a one-time deal.”
“But you’re off to such a good start,” Emma whined. “You are totally reinventing your image here. You can’t just pull the plug now.”
I sighed and turned back to my food. I wasn’t in the mood to argue.
I couldn’t pull the plug?
Watch me. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the pictures. I mean, a little vain part of me enjoyed it. It was the first time in my life I’d seen myself as beautiful and definitely the first time my classmates were seeing me that way.
But it also weirded me out because it felt fake. Like I was fooling people. I tried to remember what Lulu had said.
Something about gems…?
It wasn’t quite clicking with me the way it had the other day at the diner.
And looking at the pictures, knowing everyone else was looking at them too…
It had me smashing a baseball cap over my head and pulling it down low as I walked to my next class.
“Daly!” Justin’s familiar voice hit me right before a heavy arm draped over my shoulders.
I looked up to see him grinning down at me. That familiar nervous sensation made me slightly queasy.
“Looks like you had fun the other night,” he said. There was a knowing air about him that made his eyes dance with laughter, and his smile seem more like a smirk.
I ducked my head down again. Was he making fun of me?
“You should come hang out with us more often,” he said, giving my shoulders a little squeeze.
I nodded, temporarily mute. “Yeah. Maybe.”
I didn’t really want to, though.
He kept walking as I stopped to head into my class.
Did I have fun at the party? My mind thought back to those moments by the fire. The way Will had made me laugh. How for a little while I’d forgotten to feel awkward about being at a party or wonder what I was going to say to Justin.
For a little while there….yeah, I supposed I’d had fun.
I watched Justin walk away, already laughing with one of the other girls from my team. I knew better than to take what he’d just said too seriously.
But even so…
I felt a smile tugging at my lips as I headed toward my seat.
Maybe that magazine trick had worked after all.
6
Will
Was I jealous?
No. I didn’t do jealous.
Was I a stalker just because I’d spotted Hazel in the hallway and followed her?