“Ugh.” Hazel rolled her eyes. “Would you stop saying that?”
I grinned because...there was that blush again. Emma returned my smile, and I knew for certain that she and I were definitely on the same page even if Hazel and I...not so much.
Emma knew like I did that Hazel was ridiculously fun to tease.
Not all super serious people were, but Hazel was one of them. Her seriousness didn’t stem from anger or bitterness, she just worked too hard and wanted to win. All the time.
At everything.
And that made her incredibly easy to handle. “You think you can’t do it, is that it?” I asked mildly.
Sure enough, her brows came down. “Of course, I can, but why would I want to?”
“Uh, maybe to have a date to homecoming next weekend?” Lulu offered.
“Or to have your first kiss so you don’t go off to college as a kiss virgin?” Emma said.
Hazel stared down at her plate, her cheeks turning that pretty shade of pink that I was rapidly starting to adore.
“Kiss virgin isn’t a thing,” she muttered.
I stared at her. I couldn’t help it.
She’d never been kissed.
This insight felt powerful, like learning that your favorite band was coming to town or that a snow day was about to be called. Not because I was so hypocritical that I thought girls were somehow ‘better’ if they were kiss virgins, but because…
It explained so much.
Actually, it just confirmed my hunch. She didn’t not like guys. It wasn’t that she hated me...she was just inexperienced. She didn’t know how to flirt, and she was probably intimidated by a guy like me, even if she’d never admit it.
I smirked. Okay, yeah. Maybe I was a little cocky. But being insecure never did anything for anyone.
“It couldn’t hurt,” I said. “And at the very least you’d know you tried.” I gave her a fake look of regret. “No one likes a quitter, Haze.”
She frowned at that. “I’m not a quitter. And don’t call me that.”
I leaned back with a grin.
Like I’d said. Hazel was serious. Maybe a little uptight. Definitely driven and ambitious, which was hard not to admire.
So yeah, she was serious, but there was nothing wrong with that. It didn’t make her bad or any less fun than anyone else.
And maybe it was time the world knew that.
She just needed someone to push her out of her comfort zone and make her have some fun.
That was where I came in. I was a pro at having fun. There was very little I took seriously, let alone too seriously. If someone or something became too heavy, I walked away.
Easy peasy.
When I wanted something, I went for it. I didn’t angst, I didn’t struggle. I just went for what I wanted. Like this girl, for instance. I wanted her. Don’t ask me why. I wanted to get close to Hazel and see that rare, fleeting smile aimed at me. I wanted to hear her laugh and make her breathless.
Did I want her mystery man to see that side of her? Nope. But that was a risk I’d be willing to take, because she needed someone to help her loosen up, and I was just the guy.
Why?
Because I had a crush on Hazel Daly.
3
Hazel
My very relevant question was met with entirely irrelevant statements.
“You know you really shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Emma said, shaking the makeup brush she’d been wielding in front of my face. My friends had come over to help me get ready for tonight’s party in my bedroom.
“Ooh, make sure he takes a picture of you dancing.” She beamed at me. “You’re a great dancer.”
I just barely held back a sigh as I turned to face the other girls. “But I still don’t get it. Why would Will Lansing offer to help me?” I looked from Emma to Lulu and back again. “What does he want in return?”
My doorbell rang, and I stiffened.
Emma grinned as she pushed me toward the door. “Ask him yourself.”
As I headed to open the front door, I had to wonder...how on earth was I here? What turn had my life taken that I was going to a party on a Friday night...with popular, fun-loving Will Lansing?
So he could take pictures of me?
For the internet?
I was officially in the Twilight Zone here, and the worst part was I still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened. At some point, the night before, while my teammates had been celebrating our victories, my friends and Will had been steamrolling me into this ridiculous plan.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” I asked, turning back to face them.
They pushed me forward. “We weren’t invited,” Lulu reminded me.
“You’ll do great!” Emma added.
“But what about Avery?” Our outgoing friend loved parties. Surely she’d—
“She’s knee-deep in taking care of a baby and trying to woo her crush, remember?”
“Okay, fine, what about Max?”
Lulu shot me a look. Max had a thing about popular people, and a lot of the swim team fell into that category. She’d probably sit in a corner making snide comments all night.
“What about Charlotte?”
Emma arched her brows. “Really?”
Charlotte was as shy as they came. If I didn’t do parties, she had nightmares about them. “Simone?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “Wild guess here, but I’d say she’s probably spending her Friday night with her new boyfriend.”
I cursed under my breath, and Emma pushed me again so I was stumbling to the door. “The sooner you go, the sooner it’ll be over,” she said.
“Maybe you’ll even have fun!” Lulu said.
I cast her a quick frown, and then the door was thrown open. Will Lansing.
He looked just as easygoing as ever, like standing in my doorway was something he did every day of the week, and this was no big whoop.
It was no big whoop, I reminded myself. This wasn’t a date, just a...a…
I had no idea what to call it.
But even knowing it wasn’t a date, my stomach churned at the thought of being alone in a car with Will, at being at a party with Will.
At being with Will. Period.
He made me uncomfortable. Not scared. It wasn’t like I thought he was a perv or a sociopath or something, he was just… Will Lansing.
His eyes moved over me from head to toe, a dark lock of hair in his eyes like always, making me want to shove it aside or just snip it off with some scissors.
“You look good,” he said with that small perma-smile that made me flinch.
What did that smile mean?
“Um…” I thought about telling him ‘you look good too’ but felt super stupid saying it. I mean, he did look good in jeans and a gray graphic tee that looked like it came from one of the trendy stores in the mall, but I still felt too embarrassed to speak it aloud. “Um…” I said instead. Because saying ‘umm’ over and over wasn’t awkward.
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I turned to Emma as I said it, and before she could respond, I tugged her away from Lulu and Will, down the hall to our kitchen. My parents were out on a date night, and my sister was with her friends, so we had the house to ourselves.