“Come on,” I said when the guys started to turn their attention to some girls who’d walked in. Unlike Hazel in her thick sweater, jeans and trainers, these girls were dressed to kill, and they were flashing flirty looks in our direction.
Hazel clearly noticed that the attention was shifting, and she stood there nibbling on her lower lip, looking absurdly sweet and vulnerable until I tugged her to the side.
“What are you doing? I thought I was supposed to be…” She waved a hand, and her expression spoke of panicky desperation. “I don’t know, flirting?”
I stared at her. Then I stared some more. “Wait…” I said slowly, my gaze going from her to that group of guys. “That was flirting?”
She blinked a few times, and for one horrifying second, I thought she was going to cry.
But this was Hazel. Of course she didn’t cry. She huffed in exasperation and crossed her arms over her chest.
That was my answer, I supposed.
I had so many questions about her definition of the word ‘flirting,’ but before I could pose one, another realization hit me upside the head. “So he’s one of them.”
It came out before I could stop myself, and it came out...harsh.
I cleared my throat as Hazel arched her brows in surprise.
I looked away. “I mean…” I pointed to the guys in question. Justin, Bobby, and a few others. “I’m assuming if you want to go back to...I’m sorry, what did you call it? Flirting?”
She scowled.
“If you think you’re supposed to be over there flirting, then you clearly like one of them.”
She stared at me blankly for so long I started to fidget. I was pretty sure she could see right through me. She had to know I wasn’t doing this for fun but to get close to her...
Then she huffed again and looked away. “Way to go, Columbo.”
She’d muttered it under her breath, but I laughed out loud. “Columbo, huh? How old are you, eighty?”
Her lips twitched a bit but no smile.
“What?” she said. “It’s a good show.”
I laughed harder. “You and my grandmother might be the only people who still watch it.”
The tiniest hint of a smile surfaced. “Sounds as though I’d like your grandmother.”
“You would,” I said. “She’s the best.” I lifted my camera and clicked before that little smile could disappear on me again. “I know she’d like you.”
There it was. Wariness.
“What?” I said.
She shrugged.
“What?” I said again, louder this time. I was learning a thing or two from Emma. With Hazel, you had to be persistent, but she was worth the effort.
“What do you mean ‘what’?” she asked.
“I mean…” I shifted closer until she was forced to look up at me. “Why do you always look so suspicious? Did I do something to you that I don’t remember? Pull a prank, maybe? Kill your cat?”
Her lips did that twitchy thing again, and I tightened my grip on my camera.
“I just…” She exhaled loudly. “I just never know if you’re laughing at me.”
I’d been ready to laugh, but the laugh died, and my smile faltered at that. “I’m not.”
She tilted her head to the side. She didn’t believe me.
“I would never laugh at you, Hazel,” I said in all seriousness. “Maybe laugh with you—”
“I’m not laughing,” she said. “I’m never laughing, and you’re always laughing.”
I flinched in the face of her honesty and that rare glimpse of vulnerability.
This was why she was the strongest girl I knew. I mean, sure, she was a phenom in the pool, and her lean muscles made me acutely aware of just how quickly she could take me down—but that was nothing compared to this.
Her straightforward honesty. Her bravery every second of the day.
“Look,” I said. “You make me laugh. I think you’re funny even though you’re not trying to be—”
“Exactly. You’re laughing at me,” she said stiffly.
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then what would you say?” she asked, her brows arched in challenge.
“I’d say I like you, Hazel Daly,” I said simply. “I think you take life too seriously, and that makes me laugh. I think you are loyal and honest and funny, but you keep that last part hidden so no one knows it but Emma and your other friends.”
Her eyes widened in shock.
The moment started to feel too serious, so I grinned, lifted my camera, and took another shot of her, making her blink.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m laughing at you…” I held my fingers up, a tiny distance apart. “Just a little. But I’m not making fun of you, just enjoying you.”
She blinked three times fast. ‘You’re...enjoying me.”
I nodded, taking a few more photos to capture her confusion. She was cute when she was confused.
“I guess that’s okay then,” she said slowly.
I laughed, and to my surprise—and I was pretty sure to her surprise—she laughed too.
5
Hazel
One thing was clear. Will Lansing was a weird guy.
Funny, likeable, and some people seemed to find him charming. Okay, fine. Maybe I was slowly becoming ‘some people.’
But he was still weird.
“Aw yeah. Work it, girl.” He used this ridiculous accent, and I smacked his arm.
“Cut it out.”
Justin looked over in our direction, but the girl beside him still clung to his side like a freakin’ clamshell to a reef.
“Hey, over here,” Will demanded.
He didn’t seem to have any qualms about the fact that people were starting to look. It wasn’t every day that an impromptu photoshoot broke out in the middle of a party.
But that was exactly what Will had turned it into. It had started with him taking a quick shot of me every time I dared to smile, then he’d started posing me.
“I feel ridiculous.”
“But you look gorgeous, darling,” he drawled in a thick French accent that was both ludicrous and kind of funny.
“I’m not even drinking anything, this is too weird,” I hissed.
In an effort to make me appear more ‘fun,’ Will deemed it necessary to stick a red plastic cup in my hand and snap pictures of me drinking.
I wasn’t quite sure how to tell him that this part of the ruse was completely in vain since Justin knew very well that I wasn’t a party animal, and that I didn’t drink.
I was an athlete. My body was a temple. Cheesy? Perhaps.
But also true.
I didn’t judge Justin and his friends for wanting to have a good time, but it wasn’t like Justin would suddenly believe I was some party animal.
This whole plan was ridiculous.
Although, one look in Justin’s direction, and I noticed he was looking at me. Again. He said something to Bobby, and then they were both grinning in my direction, lifting their cups in a sort of ‘cheers’ motion from across the room.
“See? Working already, and I haven’t even begun working my photo magic.”