She straightened to her full height and leveled him with a glare. “Yeah, well, you don’t know me. Do you? I thought we covered that already.”
He buried his hands in his front pockets, unable to argue with her assessment. What could he say? He felt like he got to know her better last night and then he blew it this morning. He’d offended her and now she was pissed at him.
“No,” he said. “I guess not.”
“Right,” she snapped. Hayden glared at him a moment longer and then turned away. Without a word of farewell, she marched down the hall, her steps quick in her eagerness to be away from him.
Lesson #15
Sometimes you have to fake it to make it.
x Hayden x
Heated pool or not, it was freeze-your-butt cold.
Hayden watched Emmaline and the others hop like fools from one end of the pool to the other, screaming at how freezing it was. Not that it stopped them or had them rushing back into the warmth of the house.
“Get back in the pool, you idiots,” Hayden laughed, slapping the water with her hand. The water was seventy-five degrees, and it felt a lot better inside the pool than outside of it.
Shrieking, they all jumped back in.
They were idiots, but they made her laugh. She couldn’t deny it. She had to keep reminding herself that this was business. They’d hired her for her “expertise.” Nothing else. This wasn’t really friendship.
She was here for the money.
Hayden treaded in place and asked Emmaline, “Is this what happens at your slumber parties? You swim when it’s forty degrees and catch pneumonia?”
“We usually swim when it’s warmer,” Emmaline admitted. “What do you do at slumber parties?” Emmaline’s hands swished through the water in front of her and Hayden felt the undercurrents against her bare stomach.
“I don’t know.” She lifted one shoulder. “Never been to one.”
Emmaline’s hands stilled. “You’ve never been to a slumber party?”
Great. Now she was feeling sorry for Hayden.
With that tidbit of information, Hayden felt the gulf widen between them. They might be two girls in the same town, going to the same school . . . but they had nothing else in common.
Hayden shrugged as though it was no big thing. Instead of answering Emmaline, she said, “It’s getting late. Did you want to start on those lessons?”
That’s why she was here, after all. Not because she was really friends with these girls. Hayden needed to remember that.
“Yeah. We should.”
“Hey, guys, let’s go in,” Emmaline called out to everyone.
“That’s right. There’s work to be done,” Sanjana called cheerfully as she swam to the steps. “I’ve been waiting for this all night. The legendary Hayden Vargas is going to teach us all her dirty tricks.”
Hayden stifled her wince. Dirty tricks. Well, that put it in perspective. Clearly they thought Hayden was here to teach them all her depravities. At least they weren’t thinking she was going to get them promposals anymore. That was somehow worse in her mind.
Emmaline shot a quick glance to Hayden, as though worried they had offended her. Hayden schooled her expression to reveal nothing. She was good at that, after all.
More screams ensued as they all emerged from the pool into the icy bite of air.
“Cold is bad enough,” Hayden said through clacking teeth as she moved toward the towels. “Cold and wet, though, is . . .” Her trembling voice faded away as she noticed the two figures standing on the other side of the glass door.
“Ugh, my brother,” Emmaline muttered. “And he’s all scowly. As usual.”
Nolan was scowly, but he wasn’t scowling at Emmaline. He was looking directly at Hayden. He was probably worried she was telling his sister that he spent the night on her couch. Good. Let him worry.
He didn’t want her here. She could feel his disapproval radiating off him in waves. Heat flashed under her shivering-cold skin as his gaze crawled over her in her bikini. Cheeks burning, she reached for a towel to cover up. It was dark, and he was several yards away, but she detected a ruddiness to his cheeks—as though he were red-faced with anger. That seemed a more likely reason.
Hayden averted her gaze and shook out her wet hair, telling herself to ignore him entirely. That would annoy him.
With a sniff, she turned her attention on the other figure looking out through the glass door. Of course. It was Beau. Who else would it be? He was looking directly at Emmaline, his gaze roaming over her in quick appraisal. There was nothing brotherly in his look. Interesting.
“We better get inside before we catch a cold,” Emmaline announced.
“You know that’s a myth.” Monica shook her head as though Emmaline were the silliest thing to make such a suggestion.
“I don’t know that at all,” Emmaline snapped. “And neither do you.”
“Yes, I do,” Monica insisted in a level voice as she twisted her wet hair, wringing out the water. “A cold is a virus. You don’t catch it from being cold or wet.”
“You’re such a hypochondriac, Emmaline.” Sanjana laughed.
Emmaline grabbed a towel and vigorously rubbed it over her chilled skin. “I am not,” she grumbled.
“Yes, you are,” Monica started. “Totally understandable though.”
Emmaline frowned and looked up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, you lost your dad, so it’s natural to have a fear of death, to see the threat of it everywhere, when death has touched you so closely and so intimately.”
Everyone fell silent.
Hayden shook her head. She might not have a lot of friends, but she was more socially adept than Monica.
Emmaline’s face turned splotchy red.
“Um, wow, Monica.” Lia shifted uncomfortably, her gaze swinging between Emmaline and Monica. “Rude, much?”
“What?” Monica blinked several times, clearly unaware she had crossed a boundary.
Suddenly feeling sorry for the girl, Hayden announced, “Well, my dad isn’t dead, but he might as well be. I’ve never met him. Last I heard, he was in prison, but that was three years ago.” Hayden tossed in a shrug to underline the casualness of this confession.
Everyone gawked at her.
Clearly none of them knew quite how to react to that, even Monica, who always seemed to have something to say.
Hayden had everyone’s full attention. Just as Hayden intended. Everyone forgot about Emmaline and her dad and her issues.
It was the kind of thing a friend would do, even though they weren’t remotely friends. But while Hayden may not be Emmaline’s friend, she was the one paying her. And Hayden didn’t really care what Emmaline’s friends thought of her. They weren’t her people. None of them were. Even if they invaded her lunch table and might make her laugh.
She didn’t have people. She only had herself.
She glanced around the backyard, with its pool and patio furniture and a wooden sign hanging on the back brick wall that read FAMILY in bold letters, and under those letters, in smaller lowercase text:
a little bit of crazy
a little bit of loud
& a whole lot of love