“What’s your poison?” Hailey asked from across the bar.
“Honestly? I don’t really have one.”
“Come on, Mae.” She cocked her head, giving me a look. “Even girls that look like Cher from Clueless have a weakness.”
“First of all, I’m brown.” I raised an eyebrow. “So if I had to look like anyone from Clueless, it would be her friend with the braids.”
With a naturally olive complexion and dark features, I was closer to that than Cher. Despite the fact that most of my life I kind of wished I was a blonde girl from the valley, I’d grown to accept my natural tan and almond-shaped eyes and more importantly, be proud of my Mexican roots. My mother was French, but the only thing I seemed to get from her was her height and haughty attitude. Everything else, I got from my handsome father. Most of the Bastón kids did, except for Lincoln, who had my mother’s green eyes and fine features. Features he often broke on the ice playing hockey and off the ice getting into fights.
“I’ll just take something with vodka.” I looked up at Hailey again. “Vodka tonic. Dirty Martini. Whatever.”
“Vodka coming right up.” She winked. “For the record, I wasn’t calling you a bimbo, I just meant that you dress like you belong on the cover of every single fashion magazine out there. That’s what mom and I meant when we said the fashion blogger thing, too, you know.” She smiled. “I’m not trying to box you into being something you don’t want to be.”
I felt myself frown as I looked down at myself. Normally, that statement was warranted, but today I was wearing ripped jeans, a ripped white crop top covered by a black leather jacket, and my Givenchy slides. A far cry from any fashion magazine cover. I glanced back up at her.
“Trust me, you look like a friggin’ model.”
“Thanks. I guess.” I tore my attention away from her to look around the bar. “Is it always this empty?”
“Give it a minute. It’s ladies night, so all the guys show up soon enough.”
“Funny how that happens.” I snorted as she slid me my drink. “Thank you.”
“Let me know if you like it. I can make you something else,” she said, nodding her head at something behind me. “The band sets up there on Thursday nights. That’s another reason it’s poppin’ in here.”
“Poppin’,” I repeated. Such a funny word. It was one of those words I felt like I could never really get away with saying. Not with the whole Clueless vibe I obviously had going. I sipped on my drink. It was definitely strong, yet fruity. “I like it.”
“What did your boyfriend think about you transferring over here?”
“I told you about Travis?”
Hailey’s eyes widened slightly. “Yeah.”
“Oh.” I frowned. Had I become that person? The one who spoke about her ex-boyfriend so much she couldn’t even remember what she’d said to whom. “He wasn’t thrilled, but we’d been more off than on for a while anyway.”
“How long were you together?”
“Two and a half years, but a lot of that was off. It was weird. We got together our senior year, right around the time we were deciding where to go and it felt perfect.” I sipped the drink. “Probably because I knew my parents hated him and I’d always been such a rule follower, so Travis felt like the only thing that was mine, you know?”
“So you followed him to school,” she supplied.
“Right.” I set down my drink with a laugh. “I seriously don’t remember talking to you about this.”
She shrugged and started working on another customer’s drink, so I continued my story.
“So, I followed him to college thinking we were going to be together forever, and then . . . we weren’t.”
“What happened?” She leaned over the bar after depositing the drink in front of the person a few seats down from me.
“Life. I guess. Nothing crazy.” I circled the rim of my glass with the tip of my finger. “Other girls started paying attention to him. It’s a basketball school, so all of the attention he hadn’t received back home, he was now getting in droves. He’s a good guy, but I just couldn’t be with him. Besides, he doesn’t believe in long-distance relationships.”
“And you don’t miss him,” she said, rather than asked.
“Not really.”
Missing him was something even my brother hadn’t asked me about, probably because he knew the turmoil that came with being with him. Even Travis himself hadn’t asked me that question when we’d texted back and forth. Maybe he knew deep down that I would say no and he didn’t want to accept that. Travis was the kind of guy who thought he was everyone’s type, so I knew he wasn’t sitting in his apartment crying to his roommates about me leaving him. He played basketball in a college built around the sport and it was the first season he’d be truly single and not dodging all of the girl’s trying to throw themselves at him. Not that he’d been a saint even when I was down there. So, did I miss him? I wasn’t sure. I’d been too busy coming up with reasons for why he didn’t miss me to dwell on whether or not I missed him.
“Well, I’ve always heard the college life is better when you’re single.”
“Who have you heard that from?”
“Usually college students who have just been dumped and come in here to drown their sorrows.”
That made me laugh. I clicked on my phone to see if anything had come in, but when it lit up, it only showed a picture of Lincoln and me.
“Is that him?”
“No.” My eyes snapped up at Hailey. “My brother.”
“This is your brother?” She plucked the phone from the bar and looked at it, eyes wide. “Lincoln, right?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, waiting to see if she told me about her crush.
“I had a crush on him for a hot second, but then I realized . . . ” her voice trailed off. She shook her head. “He wasn’t my type. That’s crazy that he’s your brother.” She stared at me for a long moment as I sipped the drink. The way she looked between the picture of Lincoln and me sitting right across from her started to make me feel uncomfortable.
“Do you think he was part of the secret society?” she asked.
“My brother?” I snorted. “I doubt it.”
“Are you sure? He was always with the guys we saw yesterday,” she said, brows pulling in.
“I’m pretty sure I’d know if my brother was in some secret society.” I took my phone back, scowling. “He’s my best friend.”
“Even best friends keep secrets,” Hailey said softly.
“Not us. Besides, he was the captain of the hockey team, so he definitely hung out with them. That’s probably why you think that.”
“That’s possible.” She moved down the bar with a small shrug, but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.
As she started talking to the couple sitting in the far corner of the bar, I decided to text Lincoln.
Me: What do you know about these secret societies?
Me: Were you in one?
I watched my screen, hoping the little dots with an impending answer would come. When it didn’t, I put it away again. I’d call him tomorrow and ask again. For some crazy reason, even though it made no sense, Hailey saying that planted a seed in my head and I knew myself well enough to know it wasn’t going anywhere. I’d either have to nourish it or kill it altogether.