Playing Hooky with the Hottie - Maggie Dallen Page 0,12

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.”

“Photo magic, huh?” I said.

“Just call me David Blaine,” he teased.

I laughed and paid for it with a flash in my face. “So I get mocked for referencing Columbo, but you can get away with a David Blaine joke?”

He shrugged. “I don’t make the mockery rules. And besides…” He moved closer so quickly I backed up into the table behind me, and he arched his brows as he froze. “Why are you being weird? I was going to let you in on a little-known secret.”

I frowned but stayed still as he moved even closer until his lips were next to my ear. “There are no rules for mockery.”

I choked on a laugh.

“I’m serious,” he said, and his tone was deathly serious. So serious it made me smother another laugh.

“Don’t. Tell. Anyone,” he continued. “But for those of us in the know, the unofficial rule is...there are no rules. But we don’t talk about it. That’s the first rule. We don’t talk about it.”

My nose wrinkled in confusion at his ridiculous statements, but I found myself grinning at his antics all the same. “Like Fight Club?” I asked.

“Exactly like Fight Club,” he said. After a beat, he added, “And by that I mean...it’s nothing at all like Fight Club.”

I