Playing Hooky with the Hottie - Maggie Dallen Page 0,26

Hazel.”

“Looks like you were having the time of your life.” Max’s voice was cryptic at the other end of the table. Avery was MIA again—my guess was she was dealing with another baby meltdown for her health class project.

Simone was at her table where she normally sat with her best friend and boyfriend. I looked over to see her laughing at something Andrew said. She laughed a lot these days. Maybe she was the one I ought to talk to. Presumably she kissed her boyfriend, so maybe she could help me get my head on straight.

Were all kisses like that?

“So...did you?” Max kept talking, and I looked back over to her with arched brows. “Did I what?”

She turned her phone to face me—as if I hadn’t already seen the photos I’d been tagged in last night. I’d seen. Everyone had seen. The photos started popping up right as swim team practice was letting out, and Justin, Bobby, and the other guys had teased me mercilessly about how “sick” I’d been if I’d had to miss school.

Luckily our coach hadn’t overheard.

All eyes were on me as Emma nudged my arm. “Well, did you?”

I cleared my throat. “Did I what?”

Emma rolled her eyes as the others waited expectantly. “Did you have a great time? It looks like you had a blast.” She sighed. “I’m officially jealous.”

“I want someone to whisk me off for an impromptu picnic,” Lulu agreed with a sigh.

“I don’t know if I could ever play hooky,” Charlotte said, her expression thoughtful. “But I like the idea of it.”

“You still haven’t answered, you know,” Max pointed out.

Out of all my friends, Emma might have been the one I was closest to, but Max was probably the most similar to me in personality and mindset. Out of this whole silly Lonely Hearts Club, as Avery named us, she was the only other pragmatist. The only one who didn’t think romance was the be-all end-all of our high school experience.

She had the newspaper. I had my swim team. We had our passions, we didn’t need to find passion elsewhere. Up until this irritating Justin crush, I’d been more than happy with knowing I likely wouldn’t find love or a boyfriend until college, at the earliest.

I’d even been fine with going to college a kiss virgin, as Emma put it.

And I still was fine with it.

Theoretically.

Except….now I wasn’t a kiss virgin, because Will had kissed me. He’d kissed me, and it had been amazing. The thrill of it had rivaled the feel of winning a meet. The sensations were so new, so overwhelming, so...terrifying.

But...the thing was...I hadn’t been scared.

Because it had been Will, and for whatever reason, I trusted him. It hadn’t felt like some random hookup between two hormone-crazed teens, it had felt….organic. Like a natural next step in a day filled with fun and adventure. It had been heady and...and...romantic.

I stared down at the granola bar I’d been picking at.

At least...it had felt that way to me.

But apparently, to Will, it had been nothing more than a whim. An urge to act on. An itch to scratch.

Emma placed a hand on my arm. “Did that granola bar offend you in some way? Do you need me to beat it up for you?”

I let out a snort of laughter and lifted my head to see that all eyes were on me. Max’s seemed the most curious, so I studiously avoided looking right at her in case I gave in to this weird urge to spill my guts.

Will kissed me. And it was amazing. But now I had no idea what that meant.

“Let’s just assume that she had fun, shall we?” Emma said, stepping in when she realized I was uncomfortable with all this attention. “But the real question is...did Justin notice?”

I glanced over at her quickly, but judging by the fact that no one at this table so much as blinked at the mention of Justin’s name, I had to assume they all already knew he was my crush.

Emma’s smile was unapologetic, and I let it go. Maybe she had a point. Maybe I was taking this crush thing too seriously. It was a stupid physical reaction around a guy I only kinda sorta knew.

We were excellent teammates, but the amount of time we’d spent talking about anything other than our team or our sport was….

I swallowed as I tried to remember any actual conversations that didn’t revolve around one of our times and what we were doing to improve.

“There she goes