Playing Hooky with the Hottie - Maggie Dallen Page 0,31
as serious as a certain swimmer I knew.
“You look pissed,” she said the moment the door shut behind me.
“You think?” I arched my brows and nodded my head toward the other room. “I’m busting my butt out there, and I don’t have any help.”
“I’m trying to find you another photographer, you know that.”
I huffed and turned my face away. I wasn’t an angry guy. I didn’t really do anger. My default setting was to laugh things off, but right now…
Well, I didn’t feel like myself.
“I need you to cover the swim meet tonight.”
I clenched my jaw. I’d known this was coming. It was a big meet. I knew Hazel was stressing over it, even if she hid it well behind that oh-so-serious expression of hers.
Although, when I’d run into her earlier, she hadn’t seemed stressed. She’d seemed…
Hurt. Vulnerable. Sweet.
Beautiful.
Crap. I was so in over my head.
Max continued talking about the meet, which races to capture and all that. As if I hadn’t been paying extra special attention to the swim team lately. I was only half listening until she said, “...and while you’re there, I suggest you ask Hazel to homecoming.”
My head whipped around to face her, and I found her smirking at me.
I frowned. I was typically the smirker not the smirkee.
“What? Why? What?” I clamped my mouth shut before I could sputter anymore. I was already in danger of sounding like some neurotic cartoon character.
She pursed her lips for a second as if thinking her answer over. “Because I think you’re a good guy, and you genuinely like my friend.”
I kept my mouth shut. I was not about to confirm or deny.
“I think you have a lot of potential—”
I cut her off with a loud sigh, because she sounded so like my parents right now.
“Hear me out,” she said. “I think you have a lot of potential, but you suffer from the classic cowardly disease of not trying, because you’re afraid of failing.”
“What? That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?” Her voice was so mild. Maybe if she’d actually argued with me I could have gotten really into forming an argument of my own. But her even, unimpressed response had me standing there with my mouth open.
I didn’t try. I wasn’t a tryer. I didn’t put myself out there, and it had always been because I didn’t want the pressure or the stress, but…
I cleared my throat as I took a good hard look at myself. At my life. At the way I’d never wanted to be compared to my overachieving sisters, because…
Because what if I couldn’t live up to them?
I ran a hand through my hair. Crap. Self-awareness was a freakin’ bummer.
“Maybe you have a point,” I said.
Max looked unimpressed again. She didn’t so much as gloat as she said, “I know. But Hazel, on the other hand…” She threw her hands out wide. “She tries so hard. All the time. She works so hard for the things she loves that I think sometimes she forgets how to....”
“Enjoy them?” I finished for her.
She nodded with a sigh. “Exactly.”
“You’re not wrong there,” I said. “That girl is going to give herself an ulcer before she turns twenty.”
Max’s lips quirked up a bit, and we shared a weird moment of understanding. A shared appreciation for the serious, driven ball of stress named Hazel.
“But that’s why I think this could be a good thing,” she said, gesturing toward me.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, crossing arms. “I have no idea how Hazel feels about you, however, but personally I’d love to see you man up for once and go after what you want.”
I stared at her. “Are you challenging my manhood?”
She laughed and patted my arm as she passed me. “I’d say do it for Hazel, but honestly...I think you should do it for yourself.”
Do it for yourself.
The words stuck with me, ringing in my head as the voices in this crowded pool area echoed around me.
They were shouting Hazel’s name.
I’d been thinking about her all day. All week. For months now, really, but today of all days I so did not need to hear her name being chanted. I didn’t need to have her in the eye of my camera, impressing the hell out of me with her athleticism.
The girl was a freakin’ fish in the water. Graceful but so strong. Kind of like the girl herself.
I tried to ignore Justin cheering her on from the side of the pool, but it was hard to do since we were both walking the edge, following her progress.
Ironically,