by Rye Hart
“But she said she found God?”
Jenn raised her eyebrow and shook her head. “Yeah, in the backseat of some guy's car, maybe,” she said, sarcasm coloring her every word. “Nah, her daddy just makes her go to church every weekend and act like a pious little witch. She's trying to redeem herself in his eyes or some shit like that – though, God only knows what good that would do. That girl is a lost cause, if I do say so myself.”
I looked back out at the people milling about in the park. Black Oak carried so many secrets. There was always so much going on – especially in the shadows and behind the scenes. And I hadn't the faintest idea about any of it. I had no knowledge of anything in Blackoak anymore.
Not that I needed to know the town gossip – it just felt weird being back and completely clueless because it had been such a staple of my world for so long.
As if she could read my mind, Jenn smiled and said, “Welcome back to Black Oak, Hailey.”
CHAPTER SIX - CASON
“Shutting down to go hang out at the bonfire,” I called out to the crowd, who groaned at my announcement as we closed up shop. “But feel free to come by the restaurant tomorrow. Twenty percent off if you mention you stopped by.”
Bennett punched my arm – hard. It wasn't the usual playful punch we'd give each other now and then – it felt like a serious hit. I looked at him, irritation running through me.
“What in the hell are you doing?” he whispered, facing away from the crowd.
“Shutting down to –” I started to repeat myself, but he cut me off.
“No, the discount,” he said. “We didn't agree to that.”
“Executive decision, man,” I said, shrugging. “These fine people want food, and since we're closing down, thought it would be the right thing to do. Plus, it might bring in a little more business than we might have had.”
Bennett shook his head, his face creased with irritation. “Why not just give food away for free then?”
Sarcasm dripped from his tongue, but he'd already pissed me off, so I figured I'd do something to spite him.
“Fine,” I said, leaning around him and shouting out, “Free hot dogs for all kids tomorrow!”
“No,” Bennett called. “He's just kidding. No free hot dogs.”
Quinn piped up. “It's already out there, Ben, and it would be false advertising if we didn't honor it now. And that's bad for business. It's a damn hot dog. Stop being such a tight ass.”
Ben muttered something under his breath and walked away, busying himself by finishing loading the truck. At least he was doing the manual labor this time. It was a nice change of pace since Quinn and I had done it all earlier.
I looked across the walkway at Jenn Drake's cake shop. Like us, she was packing all of her things up for the night and caught me staring, a knowing smile on her lips. Not wanting to give her the wrong idea – she was a married woman after all and I wasn't like that – I gave her a friendly wave and started to look away.
But then Hailey stepped up beside her and took the box of cupcakes from her friend, and my eyes stayed glued to her. Try as I might, I couldn't look away. The last time I saw Hailey was at a bonfire like this one – probably around the fall after our high school graduation. Neither of us went straight to college. She'd been a pretty girl back then, even if she did her best to cover herself up in oversized sweatshirts and yoga pants.
But she'd changed over the years, and now, she was something else entirely.
Her delicate face was surrounded by long, luxurious chocolate brown hair. Caramel highlights fell down around her chin and brought out the green in her eyes. A sprinkling of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and cheeks. It was something I'd always thought was adorable about her and I was glad to see she'd never grown out of them. It added to that girl-next-door appeal she had. And she had that in spades.
She caught me staring and for a second, we just stood there with our gazes locked. Even from across the aisle, I swear I felt a connection with her. I smiled, and I saw her cheeks flush as she smiled back at me, her plump lips pulled back in an adorable grin.
And just like that – there was the girl who'd helped me pass Biology our sophomore year. The same geeky girl who had no problem cutting into the fetal pig – even as other girls screeched in disgust. It didn't get to Hailey. In fact, she seemed pretty fascinated by it. Science was her thing, she said. As it was mine. Or at least, I'd wanted it to be after that semester with her.
“I'll be right back,” I said.
Quinn caught me staring and stopped me. “Nope,” he said. “You're staying right here.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I'm gonna go over there and talk to her first,” he said.
“Wanna bet?”
I punched him in the arm as I took off, Quinn right behind me. Being the star athlete in the family, I knew he could outrun me and beat me to her. It was stupid to even try and beat him. But I knew there was no way my brother was going to ask her out first.
As we ran, he pulled up right beside me and gave me a crooked grin.
“Hey, I need to get over Shelly, remember?” He smirked. “I think Hailey could help me do that.”
“Yeah, well, it's too soon,” I said. “You can't possibly be over her. And Hailey shouldn't be a rebound thing.”
“Yeah, we'll see,” Quinn said as he bolted ahead of me.
Quinn, of course, beat me to the booth. I never even stood a chance. I never did when it came to anything athletic with him. The son of a bitch wasn't even out of breath. He ran a hand through his shaggy hair and gave her that bad boy smile of his – the smile most women found completely irresistible. I wanted to punch him in the face.
“So Hailey,” he said, just as I reached the booth. “I'm heading down to the bonfire, would you care to join me?”
Hailey looked at Quinn, then over at me, and then at her friend, Jenn. Indecision and something like bashfulness crossed her features. She bit her bottom lip and avoided our gazes completely for a moment – which was utterly adorable.
“He meant us,” I quipped. “We're heading down to the bonfire. Would you care to join us?”
Quinn said, “Actually, I meant me –”
I talked over him though, not giving him any room to work his bad boy charm. “What do you say?”
Jenn cocked an eyebrow, an amused grin on her face, as she watched from the sidelines.
“You can join us too, Jenn. You should,” I said, continuing to talk so my brother couldn't.
He beat me in everything else, so I wasn't about to let him get the upper hand on me when it came to pulling a date with the new hottie in town. Jenn laughed and shook her head.
“Thanks. But, unless you want a screaming toddler on one side, and a baby attached to my boob on the other, I think I'll have to pass,” she said. “But the three of you go ahead and have fun.”
She walked back behind the booth, laughing almost hysterically as she patted Hailey playfully on the ass as she walked on by, leaving just the three of us standing together in the booth. There was definitely an awkward tension in the air as we all stared at one another, nobody knowing quite what to say. And then, yet another layer of awkward tension made an appearance.
Ben's voice came from behind me. “What's going on?”
As if the three of us standing there wasn't awkward enough, it became the four of us, making it all the worse. I cleared my throat and tried to take the bull by the horns. I wasn't about to let my older brothers steamroll me – not with somebody like Hailey standing right there in front of me.
“Just seeing if Hailey wanted to join us at the bonfire,” I said.
“Good idea,” Ben said, stepping up beside me. “I was just one my way over to ask her myself.”
“Of course you were.” I smirked.
Because if there's one thing my brothers and I have in common, it's our ego and that spirit of competition that drives us all.
CHAPTER SEVEN - QUINN
I wasn't
surprised that Hailey had caught the eyes of my brothers – she was smoking hot. And I thought she was exactly what I needed to get over Shelly. While she wasn't new, she’d been gone long enough to be like new. The truth of the matter was that she seemed like a different person than the girl I met in that creative writing class all those years ago.
She seemed so unlike the girl who was so quiet, I sometimes forgot she was there. And there seemed to be a confidence about her that she didn't have before. I remember that when she read one of her poems or stories in class, her voice would be so soft and shaking so badly that nobody could really hear her anyway. Or if they did, they didn't pay attention to her.
But I was certainly paying attention to her now.
She stared back at us with her wide, emerald green eyes, her mouth open as if she wasn't sure what to say. Not that I blamed her. Hell, maybe it was a bit much – all this attention at once was probably freaking her out. Maybe we'd all come on too strong, too soon, which, given the look on her face, I figured was probably the case. She looked like she was on the verge of bolting
But I'd planned on asking her out the moment I saw her. I had no idea my brothers were planning to do the same damn thing. If I knew they were into her too, I would have staked my claim with them the minute I saw her.
Once one of us stakes a claim, the girl is off limits to the other two – that's just the rules.
“Uh sure,” she said. “That'd be – fun?”
“Great,” Cason said, the little shithead answering her before I could.
He flashed me a malicious little smirk as Hailey walked around the booth toward him.
Not so fast, Cason, buddy. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve and I wasn't about to let my little brother get over on me. It'd be a cold day in hell before I let that shit happen. I stepped between them and gave her my most thoughtful, interested expression.
“Hailey, do you still write?” I asked as we started walking deeper into the park.
It was growing darker and the moon was creeping higher, and people were setting up smaller campfires all around the park. As we walked through the growing darkness of the evening, the light of all those campfires made her porcelain skin seem to glow as she looked over at me.
“Yeah, sometimes, actually” she said, a smile creeping across her face. “I can't believe you remembered that. What about you? Are you still writing?”
“Quinn? A writer? He's lucky if he can write his own name, most days,” Ben said, swooping in on the other side of her, sharing a laugh with Cason at my expense – no doubt, trying to make himself look better.
I ignored them, choosing to avoid getting into a ragfest with them and focus on Hailey instead. If I wanted to make headway with her, that was the way to do it – not getting down into the gutter with my brothers.
“Yeah, sometimes,” I said. “When I get time, you know? My brothers work me pretty hard, so I don't have nearly as much time as I'd like.”
“Sometimes?” Cason said, chuckling. “Writing? Seriously, bro, stop lyin'. The last time you actually wrote something was probably back in high school.”
“Nah,” I said, rolling my eyes, trying not to let their taunting get to me. I was in it to win it, and I wasn't about to let my brother's attempted cockblocking get in the way. “You guys just wouldn't understand. There's things about me you don't know.”
Hailey came to my defense and piped up. “I remember that poem you wrote – about the first time you saw the ocean. It was beautiful.”
“And was probably plagiarized from a greeting card or something,” Ben scoffed, drawing a peal of laughter from Cason. “So Hailey, what do you do now that you're back home?”
She turned her attention to Ben before looking away quickly, that strained, awkward look back upon her face. She stared off into the trees for a bit, not speaking to any of us. I almost wanted to say something to break up the silence, but before I could, she looked back at me, a small smile on her face.
“Currently? Nothing,” she said. “I'm still looking for work.”
“Well, what did you do? Back in California?” Ben said, stepping on my toes. “Maybe I can help you find something local just to get you back into the swing of things.”
“I did a lot of different things,” she said. “Waited tables for a while, worked as an executive assistant, did a few commercials –”
Cason jumped in at that point. “Wow,” he said in that fake interested tone of voice of his. “You were an actress?”
“I wanted to be for a while, yeah,” she said. “But it never really panned out.”
We were approaching the group of people milling around the bonfire, and I was frustrated by the fact that my brothers kept getting in my way of talking to her. Hailey looked nervously at the crowd, the expression on her face saying she wasn't sure she should be there. She bit her lower lip as she pulled her hoodie tighter around her petite, but curvy body.
“Tough industry,” Cason said. “But you're still young, you never know what might happen.”
“No, I'm pretty sure I won't be acting anymore,” she said, her tone a little harsh as she spoke about it.
“Why's that?” I asked, speaking softly as I gazed over at her.
With her hair falling around her face, she really was beautiful – even though she tried to hide herself away in that damn hoodie. She did that back in high school too.
“I'd rather not talk about,” she said.
She stood there, staring at the people, looking like she felt as if she didn't belong. I could tell she really didn't want to be there.
Leaning close, I whispered to her and her alone, “Do you want to leave?”
She nodded, her arms crossed in front of her as if she was protecting herself from something. What she felt she needed protection from, I had no idea, but it was a crack in the armor and a way I could spend some time with her. Alone. Reaching out, I took her arm and motioned for her to follow me.
“Come on,” I said. “I'll take you home. Or wherever you want to go.”
“Hey, where you going?” Cason asked, turning, an annoyed expression on his face as we started to walk away.
I shot him a look over my shoulder, a taunting look as if to say, “I won” even though I wasn't sure I had just yet. But at least, if I had some time alone with her, I had a better shot at winning than either of those two bozos. Hailey wanted to get out of there, and who was I to force her to interact with others if she didn't want to?
And the look on Cason and Ben's faces as we walked away together was priceless. I reveled in it for a moment as we made our way toward the parking lot and away from the crowd.
I had to make them think I'd done it again. That I beat them. That I got the girl. I knew it would be a thorn in their side and nothing made me happier.
***
“How does this place even stay open?” she laughed, taking a sip from her milkshake. “I don't remember it ever being full.”
Betty's Diner was empty except for the two of us. But that's because everyone – and I mean everyone – was at the bonfire.
“It's a staple around here,” I said. “Just like Driftwood. Some things are just institutions and will never disappear completely.”
“The Driftwood – which you guys now own,” she said, looking a little more relaxed and her eyes twinkling for the first time since we'd met.
Her smile was warm, genuine and she seemed more confident now that we were away from the crowd. She was no longer hugging the hoodie close to her body and spoke a little more confidently.
“Yeah, that was Cason's idea,” I said, running a hand through my hair.
The front door of the diner opened, the bell overhead tinkling, and I cringed. I just had a feeling I knew who was coming through the front doors. It took everything in me in that moment to not jump up and stab them both in the heart with a spoon.
“Speak of the devil,” I muttered and sighed.
Hailey turned around just as Cason and Ben entered the diner, wide
smiles plastered upon their faces.
“How'd you find us?” I asked when they reached our table.
“Easy,” Cason said, slipping into the booth next to Hailey. “It's the only place open and your truck is out front. Didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure that one out, chief.”
Ben sat down beside me. “Besides, I was in the mood for a milkshake,” he said, a cocky smirk on his face.
“Yeah, of course you were,” I grumbled.
“So, Hailey,” Cason said, turning toward her with an arm behind her on the bench. “What did you miss most about Black Oak?”
“Truthfully?” she laughed. “Not much. No offense or anything, but it's not like I ever had a lot going for me here. I still don't, but hopefully, that'll change soon.”
“Oh, I have no doubt it will,” Ben said, leaning across the table, closer to her. “A lot has changed since you left. It's like a whole different town in some ways.”
“That's what everyone keeps telling me,” she said. “Yet, I see that so much has stayed the same.”
“Like what?” Cason asked.
She looked at the three of us, her lips curling up in a grin, and I so badly wanted to know what she was thinking. Instead of enlightening us though, she passed and gave us something that was a little more benign. “Well, like the diner,” she said. “This milkshake tastes exactly like I remembered it. And the bonfire – that hasn't changed a bit. And I have to tell you, that brought back so many memories.”
Judging by the look on her face and the air of sadness around her, not all of the memories that came back to her at the bonfire were good ones. She stared down at her hands for a moment, seeming to be lost in thought, before looking back up at the three of us.
“I don't mean to be blunt, you guys,” she said, biting her lip. “But why all the attention? To be honest, it's a little overwhelming and unexpected. I mean, it's not like any of you noticed or paid attention to me back in high school.”
“Like I said,” Ben said. “A lot has changed. We've all grown up, and it's been a long time since someone came back to Black Oak once they left. Usually, when somebody gets out, they stay gone. We're just interested in getting to know you, Hailey. That's all.”
