Claire wasn’t sure what the gesture meant. Was it a truce in the name of the Christmas spirit? Or were they venti-sized cups of steaming cat pee?
Cara, Syd, and Claire inched cautiously toward the offering.
“Hmmm.” Layne lifted a cup to the sun and examined the bottom. She shoved it toward Todd. “You try it first.”
Tiny Nathan snort-laughed as Todd took a big gulp. “He’ll do anything a girl asks him to!”
“All clear,” Todd announced, licking whipped cream off his lips.
The other girls shrugged and grabbed their cups.
“Wanna know what else he’ll do?” Tiny Nathan pressed.
“Not really.” Claire rolled her eyes, suddenly mortified that her older friends were being forced to hang with her younger brother.
“Okayyyy,” Tiny Nathan beamed. “You asked for it!”
“No, they didn’t.” Todd stepped back. But it was too late. Nathan jumped up like an anxious puppy and managed to grab hold of a blue tassel. He yanked twice. The hat slid off Todd’s slick head and landed on the snow with a muted thud.
“You’re bald!” Claire shouted.
Layne laughed so hard, hot chocolate sprayed from her nose. “You look like a Tootsie Pop.”
“Thanks,” Todd beamed, and then curled his fist under his chin and struck a thinking-man pose. “Massie did it. She says my skull is my best feature.”
“She got that right,” Syd joked.
“Even my snow-Cam has more hair than you!” Claire pointed to the little evergreen pine needles poking out the top of its head.
Layne clasped her hands together like a caroler and began to sing. “Frosssssty the bald man…”
“Had a jolly, shiny skull!” Cara added.
Syd threw her arm around Cara. “With an earflapped hat and a button nose and two eyes made out of…”
Claire stared at her transformed little brother, rage fizzing through her veins like shaken Coke Zero. But was it really anger… or jealousy? She used to love getting a Massie makeover.
Todd slapped his bald head. “Oh! I almost forgot.” He picked the hat off the snow-covered ground. “Massie said this was for you.”
Claire stared at it, her heart pounding as she went through another loop on the roller coaster that was life with Massie Block. First the hot chocolate, now this. The muscles in her hands were dying to reach out and grab the hat. To rush the barn and throw her arms around Massie and ask if the hat—a soft, stretchy cashmere—meant that they were finally going to make up. That Massie was finally going to be more flexible and let Claire make her own decisions. But her memory ordered her impulses to sit this one out. Could the girl who forbade her to eat processed sugar, hang out with Cam on a Friday night, or sit with Layne at lunch suddenly be open to change? Yeah, maybe. When Gwen Stefani tans.
Claire glanced at the barn. A familiar pair of amber eyes stared back at her from the window. Massie smiled sweetly and motioned for Claire to take the hat. Was it possible? Was Gwen was on a yacht in St. Barts slathering on the Hawaiian Tropic oil?
Stranger things have happened, she thought. Like… well…
Actually, Claire couldn’t think of anything at the moment. She was distracted by her tingling feet, which were finally thawing with the hope of reconciliation. It had been weeks since the girls had even acknowledged each other. And a part of Claire had been numb ever since.
She studied the hat. It was soft and pale blue, the same color as her own cornflower blue eyes. She had to hand it to the alpha: When it came to knowing what looked good on people, the girl had more vision than Bausch & Lomb.
She put it on. It fit perfectly and warmed the tips of her ears. As she tied the tassels under her chin, the Massie-shaped ice block around her heart began to melt.
“It looks adorbs,” Cara said.
“Totally you,” Syd pronounced.
Claire grinned. She looked at the window and raised her hand to wave her thanks, but Massie was gone.
Read the rest of MY LITTLE PHONY,
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Belle of the Brawl Page 16
