The Fill-In Boyfriend
Page 26He dropped back onto his pillow. “What was up with Goth Girl earlier? Why are you hanging out with her?”
“She’s just a friend. Sort of.”
He gave a sharp laugh that caused tension to spring into my chest and I shut his door before he said something rude. Hayden was wrong. My brother didn’t want a relationship with me. After spending some time with Hayden and Bec, I could see that what my brother and I had wasn’t great.
When I got to my room I started a group text with Claire and Laney to let them know I wouldn’t be joining them. We ended up texting about my date. They gave me the expected responses—lots of exclamation marks and all-caps—which tonight didn’t feel as satisfying as they normally did.
CHAPTER 18
The morning sun shone through my window and I rolled over, rubbing my eyes. I stared at the ceiling, thinking about the night before, what Hayden and his mom had said about being better. I wondered what a better person consisted of. Where I was supposed to start.
My mom knocked on my door then poked her head into my room. “Good morning. Your friends are here.”
“My friends?” My phone said it wasn’t even ten a.m.
“Should I tell them to come up?”
“Sure.”
She closed my door and I rushed over to the mirror above my dresser to see how out of control my hair was. It was bad. I had just enough time to run a brush through it before my door opened and Claire, Laney, and Jules burst through, a combination of laughter and perfume.
“Hi.” I put a smile on and plopped back on my bed where Claire had sat. “What’s going on?” I wondered why they were all together without me. Had I forgotten something we planned?
Claire, who seemed to read my mind, said, “Jules kidnapped Laney and me this morning and then we came over to say hi.”
“Oh.” I looked at Jules, wondering if that was part of the original plan or if she was hoping to leave me out and then casually mention at school on Monday that they had hung out together.
Jules didn’t give away her hand. She just put on a pleasant smile. “I heard you went on a blind date last night? That’s crazy. I would never go on a blind date.”
“You never called me. Maybe you thought you did because you called Claire and Laney. You probably just forgot.” She smiled sweetly. “It’s okay, it’s not a big deal.”
“Jules. I called you.”
Claire looked between the two of us. “Maybe you did forget, Gia.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“No, I already assured Jules that you would never lie to us. That’s why there must be a different explanation.”
I closed my eyes. Right. I’d never lie to them. How could I get upset and accuse Jules of lying to them right now when I was doing the same thing? I swallowed my pride, willing to let this one go, at least until I came clean myself and moved on. “Well, I know I told you, so maybe you just forgot.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. So was your blind date fun?”
“Yes, it was.”
“What did you do?”
Her questions always made her sound like the lead investigator at a crime scene.
“We went to a graduation party for one of his friends.”
“So is he weird?”
“No, he’s not.”
“If his sister has to find dates for him, he must be at least a little weird. I just want to know what favor you owed her to make you agree to dating her brother.”
“I just haven’t been very nice to her or her friends.” Which was true.
“That’s good that you could help her out, then,” Laney said.
“Yes, it is.”
My laptop sat closed on my desk and Jules pointed at it. “Can I use it for a sec?”
“Sure.” When she sat down and powered it on, I went to my closet and pulled out clothes.
“Is your brother still in town?” Claire asked.
I narrowed my eyes at her but it was hard to portray anger when I was smiling.
She laughed. “What? Drew and I have a connection.”
This time I laughed. “No, he left.”
She made an overly dramatic sad face.
“So is this where the kidnapping adventure was meant to end? Or are we going somewhere?”
Laney bit her lip. “Well . . . we’re going somewhere, but we knew you probably wouldn’t want to come so we just wanted to say hi before we went.”
“Where are you going?”
“Matt texted me about ten minutes ago and asked if we all wanted to surf today. I guess his uncle is in town and is this world champion surfer or something and wanted to know if any of his friends wanted some free lessons.”
I looked at Jules, who was still on the computer. “That sounds fun.”
Her eyes swung to mine and she tilted her head.
“It does?” Claire asked. “So you’ll come?”
“Why not? I should at least try it before I decide I hate it, right?”
Claire smacked my arm. “That’s what I’ve been saying forever.”
“It’s about time I listened.”
“You should ask your blind date from last night to come with us!”
It would actually be really fun to call Hayden and ask him to go on a group date with my friends and me. I liked hanging out with him. And he’d probably think surfing with some professional was the coolest date ever. But there was a huge problem with this. There were actually probably a lot more problems than just one, but I didn’t want to think about how Hayden and I were only acting and he would probably say no to a real date anyway. The main problem was that my friends couldn’t see Hayden again, ever. He was Bradley to them.
“It’s too soon to ask him out again. But I’d love to come if I wouldn’t be some sort of third . . . or seventh wheel.”
“Of course you wouldn’t be a seventh wheel.”
I did feel a little like the odd-numbered wheel, but I could see how Claire might find surfing peaceful—the gentle rocking of the waves as we waited for one to ride, the power of the ocean as it pushed us along. And Matt’s uncle was really cool. Without him, I was sure I wouldn’t have been able to catch a wave at all on my first time out.