Page 94 of The Wedding Favor

“What are their names? I’ll talk to their parents.”

“You cannot. She would die before she asked for her dad to get involved.” I narrowed my eyes. “You weren’t picked on as a kid, were you? Please tell me you weren’t the bully?”

“What? No, I was… a regular kid.” He paused. “I guess I didn’t really have to deal with being picked on.”

“Because you were popular.”

“I got in trouble a lot,” he said defensively.

“For what? Talking too much?”

“I… Well, yeah, when I was younger. Skipping school when I was older. Bad grades. Missing curfew.”

“And yet, I’ll bet you got away with everything. Just flashed that dimple and talked yourself right out of trouble.”

The dimples made an appearance just to prove my point. “I guess they don’t hurt.”

“Sounds like high school was just torture for you.”

“If we’re going to play this game, I bet you were the girl with too much black eyeliner who sat in the back of the room and pretended to hate everything and everyone. But secretly, you had the highest grade in English class and wrote terrible emo poetry in your secret journal.”

“Not true. I had a secret file on my phone and those poems were good.”

He smirked, looking much too pleased with himself. A whoop of victory came from the arcade that sounded suspiciously like Hallie. Concern replaced amusement. “Why was she so upset?”

“The girls are all entered into that stupid Founder’s Day pageant. Hallie isn’t.”

“Yeah.” He frowned. “What happened?”

“Audrina is the worst of the girls. Her stepmother, Megan, is in charge of Little Miss Two Harts and at lunch today, Audrina repeated some things she’d heard and they were not nice. When Hallie didn’t come back from lunch, her leader found her crying in the girls’ bathroom.”

“They made her cry.” His dark eyes flashed. “What did they say?”

“That Hallie wasn’t pageant girl material and she would be an embarrassment if she was entered.”

He smacked the table and I jumped at the sound. “What in the⁠—”

“I saw Megan in the parking lot and confronted her.” I grimaced. “And I’m not sure how it happened exactly, but I told her that Hallie and I were going to enter in the pageant and prove them wrong.”

“I’m sorry? What did you say?”

I winced. “I told her that Hallie and I were going to enter the pageant and prove her wrong.” I crossed my arms on the table and dropped my head on it. “I don’t want to be in a pageant. But she looked so smug and self-righteous, and I didn’t want her to win.”

“I don’t know what to say. What does Hallie think about this?”

“I haven’t told her yet.” I straightened. “I thought, hey, Abe would never let Hallie participate and then I could bow out too.”

“You want to chicken out?”

I leaned across the table until I was about a foot from his face. “Yes, I want to chicken out. I cannot get in front of the town and do all those pageant things.” I grabbed his shirt and yanked until I was inches away now. Overkill? Maybe, but the panic was real.

“Then they win. You aren’t going to let them win, are you?” He tapped the end of my nose and smiled, his dimple making an appearance. Which seemed unfair. I knew that thing was diabolical.

I whimpered. Because he was right. I couldn’t let them win. It was a matter of principle. I didn’t want to win the damn thing, I just wanted my presence to irritate Megan. “I hate you for being right.”

He carefully uncurled my fingers from his shirt. “No, you don’t.”

Staring at him in disbelief, I plopped back in my seat. I couldn’t even think of what to say, so instead I dug around in my purse for chocolate, but I’d used it all over the weekend and hadn’t refilled. With a groan, I tossed the purse on the chair next to me and crossed my arms.