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I didn’t know what to say. I knew Margaret was their stepmom, and their family had moved to Holly Ridge after their dad married Margaret, but didn’t know all the history. It’s hard to tell a person’s emotions from the back of their head, especially when you’ve only known them for a week, but the way Hayden brought his hand up to grasp the back of his neck, the skin around his fingertips turning red from the pressure, told me he was dying for a subject change.
I walked back toward the couch, the bowl of popcorn in one hand, my glass of wine in the other, and his bottle of beer wedged between my elbow and my chest. I stopped in front of him, awkwardly thrusting the neck of the bottle toward him, realizing too late that motion also thrust my cleavage in his face. Hayden slowly freed the bottle from its precarious grasp, his eyes trained somewhere between the glass neck and mine.
I cleared my throat as I nestled back into my corner of the couch, my feet pointing at his hip. “So.”
He shook his head. “So. Any hints on what objects of mine around the house I should look out for tomorrow?”
“C’mon Brandt, you know I can’t take it easy on you. You’ll just have to be on your… toes,” I smiled.
“You put something in my shoes again, didn’t you, Charlotte?”
Something shivered down my spine at the way he said my name, all stern, yet anticipatory-like.
“Restart the show, Hayden. I’ve got questions that need answered.”
Chapter
Nine
Hayden
The pranks with Charlotte had gotten a bit more personal since the night we watched the first episode of Bounty Hunter Wars on the couch.
Waking up to a picture of Jabba the Hutt taped to my mirror is not something I need to do again and took approximately three years off my life. I never considered myself a heavy sleeper, but Charlotte was like a ninja in the dark.
I might have ordered a used copy of the bodice ripper she was reading and replaced the pages with a Clone Wars novel, hiding her real copy. The talking to I got about the sanctity of destroying books for that one was equal parts hilarious, arousing, and a little terrifying.
I don’t think either of us was actually trying to scare the other person away anymore, but were instead using the pranks as a shield to stop the other person from getting any closer. The way I had easily told her about Star Wars and the important role it played in my childhood… that was dangerous.
I was unpacking a mountain of Chinese food, the delivery driver left my order and another order by mistake, when Charlotte stormed in the door after 8:00 p.m. She had been working later and later as some gala she was working on got closer.
“Hey Charlotte, I’ve got extra Chinese if you want any.”
The response I got was more scream than words.
“Sorry, can you try that again? I don’t speak angry dolphin.”
“Ha, ha,” she responded, heading to the fridge to grab her wine but came back with a bottle of my IPA instead.
“She speaks! And sure thing, help yourself.”
“Thanks. I just didn’t think pinot grigio went especially well with kung pao chicken. And I could use something with a bit more of an edge tonight.”
“Rough day at the office, schnookums?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes at me, a reaction I was growing to appreciate a little too much. She reached for a fork from the island drawer and a white container, not bothering with a plate, before scooping steaming chicken into her mouth.
“You could say that. Last night, all of a sudden, I started getting these text messages to my work phone from people asking if I still had a llama for sale. There’s a lot of weirdly motivated people interested in buying llamas.”
I went still, noodles dangling from the fork halfway to my mouth from my own carton of spicy goodness. Oh fuck. The llama prank. That was her work phone? Somehow, Charlotte and I had been living together for several weeks and hadn’t yet exchanged phone numbers. The night after the mirror prank, I swiped the phone she left sitting on the counter one night when she was in the bathroom and sent myself a text before deleting it to get her number for a prank. I didn’t even know she had a work phone. Let alone, that’s the number I had gotten.
“The texts have just been pouring in nonstop, especially when I don’t respond to them, and just keep on coming. Anyway, all the traffic got flagged by IT, wondering why I’m using my work phone for personal matters and it took me ten minutes to convince the guy I’ve never seen a llama in real life, let alone have one up for sale.” When I didn’t respond, Charlotte looked up from the Chinese container. I forced out a fake laugh, and she narrowed her eyes at me.
“Wait a minute… did you?”
I put the container down and put my hands up in defense.
“I had Hunter set it up almost two weeks ago. I had no idea that was your work number and not your personal number. I thought it would be funny? And also, it’s a llama in the middle of a city. Who knew there would be such demand?”
