Page 64 of The Write Track
It was too late. Bree pushed too hard, and she and Brody tipped to the side, entering the water sideways.
“Oh, f—” was all Bree got out before her head went under the water.
“Language!” Hayley barked.
“I think just this once you can let them get away with it,” I said to her.
“Just this once?” Hayley was nonplussed. “We are never going to hear the end of this. We’ll be on our deathbeds, and she’ll still be bringing it up.”
She was right. I remained amused all the same. “So, what do we think he’s going to do for lunch?”
16
SIXTEEN
Nathan was fun. I always lied to myself that Preston would turn fun if he could just get over himself and relax. That was never going to happen, of course. When I’d started telling myself that fallacy, I’d still been young and naïve. I kept repeating it—all evidence to the contrary—because the alternative was too much to bear.
Now, seeing someone laugh easily with his friends, give them a hard time, and accept the same back from them with no hurt feelings, I felt as if my eyes had suddenly been opened after a century of sleepwalking through life.
Preston hadn’t been a good choice right from the start. I’d been wowed by money, which had me giving myself some serious side-eye. What kind of person was I to fall for money that way? It was the exact opposite of what my mother had taught me growing up. Money didn’t mean anything. Neither did the status Preston wielded like a shield. What was currently stirring in my heart meant everything.
And I could no longer deny it. I was starting to crush on Nathan. He had an easygoing air about him that pushed every single one of my attraction buttons. He was serious about hiswork and wanted to put out the best product he could, but when it came to having fun, he was just… easy. He was willing to try anything. If things went poorly, like when Bree and Brody fell into the water and cursed his very existence, he laughed off their fury.
He was knowledgeable about a lot of things, not just horror movies. I liked that about him. He could talk seriously about how the Jason Voorhees’ origin story made no sense in one breath and the pros of green energy in the next. He had an expansive knowledge base, which he explained came from looking things up for his books.
He wasn’t just smart. though. He was handsome. In a Glenn-Powell-and-Miles-Teller-had-a-baby kind of way. He had a good personality on top of that. It was frustrating because I knew he wasn’t looking for more. Until spending time with him, I hadn’t been looking for more either.
Frustrated with my own inability to be just friends with a guy, I walked to the window and looked out. I could see Nathan trying to explain tetherball to Brody between the two cabins. Brody didn’t look impressed. There was no sign of Bree, but she’d been annoyed after falling into the lake—there’d been a lot of talk about the leeches she was convinced were coming for her—so she was probably taking a shower. Since I had time, I decided to check in with my mother.
I pulled out my tablet and touched her name on top of my contact list to video call. She picked up on the second ring, her blue lips pursing when she saw me.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
Confused, I glanced over my shoulder to see if there was something there that might have caused her alarm. Finding nothing, I drew my eyes back to her. “Why would you jump to the conclusion that there’s something wrong?”
“Because you’re smiling, and it’s not one of those ones you force for my benefit. It’s bigger.”
I opened my mouth then shut it. I hated to admit it, but I had been faking smiles for her benefit for months—rather, years—and I made a mental note to stop that.
“There’s nothing wrong,” I assured her. “I’m actually having a great time.”
She studied me a beat then nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Okay.” Her smile turned bright. “Where are you? That doesn’t look like your new condo.”
“That’s a rental until I decide what I’m going to do, but no, I’m not at the condo. I’m at a writer’s retreat.”
“Ooh.” She nodded excitedly. “That sounds like fun. Where are you?”
I gave her a brief rundown, knowing all the details she would want to hear. I left out the part about Preston hosting it. I would get there, but I wanted to set the groundwork before I did.
Before I could mention it, however, the cabin door opened. Mom was in the middle of telling me about some naked dancing she and my honorary aunts had gotten up to the previous evening, and she was enthusiastically reenacting it when Nathan stopped behind me.
His eyes were wide—she had been talking about flopping boobs when he got close enough to hear—and when his gaze landed on my mother, he seemed shocked.
I held my breath and waited. Would this be where he marginalized my mother? I wasn’t going to put up with that again. Not that Nathan and I were going to be together or anything. But I wouldn’t put up with it even from a friend.
Instead, Nathan broke into a wide grin. “You’re Bella’s mother.” It wasn’t a question. He grabbed a chair and dragged it so we were sitting shoulder to shoulder at the table, sharing the screen. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he enthused.
“Really?”
