Chapter 8
8
Hayden
senior year
I huff as I round the corner into fifth period, still annoyed that Jenny was yelling at me, throwing her hands in front of my face while accusing me of…I don’t even know what she was accusing me of.
She saw me and Tina laughing over some stupid joke about Madame Martin and how annoying her fake French accent sounded describing our homework assignment on verb conjugation. Once she got a glimpse of us impersonating the way Madame Martin flung her hands in the air when she added an extra flair to the word “chapeau,” Jenny started accusingly asking me if I thought Tina was cute, even though she’s one of her closest friends, while demanding to know why I was talking to her in the first place. Apparently, I’m not allowed to talk to girls, even if it’s school related .
This whole thing with Jenny is so pointless. I don’t even know how I ended up in this situation. With a girl who boldly assigned herself as my girlfriend and is now scolding me like my mom whenever I so much as look at another girl.
God, why are high school girls so fucking dramatic? When I slump my backpack onto the counter, Natalia jumps before she reaches up to remove her earphones.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
Her brows rise as she coils her earphones into a neat lasso. “Trouble in paradise?”
I turn toward her, the scowl on my face deepening.
“I saw you two arguing outside,” she adds, her attention focused on the front pouch of her backpack as she stows away her earphones.
“It’s nothing,” I answer, roughly flipping through the textbook in front of me while the pages flick in sharp whips from my angry hands.
“If you ever want to talk about it…” she offers, her voice trailing off as she lifts a shoulder. “I’m a vault.”
When I turn my scowl toward her, she mimes the motion of locking her lips with an imaginary key and tosses it over the edge of our table, along with a purse-lipped smile implying trust. My frown loosens, and the wound-up muscles of my jaw relax into a smile.
“We have a pop quiz, people.” Mr. Khan’s voice cuts through the class. His announcement is followed by collective groans and the shuffling of papers as Mr. Khan passes his quiz down the class.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Her tight smile softens, and I lightly tap her arm with my pinky as Mr. Khan walks by, giving us a warning cough.
present
When I walk through the doors of Butter, I spot Natalia quickly. She’s slouched over the bar, a red-tinged drink already in her hand as she stares down at her phone. She’s still dressed in what looks like her work clothes, a slim pencil skirt with a collared blouse neatly tucked in high at her waist. Her hair is tied up in a high ponytail, purposefully curled at the edges as it wisps around her nape with a thick strand of hair around the base securing her hair in a tight knot.
I don’t know why she texted me, taking me up on my offer for a friendly drink, but I’m thankful she did. It’s been a rough week, even though it’s only Wednesday, and I need something to get my mind off things. Personal things that I most likely won’t tell Natalia about but things I need to drown in alcohol, nonetheless.
“Is this seat taken?” I whisper, low and close to Natalia’s ear. She jumps suddenly as she turns to face me. And before she locks her phone and tucks it away into her purse, I can’t help but notice the shiny image of her and another man splayed across the screen. I pretend not to notice and flag down the bartender instead.
“Saved it just for you,” she says, her voice weary. She still manages to tap the round leather stool with a smile before I slide onto it and tuck my legs beneath the sticky bar top.
The bartender stops in front of me, nodding his head, silently requesting my order .
“I’ll have a Blue Moon,” I say before turning to Natalia. “What are you having?”
“Vodka with cranberry.”
I turn back toward the bartender. “And a vodka cranberry,” I add, placing my phone that’s in my hand on the countertop.
He turns away, making drinks as the clinking of glass and thin metal from the cocktail shaker already in his hands keep him busy.
“What have you been up to?” I ask, my hands leaning against the edge of the bar.
She shrugs. “Nothing, just busy with work.” She pauses, taking a small sip of her drink. “Carmen’s working the night shift, so I thought I could use some company.”
“Does she usually not?”
“No. She took on some extra shifts cause they’re short-staffed at the hospital,” she answers with a small sigh. “It gets a little lonely at home by myself. And not to mention, a little scary.”
I smirk, teasingly raising a brow. “Scared of the dark, are we?”
“Yes,” she says, omitting an obvious duh with her answer. “You never know what’s lurking behind the shadows.”
We’re interrupted by the arrival of our drinks as the bartender places them on top of small cocktail napkins in front of us. Natalia slurps her drink in her hand, the straw sucking up the rest of the contents and leaving behind melting ice cubes before she moves on to the fresh one in front of her.
I tilt my head back, glugging my beer as I keep my eyes on Natalia. She smiles at me. A smile that doesn’t reach her eyes before it shifts, widening as she leans in toward me. And then I see it, that little dip her nose does when her smile grows bigger.
“You smell like pastries. ”
Her observation draws a small chuckle out of me. “I spent most of the day making fruit tarts and chocolate mousse.”
She hums softly. “That sounds like heaven.” And then she narrows her eyes and chews on her lower lip, as if she’s holding back a secret or an unexpected thought.
“What?” I ask, taking another quick swig of my beer.
“I remember you baking in high school.”
“Oh,” I huff awkwardly.
“And now you do it for a living.”
I nod, feeling suddenly shy while remembering those moments filling the small kitchen in my home. “Yeah,” I finally whisper.
“Do you ever want to open your own restaurant?”
I bob my head between my shoulders while my fingers toy with the neck of my beer bottle. “Eventually,” I answer. “But I gotta work my way up. It’s part of my five-year plan.”
My phone pings on the bar top, interrupting our conversation as the loud twanging of a taut string on a bow rings loudly and the image of a cupid silhouette fills the icon box next to the alert. I move quickly to lock the screen and shove my phone into my pocket. Natalia’s brows rise in curious amusement when I glance over at her, and I know what’s coming next.
“What was that?”
I hesitate, embarrassed that the level of my singleness is about to be so open and clear. “A Cupid’s Bet alert.”
“Cupid’s Bet?” she repeats.
I nod.
“Is that like…a hook-up app?”
I grimace slightly. “A dating app,” I correct her.
Her eyes widen with a suppressed smile. “Oh, I’m sorry to offend you. A ‘dating app,’” she retorts, sarcasm dripping through her words .
“Hey,” I argue. “Don’t judge me on my dating life.”
“I’m not judging,” she says innocently. “I just didn’t think you’d be the dating app type of guy. What, the ladies don’t flock to you with your perfect smile and pretty eyes?”
“You think my eyes are pretty?”
“You know your eyes are pretty, Hayden.” She nudges me with her elbow. “So how does it work? You ever-so-slyly slide into the DMs of every eligible hottie?”
“If only it were that simple,” I say a little too wistfully.
“Oh, so they play hard to get.” Her grin holds a devilish edge, her eyebrows bouncing up and down as she continues her tease. “I heard some men like the chase. Helps them to feel masculine, like they’re feeding their caveman instincts.” Her fist rises in the air, stamping her point.
“What I meant was,” I say, poking her side as she flinches away, “it’s hard to get past the initial talking stage. It usually just ends up being a long string of one-night stands.”
She slightly cringes. “So? Are you going to check that?” she says, eyeing my phone in my back pocket. “Maybe this might be ‘the one.’”
I shake my head, ignoring her and chugging my beer instead.
“Come on, Marshall,” she urges. “I want to know what these women are saying to you.” Her hands lift up between us. Her palms face upward, with her lower lip jutted out in a small pout.
I give, looking down at her as her smile teases through her fake frown, and I can’t help but let out a small laugh. As if her making that face, pleading in that playful way, will always get her what she wants out of me. I reach into my pocket and unlock my phone before placing it gently into her open hands.
Her eyes light up against the lit screen as her lips pull between her teeth and the corners of her mouth lift with amusement. Her eyes search the screen, looking like she’s solving some sexy crossword puzzle in a jumble of words like “spank” or “foreplay” meshed together in black and white blocks.
Her fingers finally stop scrolling through the long list of messages. “This one’s good. She’s got a nice smile,” she states, clearing her throat to read the message out loud. “‘Hey there, cutie.’”
Unoriginal and bland. Natalia must agree because her mouth scrunches in disapproval before she looks at me.
“Maybe not,” she says, continuing her search. “So they just message you and you message them back?”
“Well, there’s a little more to it than that,” I explain. “The app itself sends you potential matches through an algorithm. And I just tap on the little cupid’s bow if I like them, and if she likes me back, we message each other.”
“Ah,” she says through a smile. “The gods doing what they’re born to do: manage an online dating app.” Her eyes continue to roam, lighting up as her fingers tap on the screen. And then she gasps.
“What?”
She holds the phone a little higher, and her smile spreads wider as she reads the text. “‘You have a cute face. It would look even better if I sat on it.’” Her mouth gapes open in shock. “That’s not real.”
I peek down at the screen to see who the message is from. “Oh, Sara is very real.”
“You responded to her?”
“I went on a date with her two weeks ago,” I answer.
“Did…she sit on your face?”
She did. In fact, she did a little more than that, but I don’t want to share that bit of information to Natalia. So instead, I give the most generalized answer as close to pleading the fifth.
“I can neither confirm nor deny that, ma’am.”
“Maybe it’s better you don’t answer that question. ”
We both simultaneously take a sip of our drinks. When Natalia sets her drink back down, she taps the back of my hand with her index finger. “You really are living a lively single life there, Marshall.”
I chuckle, taking my phone and securing it back in my pocket. “Are you seeing anyone?” I ask, curious, as we’ve rather deeply broached the topic of my own glaring singleness.
Her shoulders slouch forward, much like they used to in high school when she sat on the hard stool that tucked perfectly under our lab table in bio class. And when she doesn’t answer, I get the hint that maybe she doesn’t want to talk about it.
“No, I’m not,” she finally says. Her voice sounds low, a tightness seeping through as if she’s trying to hold back tears.
“Okay,” I respond, not really knowing how or if I should ask further.
Then she turns her face toward me with her eyes downturned and brows pinched together in what looks like agony. Her forced smile falters into a sad little frown before her hands move to her face, covering her eyes as she sighs deeply.
As if surrendering to my silent curiosity, she swivels her entire body and grips my arm for support. “So, my boyfriend broke up with me six months ago,” she starts, her voice showing how badly this breakup is affecting her. “We’d been together for four years. We lived together and everything. And when I brought up our future, stuff like if he saw anything beyond our boyfriend and girlfriend status, he broke up with me. So I had to pack up my things and move in with Carmen.”
When her protruding lower lip begins trembling, I want to hug her. And when the hand she has gripped on my arm starts to slacken, I want to take it back and hold it between mine to let her know that this breakup doesn’t determine her worth.
“Anyway,” she continues, waving off her brimming emotions. “I found out last week that he’s getting married. ”
“What?!” I shout. I realize a little too loudly when a couple of heads turn in our direction.
“And…I just got the invitation to the wedding tonight.”
“Hold up.” I stop her, my palms facing her. “So this asshole dumped you and found some other girl to marry. And he invited you to the wedding?”
“He’s not an asshole,” she weakly argues.
“Natalia,” I scold. How can she still defend him?
“And technically, it wasn’t him that invited me. It was his parents,” she explains. “His mom and my mom got pretty close while we were dating so…I guess they feel some sort of obligation to stay close with my family. I don’t really know…”
“You aren’t going, are you?”
She scrunches her eyes closed as if to blink away the pain. When she looks at me again, she shrugs before saying, “It would be rude not to go, right?”
“Who gives a shit, Nat?”
She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she smiles weakly as if to say that she knows she shouldn’t go but isn’t going to be able to stay away.
“Is that why you texted me?” I finally ask. “’Cause you didn’t want to be alone tonight?”
She nods. “Yeah,” she whispers. “Sorry I can’t be better company.” She looks up at me through an apologetic smile.
“What are you talking about?” I tease. “This is the best conversation I’ve had all week.”
She chuckles lightly.
“It’s a hell of a lot better than sitting through another random date,” I assure. “I can only ask, ‘What’s your favorite color?’ so many times before realizing how much I don’t care.”
“Mine’s orange, by the way,” she offers with a slight tilt in her head.
“Whose favorite color is orange?” I ask, not even bothering to hide the disgust in her choice .
“Me,” she defends. “It reminds me of fall.”
I poke her side again before she gives me a small giggle.