Page 41 of The Write Track
“Speak for yourself,” Bree said disdainfully. “I never want to walk. I’m inherently lazy. I make myself walk so I can eat as many doughnuts as I want.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Hayley waved her hand, clearly not believing her friend. “I happen to love the outdoors,” she said to me.
“That’s because you grew up on a farm, and your best friend was a cow,” Bree shot back.
Hayley glared at her. “A goat. Willy was a goat.”
“Willy the goat?” I asked before I realized I was speaking out loud.
Hayley pressed her lips together. “It was very clever for a four-year-old.”
“Of course it was.” Bree lightly patted Hayley’s shoulder. “We’re just teasing you.” Her wide-eyed stare behind Hayley’s shoulder made me giggle.
The sound died on my lips when I turned and saw Preston heading in our direction. He’d just stepped out of what looked to be some sort of official administration building.
“Speaking of tiny willies,” Bree muttered.
I cast her a sidelong look. “I don’t believe I ever mentioned that to you.”
She shrugged. “He’s got that vibe.”
“Normally, I think it’s gauche to talk about penis size, but she’s not wrong,” Hayley said. “That guy is clearly overcompensating for something.”
“No comment,” I replied primly.
Bree snorted. “I’ll get the truth out of you before this is all said and done,” she replied. “Trust me.” She pasted a fake smile on her face as Preston closed the distance. “Peter, it’s so good to see you again.” She lurched forward to shake his hand.
Peter? Why would she call him Peter?The joke hit me hard and fast. Peter, another name for willy. Also, the mere act of forgetting Preston’s name would make him edgy.
As if to prove I was right, he grimaced. “It’s Preston,” he corrected. “Not Peter.”
“Oh.” Bree feigned confusion. “I swear you said Peter. Sorry.”
She wasn’t sorry. Not even a little. Preston knew that. How could he miss it? He did not comment, however.
“Just you three so far?” he asked, glancing around.
“Brody and Nathan are in the parking lot,” Bree replied. “They’re flexing to see who can carry more bags. It’s a dude thing.” She explained it as if Preston wouldn’t know something like that because he was not, in fact, a dude.
“I see.” The way Preston looked at Bree reminded me of how little boys look at bugs on sidewalks. He wanted to crush her. “Well, how about I show you guys the cabins you’ll be staying in, huh? Then we can come back and help them with the bags, even though it’s a dude thing, and I’m obviously not a dude.”
Bree had struck a nerve. To show she wasn’t afraid of him, she unleashed the brightest smile in her repertoire. “Sounds good.”
Preston swept out his left arm. “This way, ladies.”
I exchanged an eye roll with Bree behind his back. She looked far more gleeful—in an evil way, of course—than I was feeling. Still, I kept my chin level and refused to let Preston know he was irritating me. That would be a win in his book, and I was in no mood to give him a win.
“So, this is a single,” he said as we arrived at one of the smaller cabins. “You’re single, correct?” he asked Hayley.
My stomach began to squirm at the word.Single.What was he getting at here?
“I am,” Hayley confirmed.
“Well, we had a bit of a situation with two of the cabins being bigger than the others.” Preston darted his eyes to me, and all I could see was the calculation going on in his head. He was about to do something evil.
“A situation?” Bree asked when I couldn’t muster the courage to ask the obvious question.
“Well, the two honeymoon cabins—that’s what they were designed for—are bigger than the others. There would have been a fight if we’d started tossing single authors at them.” Preston smiled, but the expression could hardly be considered friendly.No, he was about to drop a bomb on all of us. Mainly me, but this was clearly geared to get us all riled up.
