“You’re welcome,” she says, giving me a cheerful, sparkly smile. It took me through most of last week to realize that she actually is into me, and is actively courting me. I’m flattered and confused, but I’m rolling with it. Chasm refuses to admit he’s into me; Parrish adamantly denies. So fuck both of them anyway. “Anything for you, of course.”
“Mostly, thank you for not asking us to go on the hike with you,” Danyella adds, and I laugh.
“I’m not much of a hiker either, but my sister’s practically frothing at the mouth to get me on a trail with her. She thinks a good hike can cure any ailment: mental, physical, or spiritual.” I shrug my shoulders, but in reality, I’m excited. My stomach hurts with happy nerves at the thought of seeing my sister again. It feels like it’s been forever. With Tess hovering over my shoulder all the time, I’ve barely even been able to talk to her since the stupid talk show. Speaking of … “Did you guys see that one of the Cortez sisters is missing?” I ask, but Lumen gives me a look that says duh, I’m up on all the goss, girl, I know.
“Her grandmother thinks she ran away; she pleaded with her to come home on yesterday’s episode.” Lumen jerks the wheel and sends us flying partially over the curb into the parking lot for the trailhead; I can already see Maxx’s Jeep Gladiator waiting and my heart lurches strangely in my chest.
Gamer Girl crushing on sister’s boyfriend. Not a promising tagline. I shut that thought down quick.
“That’s terrible; I hope nothing’s happened to her,” Danyella muses, but mostly it’s just celebrity gossip that nobody cares about.
“Holy shit, is that really Maxx Wright?” Lumen breathes as we fly into a pair of parking spaces (Lumen couldn’t park in a single space if her life depended on it) and poor Maxx is forced to hop out of the way to avoid being run over. “I mean, he was hot in high school, but now? Damn.”
“Girl, you’re so thirsty you’re about to die from dehydration.” Danyella rolls down her window to wave at Maxx. Sometimes I forget that they know him, that until this year, he went to school with basically everyone I know. “Hey Maxx, how are you?” she asks as Lumen checks her lip gloss in the mirror on the back of her visor.
“I’m great,” he says with a big grin, folding his arms on the edge of the window and leaning in. “Hey Lumen.”
“Hey cutie,” she says, and then flips the visor back up. “Take care of my girlfriend while you’re on the trails today, okay? I don’t want her eaten by a cougar or kidnapped by the Seattle Slayer or anything.”
“Oh, don’t worry. The Slayer only chooses victims from the Seattle metro area.” Maxx says nothing about cougars, standing up and then opening my door for me. Shit. But not shit on the cougars part, shit on how freaking cute he is.
“We’re going to hit Portland while you guys are walking in the heat for no reason whatsoever,” Lumen continues, and I can’t help but laugh. Maxx raises a brow, tucking his hands into the back pockets of his fancy hiking pants. Maxine told me that he bought her a pair, and that they cost almost two hundred freaking dollars. For pants. He might not be ‘rich’ like the other Whitehall Prep students, but the Wrights are loaded when compared to the Banks. “Give us a warning when you’re about an hour out from the lot.”
“Will do,” Maxx says, offering up a little salute. My heart flutters, so I give it a little slap to keep it quiet. So cringe, Dakota, so freaking cringe.
“Where’s Maxine?” I ask as I climb out, standing on my toes and trying to peep in the windows of the Gladiator. Maxx waves bye to Lumen and Danyella as they screech out of the parking lot and then turns to me with a smile crafted of gold and self-assured confidence. This bastard, I think, trying and failing to catch my breath.
“She couldn’t make it today,” he says, and my heart crashes into my belly, shattering to pieces. Maxx—or X, as he wants me to call him—raises both hands like he’s trying to ward off a storm. “Nothing serious, I promise. Just a bad case of mono.” He pauses, like he’s just realized that my sister has what’s commonly known as ‘the kissing disease’. “Not from me, obviously. Her entire study group has it; they always share drinks.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I pout, wishing I had a phone that wasn’t being tracked by Tess; I left mine back at Danyella’s place. She has Lumen’s number, but that girl’s phone is an explosion on the best of days; she gets like a hundred notifications an hour. Even if Maxine did message us, Lumen wouldn’t have seen it.
