Free Winter's Kiss by Catherine Hapka Page B

don’t know. It seemed like that was all he wanted, and I couldn’t let him take advantage of me.”
    “Maybe he thought that’s all you wanted from him ,” Chloe suggested.
    I frowned at this disturbing possibility. “Maybe. It’s hard to have a heart-to-heart with someone who throws stuff at you and calls you a fire-crotch and a bitch.”
    “Is that all that happened?” Liz prompted me. “You stopped him from kissing you, and he called you a bitch?”
    “No,” I admitted. “I told him I didn’t want to kiss him because he hadn’t asked me to the Poser concert. He hadn’t asked me about winning the competition. He acted like I was just a convenient catch because all of y’all are dating. I told him we had irreconcilable differences.”
    Chloe gasped. “Like in a divorce? Hayden, why did you say that?”
    I supposed it did sound ugly, now that I thought about it. But not that ugly. “We were both making divorce jokes in the hall last Friday. He started it.”
    “Hayden.” Liz leaned forward and took me by both shoulders, bracing me for the bad news she was about to break. “Nick’s mother left his father on Sunday.”
    “What!” I hollered, jumping off the bed to pace the floor.
    “He told Gavin and Davis,” Chloe said, “and they told Liz and me. Nick must have thought you knew. If I were him, and you blew me off and made divorce jokes, I guess I would have called you a bitch, too.”
    I stopped pacing and put my hands in my hair to keep from throttling her. “Jesus, Chloe! Why did you invite him over here in the middle of his family troubles?”
    “He’s friends with Gavin and Davis,” she said. “He needed to get out of the house and forget about it for a night. He needs all our support right now.”
    Guilt trip.
    “And you didn’t have a date tonight because you broke up with Everett,” Chloe said.
    I took my hands out of my hair so I wouldn’t tear it out. “Everett and his mama broke up with me , thank you very much.”
    “You shouldn’t have made out with him in his mother’s scrapbooking room,” Liz said sagely.
    “We’re seventeen,” I snapped, “and Everett and I had been dating for two months when that happened. What were we supposed to do, eat dinner with his family and keep our hands on the table where everyone could see them? I mean, you and Davis are Mr. and Mrs. Polite Reserve, and even you were macking in the hot tub an hour ago.” I picked up a pink fuzzy pillow that had fallen from the bed and threw it at Liz.
    “You were ?” Chloe gushed. “You what ? Hello, I need the details of Liz and Davis.”
    “Hayden!” Liz squealed, ducking behind Chloe. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have made out with Everett. I’m saying you shouldn’t have done it in his mother’s scrapbooking room. Location, location, location. You might have dis-organized her supplies. Some people are very particular about their chipboard getting mixed up with their cardstock.”
    I closed my eyes, inhaled through my nose, and felt my lungs fill with air. My blood spread the life-giving oxygen throughout my body.
    “Watch out,” Chloe whispered to Liz. “She’s doing yoga.”
    My eyes snapped open. So much for controlling my temper. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me Nick’s mother left before I went into the sauna with him?” I hollered at Chloe.
    “We didn’t know he was here!” Liz came to Chloe’s defense.
    “And if we’d warned you about him before he got here,” Chloe explained, “you would have known he was coming. We didn’t want you to leave. The two of you are surprisingly hard to throw together, let me tell you.”
    “I’m not buying it,” I informed Chloe. “You were distracted. You had your mind on taking inventory.”
    Liz giggled, turned red, and fell back on the pillows.
    “Taking inventory requires enormous concentration!” Chloe said with a straight face, but she was blushing, too.
    I was glad for them, really. I was happy they’d had fun with