“Did she do something? Say something?” Sydney had the same tone that a protective older sibling would have, and Hallie loved her all the more for it.
God, where did Hallie even start? The date had been a total and unmitigated disaster.
But after twenty years of friendship, she knew that Sydney would want details. “She just seemed so incredibly underwhelmed by everything. The place that I picked. My conversation. That I work some customer service job at an inn?—”
“First of all,” Sydney cut in, “she sounds like a jerk. And secondly, I can’t imagine that you lied about anything on your profile, so it sounds like aherproblem more than anything.”
Hallie frowned and ran her fingers along the smooth, white table. “Well, she didn’t exactly make me feel that way.”
Ruby had just seemed so… bored, for lack of a better word. It was like she’d expected Hallie to pick her up on a Harley and whisk her away for the wildest, most wondrous night of her life.
Unfortunately, seafood tapas at a new restaurant a few towns over had not met the standards of the “surprise me” request that Ruby had put in her profile.
Ahead of the date, Hallie had spent hours looking for a unique, interesting activity or restaurant they could enjoy in the dead of winter in small-town Massachusetts. She’d beenpretty pleased with her selection, especially once she’d combed through the reviews and noted that people had called it “the newest hidden gem within fifty miles.” In the summer, when tourists flocked to the area, it was likely going to be the hottest reservation around.
But then she’d actually gone on the date and had seen the look of disdain on Ruby’s face, like Hallie had taken her to Red Lobster for never-ending shrimp and then told her that they had to sneak sharing a single order.
The really annoying part was that Brynn would have loved that tapas place. So many small plates to try, where Brynn could have compared them all to one another and categorized them by different ratings systems. She might even have made a spreadsheet.
Hallie could picture it so clearly: taste rankings, presentation rankings, probably some insane ranking system that included quality based on distance the main ingredient would have had to travel from its natural habitat.
She wished that she’d been there with Brynn. And that was the real rub, even if it was also true that Ruby had made her feel like gum on the bottom of a shoe.
Now that she wasn’t fighting for every point on the tennis court, it was easy to slip back into thinking about this morning.
About Brynn, specifically, and all the reasons her ill-advised crush needed to be tamped down on as soon as humanly possible.
Thankfully, Sydney cut Hallie’s thoughts off before her mind could wander too far. “And that part, my friend, is ayouproblem. There is always going to be someone smarter or cooler or more talented or wealthier or insert-adjective-here than you.”
Hallie lifted a brow and smirked. “Says the smartest, coolest, most talented, wealthiest person that I know.”
“Then I feel like it bodes well for you to listen to me,” Sydney chirped back, leveling her own, equally pleased smirk in Hallie’s direction.
Hallie deflated, sinking back against the chair. “I’m trying.” She rapped her knuckles against her temple. “It doesn’t seem to be sticking.”
Sydney leaned forward and propped her elbows on the table. “This feels bigger than a bad date. What’s going on? Something with Brynn?”
Anxiety welled up in Hallie’s gut so that her words came out rushed. “Why would you think there’s something going on with Brynn?”
Was she that obvious? Did she havecrush-struck foolwritten across her head in permanent marker?
“I was taking a chance. You live together. You work together. You spend all your free time together. Seemed like a likely culprit, if there was something else in play.” Sydney paused before adding, “Especially if you didn’t want to talk to me about it, since she and Reese are friends.”
Hallie held her hand up to her chest in offense. “I would never lie to you.”
“Except when you did actually break my best tennis racket and then blamed it on a rogue raccoon. As if I would ever believe that.”
“We were ten!” It wasn’t the first time they’d had this argument. And, in Hallie’s defense, it had been a complete accident. Not even hers, technically. She’d never wanted to lie to Sydney, but she let that story exist in its original form for so long that, sometimes, she forgot it wasn’t actually the truth. And, at this moment, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why she hadn’t corrected it long ago.
She hadn’t heard from her parents since coming back to Stoneport, and she wasn’t feeling very merciful toward them ortheir feelings. “My dad ran over it with the golf cart. When you ran inside to go to the bathroom and call your parents about staying longer, I put it at the edge of the court, just to make sure that nothing happened to it. I knew how expensive it was. But when my dad was coming around the corner, he accidentally hit it. He was worried that if your parents knew he’d done it, they’d ask him to replace it, but if it was me, they’d be more likely to let it slide since we were just kids.”
Sydney, to her credit, looked downright shocked. Her lips set in a grim, clearly displeased line.
Why had she never told that to Sydney before? For years, it had been a funny story that they’d parried back and forth, but now, it didn’t seem nearly as amusing. Hallie’s dad had forced her to take the fall—and make up a stupid lie on top of it—for something that hadn’t been her fault.
Sure, she and Sydney laughed about it now, but, that day, Sydney had cried over her mangled racket, and then she hadn’t spoken to Hallie for a week.
If there was one consolation in the present, it was that Sydney at least seemed distracted from wanting to talk about Brynn. “What an asshole,” she said, her voice full of anger.
