Life as We Know It: A Treasure Key Novel

by Sarah Bates

  “I’m sorry. What?” When she nodded, I frowned, and reached for a bottle of water, while she reached for a bottle of sweet tea. “But I thought Margo said that he’s in a super serious relationship.”

  “He is, now. But before he and Daphne got together, he and Margo hooked up at a party,” she replied. “And unfortunately, Wes was the one who walked in on them.”

  I felt a sharp, burning tug in my belly, and instantly thought of my dad. “So, she cheated on Wes?”

  “What? Oh, no.” Kat reached out and caught my arm and shook her head when I looked at her. “Margo’s a lot of things, but she isn’t a cheat. She and Wes had been broken up for about a month at that point. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a huge fight, of course, but both she and Jason were single when it happened.”

  I felt a greater sense of relief than I was sure most people would think would be warranted at hearing this, and held my lunch card out to the older woman at the register at the end of the line. Once we’d both gone through, we headed toward the table where Margo and the others had congregated. “So, basically Margo and Wes are on-and-off a lot, and Demi is territorial – because Margo thinks she actually likes Wes as more than a friend – and Wes is oblivious to that because of, well, Margo being Margo,” I said in a low voice.

  Kat considered this, then nodded. “Pretty much, yeah. That sums it up.”

  “Good to know.” I wondered briefly where I was supposed to sit, given that I was the newbie to the group, but before I could ask, Jamie kicked a chair out from the table and gestured to it, even as he turned his attention to Aly.

  Taking this as an invitation, I set my tray down, then sat and dropped my backpack to the floor beside me, all the while looking – covertly – around the cafeteria, wondering where Hayden was. So far that day I’d only managed to catch a quick, occasional glimpse of him in the halls between classes.

  I caught the grin Kat gave me and tried to feign ignorance over the fact I knew very well she knew I’d been looking for him.

  Was this what it was like to have a sister?

  “So, what are you talking about?” Kat asked as she opened her sweet tea.

  “Jamie wants to go to a party on Saturday,” Aly told her, brushing a long, thick black curl over her slender shoulder.

  “Ooh, that sounds like fun.” Kat took a sip of her tea and reached out to help herself to a cucumber slice from my salad bowl. “Where is it going to be?”

  “Humphrey’s beach house,” Leo replied. He nodded when she grimaced, and plucked a French fry from her tray. “Not ideal, of course, but if we manage to avoid Ava, it should be fun.”

  “Words to live by,” someone said as they came to stand behind me.

  I jolted a little in surprise – seriously, I wished people would stop doing that – and looked over my shoulder. A tall blond guy stood there, a tray in hand. He smiled, and charm all but oozed out of him as he pulled a chair from another table and turned it around to sit in it backwards, even as he set his tray down beside mine. He was good looking, in that Hollywood golden-boy way, with the angled cheeks, square jaw, and nicely toned muscles, which were very nicely displayed by the short sleeves of his light green polo t-shirt. He was decked out head-to-toe in designer everything, and had a golden, sun-kissed tan. Even his teeth were perfect and pearly white.

  “It’s always been a personal philosophy of mine to avoid my sister whenever possible,” he said. “Hello,” he added, ignoring everyone else and holding his hand out to me. “Neal Humphrey, at your service.”

  “Chloe Courtland,” I replied, and I accepted his hand, expecting to shake it; instead, he brought mine to his lips and kissed it.

  While most girls probably would have been charmed by this, I was not. The fact is, it made me feel kind of uncomfortable. Still, I didn’t want to make a scene, so when he let my hand go, I simply dropped it under the table and wiped it off on my napkin.

  “So, you’re having a party?” I asked.

  “I am,” he said, still smiling oh-so-charmingly. “Everyone’s invited. Even you, Demetria.”

  “Is this the part where I’m supposed to jump for joy and act all a flutter?” Demi asked, her tone bland as she reached for her can of strawberry soda.

  His smile faltered for just a second, and I could see the annoyance in his hazel eyes, but then his façade of charm snapped immediately back into place. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t expect such behavior from you,” he replied easily, and ignoring the dark look she gave him, he turned his smile back on me. “I do hope I can expect to see you there.”

  “Maybe,” I said, even as I thought, no thanks. “I’ll have to ask my mom.”

  His lips twitched, then spread into an even wider smile. “Really?” When I lifted my eyebrows and nodded, he chuckled. “Well, that’s fascinating. I honestly don’t remember the last time I asked either of my parents for their permission to do anything. Hmm. I didn’t even know that was still a thing. Anyway,” he added when Jamie and the other guys all narrowed their eyes. “I hope you can all make it. Until then,” he stood and grabbed his tray, then reached out and gave a lock of my hair a flirtatious tug. “See you around, Chloe Courtland.”

  I didn’t bother responding, instead I just watched him go, finding everything about him off-putting. Even his swagger.

  Shaking my head at that, I shifted in my chair to return my attention to my lunch. It was then that I saw Hayden. He was standing not far from the checkout register at the lunch counter and was watching me with a strange look of interest on his face. Then he looked over to where Neal had gone off to sit with some other guys. When he looked back to me, he lifted his eyebrows, and I shook my head. It was subtle, but he seemed to catch my meaning, and finished crossing over to our table.

  “This seat taken?” he asked, gesturing to Neal’s vacated chair.

  Everyone else at the table, save for Kat, stared in surprise at his question, and I immediately took that to mean that he wasn’t a regular member of the group.

  Ignoring the others, I smiled up at him and gestured to the chair. “All yours,” I told him.

  He set his tray on the table beside mine and turned the chair around to sit in it properly, bringing it closer to me than Neal had, and stretched his long legs out. Not saying anything else, he casually draped one of his arms over the back of my chair and reached for half of his sandwich.

  Feeling far more comfortable than I had a few minutes ago, I shifted in my chair and reached for my dish of mac and cheese, and smiled when, behind me, I could feel his fingers absently twirl strands of my hair between them.

  Five

  Later that day after school, Kat and Margo were both scheduled to work at Aunt Nora’s boutique, so Jamie dropped the three of us, and Maddie, too, off at the Courtyard before he headed over to the other side of the island, where he worked part-time at the golf club at the Humphrey Resort as a caddy.

  Since Zach wasn’t working that afternoon, he was at the library studying with his friends.

  I’d never had a job – honestly, there hadn’t been time for it, between all my training, competitions, and school – but now that my mom and I were here, maybe I would get one. That way, at least, I could earn my own spending money, and it would also give me something to do with all the time I found myself trying to fill now that I was no longer training for competitions. Considering that, I wrote a note to remind myself to talk to my mom about it while I worked on my homework assignment for history, then reached for my bottle of water.

  “I still can’t believe that Neal Humphrey was actually there flirting with you, and you basically blew him off,” Margo said – and not for the first time since lunch – as she set a box on the front checkout counter. She put her hands on her hips and shook her head at me. “I mean, seriously, Coco. He’s gorgeous, and, like, the wealthiest guy at the school. He’s prime boyfriend material.”

  I looked up from my textbook and stared at her for a moment. When she lifted her eyebrows, I set my pen down. “T
hen why don’t you date him?” I asked.

  “She’s tried,” Maddie said before Margo could reply. She sat on a stool beside me, at the back counter, also working on her homework. “He’s not really all that into local girls.”

  I frowned and took another drink of water. “But I’m technically a local girl, because I live here now,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, but you’re at least new,” she said. She shook her head at her sister when Margo gave her a dark, narrow-eyed look. “Don’t look at me like that. You know it’s true.”

  Margo rolled her eyes, then turned to open the box she’d brought out of the backroom. “All I’m saying is, you might not want to be so stand-offish around him. Going out with him could open a lot of doors for you that, you know, you might not get the chance at if you went out with someone else.”

  “And by someone else you mean Hayden,” I said, instantly annoyed.

  She shrugged and began pulling packages of fancy flip-flops from the box.

  “Margo, not everyone wants to be a trophy wife,” Kat said as she joined us. She’d been helping a customer decided between the pros and cons of sundresses versus rompers, and that customer was now in the dressing room trying different styles of both on.

  “I’m just saying she should maybe shoot for higher standards,” Margo muttered, reaching under the counter for a price gun.

  “God, Margo, you’re such a snob,” Maddie said, closing her math book. “There’s nothing wrong with Coco’s standards if she prefers to hang out with Hayden Quinn. The fact is, I’d question her standards if she chose Neal over him.”

  “Hear, hear,” Kat said, giving her a quick fist-bump. “Money isn’t the be all end all, Margo. And it certainly doesn’t make Neal a better person.”

  They all looked at me and waited expectantly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t just the topic of conversation, but was still a participating member of the conversation,” I said before I thought better of it.

  Kat’s lips twitched, then all three of them snorted out laughs.

  “Well, okay, I guess that soundly puts us in our places,” Margo said.

  I grimaced and shifted on my stool. “Sorry, I didn’t mean,”

  “No, no. You were right. That was rude of us. I guess we’re just used to it being the three of us, and we’re all very opinionated,”

  “Some of us more so than others,” Maddie said in agreement before Margo could finish. She grinned when her sister gave her a bland look. “Anyway, I think I want something to munch on, so I’m going to the bakery. Any takers?” she asked as she hopped off her stool.

  “Actually, I could go for an iced coffee,” I said, and I grabbed my wallet from my backpack and slid off my stool as well. “Do you guys want anything?”

  “I’ll have a sweet tea,” Kat replied as she turned to go take care of her customer again when she stepped out of the dressing room. “And if they have any French crullers left, that’d be great.”

  “Jeez, I don’t know how she doesn’t end up in a sugar coma,” Margo muttered, shaking her head as she priced the pile of flip-flops she’d formed on the counter. “I’ll have a frozen matcha latte,” she added.

  “Gotcha,” I said, heading for the front doors to join Maddie.

  “No, matcha,” she called out.

  When I turned to look at her, she gave me a blank look, then dropped her head back and laughed when I lifted my eyebrows.

  I smirked, shook my head, and joined Maddie at the front doors.

  “Sorry about that,” Maddie said as we stepped out into the thick, humid heat of the day. “Margo kind of lacks a filter sometimes, and for some reason doesn’t understand that not everyone wants to be a pampered trophy wife.”

  I thought briefly of my dad’s girlfriend and tried not to draw any comparisons between her and my cousin. But honestly, it was hard. Shaking my head at that, I followed her the few feet down the walkway to the next storefront. “I’m sure that’s not all Margo wants,” I said, reaching out to open the door to Cooke’s Bakery and Café.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said, looking as unsure as her tone. “She’s always been pretty adamant that that’s her ultimate goal in life. I think that’s just one more reason why she and Demi don’t get along anymore.”

  “Kat said something about them being friends once,” I said as we got in line. “And that their falling out had to do with Wes.”

  “Oh, for sure he’s the main reason they aren’t friends anymore, but I think part of it is also because she and Demi are like oil and water; they just don’t mix well. But they both care about Wes, so they put up with each other. Sometimes. Others…not so much.”

  I hummed at that, and when we got to the front of the line, studied the menu board. “Wow,” I said, surprised by the number of beverages they offered. They’d give Starbucks a run for their money. “I wasn’t expecting such a selection.”

  Maddie grinned, her smile brightening up her pretty face. “There’s a lot more to our little island than it first appears,” she said.

  I thought of the day before, when I’d gone to the shopping center with Kat, and what I had said then. To Maddie, I said, “So I’m learning.” I cocked my head as I studied the frozen blended drinks. “It’s hard to say no to an espresso chip frozen mocha.”

  “That’s my favorite, too,” the girl behind the counter said as she came back to the register. She looked about my age, maybe a little younger, like Maddie, and had long, pretty red hair, and big, bright blue eyes showcased by horn-rim glasses. Her name tag said Nelle, and she kind of reminded me a little of Margo and Kat’s friend, Jenny. “What size would you like?”

  “I’ll take a medium. And Margo wanted a frozen matcha latte – we’ll go with a medium for that, too – and a medium sweet tea for Kat.” I glanced at Maddie. “Mads?”

  “Ooh, I like that,” she said, grinning. “Mads. Yeah, I like that. Hmm. I’ll go with a medium frozen caramel crunch latte, and, oh, Kat wanted a,”

  “French cruller,” Nelle finished for her as she wrote our orders out on our plastic cups. “Anything else?”

  “Oh, you can’t go wrong with their key lime sugar cookies,” Maddie told me.

  “She’s not wrong,” Nelle affirmed. “They are our signature cookie for a reason.”

  “Then I guess we’ll go with half a dozen of those,” I said, pulling some cash from my wallet.

  She nodded and rang everything up, then after handing me my change – which I added to the tip jar – she went to put our pastry order together while a man, I was assuming it was her dad given their close resemblance, filled our drink order.

  Once we had everything, I turned, drink tray in hand, to follow Maddie to the door, and nearly plowed right into someone. And it was my luck that that someone was Hayden. He caught the tray and steadied it, and grinned when I blushed.

  “In a hurry?” he asked.

  “No, not particularly.”

  “Good. Mind if I steal her for a few minutes?” he asked Maddie.

  “Not at all. Steal away.” She grinned and reached out to take the tray from me, then, when I had taken my drink from it, headed for the door.

  “So,” I said, turning my gaze back to Hayden. “What have you been up to?” He’d changed out of his jeans and t-shirt from earlier and now wore dark blue work pants and a tight white tank top that left little to the imagination concerning the state of his physique. He was, well, built seemed an appropriate word, though not in a bulky way, and the sight of his bare arms reminded me of the first time I had seen him on the beach.

  “Not much, just ran home to change for work, and then I had to look at an air-conditioner in one of the rooms. Then I figured Levi and his dad could both use a caffeine fix as much as I could at this point, so I stopped for fortification on my way to the shop,” he replied.

  “You work at the auto shop?” I asked. Though he’d mentioned his friend yesterday, I hadn’t met him today, or seen Hayden hanging out w
ith anyone.

  “Part-time,” he replied, reaching around me to take the drink tray Nelle’s dad held out to him. “When I’m not there I’m usually fixing something at my grandparents’ motel.”

  “So, you’re a jack of all trades?” I asked as we turned toward the door together.

  “Something like that. My grandpa’s always been kind of a handyman and I guess I take after him,” he replied. “Keeps the hands busy and the mind engaged, and the body out of trouble.”

  “That sounds like a quote,” I said, sipping my drink. It was good, but I had a feeling that my present company may have been a factor in my current state of enjoyment.

  “It is.” He grinned and lifted his drink, a simple iced black coffee, and took a drink. “It’s my grandma’s theory that if she keeps my brother and me constantly busy then we won’t have time to get into trouble.”

  “Little does she know that where there’s a will, there’s a way,” I said, and his grin brightened as he opened the door, gesturing me out first.

  “No truer words,” he said, and lifted his drink, as though in toast. He gave me a considering look as we walked down the walkway toward my aunt’s boutique. “Something tells me, though, that you’re not really the kind of girl to actively seek out trouble.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked, toying with my straw. I honestly didn’t have much experience with flirting, so I had no idea if I was coming off as flirty or coy.

  He hummed and took another sip of his drink. “Well, for starters, you didn’t fall all over Humphrey when he was oozing his charm all over you at lunch.”

  I wrinkled my nose at the memory of it. Still, I was curious with his reasoning. “And that’s a valid indication of being a good girl?” I asked, taking another sip of my drink.

  “Well, it at least shows you’ve got common sense. But then, if I bad-mouth him too much to you, it might make you think that I was trying to lure you over to my side of things for my own nefarious purposes.” He grinned when I snorted out a laugh.