Life as We Know It: A Treasure Key Novel

by Sarah Bates

  As I was not particularly one to read such things – the couple on the cover were half naked, dressed partially in inaccurate period clothing; my best guess was they’d been going for a risqué Regency look – but I recognized the name of the author, Olivia Brady, and remembered that my mom had once been a fan of her books.

  Shrugging, I tossed it into my beach tote, thinking it might prove entertaining if I got bored, and changed into my one and only bikini, a simple royal blue halter top and matching bottoms, and tossed my hair up into a messy bun at the crown of my head. With a pair of frayed denim shorts and a purple tank top over my bikini, I slipped my feet into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed my tote and sunglasses, and followed Kat out of her room.

  Zach and Donovan were standing out front in the little courtyard, by the fountain, clearly waiting for us, Zach yawning hugely.

  “Mom says you have to take us with you if you want to take the van,” he said when Kat opened her mouth to protest. It was supposed to be a girls’ day, after all.

  “Fine, you can catch a ride with us, but then you guys are on your own,” Kat said. “Very back row, as we’re stopping for others,” she added.

  They both saluted her, then turned and headed for the van. A moment later, Jamie came out the door, likewise ready for the beach. “I’m driving,” he announced, holding his hand out to Kat for the keys.

  “Um, no.” She turned away from him and headed toward the van.

  “Kat,”

  “Very back row, or walking. Your choice,” she said as she climbed in behind the wheel.

  He grumbled but got in behind her, climbing over the middle seat to join Zach and Donovan in the very back row, leaving me to be the last to get in, in the front passenger seat. “So, what’s the game plan?” he asked, shifting in the cramped space, clearly trying to get comfortable.

  “We’re stopping to pick up Margo, Maddie, and Aly, and then we females are going to meet up with Jenny and Esme. I don’t know what you Neanderthals are doing,” Kat replied. “Whatever it is, it’ll be far away from us.”

  Jamie hummed at that, but otherwise refrained from responding, and simply slid his sunglasses on, while Zach and Donovan exchanged a look.

  When we reached Uncle Hank’s house, Margo, Maddie, and Aly were waiting in the driveway.

  Margo, never letting an opportunity to be dramatic pass her by, dragged one of the back doors open, fanning herself. “Could you have been any later?” she complained.

  “You can walk if you like,” Kat responded pleasantly.

  Margo made a face but decided it was best not to respond, then rolled her eyes when she saw the guys. “I thought this was going to be a girls’ day,” she said, folding her arms at her chest. Unlike the rest of us, she hadn’t bothered with a shirt to cover up her bright, bubble gum pink bikini top.

  “It is, they’re just catching a ride,” Kat said, then she and Margo both sighed when Aly let out a happy laugh at seeing Jamie.

  “Switch,” she said to Donovan, patting the back of the middle seat.

  “Fine by me,” he said, and he climbed over the back of the seat, all flailing arms and legs, making space in the very back for her.

  She smiled and climbed over the seat far more gracefully than he had, and snuggled against Jamie. When they started kissing, Zach whined softly and shifted to look out his window.

  Donovan smirked, then gave Maddie a flirty smile as she and Margo settled into the seats.

  She rolled her eyes and leaned forward between the two front seats. “Can you drive quickly?” she requested.

  Kat smirked and put on her blinker. “Like the wind, little cousin. Like the wind,” she said, and she pulled out into the street.

  While Kat dominated on the go-kart track at the Fun Center, I now understood why Jamie was always the one who drove us around town. She had a lead foot. I remembered thinking this the last time I’d ridden with her, the Saturday before when I was going to meet up with Hayden for lunch, but it was even more prevalent today.

  “Thank God!” Zach and Donovan both cried out as soon as we were safely parked in the beach lot. I have to admit; I couldn’t blame them for it.

  “We lived!” Zach added, with feeling.

  Kat merely rolled her eyes. “Drama queens,” she called back at them.

  Zach and Donovan each held a hand up, their middle fingers extended, as they clamored out of the back. Maddie snickered as she hopped out after them, while Margo simply took a moment to reapply her lipstick.

  In the very back, Jamie and Aly were still making out.

  A day with my cousins and our friends was never dull, I decided, climbing out of the passenger seat.

  “Hey,” Jenny called out, waving to us from a nearby picnic table. She was eating what appeared to be a breakfast sandwich, a large iced coffee from her parents’ bakery on the table beside her over-sized beach tote.

  Also sitting on the table beside her tote, was the elusive Ian McKay. He was the only friend of my cousins that I hadn’t met yet, as he had graduated the year before, along with Levi and Jason, and as such was usually on the mainland, where he was going to school. But I’d seen enough pictures of him to recognize him.

  Like the rest of us, he was dressed for a day on the beach, and like, Jenny, he was eating.

  “Hey, man,” Jamie called out when he saw him. “When did you get here?”

  “Last night.” Ian licked ketchup form his thumb and reached for his own iced coffee. “I was bored, so I just got in my car and started to drive. Ended up home.” He tipped his head back, turning his face up to the sun. “Figured it’s a good day for the beach.”

  “Did Britt come?” Maddie asked, looking around for her friend, who was Ian’s younger sister.

  “She told me to tell you to meet her at the Surf Shop. Nelle and Brianna are with her,” he replied between sips.

  “Excellent.” Maddie hauled the straps of her beach tote higher onto her shoulder. “Come along, boys,” she called out to Zach and Donovan as she turned toward the Surf Shop.

  “We’re only coming with you because we were already going there,” Zach informed her as they hurried after her.

  In the distance I heard her snort.

  We all watched them go, then glanced back to each other.

  “All right, McKay,” Jenny said as she stood from her bench. “This is where I leave you.” She handed him what was left of her sandwich, kissed his cheek, then grinned and laughed when he turned his head and kissed her quickly on the lips. “Smooth move, Casanova. Behave yourself,” she told him, shoving his shoulder as she grabbed her bag and drink.

  “But it’s so much more fun when I don’t,” he said back to her.

  She just shook her head as she joined Kat, Margo, Aly, and me, and waved at Jamie in a shooing gesture.

  He rolled his eyes, kissed Aly quickly, then headed over to the table, sitting on top of it along with Ian, instead of the bench.

  “Is that a guy thing?” I asked as we girls headed out onto the beach.

  “What?” Aly asked, pulling a bottle of water from her bag.

  “Sitting on the table instead of the bench,” I replied, gesturing back at the two of them.

  “Oh. Yeah, mostly,” she said, after taking a dainty sip. “Hey, where’s Esme?” she asked, poking Margo in the shoulder.

  “I don’t know.”

  “She said she’s skipping girls’ day, because she and Delaney had some stuff to talk about,” Jenny replied. She shrugged when we all glanced at her. “She seemed to be in a particularly good mood when she called me, so I’m guessing ‘stuff to talk about’ is actually code for ‘we’re still in bed’,” she added.

  “Smug bitch,” Margo muttered, though without any heat.

  Aly and Jenny both laughed, while Kat gave her a bland look.

  “Don’t look at me like that, Katerina,” Margo said as she lifted a hand to adjust her sunglasses. “She who’s never had a boy in her bed doesn’t get to have an opinion on such comments
. Because if she had, she’d understand and agree.”

  Now I gave her a bland look. “Now who’s the smug bitch,” I said before I even thought about it.

  They all stopped and turned to look at me quickly, each of them clearly surprised. Then Margo dropped her head back and laughed, while the others looked between us. Then they all smirked, then laughed as well.

  “Touché,” Margo said, still snickering. Then she smiled and made an appreciative humming sound. “I found our spot.”

  “Where…oh, jeez,” Kat muttered, and she shook her head as she followed Margo’s gaze.

  I shifted and followed it as well, and was completely unsurprised when my gaze landed on a group of shirtless guys playing volleyball. Then I looked back to Margo and shook my head, my lips curving into a grin. “You have a very one-track mind, don’t you?”

  “Nope. At least three; guys, money, clothes,” she replied, ticking them off on her slender, neatly manicured fingers.

  “That seems to cover all the important bases,” Jenny said, and then she simply fell into step with Margo as she headed toward the guys.

  Aly shrugged and followed them.

  I glanced at Kat, and she sighed and shook her head. “Well, this should be interesting to watch,” she said, and we each hooked an arm around each other and followed them.

  Thirteen

  Spending the day with my cousins and our friends proved to be an excellent way to unwind and relax.

  Maybe I still wasn’t brave enough to go beyond my knees in the water, and I still spent a great deal of time under an umbrella, but as the day wore on, I found that I was starting to understand the appeal of hot days at the beach.

  The only thing that would have made it better was if Hayden had been there with me. Unfortunately, he was busy with work – Sundays were apparently a big turnover day for the motel, and the water filter pump for the pool had broken down on top of all the cleaning that had to be done – so we’d had to settle for a very brief hour later that evening, most of which was spent in the hammock in the backyard at Uncle Jim’s, catching each other up on our respective days, between kisses.

  This was, of course, after he’d seen the mess of Uncle Jim’s lawnmower still spread out on the lawn and he had quickly and skillfully put it back together, while also fixing whatever it was that had temporarily rendered the machine lifeless the morning before.

  Now Aunt Nora called him the ‘machine whisperer’ and had begun to wonder out loud if maybe he could teach Jamie and Zach a thing or two about handy work.

  Uncle Jim, who was handy himself, lawnmower motors notwithstanding, informed her he’d teach his sons how to be handy himself. As neither Jamie nor Zach were particularly interested in such things, they were, needless to say, not thrilled at the prospect.

  Which was probably why they were still giving me what Kat called the stink-eye the next morning, and only responded to me with indiscernible grunts from the time we got up until we arrived at school. Then Jamie had other things to deal with, as, when we approached the entrance to school, Leo stepped away from the railing he’d been leaning against beside Hayden, and hooked an arm around Kat, pulling her snuggly against his side.

  When Jamie gave them a dark, rather venomous look, Leo had simply told him to get over it, then led Kat inside.

  Hayden had looked between them, then at me and silently lifted his eyebrows. I shook my head and wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him toward the door.

  By lunch Jamie was still furious, which he made well-known by slamming his lunch tray on the table and glaring at his sister and best friend. “What the hell?” he demanded of them, his arms folded at his chest. “I thought I said no.”

  “And the last time I checked, we still live in a free country, and you don’t get to tell us what we can and cannot do,” Leo replied easily as he plucked a chip from his insulated lunch box. “You don’t get to tell us what to do, James.”

  “She’s my sister,”

  “Yes, and I’m your friend. Neither of those facts have changed for either of us. How you feel about it and what you do about it is completely up to you. But,” he added when Jamie opened his mouth, “it would seriously suck if you tossed away a lifetime of friendship simply because you’ve decided for some reason that you get to be the boss of all of us, and throw a snit over the fact that we’ve dared to go against your edicts.” He studied Jamie for a moment, then pushed his usual chair at him. “Sit down, James, and eat your lunch.”

  “Now who thinks he’s the boss?” Jamie said, dropping his arms to his sides.

  Leo’s lips twitched. “How do you like it?” he asked.

  Jamie made a face, but to my surprise, he sat down. He did give Kat a dark look, but didn’t say anything else as he began to eat. He may have capitulated for the moment, but there was no way this argument was even remotely over, and it seemed that everyone at the table, even Hayden, came to the same conclusion.

  “I don’t foresee that ending well,” Hayden said after we had finished eating and he escorted me to my locker, so I could switch out some of my books.

  “I hope for Jamie’s sake you’re wrong,” I said, reaching out to open my locker. “But I have a feeling that you might be right, at least for a while.” Then Kat and Leo joined us, and I added, “You guys could have talked to him instead of blindsiding him on the front steps, you know.”

  “We tried,” Kat said, her hand held firmly in Leo’s, their fingers laced. “Last night, even, when you guys were out back. He just completely ignored us, like we weren’t even talking, then said no, and walked away.”

  “Why?” Hayden asked, then he held up a hand. “Sorry, it’s none of my business,” he said before either of them could respond.

  “Actually, it’s a fair question,” Leo said. “Unfortunately, it still doesn’t have an answer, because he refuses to give us one.” He sighed when the bell rang, and glanced at Kat. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your class.”

  She nodded and rested her head on his shoulder as they headed down the hall.

  We watched them go, then Hayden slipped an arm around me, and we followed them.

  After school, Hayden drove me over to the Courtyard, even though it would put him behind schedule, and walked me to the boutique, where I was scheduled to work with Kat and Margo, while Aunt Nora went through the new inventory in preparation for the photo shoot at the end of the week.

  Kat, escorted by Leo, arrived at the same time we did.

  “Where’s Margo?” I asked as we set our backpacks behind the counter.

  “She said she was going to run over to the pharmacy to grab some magazines. You know, so she can study up on the latest modeling trends before Saturday,” Kat replied, reaching up to pull her long strawberry blonde hair into a ponytail.

  “What’s happening on Saturday?” Hayden asked as he tapped out a message – probably to Levi – on his phone.

  “The quarterly photo shoot,” Kat replied, and she smiled shyly when Leo hummed and grinned at her.

  “Photo shoot?” Hayden glanced up at her, then at me.

  “For Aunt Nora’s sales flyer,” I replied, pulling my own hair back into a ponytail as well. While working, it was just easier to not have to constantly be pushing it out of my face, especially since I knew we would be resetting part of the store in order to accommodate some of the new merchandise.

  “Ah.” He nodded in understanding, then cocked his head, and his lips curved into that sexy, lopsided grin of his. “So, since you said you’re working on Saturday, does that mean that you’re going to be participating in this photo shoot?” he asked.

  I blushed self-consciously and cleared my throat. “Maybe,” I replied.

  His grin widened and he lifted his hands up to cup my face. “Gold medalist figure skater and a model?” He kissed me lightly, then pulled back. “You continue to surprise and delight me, Coco.”

  My blush brightened, especially when Leo glanced at me in surprise. He, like most of the others, knew
nothing about my skating. “Regional gold,” I said, shaking my head. “Hardly impressive.”

  “And national silver,” Hayden countered, walking backward toward the door. “And both are very impressive.”

  “Hayden,”

  “Coco.” He shook his head as he came to a stop. “Don’t ever sell yourself short. I don’t like it when you do. Talent is talent. Now,” he continued before I could respond, “I’m making a coffee run before I head to the shop. Would you like something?”

  “I’ll take a frozen matcha latte,” Margo said as she breezed by him, her arms loaded with fashion magazines.

  He arched an eyebrow, but smirked, then glanced at me. “My love?” he asked.

  I froze, halfway through typing my employee number into the front computer, and glanced at him, my heart tripping several giddy beats. We smiled at the same time, and I lifted a hand and tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear. “Frozen mocha,” I replied.

  He nodded, then shifted at the door, where Leo joined him, and they left together.

  “Holy crap,” Kat said when it was just the three of us. She grinned hugely when I glanced at her. “My love?” She hopped up and down excitedly, then tossed her arms around me in a tight hug. “This is so huge.”

  I felt an excited fluttering in my belly and hugged her in return, then pulled back and pressed my hands to my cheeks, which were warm with another, brighter blush. “I wasn’t expecting that,” I confessed.

  “But?” she asked, still grinning happily at me.

  “But I like it,” I said, and I lowered my hands to rest them over my heart. “Kat,”

  “I know,” she said when my voice caught. “You’re totally in love with him.”

  “Well, duh,” Margo said as she paged through one of her magazines, and she smirked when we both gave her a bland look. “Sorry, but anyone with halfway decent vision can see they’re total goners for each other. Plus, only an idiot would stick with a boy she only liked when faced with the wrath of someone like Ava Humphrey.” She turned another page and hummed as she studied one of the pictures. “As Coco is clearly not an idiot, the obvious answer for her continued devotion to Hayden is that she’s in love with him.”