Flirting with Boys by Abbott, Hailey (freda ebook reader TXT) 📗

This was going to be the most amazing party Pinyon had ever seen, Celeste thought. As long as she could keep her cohost and her boyfriend from killing one another until after the guests left, of course.

Chapter Fifteen

As she approached the Saunders guesthouse, Celeste saw the front door open and Mr. and Mrs. Saunders emerge, carrying towels. They both were wearing

huge sunglasses, and Mrs. Saunders was teetering along on a pair of three-inch platform espadrilles. Before they could see her, Celeste ducked behind a storage shed at the side of the path. She just really didn’t want to get waylaid by another “And how is your summer going, Celeste?” small-talk conversation, like she always got sucked into with guests. They had a tendency to drag on for a long, long time, and she was on a mission.

The Saunderses passed her hiding place, so close that Celeste could smell Mrs. Saunders’s sunscreen. When they were safely past, she slipped out and ran to the back door of the guesthouse. The glass doors stood open but the screens were closed. Celeste stood for a minute, wondering whether she should knock or something, but Nick was probably still sleeping. After all, wasn’t sleeping all morning standard rich jerk behavior? Finally, she just slid back the screen and stepped into the spacious kitchen.

Nick was standing at the counter, wearing nothing but a pair of baggy gray gym shorts and drinking a glass of orange juice. His hair stood up in sleep-tangled whorls, and his eyes had only made it about halfway open.

“Oh, sorry!” Celeste said. “Uh, the door was open.”

She could feel her face turning red. For some reason, seeing him when he’d clearly just woken up was like walking in on him in the shower or something. “I’ll come back later,” she stammered and felt for the door latch behind her.

“Hey, why are you leaving?” Nick asked, calmly finishing his juice. He didn’t seem the least surprised to see her in his kitchen. “What’s up?”

“Oh, um, nothing,” Celeste said. Why was she still acting like an idiot? Come on, Celeste, she told herself sternly. He’s wearing gym shorts. Get a grip! She shook her head. “Actually, yeah, there is something. Have you talked to Devon yet?”

Nick shook his head. “No. Why?”

“Well, she got into that acting program she wanted to go to in Scotland. And she’s leaving tomorrow morning for the rest of the summer.” Celeste looked down at her worn boat shoes.

“Ohhh,” Nick said.

“So,” Celeste said continued. “I guess—”

“Do you want to go get some breakfast?” Nick asked abruptly. He turned and started heading out of the room.

“Well, um,” Celeste stammered. “I just wanted to tell you that—”

Nick was heading down the hall. “There’ve got to be some places in town, right? I’ve barely been out of the resort since we got here. I’ll just put on some clothes… .”

His voice trailed away and Celeste could hear a distant door slam.

She stood in the center of the entryway, in the perfect silence of the airy guesthouse. This wasn’t really going like she’d expected. Nick didn’t even seem concerned that Devon was gone. She had to make him

understand how important this party was—and that their relationship was going to stay strictly business. A checklist of all the things she needed to do today whirled through her head until Nick reappeared in jeans and a worn gray T-shirt. He slapped his back pocket to check for his wallet.

“Ready?” he asked Celeste, pulling a set of car keys from his pocket.

“Um.” She looked at her watch. “I’m not technically on duty until noon, but I probably should check the—”

She didn’t finish her sentence. Nick was already out the door, heading down the path to an Alfa Romeo coupe parked in the driveway.

“Wow,” Celeste said, momentarily diverted. “Where’d you get this car? I thought you guys had a Mercedes.”

Nick slid into the driver’s seat and leaned across to open the passenger door for Celeste. “We do, but my dad was getting tired of it. He had this baby driven up from L.A. the other day. Nice, huh?” He turned the key in the ignition and listened appreciatively to the roar of the engine.

“Yeah.” Celeste climbed in. “So, Mary’s Food Shack in Red Dunes is good for breakfast. They’ve got eggs and bacon and stuff. The town’s like five miles from here or so.”

“Awesome.” Nick threw the car into gear and floored the accelerator. Outside the gates, he turned onto the two-lane road that ran from the resort into town and punched the radio. “Free Fallin’” by Tom Petty came on.

Celeste rolled down her window and let the wind blow through her hair. It felt great to be zipping along like this, encased in buttery soft leather, instead of folding endless towels in the sun or fetching lemon water and carrying yoga mats for the rarely appreciative guests.

“And I’m free … free fallin’ …” Tom cried on the radio.

“I love this song!” Nick shouted over the wind whipping through the car. Celeste couldn’t help grinning.

“Me too,” she confessed. “Tom Petty was actually one of my first concerts.”

“No way!” Nick glanced over. “I saw him in San

Francisco once.”

Wow. An actual conversation with Nick Saunders.

Weird. “The café’s up here on the right,” Celeste told him as they entered Red Dunes and slowed down a bit.

She pointed to a little yellow building on the main street. Nick pulled into a parking space next to an aqua blue Toyota Prius. Even though Red Dunes was only a few miles from Palm Springs, it was still small and sleepy enough to have slant parking on Main Street. The tourists spent all their time at the resorts just outside of town. It was mostly just locals who came around here.

“They have amazing bacon,” Celeste said as they

pushed through the glass door and into the steamy interior of Mary’s. The heavenly smell of frying grease and coffee hit them full in the face. The place was crowded with people from