Page 22 of The Facade

So when Regina, our head staff member, went to open the front door, I told her I could get it. But just as I was reaching for the handle, I remembered that I still hadn’t tamed my helmet hair. I rushed to the mirror we had on the wall close by and started combing my fingers through my hair.

The doorbell rang again, and I jumped.

Mack’s footsteps sounded in the hallway. “Are you just going to ignore him?”

I looked back at Mack, and in a quiet voice, I whisper-shouted, “I’m just fixing my hair real quick.”

“You look fine.” Mack leaned a broad shoulder against the wall. “Just open the door.”

But I shook my head and went back to taming my hair.

There was a knock at the door then, like Ben assumed no one was answering because the doorbell was broken.

Why did he have to show up early?

“If you don’t open that door right now, I’ll open it for you and tell Ben the reason why he got stuck standing out there is because we were making out and it got so intense that I couldn’t help but tangle my fingers through your silky hair.”

What?

“You wouldn’t dare.” I narrowed my eyes and glared at him.

“Dare make out with you?” Mack pursed his lips into a pout as if considering the thought. Then he shrugged. “I don’t know. It might be fun.”

And when he waggled his eyebrows flirtatiously, my heart had a momentary lapse in judgement and flipped.

Yes, my heart actually flipped at the thought of kissing my brother’s stupid best friend. But I told it to calm down because kissing Mack was the last thing I should be thinking about.

Especially when myactualcrush was standing on my doorstep and probably wondering why no one was answering.

Instead of responding to Mack’s flirtatious comment, I gave my reflection one last glance in the mirror and opened the door.

Standing on the doorstep with the late afternoon sunlight hitting him in just the right way to make him look like he’d just stepped off an action-movie set was Ben.

He wore a long-sleeve, yellow-and-black shirt with a Fox symbol on it, like he was ready to go motorbiking. And suddenly, all the annoyance I’d felt toward Mack a second ago for all his teasing ways disappeared because he’d made this happen.

Mack had gotten Ben to come to my house.

“H-hi,” I managed to say after staring at Ben’s defined jawline for just a moment too long. “C-come in.”

I stepped back to let him in.

“Thanks,” he said, his boots thudding on the marble floor. “Mack said we were going four-wheeling, is that right?”

I nodded, and after loosening my tongue again, I managed to say, “Yes. We’re just waiting for Carter and Ava and a few others now.”

I glanced at where Mack had been standing a moment before, hoping he might help me welcome Ben to my house, but he must have already disappeared back into the kitchen because he was nowhere to be seen.

I cleared my throat. “D-do you want to go out back to pick out your ATV? Elyse is there already and everyone else should be here soon.”

“Elyse is already here?” Ben’s eyes lit up.

“Yeah, she’s just out back.” Was he more excited to see Elyse than me? A jealous pit formed in my stomach before I reminded myself that Elyse would never break the girl code and flirt with my crush.

“Cool.” He pushed his fingers into the pockets of his black pants and followed me through the kitchen where I hoped Mack would be.

But when we walked through the kitchen toward the doors that led to the terrace out back, Mack was still nowhere to be found.

Where did he go?

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