Page 68 of Break Your Fall

“Well, go find out,” she urges, hitting her hip into mine.

“You go find out,” I urge back, and she leans in closer.

“It’syoushe has the hots for.”

I scoff a laugh at Shelby’s teasing smile and when I look back at the girl, Camille fills my vision as she steps between us, cutting the girl off from my sight.

“Who has the hots for you now? You know, besides the obvious.” She casts a pointed, tight smile in Shelby’s direction, causing Shelby to give her a dirty look and step away from us. “I think I hurt her feelings.”

I try not to smile at Camille’s care-less delivery of that statement and I mouth,Stopwhen she looks back at me.

She rolls her eyes. “Sorry. I’m a bit snippier than usual today.”

“Oh, a bit?” I mock. “What’s the cause?”

“Job hunting,” she sighs out, and before she can continue, Shelby pops back over.

“You’renotworking here again.”

“Don’t want to,” Camille says as Shelby pops back out, then she says to me, “I was going to apply to the coffee shop in town, but the woman looking to hire me says the wordexactlylike there are eggs involved. Worse, she says the wordespressolike there’s an X involved. I’m not working for someone who can’t pronounce words properly.”

I nod as I take in the quick information dump. “Well, she’ll be missing out.”

Shelby snickers at my words, loud enough for Camille to hear, and Camille simply chuckles, while my eyes shift past Camille’s head to meet the eyes of the pink-haired girl who has seriously just angled herself to be able to see me again.

“What are you doing?” Camille asks me and I motion behind her.

“That girl,” I say, my voice low. “She’s been coming in here and just staring at me.”

Camille whips around, and before I can stop her, she hollers, “Hey. Pink hair.” Several Moms, Dads, teens, and kids look at her despite their hair having nothing to do with pink. “Are you a photographer? Just take a picture.”

Camille faces me again and I see the girl snort to herself. It’s that laid-back sense of humor I spy that makes me finally round the counter and approach her. I hear Camille at my heels, and I’m half happy that she wants to be by my side, and half wishing she’d let me handle this myself.

Now right in front of the girl, I can make out the design on her jean shorts, which isn’t as much a design as it is a result. Paint splatters.

“You paint?” flies out of my mouth before anything else, my eyes stuck on the rainbow of colors.

“You could say that,” the girl says, her voice a similar tone and pitch as mine, and I look up into her eyes. Blue. Striking and dark, like the denim of her shorts.

“She did say that,” Camille snarks at my side, and I try to be discreet as I elbow her.

The girl ignores her and asks me, “You?”

“You could say that,” I say back, deciding to only give what I get. This girl’s a stranger around Bellsby. I know I haven’t seen her before now, before she decided to roll in and spy on me.

Is she spying on me?

“Are you spying on me?” I don’t let myself regret the question as the girl’s eyes sparkle, a wry smile creasing her left cheek.

“You could say that.”

I feel a tightness in my jaw as it falls open to say—what? I have no idea what I’m going to say to that, but I don’t get to find out, because Camille takes a step closer to the girl, a shield between the two of us.

“Whoareyou?” she questions with a no-nonsense tone, but, like me, the girl doesn’t get to respond before an announcement is being shouted at our ears.

“My ass is on fire,” Banks says as he strides up next to us, one of his hallmark inappropriate greetings.

“Sounds like a P.P.,” Camille fires back at him as she shoves him away with her elbow, but he just strides back up with a face at her as she puts space between them.

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