Page 3 of I Always Will

She coughed a surprised laugh which caused Alexandria to look at her questioningly.

She shook her head. “We’re sitting in alphabetical order.”

Alexandria raised her eyebrows. “Well. Yes.”

Hailey forced herself not to roll her eyes. She absolutely was going to make friends with Alexandria, but the girl didn’t seem to want to make it easy.

“You know what that means?” she asked, grinning at Alexandria.

She scowled. “That we’re not here to learn our ABCs?”

Hailey laughed. She might be moody, but she was funny. They would be great friends. Eventually. “Not that. Well, also that, I suppose, but if you think maths class in secondary school is for learning the alphabet, I don’t know how to help you.”

Alexandria scowled harder and moved to protest.

“It means,” Hailey said, cutting her off and pulling out her timetable, “that, if we’ve got other classes together and the teachers decide to sit us in alphabetical order, we’ll probably be sitting together a lot.”

Alexandria’s bottom lip disappeared into her mouth as she thought. “Well, possibly, but there are a lot of variables that would go into such a possibility.”

Ah, maths nerd, Hailey thought, grinning to herself. “Sure. But it’s not an impossibility. So, what classes do you have?”

Alexandria winced slightly before sighing and carefully removing her own timetable from her planner. She was going to carefully transcribe it into the timetable spot in her planner tonight, Hailey could only imagine. Probably with colour-coded pens.

Hailey was just going to stick hers in with glitter glue.

They assessed their schedules and noticed they had several classes together. Alexandria didn’t seem especially thrilled by the prospect; though, as far as Hailey could tell, she wasn’t thrilled about much. Hailey, however, was delighted and found herself hoping her teachers would sit them next to each other again.

Sure, Alexandria seemed a little posh and stubborn, but Hailey was sure that was just nerves. Their area wasn’t really fancy enough for her to be actually posh and annoying. She was just serious and it was the first day of a new school. She seemed smart and at least somewhat willing to chat and, because Hailey was the consummate optimist, she was convinced it was the beginning of a brilliant friendship.

And she’d grinned like it was when she’d walked into her Geography and Art classes later in the day and found herself right beside Alexandria Daley again. By the time they got to the last class of the day—Science—she’d even begun to love the exaggerated eye roll Alexandria gave her as she walked towards their shared desk.

Day one of secondary school and she’d already made a hilarious new friend. Hailey was a master of this senior school thing.

Two

Present day

Hailey stepped back from where she was chopping spring onions, washed her hands, and checked they had all of their toppings and mash ready to go for the day. The vats of sauces were warming away, the mashes were rich and creamy, and the toppings were prepared, either waiting in the back or lined up along the counter for when customers came in.

When she’d first opened Mash-N-Go—a mashed potato restaurant where you could build your own bowl by adding toppings, sauces, sides, and choose different types of mash—she hadn’t really been expecting it to take off. She’d hoped, and she was a massive fan of mashed potatoes, so she had a feeling it had potential, but she couldn’t have foreseen just how popular it would become. It had started mostly as a joke, after all. But, four years in, they’d moved to a prime town centre spot. They had regulars and enough traffic that she couldn’t remember most of the customers in a day. But, perhaps most surprising, had been when her customers had started asking about a breakfast menu. After trialling a few breakfast items around lunch, they’d moved to opening for breakfast a year ago, and it was still going strong. Apparently, the people of Newell couldn’t get enough of mashed potatoes loaded with eggs, bacon, sausages, cheese, fried tomatoes, and baked beans.

None of it was especially surprising—of course people loved those things on mash. Mash went with everything. But even she hadn’t envisioned just how much people would want it for breakfast. And the all-day breakfast bowls were some of their biggest sellers no matter the time of day.

Happy that they were ready for the morning rush, she moved to check the coffee machines where Esme was setting up.

Esme—a small white woman with a pixie cut—was a character. Hailey had a habit of taking to and employing people who were quirky, but Esme was impulsive beyond belief and acted as though she’d had seventeen cups of coffee regardless of whether she’d had seventeen or none.

Hailey loved it.

“Good morning, Esme,” Hailey said with a smile. “How’s it going?”

“Great,” she replied, still paying attention to the coffee. “I’m getting married.”

Hailey blinked.Impulsive. “To the coffee?”

“No,” she squealed with a laugh. “To Dan.”

“Didn’t you two just meet?”

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