Page 30 of Finding Her
I made a spinning motion with my hand. “Turn around. I have a surprise for you.”
I was careful not to say a good surprise because I had a feeling he was going to be annoyed when he found out what I had in mind, but I didn’t care. Bear looked annoyed but he sat up properly and spun around. I pulled out the pink and white scrunchie from my bag and kneeled behind him, considering the best way to do this. When I didn’t move for too long, Bear muttered something about the girls catching up if he didn’t move. I laughed silently and held onto the scrunchie with my mouth so I could use both hands to pull his hair back like I was putting it in a ponytail. Bear made a noise of surprise as I ran my hands through his hair but he surprisingly didn’t protest. I gathered up as much of his hair that would stay and tied the scrunchie around it until it was pulled back in a bun. Some of the hair at the base of his head wasn’t quite long enough to stay up and fell back down, draping his neck, but the majority of it stayed, to my delight.
“Turn back around,” I ordered. Bear sighed but did as I asked. I carefully pulled out some pieces at the front to frame his face and smiled. “Beautiful.”
He groaned. “Men don’t want to be called beautiful, Poppy.”
“Fine,” I said. “Very handsome. Happy now?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Depends. What colour hair thingy do I have on right now?”
I stifled a laugh. “Hair thingy?”
“You know!” He said. He pointed to the purple scrunchie in my own hair. “Hair thingy.”
I couldn’t hold back my laugh that time. “It’s called a scrunchie. And yours is a gorgeous pattern of pink and white.”
“I am not walking around with that in my hair,” Bear said immediately. He went to pull it out but I grabbed his wrists quickly before he could.
“No!” I exclaimed. “I worked very hard on that. Leave it in.”
“I look like an idiot.”
“You haven’t even seen a picture of yourself.”
“I don’t need to. I already know I look like an idiot.”
“Look,” I said. I pulled my phone out of my back pocket then went to sit next to him and turned it on selfie mode. “You look great. And we match!”
He scowled at the camera. “It’s bad enough that I’m wearing this,” he said. “I don’t need photographic evidence of it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “You should always get photos of your good hair days. Now smile.”
He didn’t smile, of course. But he didn’t frown either. And he sat perfectly still as I rapidly took a bunch of photos.
“Give me your number,” I said, once I was done. “I’ll send them to you.”
“I don’t want—” He smartly shut up when I glared at him, then recited off his phone number. I put it into the messages app and attached all the photos. A second later, I heard his phone chime with the message. And for some reason, it made a warm feeling spread through my heart to know that he’d been willing to give me his real phone number instead of giving me a fake one instead.
“So, what are you?—”
“Bear!” A voice called from the trees. It was accompanied by heavy, running footsteps. “Bear, we need to?—”
The girls skidded to a stop as she reached the edge of the forested path and could see us sitting on the beach together. Now that I could see her properly, I realized I recognized her. She was in our gym class, although I was ashamed to say I still hadn’t learned her name. Unlike the other girls who had been following Bear, she looked like she was actually dressed for a run, with her blue hair pulled up in a high ponytail and full workout clothes on.
“Just catching my breath, Mia,” Bear said. I frowned. Even though I tried to learn the names of everyone in all my classes, I doubted Bear did the same, so he must have known her from somewhere else. And for some reason, that made my heart clench.
“Oh.” Her eyes darted between him and me again. I could see the question in her eyes: why is a popular boy like him talking to a totally unknown girl like her? I couldn’t say I had a good reason for her. “Well, Claire’s waiting, so we should go.”
Claire? He was going to seeClaire?
Bear muttered something under his breath about how she could wait, but then groaned and got to his feet.
“I’ll see you later,” he said to me. Then he took off running again, not waiting to see if Mia was following. She sent me a withering glare that made me recoil. What had I done to her to deserve that? Then she sniffed and ran after him, leaving me in the dust. I stared after them, homework forgotten, wishing she had never shown up.
CHAPTER 21
poppy
