Page 353 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
Chapter Thirteen
Flint
“So how are wedoing this?” Audrey asks, her expression serious. “Where do you want me?”
She’s several yards away from me in the water, her hands propped on her hips.
I can think of a lot of places I want her, but I force my mind to focus on the task at hand. “Um, right. Let me just, uh, grab my phone, and we’ll figure something out.”
I climb out of the pool and walk to the long patio table where I left my shirt and phone. I grab a towel off a stocked shelf by the door and dry my hands before picking it up.
Joni and I discussed the possibility of her being here, either to take the photos or just to offer her opinion on what she thinks will work best, but we ultimately decided Audrey would be more comfortable without an audience. Now, I’m wondering if an audience would have been helpful if only to help me behave myself. This woman is onlypretendingto be my girlfriend, and I can’t stop thinking about the way her skin felt under my palms when I helped her with her sunscreen.
I walk back to the pool, phone in hand, and use the stairs to get back in the water. My phone is waterproof enough, or so the manufacturer claims, but I’d rather avoid testing it out if I can help it. Audrey has moved to the infinity edge of the pool, her arms resting on the edge, her long dark hair trailing down her back.
Without pausing to think about it, I pull up my camera and snap a picture. I move a little closer, grabbing a few more before she turns and looks over her shoulder, an easy smile on her face.
I snap one more photo. I won’t be able to use this one, but she looks too amazing not to try and capture the moment.
“I could get used to this view,” she says easily, turning back to face the mountains.
I leave the phone on the concrete pool deck and move up next to her. “Sometimes I forget how pretty it is here,” I say. “Living other places. Traveling all over. Then I come home, and I’m surprised, you know? That I got to grow up here, enjoy views like this every day.”
“I’ve never lived anywhere else,” Audrey says. “But I’m still convinced this has to be the prettiest place on earth.”
“You’ve really never lived anywhere else?”
She shakes her head. “I mean, high school at NCSSM in Raleigh, then college. But I was still in North Carolina for that. App State for my undergrad, then Carolina Southern for both my master’s and my PhD.”
“That’s right over in Hendersonville, right?”
She nods. “That’s where I teach. I’d love to do some traveling eventually, but I love it here, too. And my research is rooted in these mountains. To go anywhere else would be like starting my career over.”
I turn and lean my back against the edge of the pool. “And you grew up in Silver Creek? I still find it hard to believe I never saw you. Never met you.”
“But I wasn’t around for high school, remember? Just home for the summers. But trust me. Even if you had run into me? You wouldn’t have noticed me.”
I look at her pointedly. “I find that hard to believe.”
She flushes the slightest bit, then laughs as she looks away. “I’m serious. Every nerdy stereotype you can imagine, I was all of them. Braces. Big hair. Enormous glasses.”
“Whatever. We were all dorks in high school.”
She scoffs. “Nope.Iwas a dork in high school. The internet told me what you looked like in high school, and you were anything but a dork.”
“Are you admitting that you Googled me, Audrey? Is that what’s happening here?”
“You think I would agree to fly all the way across the country posing as your girlfriend if I hadn’t Googled you? I’m a researcher, Flint. Of course I Googled you.”
It doesn’t surprise me that she looked me up. But the internet isn’t always the kindest place for celebrities. “That’s fair. Just as long as you’re checking your sources. You know most of what the internet says about me isn’t true.”
“I hope so,” she says without missing a beat. “Otherwise, explaining my presence to your alien wife is going to be tricky.”
“Alien wife, huh? I must have missed that article.”
“Oh, it’s worth looking it up. They had pictures of your children and everything. And they didn’t look photoshopped. In one shot, you’re holding this tiny green baby close to your chest. Pretty compelling stuff.”
I frown, suddenly uncomfortable with whatever level of photoshopping was required to make images like that. Did they use actual pictures? Have I filmed any movies with babies lately? Do I need to call Simon and see if this is something I need to concern myself with?
