Page 358 of How to Kiss a Hawthorne Brother
Flint:More like…we’re exchanging services. It’s fine. She’s fine with it. I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to see the post and think we’re dating for real.
Perry:It’s so cute you think we follow what entertainment news says about you.
Flint:I’m posting the pictures on my Instagram account.
Lennox:It’s so cute you think we follow your Instagram account.
Flint:You’re all idiots.
Brody:Kate says she follows you.
Flint:Tell Kate I like her more than you.
Brody:She also says she really likes Audrey and thinks you should date her for real.
Yeah. She and I both.
Flint:That’s not what this is. It’s a business arrangement. Audrey is way too grounded and practical for it to turn into anything else.
Lennox:That’s the second time you’ve told us how SHE feels about it. How do YOU feel?
Flint:What do you mean?
Lennox:I mean, your expression in that picture looks like you’re really into her.
Flint:Yeah? Maybe I should go into ACTING or something.
Lennox:Okay. Point taken.
Deny, deny, deny.That’s the game here. I just have to convince myself my feelings aren’t already involved.
I’m not invested.
I’m perfectly fine knowing this thing with Audrey isn’t ever going to be real.
As I field a few more of my brothers’ idiotic responses, my brain is fully on board.It’s all pretend. It’s only going to be pretend.
But when a new text pops up, this one from Audrey herself, the way my heart jumps clean out of my chest tells an entirely different story.
Chapter Fifteen
Audrey
It takes me aboutfifteen seconds to figure out that the pictures that pop up on my phone came from Flint himself, and not Joni.
It shouldn’t be a big deal. But he made such a point of not giving me his phone number. What changed? What made him suddenly okay with texting me directly?
The bigger question. Why am I so happy about it?
I scroll through the three photos he sent over with trembling hands. They’re better than I expected. He must have run them through a filter because they look more artistic than just a regular snapshot. The shadows are heightened, and it looks like he deepened the contrast in a way that really emphasizes the distant mountains behind us.
I zoom in on the photo of me, looking for anything that might identify who I am.
The woman in the photo could be anyone. The one of us together shows a little more of me—the line of my jaw, the bend of my arm, my palm pressed against Flint’s chest.
My sisters might be able to look at it and tell that it’s me, but no one else could. Especially without any context.
A pulse of anxiety pushes through me as I think about all 56 million of Flint’s Instagram followers seeing photos of me.Yes—56 million.Ten minutes ago, I thought he might have a few hundred thousand followers. A million, tops.
