Page 62 of The Cinnamon Bun Book Store
‘I’ve been busy.’
‘Busy with what? Or should I say with who?’
‘Isn’t it whom?’
‘Hazel Delphinium Kelly!’
‘You know I don’t have a middle name.’
‘And you know that’s why I have to make one up for you.’ Annie put a hand on her jutted-out hip. ‘Now stop distracting me. What is going on with you and the fisherman?’
Hazel shrugged but she could feel the furious blush working its way up her face. ‘We’ve just been hanging out.’ Ironically, Hazel had kept all her new stories to herself. She’d started this whole summer of fun because she’d wanted to shock her friends, to have something new to talk about, to just be generally more interesting and now here she was holding out.
She just ... everything happening with Noah now seemed ... private.
‘Hanging out? You missed trivia night and now half the town thinks you’ve been kidnapped.’
Hazel huffed. ‘I’m clearly right here.’
‘Hazel...’
‘What? Can’t a girl have a little fun?’
‘Of course you can, but this just feels like––’
‘Like what Annie? Like not my type of fun? Like it’s totally out of character for me? That’s exactly the point! I can’t ... I just needed ... something different.’
Annie plopped down on the old couch. ‘I didn’t know you were unhappy, Haze.’
‘I’m not unhappy. I’m just ... I don’t know...’
‘Afraid of turning thirty?’
Hazel’s eyebrows rose.
‘You’re not the only perceptive one. I notice things, too.’
‘I just don’t want to turn thirty with regrets, that’s all.’
‘And you regret not sleeping with the town hottie?’
Hazel laughed. ‘Well, I might.’
Annie smiled. ‘We wouldn’t want that.’
‘Sorry I didn’t tell you.’
Annie shrugged, leaning back into the couch. ‘That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me everything, although we did make that pact back in tenth grade.’
‘True. Well, in the spirit of honesty, have you been trying to leave me clues or something?’
‘Clues? No, Haze, I usually just go with a text.’
‘Hmm.’
‘What do you mean by clues?’
Hazel pulled out one of the defaced books from her bottom drawer. She’d been keeping them as evidence or souvenirs. She didn’t really know which.
