“Me too.” Maizie sobbed into her mom’s shoulder. So much for her perfect makeup.
“Mom, what’s the Wi-Fi password again?” Mitchell asked as he bumbled into the bathroom.
Maizie pulled herself away from her mom, and both of them laughed. That kid would lose his head if it weren’t attached.
“I’ll be right back.” Maizie’s mom patted her back and left her alone in the bathroom.
Maizie picked up where her mom had ended. How different would her life look if Mack were here? Maizie believed in God, but it didn’t change the fact that the world was different without her brother. That someday, more people close to her were going to die. Her hand shook against the curling iron and smoke tickled her nose.
“Ahh,” she jumped back, dropping the iron to the counter.
“What was that?” Christian popped his head into the bathroom, and Maizie discovered two things. One, he was very attractive all dressed up, and two, this was going to be harder than she thought. “Ew, what’s that smell?”
“What are you doing here?” she shrieked, picking up the iron and brandishing it in front of her.
He looked at her like she had lost her mind. “I believe I’m your date for the dance.”
“Which doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes. So leave!”
“Yeah, it’s going to take a little longer than normal to get there so you should probably hurry,” he said so arrogantly that Maizie’s hands itched to throw the curling iron at him out of spite.
“Well, maybe you should have told me that sooner. I’m not even ready,” she said through tight lips.
“Couldn’t.” He produced an apple from behind his back and took a large, noisy bite. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“Hello. Use the phone, old person.” Maizie rolled her eyes and turned back to the mirror. Thankfully, she only had a few more curls, then she just needed to get her dress on.
“Didn’t want to ask for your number,” he said and sauntered off.
Grr, he was so infuriating.She resumed curling and thought back over her plan. Up to this point, everything she had done to him had backfired. It was time to play a new angle. One where she had secretly been in love with him for the last couple weeks and had been playing hard to get.
Or something like that. It had been Lindsay’s idea, and there was no way it was going to work. Schemes like that could only be successful if there was some truth to the mission. And there wasn’t.
“Five minutes,” Christian shouted from somewhere in her house.
She bit her lip to hide her snarky reply. On second thought, she’d really like to do an updo.
* * *
How many timesdo I have to yell at this girl?Christian paced the living room, stopping every now and then to check the time on his phone. He didn’t want to go to this dance either, but he hated being late to things. That’s not the way his mom had raised him. But here on the farm, they seemed to have their own alarm clocks set to either way too early or way too late.
Maizie was currently on the way-too-late schedule. They were never going to make it to the dance at this point. He’d told her five minutes almost half an hour ago. Why did she have to be so dang obstinate?
“She’s ready,” Anne, Maizie’s mom, announced to him and Maizie’s younger brothers.
At least Eric wasn’t here to intimidate him. That was a small miracle.
“Finally,” he muttered under his breath just before his lungs collapsed.
Maizie stepped into the living room wearing a short white dress covered in sparkles and looking absolutely incredible. Her dark brown hair, which she’d been curling before, was now piled on top of her head, showing off her long, slender neck. The sleeves were thick, and though nothing was too revealing, that didn’t stop his eyes from taking in every inch of her.
“Stop staring. It’s immature,” Maizie said, loud enough everyone in the room looked at him.
He cleared his throat. “I’m just surprised to see you actually have a good side.”
Her eyes narrowed, but if he wasn’t mistaken, it almost seemed like she was fighting a smile.
“Okay. Please don’t kill each other,” Anne said, pushing them out the door and forcing them together next to the pillars. “Let me take a few photos so people know what you look like when one of you disappears.”
