Authors: Mandy Hubbard
“Suit yourself.” He closes his eyes again.
I spin on my heel and stalk to the couch, vanquishing the image of his half-naked body as I click the bedroom door shut. In the living room, I plop down on the creaky old sofa. People like him—people that use girls—shouldn’t be allowed to look that good. It’s distracting. It makes it hard to concentrate on keeping him at arm’s length.
I roll my eyes at my own stupidity and lie back on the couch.
It’s going to be a hot summer.
At an ungodly hour a few days later, I’m standing behind the desk in the spa, worrying my lip between my teeth as I stare at the front door, waiting for Landon’s broad shoulders to darken the doorway.
“You know, the point of this lip gloss is to make your lips shiny and kissably soft, and you’re kind of ruining the effect,” Bailey says, leaning in for the third time with a red tube in hand.
I sigh and pucker my lips, accepting the extra layer of strawberry gloss, even though the sweet scent is now making me a little nauseous. “I know, I know.” As I rub my lips together, she picks up a glass bottle shaped like an apple and spritzes Forbidden Fruit, an “enticing, citrus-scented perfume,” all over my chest. It’s saturating my skin now, but I don’t feel all that enticing.
“Enough with the perfume!” I say, coughing and waving the space around us.
“I’m just trying to give you a very subtle Natalie vibe,” Bailey says, frowning.
I sneeze in response.
Bailey’s eyes wander over my hair and makeup and clothes. She’s totally into this whole quasi-makeover thing. “I mean, not to be horribly blunt, but he dumped you for her. So the thing is, making you a little more like her will appeal to him. In his eyes, you’ll be the perfect package, and the more he’s into you, the more you can mess with him.”
“Somehow I doubt she showers in perfume,” I say. “And besides, they broke up eventually too.”
“Well, sure, but it’s not just the perfume. The lip gloss and the curled hair and all that stuff work in unison. He’s going to think you’re the hottest girl he’s ever seen.”
I roll my eyes. “I pity the world if you ever turn to criminal activities.”
“I know, I’m totally a mastermind, right?” She beams and drops the bottle into the basket of cosmetics. “Anyway, stand still. Your curls need more hair spray.”
I step away. “Take it easy on the product, okay? This isn’t
Pretty Woman
. And I didn’t look like Natalie last year either, but I managed to keep his attention for a few months. I can do it again.”
Bailey doesn’t catch my annoyance. She’s too busy returning the hair spray to the crate of products she’s got stashed under the desk, the one smashed between all the towels we’ve folded during our tenure.
“I know, I know,” she says, picking up a bottle of green nail polish. “And that’s enough time for us to manipulate his
feelings. If we can’t get him to fall in love, at least you get to prank him for a few weeks.”
“Exactly.”
Bailey loaned me a pair of khakis like the ones I wore last summer when I helped out around the spa, but I refused her vanilla polo. Instead I’m wearing one I took home last September and accidently washed in a bunch of bleach, resulting in a kind of cool tie-dye effect. I’d never be allowed to wear it if the spa was actually open.
I tuck my polo into my khakis, then try to straighten it out just right so it will look more like Bailey’s. Trim and presentable. “So, do you think if I look in the mirror and say his name five times, he’ll appear behind me, breathing down my neck?”
Bailey’s eyebrows furrow, then she reaches out and touches my forehead, like I’ve gone crazy.
“It’s from
Candyman
,” I say, leaning away from her outstretched palm. “It was a joke.”
“Suuuure.”
“It is! If you had watched it with me, you’d know that.”
“Mm-hmm …” Her voice trails off as she digs through the basket of products.
I watch her, wondering if somewhere in that basket is the magic key to winning Landon over. If there’s really a way to transform me into a girl he wouldn’t dump at the end of the summer. “What if he doesn’t show up? What if he got his memory back after a couple of good nights’ sleep and this doesn’t work? I’ve hardly even seen him since he’s been stuck on the couch. Mr. Ramsey won’t let him ride for a few more days.”
“That’s the
point
of this,” she says. “We have to test his
memory loss, and his loyalty. If he
truly
thinks you’re together, he should do this stuff for the sake of the relationship. And then it’s all up from there. Bigger and better pranks every time.”
“I know—”
I’m interrupted by the front door rattling. I glance up and there’s Landon, in a shoulder-hugging, worn-out T-shirt, the one he let me wear last summer. I swallow, remembering his tanned skin in the moonlight, the way his shirt had smelled as I pulled it over my head.
He got under my skin so easily and then never looked back, and the thought of it is enough to fire me up. “Well, here goes nothing.” I walk to him, smiling as I step aside and push the door wide enough for him to enter. “Come on in,” I say, glancing past him to where the sun is kissing the rolling mountaintops.
Revenge is a dish best served early, before the rest of the place wakes up. Bailey and I need the spa to ourselves if we want full control over Landon. He and I are due out in the stables in an hour, but that leaves us plenty of time for what is coming next.
“Hey, babe,” he says, swooping in for a kiss.
I stand paralyzed for a second, then dodge his kiss and turn it into one of those horrible, lips-smearing-across-my-cheek-slash-hug things, the sort that belongs in romantic comedies with the bumbling guy who plans to go for a kiss and then chickens out and changes it to a hug. I’m going to need one of those stupid towels to wipe off my cheek. I hope Landon likes the taste of the blush Bailey has dusted on my cheeks.
“Lip gloss,” I say lamely, then clear my throat. “I, uh, just put on lip gloss, so no kissing.”
Ugh, maybe I really
am
becoming Natalie. Wait, that’s probably mean. She’s not actually all that artificial, just really gorgeous. It’s easy to assume she spends a bazillion dollars on makeup and somehow that makes her really concerned about the wear and tear of her lip gloss.
The thing is, I can’t just leap right into the kissing zone, not with him. If I kiss him today, we’ll be making out tomorrow, and then what? I
barely
made it through the last summer of temptation.
Arm’s length, arm’s length, arm’s length
, I chant in my head.
“Huh,” he says in response, his eyes narrowing. I didn’t wear lip gloss last year. Or blush. And I didn’t curl my patriotic hair.
“Um, anyway!” I say, brightening. “So we asked you to come here this morning because Bailey and I are focusing on adding more, um, guy-friendly spa treatments.”
“Guy-friendly spa treatments?” he repeats, an eyebrow quirked. Landon is not a guy who would ever,
ever
set foot in a spa on his own volition. He’d volunteer to help dig a ditch or rescue a kitten from a tree, not offer to help us with this. I’m pretty sure his head was still spinning when Bailey requested he meet us early this morning, because he agreed way too easily.
“Yeah, see, Mr. Ramsey promised me I could have an extra day off if I increase the foot traffic of our male patrons, and we
really
need your help,” Bailey says. If I wasn’t in on the ploy, I would have believed her myself. She’s so good at lying she could be a politician. “You
do
want me to have an extra day off, right? It’s like a sweatshop in this place. I’m working so many hours. …”
I glare at her. Now she’s totally overdoing it. Mr. Ramsey is a pretty fair boss, even if he is a little bit regimented about it all.
“I don’t see why you can’t just practice on each other,” he says, glancing between us.
“We don’t know what guys like!” Bailey says, blinking innocently. “Some guests might be more open-minded, but I need to appeal to strong, masculine guys such as yourself.”
Holy smokes. Even memory loss wasn’t enough to make him this dumb.
“Please?” I ask, realizing I had to dive in before she messed this up for me. “It won’t take long. We just need to test some products and get your reaction. Then you wash it all off and head to the stables, and Bailey can do trials on real customers with the stuff you liked.”
I step forward, touching the bare, smooth skin of his arm, imploring him with my eyes, and for a second I forget what it is I’m asking, where I’m at, what I want other than to stand there under the heat of his gaze.
“All right,” he says, slowly, drawing out the words, not breaking our eye contact.
“Great!” Bailey says. She pulls on his sleeve, and my hand slips off his arm as he steps away.
I get angry with myself and replace the image of his intense look with another one—the one he gave Natalie in the cafeteria at school, just before he leaned in to kiss her. When he pulled back and she whispered something to him, his lips curled up in that way I thought was meant only for me.
No, I’m not going to fall for some stupid look.
He
is going to be under
my
spell.
But first … a test.
I follow Bailey and Landon down the hall, to one of the
rooms near the back, the one painted a beautiful, calming blue. In the corner, one of the spa’s six water features bubbles, and the edges of the room are lined with stone accents that give the whole place a sort of Roman feel. The only window is draped in billowing gauzy white curtains, so that the sunrise makes the room feel warm and tranquil.
We picked this room because it’s one of two with no mirrors.
“Okay, so lie on that table, and then Mack and I will get the products,” Bailey says, standing in the hall and gesturing into the room. “You don’t have to take your shirt off, but throw on one of those smocks so we don’t get your clothes all …” Her voice trails off and she smirks, just out of his view. “Mucky.”
Landon raises a brow but remains silent.
Does he really trust me that much? Had he really liked me enough to do this by this point
last year?
Because that’s where he is, in his mind. We’ve been dating for two weeks.
I push away my questions and follow Bailey to the back storage closet as Landon steps into the treatment room and the door clicks shut.
“Okay, so how evil do we want to go?” Bailey asks.
Her words echo in my ears as I remember how
I
felt last year. How I gushed about him. How I took such care in dressing that morning, getting to school late because I had to look perfect, picturing myself walking arm in arm with him down the hallways.
Last summer roars through my head like a freight train, one scene after another, culminating in that moment at school when two matching teardrops trailed down my cheeks.
And the jerk simply walked away when he saw it.
“Category five hurricane,” I say, burying the hurt.
She claps. “I knew you’d embrace this.”
I grin, relief and anticipation and only the tiniest bit of guilt swirling through me. Guilt that is so easy to tamp down.
“Yeah. I’m embracing it. All the way.”
Bailey grins. “Awesome. Now go grab the food dye.”
Two hours later, I’m sitting on Zoey, watching as Landon rolls the final barrel into place, then tips it upright. He twists it a few times, so the base digs into the dirt, and then turns to me.
He still hasn’t realized his face is covered in blue dots, which nicely complement his tanned skin and dark brown eyes. They turned out better than I could’ve imagined. Bailey is a total genius, and I hope she never turns her evil ways on me. Every time Landon looks at me, oblivious, I smirk a little and then force a blank expression, because at some point he’s gotta wonder why I keep smiling like some buffoon.
“All right, it’s all you,” he calls out, walking over to the railing. His back to me, he climbs up the pipes, his western button-up straining across his shoulders.
I wait until he’s seated—so close to where Bailey and I had sat and discussed IEDs—and then I turn Zoey so my back is to
the arena. We’re in the chute, a wide area meant to be the entry and exit point for galloping horses. Zoey tenses, something I can feel even through the saddle, as her nostrils flare and she snorts. This is the part I love most. That last second before she explodes on my cue. I may not be pro rodeo material, but there’s something pretty epic about controlling an animal of this size.
It’s ten a.m., but I’m already sweating in my jeans. My
plain
jeans, the ones Bailey made me buy to impress the Trenton brothers. I’m trying to go back to dressing more like I did last year, so that Landon doesn’t figure out how much time has actually passed. And last year, I would’ve worn these jeans.
I double-check the strap on my helmet, then gather the reins tightly in my hand, taking a deep breath. No matter how many times I do this, I never quite let go of the nerves.
A breath later, I give Zoey all the guidance she needs—a slight pull on one rein, telling her to turn. As she spins, I lean forward so as not to be left behind, and then we’re off.
Her hooves pound into the sand as she finds grip, and the wind almost instantly whistles in my ears as we careen toward the first barrel. I sit back as we approach, pulling hard on the right rein and leaning in as she skids around it, and then we’re off again, to the second barrel directly across the arena.
She’s coming up too fast and wide, so I lean back a little earlier, guiding her around the barrel, and then we’re racing toward the third one. To the one next to where Landon sits.
Despite the breakneck speeds and the concentration it takes, I still feel the weight of his gaze as I reach the final barrel. I sit deep in the saddle as Zoey skids, her hooves sliding as she rounds the barrel, and then we’re past it, facing the chute again, and
she’s digging in, flinging dirt behind us as she finds purchase and we’re off. I kick hard and vaguely register Landon’s deep, loud whistle as we bring it home.