The Fill-In Boyfriend(35)

“Yes.”

“She’s so sneaky.”

“Yes, she is.” I stayed sitting in his car, waiting for him to shut the door and go back around to his side.

He didn’t. He nodded toward his house. “Do you need to get home right away? My sister is going to want a report. I bet you’ll give a more satisfying one.”

The clock on the dash of his car said ten p.m. I had two hours until curfew. “Okay, sure.”

We walked the path to the front door and Hayden unlocked it and stepped inside. Bec was sitting on a couch in the living room and she immediately turned off the television and looked between us. “So?”

Hayden put his arm around me. “You’ll be happy to know that there were many head games played tonight and much jealousy floating about. I’m not sure exactly who was playing all the games or who was the most jealous, but Gia did all the things that you made her swear to do.”

Bec turned to me. “Okay, now I want to know what really happened. None of this vague crap.”

At that moment an older woman came sweeping into the room. Her hair was pulled back into a loose bun, held by a pencil. Tons of flyaway strands had escaped the arrangement, leading to a windblown look. “Hayden, I thought I heard you. I need your face.”

“Mom, I have a friend over.” Hayden pointed at me.

She smiled my way. “I don’t see how this affects anything. You can bring her.”

Bec stood and followed after her mom, who was already walking down the hall without waiting for a response.

“It’s pointless to argue,” Hayden said. “She always wins.” He led me down the hall and around a corner. Inside a large room with double doors and hardwood floors were tons of paintings. Some finished and hanging, some halfway done, others blank canvases. One rested on an easel, a large sheet covered in paint splatters on the floor beneath it, as if someone had abandoned it right in the middle of painting. We all entered the room.

“This is Gia, by the way, Mom.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, where are my manners?” She extended her hand to me. “I’m Olivia. I’m sorry for stealing this boy away but I need his gorgeous face. I mean, tell me that face doesn’t inspire creativity.”

Both Hayden and Bec rolled their eyes.

“She says that every time she pulls us in here and then she creates things like that.” He pointed to a painting of a half-insect, half-zebra face splitting open to reveal a blooming flower. “My face did not inspire that.”

“It really did,” his mom said.

“She just gets lonely in here,” Bec said.

“My children mock me, but they are my muses.” She studied me then. “I think you could be my muse as well. Your bone structure is amazing.”

“Don’t let her fool you,” Bec said. “What she means is that she wants to paint bones. Probably dinosaur bones or something while she stares at you.”

Olivia did not seem offended by the banter. She just laughed and began to paint while Hayden sat on the stool in front of her. By the way she studied him, it seemed she was using him as a model, but I could see her canvas and it was most definitely not Hayden.

Bec looked at me. “So spill. Tell us everything that happened tonight.”

I glanced at their mom, not really sure I wanted to admit to the act of lying in front of her.

“My mom already knows,” Bec said. “And while she doesn’t condone it, she can see why our immature brains might feel it necessary.”

“You are misquoting me, Rebecca. I said that revenge is the product of misdirected emotions but that I had a few emotions regarding Eve as well.”

“You did not say ‘misdirected,’” Bec said loudly. “I specifically remember you saying ‘immature.’”

“Maybe I said ‘underdeveloped.’”

“Same thing,” both Bec and Hayden said together.

Olivia applied a broad stroke of navy-blue paint to her canvas right beneath the crooked purple eyes already painted there. “My point was that revenge is never the answer.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Bec waved her hand at her mom then turned to me. “So anyway, tell us about the revenge.”

I looked at her mom and wondered if she was upset that they were fighting. She didn’t seem bothered at all. “Okay, so Eve was there with Ryan.”

“I knew it!” Bec yelled. “They’re still together, aren’t they?”