Page 27 of Before We’re More Than Friends (When We Faced the Music #1)
Raina
G oing back to school the Tuesday after my dad’s arrest was as miserable as I’d expected.
People stared at me like I was half-dressed as I walked down the halls, making it obvious that they were whispering about me.
A few classmates and teachers gave me genuine apologies, that dreaded look of pity in their eyes.
I thanked them for caring, secretly hating it.
It was like my dad had died.
Well, his reputation had. I was now the daughter of Manuel Vermont, criminal millionaire of April Springs. Fantastic.
I reached my breaking point at lunch. Gracelynn’s less-than-kind dance teammate, Tracey Simmons, sat at the table next to us and told her friends all about my dad’s scandal.
“I always thought the Vermonts were strange,” she whisper-shouted, knowing we were listening. “Like, it was kind of suspicious that their dad was so successful, you know?”
“I wonder what other secrets he’s hiding from his family,” a bleach-blonde said. “Men always keep more than one.”
Tracey scoffed. “Please, he probably has a second wife in another state. He’s been lying about his taxes to have more money to support her.”
“It’s probably your mom since she’s always in affairs with married men,” Gracelynn snapped, causing a few heads to turn.
Tracey’s cheeks flushed as if she was surprised we could hear her. “Obsessed much?”
Now Gracelynn scoffed. “Says the girl who’s talking crap about my friends. Don’t you have hobbies, like coming up with ways to cover your big forehead?”
Arielle and I snorted.
Tracey grumbled something I couldn’t hear. She flipped us off and left the table with her friends, the heat on her face still present.
“Even her middle finger has a big forehead,” Sienna muttered, enjoying her second coffee for the day. “I’m so tired of everyone spreading rumors.”
“I feel like a celebrity without all the benefits.” Arielle opened her bottle of juice. “If people are going to be talking crap about my family scandals, I at least want special treatment. Good connections, skipping lines, adoring fans.”
Sienna drifted into space, her chin in the palm of her hand. “Celebrities aren’t everything.”
Gracelynn rolled her eyes. “Gosh, don’t tell me you’re daydreaming about Ivan.” While Arielle and I thought Sienna’s crush on Ivan Hicks, the lead singer of Somewhere in the Sky, was hilarious and adorable, Gracelynn found it ridiculous.
In her defense, Gracelynn did have bad luck with dating musicians. And actors.
“I’m not,” Sienna said, but her red cheeks proved otherwise. “But he should be successful like a celebrity. His voice . . .”
“Here we go again,” Gracelynn said. “You’ll start singing his songs and before you know it, your coffee is all over the table.”
“Don’t be bitter.” Sienna shooed Gracelynn with her hand as she started singing a Somewhere in the Sky song, stars twinkling in her eyes.
I smiled and shook my head. “Don’t crush the girl’s teenage dream.”
“Okay.” Gracelynn held her hands up. “But seriously, I don’t understand the whole need to gossip.” She sighed. “Then again, my mom is practically employed in that department.”
My insides pinched as I thought about Mom’s broken friendship with Mrs. Naysmith. “Has she been saying anything about my parents?” I asked, knowing it was a dumb question.
Of course her mom would talk about my parents. She was Jennifer Naysmith, the trophy wife of the biggest law firm in Nevada. She lived for country clubs and dinners with other wealthy women. They thrived off gossip and judging others as if they needed more superiority over anyone.
“She hasn’t been too judgmental,” Gracelynn said. “She was more worried about you and your mom when she found out your dad was arrested.”
Warmth filled my chest. She still cared about my mom. “That’s sweet.”
“The sweetest she’ll probably ever be,” Gracelynn muttered before taking a gulp from her time-stamped fuchsia water bottle. “But I think she’s wrapped up in more things to be too concerned about your family.” Her face pinched, but she didn’t elaborate.
“Is everything okay with her?” Arielle asked.
Gracelynn shook her head. “She’s always up my butt about dance and volunteering and stuff, like gosh. The best days are the days when I barely interact with her.”
“And that’s why I enjoy being motherless,” Sienna said, back to sipping her coffee. It was a joke, but the twinge of pain in her eyes reminded me of the times she’d said the opposite .
Arielle fiddled with the cap of her bottle. “Are we going to be this complicated when we’re moms?”
“In what universe would the rest of us be moms?” I asked with a snort. “Who wants to carry around a human being for nine months and then deal with them for over eighteen years?” Sounded like another circle of hell to me.
Arielle frowned. “But come on, guys, kids are so much fun.”
Gracelynn laughed. “This is where you’re the odd one out.”
“Hey, when it’s your own baby, you’ll experience a love no one else could give you,” Arielle said, seriousness growing in her gaze. “That’s why I don’t understand why some moms just . . . suck.”
We murmured in agreement and stayed silent for a few moments before Sienna cleared her throat. “On another note, I wonder how the guys we know would be as dads. Like Ivan . . .”
Gracelynn groaned, pushing her water bottle aside. “Here we go again.”
“Afternoon,” Dallas said, smiling as he sat at our lab table.
“Hey.” I smiled back, giddy from what I was about to do. Knowing going back to school would suck, I needed something to look forward to. “How was your long birthday weekend?”
“Better than what I expected.” He took his Chemistry books out of his backpack. “I had a great time with everyone.”
I put a hand to my chest. “Even me?”
His cheeks flushed. Sheesh, was all his blood stored in his face, waiting for any ounce of emotion to display itself? “Especially with you.”
An unfamiliar feeling fluttered in my chest, my own cheeks growing warm. What the heck? “Of course I make everything better.” I opened my backpack, trying to shake off the feeling that had just come over me. “And I’m about to make things even better.”
Dallas’s eyebrows lifted. “You got a kitten in there?”
“Now, I’m not made of magic.”
He frowned. “I’m heartbroken.”
“I’m sorry. But what I have for you is still good.” I pulled a notebook with puppies and kittens on the cover and a pack of Paper Mate pens out of my backpack. “I felt bad for not giving you a gift at your birthday party.”
“Caleb gave me a paper towel to clean cake off my chin and said it was my gift.”
I snorted. “I’m not surprised. He stole a blue pen from the shelter’s front desk and gave it to me, saying it’d be unique in my collection.”
“I know some of us are broke, but sheesh.” Dallas grinned as I handed him the notebook and pens.
“As if his loaded parents don’t give him an allowance.
Have you heard of the app Connections? Their software company created it.
” The Branches lived next door to the Naysmiths, and their house was almost as big as ours, with a massive pool in the backyard.
With four kids living at home, they definitely needed the space.
“Wow,” Dallas said. “Then he really doesn’t have an excuse.”
I nodded. “Hayden told us you didn’t have a notebook to keep your songwriting in, and I’d made some notebooks a few months ago, so I decided to give one to you as a present. And pens. It’s cruel to gift someone a notebook and not give them new pens.”
“I’ll write that in here.” Dallas flipped through the pages of the notebook. “How did you know green was my favorite color? ”
“Well, your backpack is green, your watch is green, your jacket is green, and your eyes are . . . brown.”
He laughed. “Maybe I should wear contacts.”
“No, I like them.” His deep brown, almost black, eyes carried the warmth of his personality. My reflection sparkled in them. “They’re beautiful.”
On cue, the redness in his cheeks deepened. “Thanks. Yours are beautiful too. Like a winter sky.”
“Thank you. I got them from my dad.” I adjusted my bracelets, including the one Alex had made me. I shouldn’t have been wearing it, given how he’d ghosted me when I needed him the most. “My stupid dad.”
He nodded. “Thank you for giving me a thoughtful gift when you’re going through a hard time. Not that I assumed you wouldn’t be considerate.” He fiddled with the spiral of the notebook. “You know what I’m saying, right? I hope I’m not making it worse.”
A genuine smile spread across my face. “You’re not. Actually, I appreciate how considerate you’ve been when we’ve only known each other for a week.”
“We don’t need to be friends for a long time to care for each other.” He bit his lip, fiddling with his watch now. “About that.”
“Yeah?” Worry filled my chest. Had I done something wrong already? My mind raced with possibilities of what I could’ve done. “Do you not like my sense of humor?”
“That’s definitely not the issue.” He laughed, though his face stiffened as he stroked his curls. His chest was rising and falling faster than it’d been before.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, the worry in my chest turning into panic. “Are you having a panic attack?”
“It’s just that . . .” He swallowed. “When you get older, you have a lot of guilt over things you’ve done in the past, you know? ”
“I understand.” I had no freaking idea what this had to do with gift-giving or being friends—unless he was talking about the Saturn Frenzy incident—or why it suddenly had him so shaken up now.
“Some things mess with you more than they did when we were younger.” I thought about Mom’s drinking addiction, wondering if her guilt toward her parents’ divorce had plagued her during that time.
I wondered what had happened to Dad for him to make his bad decisions.
Dallas gripped onto the table as if he was about to pass out. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” I blinked. “What’s going on?”