Page 8

SAWYER

Turns our Mr. Too good-looking for his own good fruit-stand guy is a Hayes

I hit send on the text to my bestie and crash down on the queen-size bed, thankful for the day to be over. It was a lot more eventful than I anticipated. The soft, plush duvet greets me with open arms, the immediate comfort it offers like a warm hug.

When Miss Belle threw down the edict that I was going to stay with her at Magnolia Manor, she mentioned there were four and a half empty bedrooms. Yet somehow that didn’t fully register to me exactly how big this place would be.

A bright white, Victorian house with wraparound porch, large back deck, and built-in planters, it’s the perfect Southern home.

Exactly what one pictures someone like Miss Belle living and raising a massive family in.

I’m still trying to determine how one has half a bedroom though, since all the ones that Miss Belle showed me were actual full rooms.

She wasn’t kidding when she said the place was chaos, with all the furniture and other decor from the first floor gathered together in the middle of the room and covered in plastic getting ready for the painters, who were still hard at work when I got home today.

Eliza

No shit?

No shit

Lucky you

Yeah, lucky me.

I flop back on the bed, Anton’s words from earlier still stinging a little. I don’t know what’s worse, him asking me if I’m always that bossy or telling me I have no actual knowledge . Maybe the former…no, the latter. Fuck, I don’t know. They both sting.

Doubling down on that is that neither were said maliciously. In fact, he was laughing as he said both. And not mean laughing, but actual I think this is humorous laughing. Which is definitely worse. Because that means I’m just one big joke.

Letting out a sigh, I try and think of how to reply to Eliza.

I need a change of subject. Sure, I started it, but that just means that I can end it.

Move on to what Wall Bangers is doing for the Fourth of July.

There we go; that will get her talking. Plus, it will distract me from Anton’s stupid smirk.

Except my phone buzzes, Eliza pushing forward.

Eliza

What’s he like?

Who?

Mr. Too good-looking for his own good fruit-stand guy Hayes

Who I assume has a real first name? That his mama didn’t call him Too good-looking for his own good fruit-stand guy

I chuckle.

Anton

And…???

And…how do I want to put this?

I don’t know if I want to punch him or kiss him…

Three dancing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, my heart fluctuating in time with their movement, waiting on her response.

Knowing Eliza, she’ll have a good one. Actually, knowing her, she’s armpit deep in an Internet search of Anton Hayes, not only finding out what he looks like, but reading his professional bio and personal history.

Something I maybe should have done before arriving.

“Well, if this isn’t every one of my teenage dreams coming true.”

I yelp, my whole body jolting from the deep, Southern voice piercing through the silence.

My phone goes flying, crashing to the floor in a series of thuds as it bounces along the geometric-patterned area rug.

I look up and my heart stops, my throat as dry as the Sahara as I see Anton Hayes leaning against the doorjamb, his arms crossed, showing off those muscles again, stupid smirk cemented in place as he stares at me.

Did he sound that sexy earlier?

“What my sixteen-year-old self wouldn’t have done to walk in and find a pretty girl in my bedroom just waitin’ on me.”

“What the fuck are you doing in here?” I exclaim, trying to right myself.

This isn’t happening…this isn’t happening…

There’s no way. Nope. I didn’t just magically summon Anton Hayes out of thin air simply by thinking about him. About how much I want to hit him. Or…shit, my phone!

Anton leans down, reaching for my phone, right as I lunge for it. By some miracle we don’t ram into each other. Probably because he gets to the device first, picking it up. I say a little prayer that my screen has gone dark, but I am not that lucky.

Glancing down, his eyes flick across the screen, and he lets out a little chuckle under his breath before handing it back to me. Well, fuck.

“Did you miss the part about it being my bedroom?”

“What?”

He smirks again, and this time, I’m sure. I want to punch him. Hard.

“Maybe the better question is what are you doing here?” he counters, standing back up again.

He feels larger than life from down here, my heart still racing, my brain trying even harder to keep up. Extending a hand, Anton nods, silently letting me know that it’s a peace offering. One I’m not going to take. I can stand on my own.

“I’m staying here.” I push to my feet, trying to make myself as tall as possible, which is still several inches shorter than he is. “Miss Belle invited me to stay here.”

Another chuckle. Fuck. Add that to the list of things that he has no business doing so well. Looking good and laughing.

“Oh, that sounds like something Mama would do.”

Mama?!

That’s when it hits me. Miss Belle is Belle Hayes .

I think back to Saturday in the diner, when Ken introduced us, and for the life of me, I don’t remember him using her last name. But he must have. Except, now I can’t remember.

Plus, the house and property. This isn’t just any house—it’s a manor.

And it sits on an estate. One with a great big sign on the stone wall when you turn off the main road that says Hayes.

I guess I just assumed that referred to the big mansion there are signs for if you stay straight on that road, but since we veered right, I didn’t make the connection.

Clearly, I was not thinking this through.

And if she’s Belle Hayes, that makes Anton one of her seven kids.

He did say that, didn’t he?That Mama would hook me up with some of her sweet tea. That wasn’t just an expression. He actually meant his honest-to-God Mama.

Well, fuck me.

“What are you even doing here?” I ask, pretending that my living with his mother isn’t new information to me.“It’s clearly not your room now.”

“No, I live elsewhere now, but I came here to find something for Hayes games.”

He moves into the room, navigating around me with ease.

The room is decorated with blues and whites, very serene and neutral, making it hard to picture Anton ever living in here.

It might have been his room as a teenager, but Miss Belle has clearly given it a glow-up since, leaving me to wonder what teenage Anton decorated these walls with.

“Hayes games?” I question, unable to help myself .

“Yeah, it’s something my brothers and I do every Fourth of July.”

“Just your brothers? Your sister doesn’t join?”

“Ha!” he guffaws. “No, she does not. And once you meet Willa, you will understand exactly why.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Anton stops at the edge of the area rug, right in front of the closet. Narrowing his gaze, he drags his eyes up and down my body, as if he’s sizing up whether or not he can trust me.

“Hayes games is series of competitions that the six of us boys do every year after we win tug-o-war. Tradition started back when I was in high school, and has been going ever since. Consists of things like axe throwing, Tannerite shooting, toilet-seat horseshoes. We tried log rolling one year, but Milo broke his ankle so that one’s been banned. ”

Toilet-seat horseshoes?

“How childish.”

Anton lifts a shoulder, the same move as earlier today in the lab. A simple, nonchalant move. How one person can be so laid-back I have no clue.

“It’s a guy thing.”

Winking, he spins and drops to the ground, pulling up a corner of the rug. I watch intently as he taps at the floorboards, the sound of one loosening filling the air. He lifts it up, rooting down into the floor.

“Aren’t you a little old to be hiding your dirty magazines at your mama’s?”

Anton throws a look over his shoulder, his ice-blue eyes catching mine. “I’m a grown man; I don’t have to hide anything. Especially not at my mama’s house.”

Well then. It just got a little warmer in here.

“Just get what you need and get gone.”

I huff, sitting back down on the bed. I’m annoyed that he’s still here. More annoyed that he seems to be taking his sweet time getting whatever it is that he needs. And even more annoyed that there is a part of me that is enjoying the view.

My phone buzzes and I don’t even have to look to know that it’s Eliza. I should get back to her. Busy myself with responding. But Anton holds up an old, tattered notebook, and suddenly, that has all my attention. Like he’s Indiana Jones holding the Holy Grail.

“Found it.”

“So you can leave now?”

My phone buzzes again, earning me another smirk. “That Eliza?”

I look at him confused. How does he know my best friend’s name?

Oh wait, he saw my texts. Shit!

“None of your business.”

He replaces the floorboard in record time, kicking the rug back into place and popping back onto his feet. Stalking over to me, he stops right in front of me, looking down. My pulse skitters, betraying me.

“You can text her back and tell her it’s definitely the second part.”

The second…oh, that jackass…

No. It for sure is not. Whatever part of me ever thought about kissing him earlier has disappeared.

The smugness radiating off him is more than enough to push anyone over the edge.

Much more of this and I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

And I’m pretty sure a jury of my peers will understand.

Justifiable bitch-slapping.

“The more you open your mouth, the less I’m sure anyone actually does that willingly,” I snark.

“Some girls do.”

For crying out loud …

“Sawyer! I grabbed us a pizza, I…oh!” Miss Belle stops short, just outside the door, her eyes wide as they land on her son. “So that was your truck. What are you doin’ here?”

“Glad you know what I drive, Mama,” Anton replies with a chuckle.