Body Shot (Last Shot)(59)
Carrie’s eyes widened. “Shut the front door. He was jealous?”
“Well, I don’t think he’d admit to it, but apparently yes. It was okay, because Will was very nice but there wasn’t any…chemical reaction, like there is with Beck.” She sighed. “So Beck asked me to go out with him Friday night and he took me night paddleboarding.”
“I’ve heard of that! It sounds really cool.”
“It was amazing.” She described the experience. “Then just as we were getting back to shore, I fell in. He took me home to get dry clothes and we ended up having a shower.”
“Together?”
Hayden blinked and glanced at Julia filing her toenail. Julia looked up at her and winked. “Honey, go ahead, I’ve heard everything.”
Hayden gave her a weak smile then turned back to Carrie. “Yes. Together. Oh my God, Carrie.”
Carrie’s shoulders lifted with excitement. “Awesome! Then what?”
“We did the Netflix and chill thing.”
Carrie frowned. “You don’t have Netflix.”
“It’s an expression. Sort of.” Hayden giggled. “I didn’t know either, but he told me ‘Netflix and chill’ is code for watching a movie and making out.”
Carrie laughed too. “Okay, yeah. Except for me it’s Netflix and Jill.”
Hayden paused. Then she got it and her mouth dropped open. “Carrie!”
Carrie shrugged. “Truth, lately. But Hayden—go you!”
“I know! So then…he asked me to come to Conquistadors on Saturday night. He was working, but he said I could hang out there. So I did. And it was super fun. I met his buddies. And…and…we did body shots.” She bit her lip.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“When you say ‘we did body shots’…explain, please.”
“Beck drank a shot of tequila off my, er, stomach.”
Carrie laughed. “Holy shit, Hayden.”
“I know! I can’t believe I did that. Jesus, I’m not a teenager on spring break. What if someone from NHI was there and saw me doing that? They’d be seriously questioning whether I deserved that research grant.”
“Hmmm. I suppose. But you can run a research company and have fun on your downtime. It’s none of their business what you do outside of work. Anyway, nobody saw you. Right?”
“Right. At least I don’t think so. There were a lot of people in the bar, but I don’t think anyone I knew was there. I wasn’t even drunk—I’d only had part of a paloma.”
“What’s that?”
Hayden outlined the ingredients. “It was really good. Anyway, after that—”
“There’s more?”
“He invited me to go to his place so we could, uh, continue the tequila tasting.”
Carrie made a noise as if she was weeping.
“I almost changed my mind about it. Because I was…” She swallowed.
“What?”
“Afraid,” she finished quietly. “I was watching him flirt with some girls at the bar…I mean, not really flirting, it’s just the way he is, you know? He’s gorgeous and girls all swarm around him and he smiles at them…and Marco said something like, ‘Don’t worry, he looks at everyone that way, it doesn’t mean anything,’ and I realized, yeah, that’s true, and when he looks at me it doesn’t mean anything either. And that kind of depressed me.”
“Oh.” Carrie’s face softened.
“But then he somehow convinced me to go home with him anyway, and really it’s just about having fun, right?”
“Um…right?”
“You sound doubtful.”
“Only because you do. Are you falling for him, Hayden?”
Yes. “No. I can’t. I don’t have time for a boyfriend. My aunt and uncle are still struggling, and this week at work we had a major setback with one of the vaccines we’re working on. And Beck’s very open about the fact that he’s not into getting serious either.”
“But you did go home with him?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “And again, it was amazing. He invited me to go skydiving with him today.”
Carrie’s mouth fell open. “Skydiving?”
“Yep.” Hayden made a face. “That was a big nope.”
“You’re afraid?”
“Hell no! It’s just that I’d already made plans with you.”
Carrie snorted. “Chicken.”
“Totally.” Hayden grinned. “No way in hell I’m jumping out of a plane. Even Beck admitted that was a little too much. He’s trying to teach me to be adventurous.”