Page 12 of Try Hard
“Did you drive here?” I asked, nodding at the cars.
“No. Just walked. It only takes about a day.”
I shook my head, unable to keep the smile off my face. She was so sarcastic. “Oh, so you’re really committed to this whole thing, then? Setting off a day in advance just to watch an EasyJet flight take off for Geneva.”
“Mm. Yes. I couldn’t bear to miss it. You know, rare as it is.”
I laughed. “No. Did you drive your own car or come in your dad’s?”
She frowned, the cutest pucker appearing between her brows. It should have been illegal to look so adorable. “My dad’s car. What difference does it make?”
“Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “Alistair. Man of taste and class.”
“You’re talking aboutmydad?”
“Yes. The man who named his daughter Ophelia Pendrick, like she’d just walked in from a fantasy novel.”
She rolled her eyes, and I loved it. Loved the pretend exasperation glistening in the kaleidoscopic hazel depths of her irises, and the amusement it was concealing.
After all this time, Fia still played her cards close to her chest. I couldn’t blame her for it. I knew better than anyone what happened when too much of you was given away to the world. It suited me just fine most of the time but it wasn’t for everyone. Yet, even with that—perhaps, especiallybecauseof that—getting to amuse her, getting to understand her, felt like the best thing ever.
“Just wait until you learn my middle name,” she quipped, walking just a touch faster in a way that said she wasn’t about to give it up that easily.
I cast my mind back. I had to know it, right? Had to have heard it? We hadn’t gone to one of those schools where middle names were regularly used, but plenty of peoples’ came up. However, if it was as interesting as she was implying, it seemed unlikely I’d have forgotten it.
“Huh,” I said out loud, speeding up to catch her. “I don’t remember ever hearing it.”
“Good.” She laughed lightly, almost despite herself. “I mean, I love it, but if you already think my name sounds made up…”
“I didn’t say that. I love your name.”
“Well, yours is from a book too.”
I chuckled ruefully. “Yeah, interestingly, not the reason my parents picked it.”
“Oh, no?” She stopped—right in front of my car, I realised belatedly—and turned to look at me. “They didn’t think you’d go eating from the Tree of Knowledge?”
Margot had been flirting. She’d been very clear about it. Fia’s comment could be flirting, but I didn’t trust that it was. Still, something in my stomach tightened under her gaze, dark and questioning, and,god,why did she have to be so damn beautiful?
I cleared my throat and turned to sit on the hood—thebonnetof my car.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking around frantically. “You can’t just sit on people’s cars!”
I tapped the bonnet beside me. “Don’t worry. I own this one.”
She relaxed. “Oh.” For a moment, her eyes ran over the vehicle, appraising it. “Oh.”
“An overwhelming verdict.”
“No. Sorry.” She shook her head and stepped back a tiny bit. “I just expected…”
I grinned. “Something more American? Cadillac, Dodge Ram, Chevy Suburban?”
“As if you could drive anything that big around Eddlesworth.” She shot me a look. “But, don’t avoid the question.”
Of course. As sharp as ever. I sighed. Was she flirting or not?Flirting or not…?“Let’s say, I don’t think they have any problems with me eating from whichever trees I choose.”
Something flared in her eyes like she thought I was still copping out on answering but couldn’t decide why. “Okay,” she finally said, stepping back again. “Now, do you want to tell me what you were getting at with my dadbeing a man of taste?”
