talk to him and move on. I’m sure he won’t bring it up after that.”
“ He’s freakin’ hot, in college, and obviously a good guy. Hannah, you need to find a way to get with him. He’s the total package, and I bet he has a nice package, too,” Jasmine said, giggling.
“ Like that would ever happen now. He probably just sees me as an immature, easy freshman girl who gets hammered.”
“No , he seemed genuinely worried about you. He cradled you in his damn arms,” Chelsea said.
“I’ m sorry, girls. I just want to go in and be alone.”
“OK. Are we still on for tomorrow night at The Stables?” Chelsea asked.
“Sure. I’ ll have Hudson drive us.”
Bre tt felt bad after he looked up and saw the girls were gone. He loved watching her friends squirm, but he felt bad thinking of how embarrassed Hannah probably was.
Chapter Six
On Saturday, Hannah watched out the window all morning trying to get the nerve to talk to Brett. She finally decided to get it over with. She felt a need to wear clothes instead of a bikini. She worried he might find her slutty after seeing her at the party, so she opted for a blue top with white shorts.
She walked past her dad and his friend Jim as they sat on the patio. She hated Jim with a passion. As she matured into a woman, he’d become different toward her. She caught him staring at her body whenever he was around, and she found it gross since he was in his late forties and a family friend.
“Hannah, ar en’t you going to say hi to Jim?” Todd asked.
She rolled her eyes and turned back around.
“Hi, D ad and hi, Jim.”
“Hi, Hannah, good to see you again,” Jim said with a seductive smile. She waved at him and quickly walked away. Her body shivered over the creepy vibe he gave her.
S he continued walking toward Brett and felt like a ball of nerves, realizing she was crushing on him badly.
“Hi, Brett.”
Brett sat his sandwich down and turned around. He was sitting on the edge of his truck bed.
“Hi, Hannah.”
She saw his warm smile and felt less nervous.
“Would you have a few minutes to talk?”
“Yeah, sure. You wanna have a seat?” he asked, pointing to the spot next to him.
She jumped up on the truck. “I’m sure you know what happened after I introduced you to my friends. I want to thank you for helping me out at Olivia’s party, and I’m really sorry it happened.”
“ I’m sorry I didn’t say anything yesterday. I worried it might embarrass you. It’s no big deal. Any decent guy would’ve done the same thing.”
“I disagre e. I’m sure there were other decent guys at that party, and they didn’t take the time to help me.”
“I just happen to be standing at the right place at the right time.”
Hannah turned her body sideways to face him. She wanted to gaze into his blue eyes forever. “Really, thank you for getting me out of there and making the guy delete the photos. My parents would kill me if those leaked out.”
“You’re welcome. I’ ve witnessed some bad shit at parties over the years. You really need to watch it.”
“ I know. I don’t normally drink that much. I’m not gonna lie. I was pretty embarrassed when I found out you had to hold me all that time. I hope I didn’t do anything too embarrassing. I also heard your friends were giving you a hard time.”
“You w ere fine, and they were just jealous they didn’t have a beautiful girl in their arms.”
Hannah could feel her face warming.
He just called me beautiful.
“I’ m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I swear I was respectful to you the whole time.”
“I believe you. Since you were at the party, do you go to Vandy?”
“Yeah, I’ll be a senior.”
“That’s cool. I’ll be a sophomore. Have you been a landscaper very long?”
“I wo rked at a nursery in high school and started landscaping my freshman year of college. I really like it, except for when it’s a hundred degrees.”
“We’ ve lived here a long time, but my