The Heartbreaker I Adore (When In Waverly 2)

We leave the room to discuss what we could do for story time. Obviously, a lesson on fire safety is required, and we have to let the kids take turns climbing on the truck for a little bit. Hannah said she already has a book to read to the kids. Jake suggests bringing our full turnouts with the mask and all to show the kids, and then Chris takes it a step further and suggests a race to see who can put them on the fastest. It’s a good idea, so I roll with it.

The rest of the morning is slow. We work one car crash on a busy highway, but other than that, nothing comes up. We go into town for lunch, and I meet Colby at the diner. I walk through the front door, and I’m immediately accosted by my walking worst nightmare, gossip queen Shandi. I have a theory that the woman is so miserable in her own life that she has to live vicariously through everyone else. And I guess the only way she has found to do that is to make everyone else miserable by spreading their private business all over town.

“Seth, I hear you were getting awfully cozy with Hannah Stuart at the wedding last night,” she says as she nudges me with her elbow. I back away from her so that she can’t reach me. The woman has practically bathed her entire body in perfume, and it smells like an old lady’s flower garden. Flowers are nice and all, but I don’t want to smell like I rolled in potpourri.

“And how would you know that? As I recall, you weren’t invited to the wedding,” I say.

“You know Leslie is one of my best friends,” she says as she crosses her arms. Ah, yes. I met Leslie last night: the neglectful mother of Joey. I did not know that they were friends at all. I try to ignore Shandi’s posse as much as possible. Leslie must have gone and run her mouth to Shandi first thing this morning. Although, how she knows we were “getting cozy” is a mystery to me.

Colby walks in, and Shandi turns to him with excitement written all over her devious face. I turn the woman toward the door, give her a little nudge on the back, and say, “Great talking to you, Shandi. Bye!” Then, I wrap my arm around Colby’s shoulders and usher him to the first open table I see. I sit down in the booth and sniff my hands. Blech. They smell like the woman’s perfume. Now I’m going to have to scrub them like I’m getting ready to perform open heart surgery just to get rid of the potpourri stench.

“What was that about?” Colby asks with a scowl on his face.

“No idea what you’re talking about,” I say as I watch Shandi through the window to make sure she doesn’t turn around and give Colby the low-down on all of her gossip. I don’t know why I’m bothering. She probably already has rumors of me and Hannah spreading faster than a wildfire all over town. It’s pretty much a guarantee that I’m going to get an earful about it from the world’s most protective big brother later.

“You said it was great talking to her. When has anyone described talking to Shandi as great?” he asks. He’s got a point. That was not my best bit of acting.

I freeze as if I’ve turned to stone. No words are forming on my lips as I wrack my brain for something to say to get Colby off my back. Our relationship has been a little strained since he has started suspecting me of having feelings for Hannah. I don’t, of course. I definitely don’t. But it’s still extremely insulting that one of my best friends is against me dating his sister.

“What are you keeping from me?” he asks, and I gotta say, I’m not a fan of his tone.

“It was just Shandi being Shandi. You know how she is. She’s always trying to stir up some kind of drama,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. Hopefully that looked more nonchalant than I’m actually feeling. His eyes are narrowed at me, and I stare him down, daring him to say anything else on the matter. He takes the dare.

“Yeah, but why were you so desperate for me to not hear it?”

I run my hands through my hair in frustration. It’s sure to look crazy now. Thanks, Mom, for passing down the curly hair gene. I’m going to have to tell him. It will be better coming from me, anyway, instead of him hearing about it from some random person passing by. This way, he won’t attack me later. Hopefully, he won’t attack me now.

“She was just telling me that she heard about Hannah and I spending a lot of time together at the wedding last night. I think she’s telling people we’re…together,” I say as I brace myself for his reaction.

“And why would she do that? According to you, there’s nothing going on.”

“Dude, you can’t believe Shandi over me! It’s Shandi!”

He scowls at me but doesn’t say anything further. We sit in silence for a few moments before we come up with something different to discuss. Colby and I have always gotten in fights with each other more often than with Jameson. Our personalities are so different. I just hope that whatever this weird thing is with Hannah blows over sooner rather than later.