Page 42 of Crew Girl

“He didn’t do it,” Teagan announced, possibly a bit too gleefully. Bullying was wrong. No matter who you were related to.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ethan sniped. “I’ll have you both suspended.”

Quaid threw her a panicked look. She grinned at him. She had this base covered, too. She pulled the roll of toilet paper she’d taken from the stall out from behind her back. Behind her, the rest of the team hooted with laughter. “That’s a pretty big threat for someone who doesn’t have any TP.”

Ethan’s desperate scrabble at an empty toilet paper roll echoed against the tile walls.

“If you want to get out of here with your dignity, you need to promise not to tell your grandmother. And you’re going to swear you’ll leave the freshmen alone. Deal?”

There was silence for a minute, as if he was actually considering saying no. Then his stomach made some noises Teagan had never heard come out of a human before.

“Deal,” he groaned, clearly desperate now.

Teagan presented Quaid with the roll of toilet paper. “You can do the honors.”

Quaid rolled it across the floor as Ethan’s hand shot out of the bottom of the stall, desperately clawing at the toilet paper.

Once they’d gotten a safe distance from the restrooms, there were high fives all round.

“I’m telling you,” Quaid said to the boys, “Teagan went full beast mode.”

Half the crew started making primitive noises. The other half dissolved into laughter.

Cam nudged Teagan with his elbow and gave her a private, congratulatory smile. “Look who went and did what none of us could do.”

“What?”

“Become the Quaid whisperer.”

“I had some good advice from a friend,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, pretending not to know she was talking about him.

“Apparently my only-child syndrome wasn’t helping me play well with others.”

“Well.” Cam gave one of those slow, sexy, broad-shouldered shrugs of his. “It’s one thing to receive good advice, and another to act on it.”

She wasn’t used to him looking at her like this. All warm and soft, like she was a girl he just might have taken a shine to versus the bossy know-it-all who shouted instructions at him from the front of the boat. It would’ve felt embarrassing if it hadn’t felt so nice. She would’ve stared into his eyes a lot longer if her phone hadn’t pinged. Probably her mom. She read the text. “Hey!” She beamed up at him. “I’ve been added to the crew’s group chat.”

He scraped his tooth along his lower lip and tipped his head a bit, as if adjusting his angle on her. “Congratulations, Coxie. You’re a fully fledged team member now.”

She wished they weren’t surrounded by so many people. It’d be nice to hang out just the two of them. Maybe pick up on their beer pong Q&A. He was looking at her like he might like it, too. She’d had one win today; maybe the universe would give her a second one? “I should probably get out of this uniform,” she said, looking down at it, then back up at him. “What are you doing after the party?”

He shrugged. “I don’t think the guys are doing anything, so I’ll probably head home.”

Ah. She might have become the Quaid whisperer, but she definitely didn’t know how to read Cam Dillinger. “Cool.” She looked around for Juliet, who she had totally abandoned. “Me too. Right. Like I said, I better get out of this uniform.”

When she chanced a glance back at the guys, she could see Baloo slapping Cam’s forehead. Probably for picking the wrong photo to send his cyber crush.

She gave her own forehead a slap. She needed to stop worrying about whether Cam liked her and focus on the real win: becoming part of the team.

Uniform off, Teagan skirted the outside of the air hangar, successfully dodging the team, past her mom, who, weirdly, was clinking margarita glasses with Coach Hayden, past Juliet, who was chatting up the girl Ethan had abandoned, until finally she made her escape out a side door.

What was it with this place? Every time she thought she’d figured it out, she got it wrong. Spectacularly, humiliatingly wrong. Back home, there was a tub of ice cream in the freezer with her name on it and nothing could get in her— She froze. Why was Josh Regis standing in front of a super car downing prescription pills like they were candy?

“Are those medicinal or recreational?”

He stared at her, horrified, like she’d caught him trying to steal one of the airplanes lined up alongside the runway. For a nanosecond she thought he might actually be vulnerable. But the innate Regis family arrogance won out. He stuffed the pills into his pocket and gave her a haughty look. “It’s my party. I’ll get high if I want to.”