Avery Bullock watched Hayley Smith as she stormed away, her father laughing uncomfortably at his side.
"Kids, what can you do, right?" Stan said too loudly, "You try to raise them right, and bam! Got yourself a hippie."
"She certainly is a feisty one, Smith." Bullock replied, eyebrow raised, then he looked to Stan. "It looks like you have your hands full with your family, so I'll let you get back to it."
"But, sir-" Stan said, pleading, "I mean, I'm so sorry. I'll get her to apologize to you-"
"No need, Smith." Bullock said dismissively, "I have a Boring Suit Contest to judge. I'll see you back at the office." He pretended not to see Stan's withered look, pretended not to take a small joy in it. If there was one thing Avery Bullock loved about his job, it was teasing the hell out of his desperate, brown-nosing employees.
Throughout the rest of the carnival Stan avoided Avery as much as possible, and in the least subtle of ways, but Hayley... Hayley would meet his eye every time, a flame behind her stare, and he began to rethink what he had said to her. Perhaps he didn't give her enough credit. There was certainly… something there. Something behind the flash of her eye, the confident way she held herself, a beacon of nonconformity in the center of the crowd. How old was the girl anyway, eighteen?
At the end of the carnival, as all the families began shuffling out, he caught a glance of Hayley one last time. She glared at him as they passed and he met her gaze evenly. When she flipped him off, he responded with a simple smile, which seemed only to enrage her all the more.
I'll call her tonight.
~o~O~o~