Dating Trouble (Grover Beach Team Book 5) (19 page)

Rounding the last corner and heaving a frustrated sigh because they were nowhere to be seen, I stopped dead with a sudden gasp. Only a few steps ahead, Chris was talking to Justin, a friend of Hunter’s and somebody I’d gotten to know pretty well since I started hanging out with the guys.

Frozen to the spot, I just stared across the corridor. Walking up to Chris and saying something would have cost me an amount of bravery I couldn’t muster after the weekend, but it didn’t take long for Justin to notice me. He smiled and waved back when I did, which also made Chris look in my direction. For the length of a painful heartbeat, we gazed into each other’s eyes, but no one moved or mouthed a single word. Chris pressed his lips together in annoyance, lifted his brows in a cool look, and turned back to Justin.

He didn’t act like he didn’t know me. He just acted as if…he didn’t care.

My chest constricted. I sucked in a painful breath and made my heavy legs move, trudging on to my first class. Sam and Nick were already in there and beckoned me over to their table with a wave.
Now is a bit late for distraction, guys.
The catastrophe had already occurred.

But that incident wasn’t even the thing that hurt most this week.

Because I didn’t visit Ethan in the afternoons for obvious reasons, I didn’t meet Chris, either. Several times, temptation got hold of me to tell him what a big, fat, and complete ass he was. It verged on a miracle that I didn’t send the text off, even when my thumb hovered over
send
for almost half an hour on Wednesday night.

I hadn’t told anybody about the kiss. Mostly, because it filled me with shame to see that I—in spite of better knowledge—had let myself fall for the worst playboy when all the warning signals had been there and so obviously, too.

At school, I tried to act my normal self in order to not give my friends any reason to grill me about my problems. I even bantered with Ethan and the others at lunch. Ethan asked me a couple of times how things were at my house, and he was the only one to whom I told the truth. That I wasn’t speaking a lot with my parents and that they didn’t speak a lot with each other these days, either. My outburst must have had some severe effect on them. Time would tell, though, what came out of it.

That same day, I dared to ask Ethan for the first time if Chris had said anything about me after that dinner on Saturday. The sorrowful face Ethan made gave me chills. “He seems to be avoiding me as much as he avoids you. I asked him what his problem was yesterday, but he got really aggressive and told me to f—to get lost. What in the world did you do to him, Susan?”

“Me? I did nothing.” Other than letting him kiss me. But that was probably the whole point. “I can understand why he’s no longer interested in me. He got me where he wanted me in the first place. But I don’t understand what that’s got to do with you.”

Ethan shrugged. Neither of us had an answer.

Most nights, I slept with Chris’s bandana tightly clasped in my hands, pulling from it what little comfort it would give me. Of course, I needed to return it to him soon, but I was just not ready to give away the only thing that I had from him. Nor could I bring myself to delete all the messages he’d sent me. I must have read them a thousand times over the week, but all they did was make me sadder than before.

Friday finally appeared, and I was glad I only had to battle through one more day before I could sulk an entire weekend in my room alone. I wandered from my history class to math on autopilot, focusing on my steps instead of on the happy people surrounding me in the hallways.

With a loud “Uff,” I came to an abrupt stop when I bounced into someone.

“Whoops,” a familiar voice said.

Please, let this be Ethan. Please, let this be Ethan. Please…

I looked up and gazed into a face that held the warmth of a Canadian winter. So much for “God hears every prayer sent to him.” If he’d heard mine, he happily ignored it.

“Hi,” I mumbled and added, “Sorry.”

Chris stared at me so hard that I couldn’t bear it much longer and lowered my gaze—which was the worst mistake I could have made. He was wearing the dark gray shirt which only a week ago I had dug my fingers into when he kissed me. Where the short sleeves ended, his tanned, smooth skin reminded me of how warm he’d felt. And his hands, his fingers that he’d hooked through my belt loops…they were leisurely laced through someone else’s fingers now.

I swallowed so hard that the small group of students next to us might have heard it, too.

The girl at Chris’s side was a stranger to me. Long, fair hair fell smoothly down her shoulders. Her slim legs were wrapped in mega-tight jeans. The moment Chris seemed to notice my appalled stare, he tightened his hold on the girl’s hand, somehow forcing me to look up at his face again.

“Anything wrong?” he bit out in a cold voice that I hadn’t heard him ever use before.

Slowly, I shook my head, horrified. My gut churned and I wanted to throw up right there. With bile rising in my throat, I stepped aside to let him and his new catch pass. I headed on toward math but took a turn for the head office instead. Telling a lie about having period cramps got me a pass to leave school early.

Mom looked surprised when she saw me walking through the door, but not as surprised as I was when I found both of my parents home that morning.

I dropped my schoolbag on the floor, grabbing the backrest of a kitchen chair, and told her, “Afternoon lessons were canceled. Some teachers’ conference or something.” Casting my father a sidelong glance, I asked, “Why are you home? Don’t you have to work today?”

“I took the day off.” He hesitated, looking at my mom—for support, it seemed. What the hell?

My mother came to me and caressed my hair. In a soft, terribly foreboding voice, she said, “It’s good that you’re home, honey. There’s something we want to discuss with you.”

Both of them lowered to the metal kitchen chairs, their eyes on me. Their sad faces triggered a rush of adrenaline inside me. The urge to storm out the door and run over to my grandfather’s house to check if he was all right took hold of me. Since there were no tears on my mom’s cheeks, though, it couldn’t be that.

Warily, I sank into the chair that I’d held onto until now, preparing myself for more bad news.

“YOUR MOTHER AND I are getting a divorce, Susan.”

My father’s voice echoed like a clanging church bell in my mind. Over and over. Divorce.

They broke up with each other.

Holding my cold, sweating hand, Mom explained, “When you got so angry with us last weekend, we realized the terrible mistakes we’ve made these past months.”

They broke up with each other.

“We were so self-involved that we didn’t notice just how hard it must be for you, honey. All the shouting and arguing. You deserve a quiet home, Susan. A loving home, not a broken one like this is.”

They broke up with each other.

“We both love you,” Dad said in a very quiet voice and caressed my cheek. “We just don’t love each other the way we should anymore. You finally made us realize that we can’t keep doing what we’re doing, or we’re going to hurt you even more in the process.”

Oh my God.

I was mistaken.

They didn’t break up with each other…

I
broke them up.

And I’d thought Chris was my biggest problem these days.

Unable to deal with the situation, I had to get out, or I was going to faint. There was so much to take, I could hardly stomach it in this moment. I needed to get fresh air in my lungs. Get some distance between us and get my mind sorted. Get to a place where I could break down. Without them around…

I rose from the chair and focused on the door, the only way out of this. Everything happened in absolute slow motion. Like someone had trapped me in a film and was making me live through the worst seconds in my life, dragging them out to last torturing hours instead.

“Susan,” my mother called to me from very far away, her voice barely audible through the haze surrounding my mind. “Where…are…you…going?”

“Away from here.” The words, like everything else, dragged on like rubber.

The last thing I heard was my dad’s calming voice as I walked out of the house. “Let her go, Sally.”

With no direction in mind, it was a miracle my legs even carried me all the way down to the ocean. Walking the same way I had with Ethan last weekend, the images of how we’d tried to sneak past my fighting parents and how I’d screamed at them played in front of my eyes. Time and again. I tried to figure out where I should have taken a different path that night so none of this would have happened. But the truth was, the course had already been set the night before.

If only I had stuck with my decision not to go on that date to the Donovan house. My family would still be a family, and my heart wouldn’t have been broken twice this week.

I wished I could let myself fall someplace quiet and just cry. My throat was thick and tight, and my lungs hurt every single time I took a breath, but the relieving tears just wouldn’t come.

And suddenly, I didn’t want to walk on any longer. I didn’t want to be alone right now. I longed for a shoulder to cry on, for someone’s arms to hold me so all the pain would come out in a well of tears. More than anything, I wanted to be with Ethan right now. He’d already proven that he understood my hurting. He’d become my best friend; one I needed to hold me right now.

But my phone was in my schoolbag on the kitchen floor in my broken home, so I couldn’t call him. School was over by now, so he should be home. Since I was closer to his house than mine, I headed that way.

Leaving the beach, I walked the last mile to his street. When the white façade of his house came into view, a surge of a different kind of pain swamped me and made me stop in my tracks. What if Chris was there? Not ready to face him, I didn’t want to let that ache take hold, but it was at that moment that the first tears squeezed out of my eyes. I struggled to dab at them faster than they came, but the wet stream continued to flow. Everything put together was just too much to cope with.

Mustering all my courage and strength, I walked up to Ethan’s door and rang the bell. I could break when he was there to catch me.

The door opened seconds later. In front of me stood a guy in jeans and a black hoodie, barefoot, his hair wet after a shower. It could be either of the twins.

I cleared my throat. “Hi, um—”

He folded his arms over his chest, successfully creating distance. “Chris.”

“Right.” Why had I even bothered hoping for this not to happen? My voice wavered. “Is Ethan home?”

“Soccer practice.”

If things weren’t already bad enough, I would have slapped myself for being so stupid as to forget that. Once again, a warm drop trailed down my check and I rubbed it away. “Okay, um—” I shook my head. “Never mind.”

About to turn around and walk away, Chris reached out and tilted my chin up with his knuckle. “Susan, why are you crying?” he asked with such soft determination that I froze on the doorstep. The anger and distance were gone from his face, like a storm had wiped them away. No, not a storm. Sincere worry.

It was that look on him that shattered my control. My knees buckled. Chris must have seen it coming even before I did, because he grabbed my arms and pulled me against him before I fell.

When he hugged me tight to his chest, my own arms came up, my fingers digging into the hood of his soft sweatshirt behind his neck. “I broke up my parents!”

“You did what?”

The feeling of his hand brushing tenderly through my hair gave me a little bit of comfort. The dam broke and I finally shed all the tears that hadn’t wanted to come at the beach. “My parents are getting divorced. It’s my fault!”

“Tell me what happened,” Chris said in the softest voice.

I clung to him harder and tried to get some air into my lungs, which hurt. “I went home after third period today. My parents were both home.” I sniffed and coughed, with more sobs escaping. “They told me they want to get divorced. They’ve been fighting for so long, and last weekend—” My voice broke on a hiccup. “…Last weekend, Ethan wanted to see my room. I showed him. But my parents started fighting again—they didn’t know we were home. It was so embarrassing. I said some horrible things to them. Then I ran away.”

Wiping my eyes on his hoodie when he wrapped his arms tighter around me, the rest came out in a hoarse croak. “They didn’t fight after that. I thought things would finally work out. But it just got worse. They must have been plotting this all week. Today, they told me they didn’t want to be together anymore. Because of me. Because of what I said to them. They said they don’t want to hurt me with their fighting. But I don’t want them to break up because of me.”

Chris was silent all this time and just let me fall apart in his arms. Even now, when there were only sobs coming out and no more words, he didn’t let me go. Embracing like this, we stood in his open door for what seemed like an eternity.

Eventually, he eased his hold and let me slip away so he could look at me and brushed the wet strands of my hair from my face with a few clumsy moves. He wiped the remaining trail of tears from my cheek with his thumb. Sternly looking into my eyes, he said, “Sweetness, you certainly did
not
break up your parents. They have some shit to deal with, but it’s not your fault.”

I didn’t know why, but when he called me sweetness, I wanted to break down all over again. It was a good thing he took my hand and pulled me into the house, closing the door. That was enough distraction to help me keep my crap together.

Chris led me to his room, making me sit down on his bed near the window. Pulling the cuffs of my pink sweater over the heels of my hands, I rubbed my eyes dry with them. From a drawer in his desk, Chris fetched a pack of tissues and gave me one. After he watched me clean my nose and eyes, he ordered, “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.”

My throat felt dry, like somebody had sandpapered it. Words wouldn’t come out anyway, so I didn’t ask him where he was going but only nodded. As soon as he was out the door, it dawned on me where I actually was. An uncomfortable feeling crept into the pit of my stomach.

Chris had caught my fall, but too much stood between us after this week. The image of his fingers intertwined with those of a blonde made me stand up from his bed and find a more neutral place to sit. But truth be told, there wasn’t a single corner in this room where I’d be comfortable, so I just walked to the window and gazed out into the backyard where he and Ethan had played basketball last weekend.

My life had been good. Maybe too good for too long. No serious trouble. Good friends to hang out with. Good grades to show off. And a first, amazing kiss that will always stay in my memory. But nothing was sunshine and roses forever. I should have known…

A soft cough beside me made me aware that Chris had returned. He put a steaming cup in my hand.

At my inquiring look, he told me with the shadow of a smile, “Tea is good for the soul.”

The sweet scent of strawberry and vanilla drifted to my nose. I took a sip and warmed my hands on the cup for a while, letting my gaze wander back to the yard.

Chris remained at my side. He stood so close, our arms touched. Though it also hurt on a certain level, it felt good to be near him again. After a deep breath, he said, “You’re lucky your parents still have that base where they talk to each other and to you about things like a divorce. When my parents broke up, they’d long gone past that point.”

He didn’t sound sad, like he was trying to come to terms with his own problems. No, he just sounded like he wanted to ease me into a conversation, give me a chance to get things off my chest. I tilted my head and studied him as he continued to gaze out the window. “How was it for you?” I asked a moment later.

“Well, it was pretty hard at first.” He shrugged, casting me a sorrowful grimace. “I came home one day, and my dad was no longer here. No goodbye, no letter, no phone call. He was just gone.”

Man, that sucked. For a brief moment, I did count myself lucky.

“The first sign of life Ethan and I got from him was after two freaking months, and I know he only called because Mom begged him to talk to us. She was the one who saw how we suffered every day, not him.”

I took another sip of my tea, my eyes glued to the side of his face. “What did he say to you that day?”

“Something about how he needed time to sort out his life and shit. Well, he did sort it out pretty quickly. He moved in with his secretary two days after he moved out of here.” When Chris laughed, it didn’t hold that bitter sound Ethan had adopted when he’d first told me that his father wouldn’t be home for dinner. To me, it seemed like Chris had found a way to deal with his parents living separated. Ethan might not have.

“Two years ago, I started seeing my dad again. Not often, just for birthdays and Christmas and maybe one or two other times a year. That’s all right now. We have a comfortable relationship.”

“And Ethan?” I just couldn’t get around asking.

“It was harder for him. Ethan never forgave him. They haven’t seen each other once since the day my dad moved out. I believe Ethan just needs a little more time. Maybe when we’re at college, or just one day…whenever.” After a quiet pause, Chris turned to me and hooked some loose strands behind my ear. “The fact that your parents talk to you about it and even try to do what they think is best for you means they care a lot for you. You’re not breaking them up. If anything, you were the one holding them together. But you can’t do that forever.”

He took the cup out of my hands and placed it on the desk behind me, then he pulled me into another careful hug. “And know what the best thing about it all is?”

There actually was a good side to all this? I lifted my head, pressing my chin against his sternum, and scrutinized his face.

“The fights will stop,” he said softly.

No shouting, no screaming, and no crying? A deep sigh escaped me at that prospect. But no matter what, I’d rather have both my parents in the same house with me. I just couldn’t imagine a time when one of them wouldn’t be around. Maybe I could plead with them to give it one more try…

Taking another deep breath, Chris’s familiar scent filled my head, and for a second it felt like I could take a step away from my body and look at the situation from an outer angle. I wasn’t crying any longer, but still, Chris was holding me tight. Something was completely wrong about that.

Carefully, I detached from his embrace and picked up the cup of tea once more to have something other than him to hold on to. Chris certainly noticed my subtle retreat. He stiffened and a muscle started to tick in his jaw at the same time a frown pulled his brows together. It was like only now he remembered he actually didn’t want to talk to me ever again.

All of a sudden, I couldn’t bear being in the same room with him any longer. “I should go,” I mumbled, handing him the almost empty cup, and whirled around to head out. But Chris held my hand, stopping me.

“Wait.” His voice held a soft plea that actually made me turn back to him.

He looked at me for an immeasurable moment. The arctic cold from this morning was nowhere to be felt. In fact, his gaze was quite heated, giving me goosebumps of a warmer kind. There was something burning on his mind—maybe an explanation as to why he’d kissed me and kicked me to the curb the same night—only, he remained silent.

Discomfort grew inside me. “What is it?”