Heartbreaker Hanson (12 page)

CHAPTER 27

What
a night!!

When
it was over, Rider
walked me to my front
door
(!!!) and stared into my eyes, and said to me huskily, “I had fun,
Brooke.”

It
was almost too much for me to take. More than my mushy heart could bear.
Because it
had
been fun.
So
fun. Playing hopscotch with him, then
having an epic swing-jumping match with him from the elementary school’s
swing-set. It was just like I had my kindergarten boyfriend back. My heart had
soared.

As
we stood at my front door, staring into each other’s eyes, Rider woke me from
my dreamy reverie. He gently placed the rock I had used for my hopscotch marker
in my hand, shocking me.

“Something
to remember me by,” he said huskily and smiled. “I swiped it.”

Then
he showed me
his
marker, a piece of a
broken comb that we’d found on the playground. “Memorabilia of my big win—score!”
he murmured with an adorable smile.

It
was
sooo
adorable that it made my
heart pound wayyy too hard. I had to look away. (And dunk my head in a bucket
of ice-water.)

Feeling
shy, I stared down at my rock. This thing to remember him by. “Every time I see
it, I’ll think of you—definitely,” I said teasingly. “’Cause it’s just
like your heart,” I smiled, “—a hard, cold rock.”

“Ouch.”
He winced in mock-pain, then he muttered playfully, “Talk about a cold
heart—man, Brooke.
You’re
cold.
You’re
the heartbreaker—and you
play a mean hopscotch. The only reason I won is because my heart was so light
from total innocence—yours? Not so much.” His eyes twinkled.

For
a moment we dreamily stared into each other’s eyes again. When I noticed, I
turned red.

He
winked, “Don’t forget to erase the bathroom walls.”

“Yeah,
yeah,” I mumbled playfully, wanting to invite him inside, so bad, but I got the
feeling he was going to go off and do his grand-gesture anyways—despite
that in the end, after three (3!!) rounds, he was indeed crowned the victor of
our kindergarten matches.

“Okay,
I guess I’ll finally stop lingering,” he said. “Since I see your mom keep
peeking at me from the window. I guess I’ve changed a lot. She used to offer me
cookies, but now it looks like she wants to call the police.”

“Well,
you’re a hockey player—scary stuff.”

He
grinned, “No, what’s scary is mermaid band-girls that hold boys’ hearts in
their hands—yet write mean poems about them on bathroom walls.”

My
heart jolted.

I
blinked at his choice of words. Well, one word in particular—“mermaid.” I
used to be on the school’s swim team last year. Was that what he was referring
to? Probably not. I mean, I doubted he even knew about it.

Yet
he softly said, “Good night, Mermaid,” as he left.

I
floated into my house in dreamy confusion, kind of lost in a cloud from his
warm stare all night and his sweet attention all night too (though he kept
sweeping his attention to Daisy the whole time we were in the restaurant—sadness!).
Still, his intentions toward me at the cemetery had obviously been out of
kindness—so yeah. I was confused.

The
heartbreaker seemed to have a heart after all.

Sigh.

Too
bad he was all into Daisy. (Talk about superficial! Laurie had nothing up on
that girl in that department.) (And Rider was stupid.)

I
opened my notebook to grumble about it in my journal. But …

Not
long after Rider left, I was still in a dreamy stupor when the doorbell rang.
However, when I answered the door, my head lost all its dreaminess, because I
came face-to-face with cold hard reality—Band-boy, Ethan.

My
pulse jolted seeing him, since I hadn’t even realized he knew where I lived. Plus,
it was weird that he would show up at my house. I mean, he didn’t even text me
first or anything. Weird … right?

Well,
I felt weird.

(Maybe
because I’d had a creeper note taped to my mirror recently.)

“Ethan
… hi,” I attempted a smile, trying to act natural, but I was unnerved. To the
max.

“Hi.”
He didn’t sound very happy. “Brooke, can we talk?”

“Sure,”
I said cautiously, thoughts of the creeper note still flashing through my
panicked brain. Thank goodness mom was home tonight. She was sitting in the den
watching some game-show where she kept calling out the answers before the
contestants. That was comforting. (Mom home.) I swallowed, “Come in.”

“No,”
he said. “I’d rather you came out here.”

I
hesitated, but finally obliged. After all, I could understand, I guess. He
probably didn’t want to have to meet my family and stuff. I hear guys are like
that. (Though Tony hadn’t been like that … but well, Laurie had thought my
boyfriend Tony was a loser.) (Maybe only losers want to meet parents?)

“What’s
up?” I asked.

He
jutted his chin. “Portia Norton asked me to the dance.”

“She
did?” I smiled, relieved beyond belief.

He
nodded, kind of glaring. “Yeah, but I didn’t give her an answer. I told her I
might already have a date, but that I would get back to her.” He gave me a
challenging look, sort of … harsh. “I really want to go with you Brooke, but you
didn’t exactly say you would go with me. Are you or not?”

He
didn’t sound mad exactly, he sounded frustrated, and I felt bad. And yeah, I
didn’t tell him I would go with him. I didn’t give him an answer at all. When
he asked me at school today, I’d been taken off-guard. It was right after
Drew
had asked me, and I thought maybe I
should just go with him—Ethan, that is. To help get my mind off Drew, but
then I kept remembering that people were getting the wrong idea about me and
Ethan—and maybe Ethan was too. So … I wasn’t quite sure how to go about
clarifying the situation to him—not at that moment. But now seemed like
the time to do it.

I
took a deep breath.

Then
another.

I
bit my lip, trying to weigh my words, then started slowly, “I was planning on
saying yes to you, but probably you should go with Portia. I’m kind of, uh, preoccupied
with a guy right now. It won’t work out with him—at all—but I don’t
want to lead you on, or anything.”

“You
like someone else?”

He
sounded hurt. My heart squeezed. I felt horrible. I guess he liked me more than
I suspected. Way more. Since his eyes looked so pained. A tremor of sadness
washed through my body.

I
bit my lip, feeling beyond uncomfortable. I had no idea how to handle such a
situation, since I had never been in one before—having to turn a guy down.
Well, until recently. Now guys were … changing.
Everything
was changing.

“Yeah,
kind of,” I answered about the me liking someone else question, then I quickly
added, “—but I like you too. Its just kind of that I think of you more as
a friend.”

“Oh,
not a friend!” he moaned with pain, but I could tell he was kind of kidding too.
Sort of. “
Anything
but a friend!”

“A
really good friend,” I said. “So go to the dance with Portia and we can go on
being friends, okay?”

“Yeah,
I guess,” he moped.

“I
mean it Ethan. I don’t have that many friends these days. I
need
you to be my friend.”

“Well,
okay, we’ll be the best of friends—but I would rather we were more than
that.”

“Maybe
someday we will be,” I murmured. “Who knows?”

“Can
I at least kiss you?” he asked with a nervous laugh. “We’ve never kissed
before.” He raised his eyebrows, “You have no idea what you’re missing.”

Heat
and cringing rushed through me.

I
mean, come on. It was a weird request, right? Right?! Maybe other girls went
around kissing guys all the time, but the only boy I had ever kissed before was
Tony—and Drew (in my sleep). It so didn’t seem like an appropriate thing
to do—kiss a boy that I didn’t even want to. But then again, I
couldn’t
kiss the boy I wanted to kiss.
Maybe Ethan had a point. I mean, I really (literally) didn’t know what I was
missing … and who knows, maybe (though I truly doubted it) Ethan’s kiss would
knock my socks off and make me forget all about Drew. That would be wonderful.
So, with great reluctance, I hesitantly consented.

Ethan
grinned, “Cool.”

He
put his arms around me and kissed me wayyy more intensely than I expected. I
had thought it would be a quick peck, not a fervent groping full of desire. Yelping
and jerking, I tried my hardest to pull away from him, but he pinned me against
the wall, thrusting his persistent tongue around in my mouth, making me sick.

I
fought harder and harder, trying frantically to get the creep that I had only
moments before called my friend away from me. He was really starting to scare
me. The harder I tried to get away, the more force he used to hold me in place.

Finally,
I used my knee to kick him exactly where I was aiming for. As he doubled over in
pain, I ran into my house.

…
then pretended nothing had happened.

Why?

Don’t
ask me that.

Because
I don’t know.

I
just went up to my room and curled up in a tight ball on my bed. I was so
shocked by what just happened that I could barely breathe.

I
laid frozen there a long, long while—shaking. I was shocked and horrified.
It seemed pretty obvious Ethan was the creeper that left me that note on my
mirror.

Suddenly,
I jumped out of my bed and grabbed my phone, because I needed to warn Portia.

With
shaking fingers, I quickly texted her,
“Stay away from Ethan. The guy is a
predator.”

Portia
texted me back immediately,
“I think he’s cute. I asked him to the dance
today.”

“I
know, but you shouldn’t go with him Portia.”

She
quickly texted back:
“You should mind your own business.”

I
squeezed my eyes shut, then quickly typed,
“Portia, he attacked me.”

“Really?
Cuz that’s not what he texted me—right after he left your house, by the
way. He said you guys were kissing and then you freaked out and over-reacted
and attacked HIM. Like, seriously hurt him.”

“
Wow.
Portia, come on. Who are you going to believe?”

“Well,
let me put it this way—when he comes over tonight
I’M
going to
attack him—with my tongue.”

I
rubbed my face with the palms of my hands. Rubbed and rubbed.
“Don’t
say I didn’t warn you.”

“Like
I said—mind your own business, freak.”

Groan.

I
shoved my phone away and went back to my balled up position.

Still
shaking.

Ethan
was a total creeper.

Maybe
it was just kissing—but I still felt attacked.

CHAPTER 28

Mom
woke me with a concerned expression on her face.

“There’s
a Mrs. Philips on the phone wanting to speak to you about her son—Ethan?”

My
mom had no idea who Ethan was. I had never mentioned him before, and she was
unaware that he had paid me a visit earlier tonight.

I
looked at the clock as Mom handed me the phone. It was a little after twelve.
Groggily, I wondered what the lady could possibly want so late at night—from
me.

Mrs.
Philips apologized for calling so late, adding: “I was hoping that you could
help me find my son.”

She
said that he had mentioned earlier that evening that he would be stopping by my
house, and he hadn’t been seen since.

“Um,
he was here around nine,” I said groggily, then added that he had left after
only a short stay.

“Try
Portia Norton,” I suggested, trying to be tactful, since she sounded so
worried. I added quickly, “Ethan told me he was going to be taking her to the
school dance.”

His
mom sounded confused by that, being quite certain that he had told her he was
going to take me to the dance.

I
squeezed my eyes shut, negotiating in my tired brain what to say, then
explained to her that Portia had asked him to the dance after he had asked me,
and that we decided it would be best if he went with her instead.

Ethan’s
mom still sounded a bit confused, but she thanked me for the information, and
apologized again for calling so late.

I
went back to sleep without giving it too much worry. After all, Ethan was a big
boy, and I was a very tired girl.

And
Ethan sucked.

So
… you know, I didn’t care if he was caught in a sewage disaster.

In
fact, I hoped he was.

The
more poop, the better.