Life in the Lucky Zone (The Zone #2) (15 page)

When the credits rolled, Nick stood up immediately, but I took my time gathering my purse and my drink cup. I usually liked to wait until most of the people had cleared out, but he seemed to be in a hurry. Another sign he was probably not my lucky boy. Maybe he had to pee or something.

We edged out of the row, merging with everybody else leaving the theater. When we walked out the doors, I stopped abruptly, causing Nick to have to shift so he wouldn’t run into me. Berger and Gray, in their black Cineplex T-shirts, stood to one side of a huge rolling trash can. They must’ve been waiting to clean up.

A smile formed on my lips. Now here were two boys a girl could actually have a conversation with. And none of it would be about golf. “Hey, guys,” I said.

They’d been mumbling to each other and looked up in dual surprise. Gray smiled quickly, though. In fact, his smile became ginormous. What was that about? Berger actually seemed shocked. He kept rubbing his temple like he didn’t want to make eye contact. Was it because he’d been the one to tell Nick where to sit in the school auditorium? I still needed to ask him about that.

“Hi,” Gray said. “Did you like the movie?”

“It rocked,” Nick said.

“Yup,” I said and felt Berger’s gaze on me. He could probably tell I was lying. I raised an eyebrow at him, and he pursed his lips like he was trying not to laugh. I’d seen that look a hundred times in the last couple of weeks. And in that moment, all I wanted was to make him laugh, then talk to him until he had to go back to work.

Nick briefly touched my lower back. “We’d better go,” he said.

“Right.” I pasted a bright smile on my face. “See y’all later.”

“Yeah, later,” Berger said, looking down at the trash can.

“Bye,” Gray called out, seeming absurdly happy.

Whatever. Both of them were acting weird—Gray super smiley, Berger not looking, then looking, then not. I waved, walked off with Nick by my side, and wished Berger had made eye contact before we left.

***

Nick pulled into my driveway and put his SUV in park. This was always the awkward part. I hadn’t been in this situation in forever. Was he going to try to kiss me? I couldn’t decide how I felt about that. He was hot and everything, but there was no spark between us at all. At least not for me.

I started to put my hand on the door handle, but he said, “Wait.”

I slowly brought my arm back to my side. “Yeah?”

“I know I should walk you to the door now, but I really want to kiss you and it’s freakin’ cold outside.”

Seriously?
I laughed. He hated the cold that much? An image of Berger standing outside the theater building with his hoodie wide open to the frigid air bloomed in my mind. He’d inhaled deeply, as though he couldn’t get enough, as though the cold made him feel alive.

“You really think it’s that cold?” I asked in a teasing voice.

“Maybe not,” Nick said, with a crooked smile, “but it’s really warm in here.”

True enough. The heater was blasting hot air through every available vent.

He ran a finger along my jaw and leaned closer. Well, why not? First kisses always said a lot about a guy, and since I still needed to decide about him, I might as well let him kiss me. I lifted my face, and his lips met mine.

At first, everything went really well. After two seconds of contact, he brushed his mouth back and forth across mine, keeping everything light. Playful, almost. But then he wove his fingers into my hair and pressed a little harder. Which was okay. But when his tongue came flying in like a superhero doing twists and turns in the air, things got real sloppy, real fast. Ugh.

He moved the hand he had on my back to my side and started inching it up.
Uh-uh, buddy. Time to get off this train.
I pulled my face away, trailing my hand all the way down his arm until I stopped at his wrist. “I need to go in,” I whispered. “My dad will have noticed your car.”

He jerked like I’d slapped him and let go of me. “Oh. Okay.”

That seemed a little extreme. “Thanks, Nick. I had a nice time.” I bent over to pick up my purse, surreptitiously wiping the wetness off the outside of my mouth.

“Me too,” he said. “Hey, before you go, do you know if your dad is hiring interns at the golf club this summer?”

My mind went blank. “What?”

“Um, like, golf resort interns. Sometimes golf clubs have—”

“My dad is an investment banker, Nick. He doesn’t work for the club; he’s on the board.”

He chuckled, the yellow light from our porch showing only half his face. “Yeah, I know. I just thought maybe he could put in a word for me …”

Anger bubbled up inside, making my throat tighten. “Are you serious?” I waved my hand between us. “Has this been all about my dad? And the golf club?”

He looked out the front windshield. “Of course not. I’ve been wanting to go out with you for a long time.”

He was lying. He had to be. If he wasn’t, he would at least make some attempt to look me in the eye. I gripped my purse like I was about to fling it at him. “Thanks for nothing.”

“Come on, Lindsey. You’re overreacting. It was just a question.”

Oh, how I hated to hear a guy tell me I was overreacting. My hand shook as I pulled the door handle. “See you around, Nick.” I got out and managed to shut the door without slamming it. Go me!

Nick’s muffled voice echoed inside the car. “Lindsey, come on.”

I shook my head and walked toward the front door. It spoke volumes that he didn’t even roll down his window to call out to me.

Twenty-Eight

Berger

The next afternoon, Claire brought in a two-liter bottle of soda and set it on the coffee table in the so-called sunroom of her house. “Help yourselves,” she said, then sank onto the couch beside Gray.

Sam poured the drink and offered some to Rose, who shook her head. Lindsey was chewing, so she lifted a finger toward him and he filled her cup. She’d been unusually quiet since she’d arrived. What was the problem? Had her date last night ended bad?

“Anyone else?” Sam asked.

I sat near Lindsey on the floor across the table from him, so I just said, “Pass it here.” I refilled my cup and then bit into my slice of pepperoni and sausage pizza, letting the spicy flavors distract me from thinking about her.

“I’m glad you suggested this, Gray,” Rose said. “It’s been so long since we’ve gotten together.”

“Well, that’s Sam’s fault,” I said, mumbling around my food.

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Oh, yeah?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. If you weren’t so busy being pampered at home with your online classes, you could be in school with us.”

“You want me to commute an hour every morning and afternoon?”

I laughed. “What a whiner.”

He tossed a wadded-up napkin at me, which hit my shoulder and dropped to the floor beside Lindsey’s leg. Yeah, better let her pick it up. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to grab her or something. The awkwardness that had sprung up between us really sucked. It was like seeing some girl you used to really like and realizing you had nothing to say to each other. Or worse, that you had too much to say and didn’t know where to start.

Anyway, talking to Lindsey couldn’t happen while sitting here with everybody else. After running into her and Golfer Dude last night, Gray had laughed himself silly, so convinced I had a crush on her that I gave up arguing about it. And now he was watching with a look that said,
Please throw yourself at her feet and beg her to love you forever.

Yeah, that would happen.

“So,” Gray said, “how was your date last night, Lindsey?” Claire gave him a surprised look, but he missed it, his gaze intent on Lindsey.

“Two good things happened,” Lindsey said, wiping her mouth on a napkin. Then she proceeded to dust her fingers off longer than was necessary.

We all stared at her. That was all we got? But hey, this was Lindsey. She really did love to string an audience along. I sipped my soda and waited.

“And those were?” Rose finally asked.

She met our collective gaze. “The movie, since we didn’t have to talk to each other, and getting out of the car to go into my house.”

A sense of relief flowed through me, immediately followed by guilt. Why was I happy she’d had a bad time?

“Ouch,” Sam said. “Sounds rough.”

Lindsey shrugged with one shoulder. “Oh, well. Par for the course, as Nick would say.”

We laughed.

“What?” Sam asked.

“The guy she went out with is on the golf team,” Rose told him.

“Oh,” he said, giving her a half smile.

Claire leaned forward. “You know, I’m still not clear on why you went out with him. I mean, wasn’t he the same when you had coffee with him on Wednesday?”

Lindsey hesitated like she was deciding what to say. “Well, he was a little less golfy, so I thought I should give him a chance.”

“Oops,” I said. “Wrong choice there.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I was screwed. I’d been going for a laugh. And I got it. A couple of people chuckled.

But Lindsey’s cheeks turned dark red. “If you didn’t think I should go out with him, why did you tell him where to sit in the auditorium?”

A sudden rush of defensiveness burned through me. “He was going the wrong way!”

Her lower jaw jutted forward. “So it
was
you!”

Oh, perfect.
I’d done it this time. “Calm down. I—”

“Calm down?” She struggled to her feet. “Calm down? You do
not
get to tell me to calm down. Not when you’re the one messing with my life.”

“Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” Sam asked.

Rose jumped up and tugged on his arm. “Come on.”

“But … okay,” Sam said, standing. He followed her from the room.

Lindsey loomed over me, her fisted hands barely poking out from the sleeves of her over-large sweater. Should I stay on the floor? Play the docile friend until she let out all her steam? I wiped my hands on my jeans. Screw that. I
was
her friend, and she was going to hear what I had to say.

I got up while Claire was pulling Gray toward the door. “But it’s just getting good,” he said. Seconds later, the glass door shut behind them. I glanced over. They were walking down the hall, not staring in at us.
Thank you, Claire.

“Well?” Lindsey asked, her voice wavering.

“I’m sorry. I thought I was helping you.”

“Helping me?” Her voice went up at least two octaves. She wheeled toward the windows that overlooked Claire’s backyard. The sun had set, the light outside softening to a pearly gray. She started to pace. “How could you even think that interfering with my test would help me? I need to know how you figured that out, by the way, but not right now. The reason I even came up with the test is to see who might bring me more luck. And you screwed it up.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets, more out of protection than anything. Because I knew what I had to say. “That’s a bunch of crap. No one can bring you more luck. And no one could ever pass that stupid test. Deep down, you know I’m right.”

She planted her feet and glared, her chest heaving. “Someone who is
lucky
would pass the test! Why can’t you get that through your thick skull?”

“Probably because it’s thick.”

She shook her head. “Don’t try to laugh this off. You messed everything up, and I need to know why.”

Words lodged in my throat. I stepped closer. “Because things have been really hard for you lately. Just one disappointment after another.”

She sneered. “Disappointment? That’s a weird way to describe having your heart ripped out of your chest.”

“Exactly. Which is why I thought you needed something to go right for a change.”

She shook her hands in front of her face. “You just don’t get it! The only way for the test to go right would be if it really worked. Not having somebody interfere. Agh!” She started pacing again. “All of this is your fault. I had—”

“No, it isn’t. At least not all of it. You should’ve realized on your coffee date that he was a douche.”

The look she gave me practically singed my eyebrows off. “I had to live through the most boring date in history with a groping, slobbering guy who I plan to never talk to again. And it was
all your fault
.”

Ice ran up my spine. “What do you mean ‘groping’?”

She waved a hand like that made no difference at all. She faced the windows again. “And you want to know the worst part?”

I came up right behind her. “What do you mean by ‘groping’?”

“Forget it, all right?”

“No.” I placed my hands on her tight shoulders. “I need to know,” I whispered.

She twisted out of my grip and faced me. “It was nothing. He tried, and I stopped him. That’s all.”

I wanted to hit something. “I’m sorry.”

She stepped back, tears glittering in her eyes. “That wasn’t the worst part. You ready for this? Nick Somerset isn’t interested in me. He just wanted my dad to help him get a summer internship at the golf club.”

What the—
“He said that?”

“Not in so many words, but yeah.”

“He’s an idiot.” What a disaster.
Which you helped cause. Next time, stay out of Lindsey’s love life.
“But hey, so am I.”

She sniffed and ran a hand underneath her nose, not looking at me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled her into a hug, pressing her head against my chest. She relaxed for ten seconds before pushing away. “I gotta go.” She grabbed her purse from a chair and headed for the door.

“Wait. We’re not finished.”

She shook her head. “Not now.”

“Lindsey, could you just wait—” But she was already out the door, her boots clomping down the hall.

Should I go after her? But why? To apologize again? I’d already done that more than once. We did need to talk, but she was probably right. Not now. It was better to give her time to decide if she could forgive me or if she was going to spend the rest of the semester pissed off.