Life in the Lucky Zone (The Zone #2) (19 page)

He gave me a tight smile, still looking like he wanted to remove my head from my body. With a fork. But he spoke politely when his parents introduced us. With that fun over, I nodded at the room in general. “I’d better get going.”

“Good night, Trey,” Mrs. Taylor said. “We’ll see you soon.”

“Good night,” I said, backing out of the kitchen.

Lindsey’s brother, Austin, followed me. When we reached the front door, he flipped on the porch light. “I’ll walk out with you.”

Fan-freaking-tastic.
“Great.”

We headed out the door, and it was all I could do not to race toward my dad’s car. I felt like a big enough tool as it was. No need to confirm Austin’s suspicions of my tooldom.

“So, Trey Berger,” he said, sounding super casual. “Any relation to Ashley Berger?”

I came to a dead stop, then turned slowly around, the key fob dangling from my fingers. “She’s my sister. Was she in your class at school?”

Austin took a couple more steps. “No. She’s a couple of years younger. But I remember her.” He smiled like he was thinking about something good. Really good. “Yeah, I remember Ashley.”

Jerk.
I unlocked the car, working to keep my voice steady. “What exactly does that mean?”

He laughed. “Not a great feeling when you think some guy has been messing with your sister, is it?”

Touché, you ass.
“No, it isn’t.” I got in the car. Probably not the best move, since it put me at an even worse height disadvantage, but I wasn’t about to punch it out with him anyway. They’d be wiping me up off the driveway. “Nothing happened between Lindsey and me, okay? We’re friends.”

“Good to know.” He stepped back. “See ya.”

“Yup.” I shut the door and drove off, resisting the urge to flex my manliness by flooring it. Weird night. Next time my dad expressed doubt over visiting someone so late, I would listen to him.

Thirty-Six

Lindsey

“Okay,” Claire said, “so you think the veggies should go smack in the middle of the poster?” She looked up from penciling in a bunch of grapes on the poster for our health class project.

Rose stood over Claire where she worked on the floor of my bedroom. “That sounds good to me. What do you think, Lindsey?”

I tossed aside my health textbook and leaned off the side of the bed so I could see better. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

A knock sounded against my door.

“Come in,” I said, not really wanting to see any more scowling family members.

Austin stuck his head in. “Hey, ladies,” he said with a grin.

Rose and Claire gave him huge smiles. My friends had been half in love with my brother since forever. Everybody loved Austin. Except me, of course. Because now that he hadn’t tattled to Mom and Dad about me cuddling with Berger, I owed him. And I hated owing him.

“Wow, you’re actually doing what you said you’d be doing,” he said.

Rose and Claire giggled. I sat back on my heels. “What do you want, Austin?”

“Has Lindsey told you what a naughty girl she was last night?” he asked my friends.

They looked from him to me with comical expressions of surprise. “No,” Claire said.

“She had a boy over here,” he said in an exaggerated whisper. “When no one else was home.”

“What? Who?” Claire asked.

“Are you grounded?” Rose asked.

“Hell yeah, she is,” Austin said.

Claire frowned. “Then why are we allowed over here?”

“Because it’s for school,” I said.

Austin wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “Make sure you get all the dirty details from her.”

I threw a stuffed frog at him, but it bounced harmlessly against the wall. “Go away.”

“I am,” he said with his usual devilish grin. “See you in a couple of weeks. Bye, ladies.” And he shut the door.

“Bye,” both Rose and Claire sang out. It was pitiful.

“Why do you two swoon over him so much?” I asked. “You have boyfriends.”

Claire left her spot on the floor and plopped onto my bed, her gaze shrewd. “Were you going to tell us?”

I looked out the window at the sunny afternoon, wishing I could escape this conversation. “Of course I was. I just wanted to work on our project before bitching about my life again. It seems like that’s all I ever do.”

“What happened?” Rose asked.

Where should I even start? Might as well begin with the worst of it. “I threw myself at Berger last night.”

“You
what
?” Claire said as Rose gasped.

“I threw myself—”

Claire waved a hand. “Heard that. Explain.”

Rose found an empty spot among my rumpled covers and sat on the bed with us.

So I told them about seeing Adam at the grocery store and how I’d tried all afternoon to forget about it, but couldn’t. And how by nighttime, when we were having one of the every-two-weeks family get-togethers, I was having so much trouble pretending everything was okay that I refused to go out to dinner with them. That’s when I realized I needed someone to distract me.

“Why didn’t you call one of us?” Rose asked.

“Because you were at Sam’s house, and Claire was out with Gray.”

“Because you wanted a boy,” Claire said in her know-it-all voice.

Was that true? I hadn’t really thought about it. “I wanted a
friend
.”

Claire raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“So we had hot chocolate, and I added—”

“Not peppermint schnapps,” Rose said.

“Yup.”

Rose groaned. “Oh, Lindsey,” she said and laughed.

“Keep going,” Claire said.

“So we were watching Netflix, and we started goofing around, and I don’t know if it was the alcohol or what, but all of a sudden he looked so adorable that I wanted to kiss him.”

They stared at me, their mouths half open, waiting.

“I jumped on him and—” My cheeks went hot. “This is really embarrassing.”

“Just tell us,” Claire said through her teeth.

“He wouldn’t kiss me.”

“You’re kidding,” Rose said.

“Nope. Apparently I’m pretty easy to resist.” I hated the self-pity in my voice, but it was out there now and I couldn’t take it back. Rose and Claire just watched me, so I went on. “Anyway, he knew something was wrong. So I told him about seeing Adam, and after a few more minutes of me being upset and Berger comforting me, we got into the recliner together and fell asleep.”

“Sounds like you’ve left out part of the story,” Claire said.

That’s because I had. I couldn’t tell them Berger had wanted to hold me. It was too personal somehow. And it brought back the realization that I was probably using him.
Get real, Lindsey.
There was no
probably
about it. I had used him for comfort. And now I didn’t know if he thought it meant more than it really had.

But what had it meant exactly? Mostly that Trey Berger was the sweetest guy I’d ever hung around with. And he obviously cared about me. On some level. Hopefully the friends-only level. But still. Every time I thought about lying there in his arms, a warm, safe feeling filled me.

“You’re smiling,” Rose said.

“I am?” I wiped my mouth with my fingers.

“Back up,” Claire said. “How did you go from being comforted to climbing into the recliner?”

“It was Berger’s idea. We shared the recliner, and he held me.”

Rose’s lips twitched like she was fighting a smile.

“Still feels like you’re leaving stuff out,” Claire said.

“What do you want me to say? That we got naked and my parents came home and Austin beat Berger’s face in and now I’m grounded until I’m eighteen?”

Claire laughed. “It’s a more exciting story.”

“Well, you’ll have to settle for the boring one. I fell asleep cuddled up with Berger and my parents came home and Austin—” I looked at the door, then lowered my voice. “Austin brought me up here before my parents found Berger and me together. We weren’t doing anything, but my dad would’ve killed us.”

Claire smirked. “
I
think you were doing something.”

Rose started giggling, which turned into a laugh, and she fell back against my bed.

“What?” I asked, struggling not to laugh with her.

She pushed herself back up, a huge smile on her face. “You know last week when you and Berger got in that fight?” I nodded. “On the way home, Sam said it was only a matter of time before y’all started dating.”

Panic made my heart race. “
What
?”

Claire laughed. “Sam is pretty wise.”

I couldn’t shake my head hard enough. “Berger and I will
not
start dating. There’s no reason to ruin a perfectly good friendship.”

“Dating has made my friendship with Gray better, not worse,” Claire said.

“That makes you the exception,” I replied.

Rose bit her lip like she was trying not to smile.

I frowned. “Now what?”

“Sam shipped you and Berger. He’s calling you
Linger
now.”

Claire exploded in laughter. “That’s perfect! I can’t believe how perfect that is.”

I forced out a laugh. I needed them to think it was all a hilarious joke. Even though the thought of dating Berger terrified me. And I didn’t know why. “Very funny. Just don’t go around saying that.”

“Oh, man,” Claire said. “It’s too good not to pass along.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Only to select people.”

“No, Claire.”

“She won’t,” Rose said. “She’s only teasing.”

“She better be.”

Claire looked delighted. “Gray’s gonna love this.”

I put on my mad face because with all their giggling it was getting harder and harder not to laugh. “Do not tell Gray. I mean it!”

“That’s no fair,” Claire said. “Sam knows. Why shouldn’t Gray know?”

Rose opened her mouth but then laughed again.

“Two reasons,” I said. “One,
Sam
thought it up. Two, Gray hangs out with Berger, Sam doesn’t.”

Claire pursed her lips. “It’s still not fair.”

“Deal with it.”

“You know,” she said, tilting her head, “it’s bound to come out eventually. Might as well be—”

I threw my plush heart at her but missed completely. I really needed to practice more.

“—now,” she finished, laughing. Then she held up a hand. “Okay, okay. I won’t say anything. But as soon as y’all start dating, I’m so telling Gray.”

“Okay,” I said. “You can wait till then.” Because as far as I was concerned, that was going to be a long wait.

Thirty-Seven

Berger

I’d gone back and forth about it, but finally gave in and asked Ashley about Lindsey’s brother on the way to school Monday morning.

“Austin Taylor?” she asked, looking in the rearview mirror. “He’s Lindsey’s
brother
? I didn’t know she had a brother.”

“Yeah, like, a much older brother. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Did I know him? A little.” She looked out her side window, and I couldn’t see her expression.

“How little?”

“Why?”

“He said something the other day about remembering you.”

“He did?” Her voice had gone all high. “That’s flattering.”

I probably should have let it go, but it was like having a musical earworm—I couldn’t get it out of my head. “So, did you go out with him?”

“I said I only knew him a little. Weren’t you listening?”

“Did you ever hook up with him?”

Ashley snorted. “Are you crazy?”

I laughed. “That was an actual snort. I can’t believe you just did that.”

She ran the back of her hand under her nose. “I can’t either. Get me a tissue. They’re in the glove compartment.”

I handed her a tissue. “So then he was just messing with me.”

“Why? What’d he say?”

“Just that he remembered you. But it was the way he said it.”

She glanced at me and then back at the road. “And how was that?”

My face went warm. This was getting seriously embarrassing. I needed to quit getting involved in the love lives of females. “Like there’d been something between you.” I looked out my window so she wouldn’t see my red face.

“Ha. Well, there
was
a whole lot of flirting at parties, but that was about it. I mean, I was only a sophomore when he was a senior. I didn’t have any illusions about it going anywhere.”

Thankfully we were nearing school. This had to be the most awkward conversation ever. “So mature for a fifteen-year-old.”

She smiled. “Yeah. I’ve been mature since second grade.”

“Oh, right. I forgot.”

She stopped at the curb. “Now get out of my car.”

“Aye, aye, captain.” I climbed out and watched her drive away. So Lindsey’s brother had been trying to get under my skin. Well, okay then. Gauntlet thrown. I’d look for a future opportunity to irritate him. ’Course I probably did that by just existing.

***

The Football Dude didn’t show up for lunch today, which made Parker and Mike ecstatic. They spent the entire time competing with each other to make Lindsey laugh. She’d chuckle occasionally, but that was about it. She seemed all depressed—probably because of the Adam-sighting on Saturday.

And even though Football Dude might’ve distracted her better than Mike or Parker, I was glad he wasn’t there. Maybe Lindsey was about to set her sights on someone new in her quest for luck. Or even better, maybe she was giving up on the whole luck thing after all. But probably not. She sat there beside me, fiddling with the horseshoe charm on her necklace. And she was still wearing the lucky beaded bracelets and probably had a million rabbits’ feet in her purse.

Speaking of which … I nudged her with my elbow. “Hey,” I said quietly. “I still have that sack of rabbit’s-foot key rings. You want it?”

“Yeah. You have it with you?”

“Yup.”

Claire and Gray got up from the table, their chairs scraping the floor, as were countless others around the cafeteria.

“Is it that time already?” Rose asked, wadding up her lunch trash.