The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) (25 page)

“She’s already gone,” I argued in a small voice.

“Go find her!”

Thank God the bell rang, saving me from a very uncomfortable situation. I did feel like an ass for the look I’d put on Susan’s face, but going after her and apologizing was the last thing I could imagine myself doing right now. On the other hand, I knew how persistent Becks could be. She would never let me live it down if I was stubborn about this. Having my best friend’s girlfriend breathing down my neck was not something I wanted. And Becky could do this forever, if she thought she was in the right.

We were at an impasse.
Terrific.

I rubbed my neck, bouncing on my feet, eager to leave. “I have Spanish now, and she’s probably already in her class, too.”

Becky stabbed her finger against my chest. “Fine. At lunch then,” she warned. My cheeks actually turned warm at that growl of hers.

A moment later, Tyler and Brady rounded the corner and found us. A big smirk rode Tyler’s lips. “Dude, did you just use Becky to make that girl jealous? Clever move!” He slapped me on the shoulder, while Brady nodded in awe.

Ten seconds ago, I might have welcomed their approval, but not anymore. Sadly, there was no way to warn T-Rex before Rebecca snarled in his face, lips compressed and eyes still in evil slits. Surprised, he leaned back and whined, “What?”

“You guys are such idiots!” she hissed, then stalked away to her next class.

At Tyler’s baffled look, I shrugged and mouthed the word “sorry.” He only shook his head, still confused, and followed his girlfriend. Brady and I moved through the swarm of students to get to our classes in time, too.

It was a good thing we’d already had our big Winter final in Spanish and the holidays were nearing, because nothing Mrs. Sanchez said that day registered. My mind was constantly in the clouds—dark clouds, actually, hovering above my head for purposefully misleading Sue and making Becks angry. She was right; I was a dipshit.

But Susan had hurt me. Part of me still believed I had a right to get back at her that way. Another part of me was sorry about it. And a third part, a very small one, dreaded the moment when I had to face her at lunch and straighten things out, per Becky’s demand. To hell with this day! Why couldn’t it already be over?

Eyes lowered, I walked into the cafeteria after fourth period and headed for the basketball table. Most of my friends were already there; unfortunately, so was Rebecca. T-Rex sat silently beside her and ate his burger, obviously trying hard to avoid her still pissed-off glare.

“Hi, guys,” I said, dropping my backpack on my chair and quickly dashing off to get my lunch. While I waited in line, I chanced a peek over at the soccer table. My conscience still looming above my head with a baseball bat in hand, I wanted to see if my show with Becky had left any obvious marks on little Sue. Probably not. Considering how things were going with her these days, she would probably be jesting with my brother, as she’d done all week.

But when my gaze skated over to the tables by the windows, her usual seat was empty. I scanned the other faces and then looked around the cafeteria. Sue hadn’t moved down a chair or two, or even switched tables. She just wasn’t there. Had she decided to eat her lunch outside today? Maybe she was simply avoiding being in the same room with me. But that was stupid. Also, if she really was, surely my brother or some of her other friends would have joined her. The strange thing was, they were all there. The only one missing from the soccer bunch was Sue.

Staring openly now, I started when the lady behind the counter tapped me on the shoulder. She prompted me to take my meal and make room for the kids behind me. Hastily, I grabbed the tray and returned to my place, sinking into my chair, lost in thought.

“So, what are you going to do about Susan?” Becky grumbled as I stared blankly at my food.

“She isn’t here,” I replied in a low tone, not looking up. And even if she were, I doubted I’d be capable of walking up to her and offering an apology. The small part of me claiming that Sue deserved what I’d done today had quite a loud voice.

After a short pause in which Rebecca probably checked out the soccer table for proof, she said, “Strange. But I’m assuming you have her number. Talk to her. Or
I
will.” At her sinister warning, I lifted my head. She was frowning at me. “What you did was awful, Chris.
Mean
. I’m not going to be a part of that.”

Looking around our table, I tried to find support from my friends, but they just ducked their heads and pretended not to be listening. “Fine,” I grunted, clenching my teeth. Dammit, this girl had an attitude that would open doors to the military for her one day. Picking a slice of cucumber from my salad and chewing on it, I lied, “Over the weekend.” At least it would get Rebecca off my back. She didn’t need to know that I didn’t intend to call Susan ever again.

Obviously pleased, Becky nodded and then asked Tyler to pass her the salt for her fries. When he looked warily at her, she offered him a conciliatory smile. Tension visibly eased out of his muscles. I wouldn’t be able to say that about me as long as she was sitting at the same table. Man, the end of the day couldn’t come fast enough.

The November afternoon was warm and the ride home from school on my bike a nice change. The sun shining on my face dispersed some of the depression that had followed me around all week. If only I could hold on to that warm feeling when I was indoors. Yeah…no such luck. Walking past Ethan’s room stirred the familiar glumness inside me. The painful spikes of treachery were back in full force. In a rush, I discarded my dark gray shirt, fetched some fresh clothes from my wardrobe, and headed to the bathroom to shower off the events of the day, and all the anger with it. It was Friday, after all. My detention was over, and I should’ve been be finding a hookup for tonight. A real date, not a fake one.

Only problem with that—I couldn’t make myself even think about being with another girl. Not yet. It was insane, but I only wanted to be with one. The girl I wasn’t going to talk to ever again.

After the shower, I’d barely toweled myself dry when somebody rang the doorbell. Mom was at work, Ethan at practice, and I sure wasn’t expecting anyone. Slightly annoyed at the prospect of having to deal with a door-to-door salesman, I slipped into my jeans, foregoing boxers and socks, and donned my black hoodie over my wet skin. It was nasty but, unless I wanted to answer the door half-naked, I had no other choice. Buttoning up my pants on the way, I hurried to the door and pulled it open, prepared to face a sweating man with a mustache trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner or some special car polish. When my gaze landed on a soft pink sweatshirt instead, my jaw smacked against my chest.

BEFORE SUSAN COULD say a word, I pulled my crap together and closed my mouth. She shouldn’t see me in utter shock. I was over her.
Or not.

She cleared her throat and pushed out a croaky, “Hi, um…”

Right, we were back to square one—she didn’t even know whether she was talking to me or my brother. Irritated by her lack of attention, I crossed my arms over my chest and clarified, “Chris.”

“Right.” Her voice wavered with awkwardness as she lowered her eyes quickly. “Is Ethan home?”

Wow, wasn’t that a surprise? Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I fixed her with a cold gaze and gritted out, “Soccer practice.”

“Okay, um…” She shook her head slightly. “Never mind.”

Sue turned away, but I couldn’t let her go, because at that very moment, I noticed a sparkling tear rolling down her cheek.
What the fuck?

Before she could slip away from me, I reached out and, with my knuckle under her chin, gently tilted her face up. “Susan, why are you crying?” Did Ethan have something to do with it? What had the bastard said to make her cry?

Whatever it was, I was going to kill him!

For an unfathomable moment, Sue gazed at me, wounded and shattered. Her face turned pale, she swayed, and she was breathing much too fast. Dammit—she was going to break down on my doorstep any second.

In a rush of worry, I grabbed her arms, ignoring the anger that stood between us, and pulled her against my chest, catching her before she fell. A second, then two, passed before her arms slid around me. She dug her fingers into the back of my hoodie, probably appreciating the support.

“I broke up my parents!” The hoarse cry burst out of her, the words muffled by the fabric of my sweatshirt.

That was definitely not what I’d expected to hear. “You did what?” I demanded, holding her against me with my hand in her hair.

While that first, lonely tear on her cheek had surprised me, her full-on breakdown in my arms knocked me for a loop. Her body shook, and her voice broke as she sobbed against my chest, “My parents are getting divorced. It’s my fault!”

I’d never had to deal with a crying girl before, and heck if I knew what to do with Sue. Say things like
shhh
, or
there, there
maybe? God, it all sounded so stupid. I couldn’t really say that aloud. For now, it seemed like a good idea to just keep focused and calm her down. “Tell me what happened.” Well, that came out more anxious than soothing, actually, but she had me in a knot of concern, even if I was the one who was supposed to be calm and strong for her.

Her arms tightened around me. They pulled at the back of my sweatshirt, choking me a little as the collar bit into my throat, but I remained silent. Only she mattered right then. I stroked up and down her back, trying to give her the comfort she needed. With a huge gulp, she sucked in air and hiccupped a little before explaining, “I went home after third period today. My parents were both there.” She wiped her face against my shoulder, wetting it with her tears. That was okay. I wasn’t fussy. “They told me they want to get divorced.”

Uh-oh, that was bad.

“They’ve been fighting for so long, and last weekend—” She broke off, the pain in her throat apparent. After a quick moment, she tried again, “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.”

Giving her all the comfort she needed, I continued caressing her back as she coughed out more and more details. I listened to her, gazing over her head into the street.

“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.”

She sounded like she was carrying the misery of the entire world on her shoulders. Silly girl. How could she ever think she’d made a mistake to split up her parents? It wasn’t her fault.

“They said they don’t want to hurt me with their fighting,” she sniveled. “But I don’t want them to break up because of me.”

When she was finally done and only quiet sobs escaped instead of more of her deluge of words, I continued to hold her. My bare feet grew cold on the doorstep, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered now was to be the rock she needed to ground her. I loved how she held on to me, and I loved how she allowed me to be the one to soothe her. Whatever the reason she’d come here today, I never wanted to let her slip away from me again.

After a while of quiet embracing on my doorstep, it seemed to be time to get one thing straight. Easing back, I didn’t let her go completely, only held her slightly away from me and wiped a few strands of hair out of her face. Tear-soaked, they were sticky like spider legs, so that proved to be a bit of a challenge. “Sweetness, you certainly did
not
break up your parents.” A brush of my thumb caught the last tear on her cheek and brushed it away. “They have some shit to deal with, but it’s not your fault.”

Sue looked at me like she wanted to dive into my arms again, and I wouldn’t have stopped her. Yet she held back, her green eyes glassy like a pond in moonlight.

A car drove by. It was Miss Bloomington, her Dalmatian, Cecil, sitting in the passenger seat, sticking its head out the window, its ugly pink tongue lolling in the wind. We’d been standing out here for the neighbors to spy on for long enough. Sue wasn’t done grieving, and I knew of just the thing to make her feel better. Carefully, I took her hand, dreading the moment she would pull back and push me away. She didn’t, thank God, and let me tug her inside with me.

The best place to take her was probably my room. If Mom decided to come home early, she wouldn’t disturb us there. Susan certainly wouldn’t want just anyone to find her in this condition.

With a gentle push on her shoulders, I steered her toward my bed. As she lowered down on the edge, she looked so wretched, it was like Bambi sat in my room, after a collision with a truck. The cuffs of her sleeves pulled over her palms, she dried her eyes with them.

To spare her nice sweatshirt, I got her a pack of tissues from my desk. As she pulled one out and was about to blow her nose, a thought struck. The girl on my bed was perfect, even when her face was swollen from crying. What if she blew her nose like an elephant now, like Lauren did the other day? Would that ruin some of the fascination she held for me?

Sue wiped her eyes with the tissue and cleaned her nose—gently. A relieved smile almost escaped me, but that would have been
so
out of place. Remembering why I’d brought her inside at all, I quickly braced myself. “Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.” After she gave me a nod, I loped to the kitchen.

In a hurry, I put the kettle on and searched for a good brand in the box of tea bags. Strawberry-vanilla. That was the right flavor to soothe Susan’s agony. When the water was hot, I poured it into my breakfast coffee mug and dipped the tea bag into it until the water turned a pretty, dark pink. The sweet smell unfurled fast. Hopefully she was as much a fan of strawberry tea as she was the real fruit.

That thought made me pause a moment, turn around, and stare at the spot on the island where she’d sat the last time she was in my house. Where I’d kissed her. What a sweet treasure of memories in my chest. Except the familiar feeling of betrayal, which had haunted me all week after she’d sneaked out of my brother’s bedroom, returned just as quickly and I had to tamp it down—hard. It wasn’t about me and my hurt feelings right now, it was only about Sue and the trouble with her family. She needed someone to lean on, and right now I was that somebody.

When I returned to my room, I found her standing by the window, gazing out onto the yard. At my soft cough, she pivoted. I held out the steaming cup. A little confused, she looked first at the cup, then at me.

“Tea is good for the soul,” I told her, offering a small smile instead of a sugar packet, which I’d totally forgotten to add to the tea.

Carefully, she took a sip. Her face didn’t scrunch up in disgust, so she probably liked the taste, even without the extra sweetener. Holding the cup between her hands, she turned back to the window, staring outside.

Worried, because I had no idea what to do or say next in a situation like this, I stood beside her, looking through the same window. Our arms touched, and she quivered. Was that too close? Did she want more distance? She didn’t move away, so maybe it was all right to just stand here with her.

Should I offer her more comfort? Heck, I wasn’t good at things like this. Ethan would know what to do. He would know exactly what to say to make her feel better. Me? I hardly knew her, much less her parents. What could I actually offer?

The weight of silence quickly became too heavy. “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.” That was the best conversation starter to come to my mind, and I was intensely hoping it brought Sue out of the turtle shell she’d retreated into while I was in the kitchen.

It seemed to work. She tilted her head, her curious look resting on my face. “How was it for you?”

“Well, it was pretty hard at first,” I admitted with a quick glance at her. I grimaced. She didn’t need to know all the details, only enough that she understood she had someone who could empathize. “I came home one day, and my dad was no longer here. No goodbye, no letter, no phone call. He was just gone.”

Her mouth opened slightly in shock, her eyes even wider. She didn’t interrupt me, though, so I continued, “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.” My gaze got stuck on the tiny basketball court he’d paved for us in the yard. Part of me was still angry at my dad for leaving, but I’d mostly forgiven him by now, and refused to let old wounds reopen. I tore my eyes away from the paved square and cut a glance at Susan, who sipped her tea, her eyes still fastened on me.

“What did he say to you that day?” she asked.

“Something about how he needed time to sort out his life and shit.” I paused and laughed. “Well, he did sort it out pretty quickly. He moved in with his secretary two days after he moved out of here.”
The fool.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t completely over it. So what?

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

“And Ethan?” Sue asked, her head angled in curiosity.

Of course she would want to hear more about his life than mine. Typical. I suppressed a sigh and told her, “It was harder for him. Ethan never forgave him. They haven’t seen each other once since the day my dad moved out.” It was a shame, really. “I believe Ethan just needs a little more time. Maybe when we’re at college, or just one day…” I shrugged. “Whenever.”

Sue had stopped crying, which elated me. My tactic had been right and my soothing successful. Heck, I was a genius!

Suddenly, the longing to touch her again overwhelmed me. Not thinking at all, I reached out and brushed some stray wisps of hair behind her ear, skimming over her soft skin with my fingertips. “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,” I assured her. “If anything, you were the one holding them together. But you can’t do that forever.”

Giving in to another impulse, I took the cup out of her hands and placed it on the desk behind her. Next, I carefully pulled her toward me, looping my arms around her waist. “And know what the best thing about it all is?”

Again, Susan didn’t squirm out of my embrace, even though she was supposed to be Ethan’s girl. Whatever was I supposed to make of this? A sigh escaped me.

She tilted her face up and stabbed me in the chest with her chin, waiting for my answer.

“The fights will stop,” I told her in a confident voice. I wanted to give her hope.

She inhaled deeply while our gazes stayed locked for several long, silent seconds. What were we doing here? I should be mad at her. Hurt. And I still was in some ways. But for the life of me, I couldn’t let her go. It was like last weekend in the kitchen was happening all over again. Just the two of us in here—so damn close. I only needed one tiny sign from her, and I wouldn’t have given two fucks about my brother. I would have kissed her.

That sign never came.

Instead, Sue broke eye contact a moment later and detached from our hug with great care. I stiffened but let her slip away. She picked up the cup of tea, staring into the slight swirl of liquid. Right. Her mind was probably set on Ethan. No matter what Becky had said, Sue and my brother must’ve had something going. Being with me now certainly counted as cheating in her mind, even if what she and Ethan had done to me was much worse than what I’d intended to do now.

Anger swelled in my chest, hardening the muscles in my jaw. Sue must have noticed it, too, because she became fidgety all of a sudden and handed me the half-empty mug in a rush. “I should go,” she murmured around to head out.