The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) (27 page)

“The way I see it, yes, it does,” I proclaimed. But dammit, judging by her look, it would take a miracle to soften her up. And it seemed, just today, I’d run out of miracles. I squeezed her hands a little tighter, pleading with her sense of reason. “Let’s give this a shot. We could be awesome together.”

A small, doubtful V grew between her eyebrows. “We didn’t even last a day. How is that awesome?” She shook her head and pulled her hands out of mine. “Seriously, I just don’t think we’d work together.”

No, no, no, no, no!
She couldn’t say that.

But Sue rose from my bed, and on what seemed to be shaky legs, she walked away from me. Panic made me race after her. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know,” she breathed as she headed to the front door, not turning around.

This couldn’t be happening. We weren’t finished. Screw it, but I refused to accept her retreat.

“Wait, please!” Before I knew it, my fingers had wrapped around her wrist, and I pulled her back into me in the hallway. “I was an arrogant dick when we met, you were right about that.” The words flew out of me as the fear of really losing her manifested. “But I thought I showed you a different side lately. Someone you could actually like.” What about the deal we’d made after playing soccer together? Had she forgotten about that? “I even played by your rules.”

A hopeless shrug rolled off her shoulders. “You did.” She paused. “I meant what I said the other day—that I probably couldn’t kiss a guy without having true feelings for him. You made me believe you could be that guy.”

Great! So what’s the damn problem?

Sue held my pleading gaze. “But it wasn’t for real, Chris.
You
weren’t for real. You said yourself, you played by my rules—you tried to be different for me.” Reluctantly, she shook her head. “That’s not what I want.”

Dragging her a little closer by the hand I still held, I lowered my head slightly to gaze into her eyes. “What
do
you want?”

As if she had no idea how to answer, she cut a glance to the ceiling, then pulled away from me, and tipped against the wall. She looked lost and sorry. “I want someone who is all that you showed me, but naturally so. Someone who doesn’t have to force himself to be the kind of guy I want.”

Force? Was she crazy? Being around her was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time. There was nobody forcing me into giving her that hickey on the soccer field, or writing the messages we sent back and forth, and there was certainly nobody forcing me into that kiss last Saturday.

“Most of all, I want someone who doesn’t come with the tag ‘trouble.’ Do you understand?”

Oh.

So that was the whole problem. Being with me scared her. Of course, it would. I wasn’t a nice hero cut out from one of her books. I actually had a life
before
she scribbled her number on my arm. And there was still the challenge. She’d never get over that.

Her ideal boyfriend was a low-key guy. A dude who’d ask her three times if the orange juice he’d served her was the right temperature instead of blindfolding her and dripping the juice into her open mouth.

“I do understand.” My words came out cold and toxic. “You want someone safe and boring. Someone who doesn’t give you that exciting tingle in there.” Angling my head, I brushed my fingers over her stomach, giving her a suggestive look. “In short, you still want Ethan.”

She was quiet for too long. The silence pressing in on us threatened to make me ignore her wishes and just pull her into my arms. A kiss, that’s what she needed in order to see clearly again. She could deceive herself all she wanted, but I knew what her heart really desired. Not the nice guy next door. She wanted adventure. It had been there so clearly—in our first kiss. Why didn’t she see it?

Just when I was about to reach for her and make her understand in
my
way, she murmured, “I do like the exciting tingle. I just don’t want the heartache that comes with it.”

Oh, sweetness!
“Give me a chance to show you that you and I can work without heartache. I’m not Ethan—” The dorky thought of it gave me shudders and made me roll my eyes. “God, I’ll never be like him. But I can do
safe
. Give us a shot and let’s start again.”

For a split second, the lines around her eyes softened. She almost smiled as she looked at me and doubtlessly deliberated simply saying yes. In that fathomless moment, she wanted to reach out and put herself in my arms, I could feel it. The air tensed with sheer excitement, and I was ready to catch her if she made this one small step toward me.

The spellbound moment between us ended when Susan slowly shook her head. All my hopes tumbled down like a sandcastle in a strong wind. My chest tightened in despair. God only knew why she’d changed her mind.

Without explanation, she sniffed and turned around, then walked out through the front door, and closed it behind her.

My throat clogged. I squeezed my eyes shut and sunk against the wall. Running after her wouldn’t change anything now. But letting her go was harder than anything I’d ever done before.

I WAS STILL sitting on the floor in the hallway when Ethan came home from soccer. He paused in the doorway in surprise for a couple of seconds, then closed the door, and quietly kicked off his shoes, his back to me. Maybe he wanted to give me a chance to pick myself up and retreat to my room to avoid him. Any other day this week, I’d have done exactly that. But things had changed, and today was different.

His clothes sweat-drenched from training and glowing red in the face, he slowly shuffled down the hallway. When he reached me, he stopped, biting his lip as he deliberated with a wary look. “Fuck off, Ethan…?” he asked.

I inhaled deeply. “Sit down.”

Still cautious, he took his time to lower to the floor opposite me, legs crossed Indian-style. “I’m seriously worried now, you know.”

Damn, I’d given my brother shit this whole week for nothing. What was the right thing to say to make this okay? A simple “I’m sorry” didn’t seem to be enough. Yet it was the only thing I could offer at the moment. “I feel like a complete and utter ass. Please forgive me.”

Obviously uncertain as to how to take the change in my mood, Ethan glanced down the hall to his open room and then back at me. “Apology accepted…” he said, his expression guarded as he scrutinized me sideways. “Subject to modifications.”

I smiled.

“Now tell me what the freak happened, so I can sleep better at night.”

Ah, where to begin?
I pulled my heels to my butt, mirroring Ethan’s Indian-style, braced my elbows on my knees, and fumbled with my fingers. My gaze pasted on my hands, my explanation took some time to come. “I thought you slept with Susan.”

Preparing for a rant, I waited for his answer, but Ethan didn’t say anything. I dared a glance at his face. His mouth wide open, he sat there frozen. His appalled eyes were fixed on me.

“Ethan?” I probed carefully.

He shook his head as if to free himself of a momentary blackout. “When… I mean, what…” He expelled a breath. “Fuck,
why
?”

“Last weekend, when we cooked for Sue, I kissed her. Specifically, when you were gone for the kiwis.” Expecting another round of shock from him, I grimaced.

His reaction, however, was a stern look and a
duh
expression. “I know that, dickhead.”

“You do?”

“What did you think?” He rolled his eyes at me. “We’re friends. She tells me stuff.”

Right. How could I have doubted that? “So, after our kiss that night, you took her to your room.”

Ethan shifted his mouth to one side, contemplating. “I know
you
two aren’t that good of friends, so now I’m wondering how you know about
that
?”

“I was waiting in the living room for you to come home and fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, I heard both of you coming out of your room, and she asked you not to tell me. Because she didn’t want me ‘to ask stupid questions,’” I quoted Susan’s concern, my voice sharp with irritation. “Seriously, what would you have thought in my place?”

“Well, first of all, you should have talked to us about it, if it really worried you so much.”

“Of course it worried me! Heck, I told you I kissed Sue that afternoon.”

“So? You kiss a lot of girls and never care what they do afterward.”

“It’s different with her.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your theory?”

“You’re in love with Susan.”

I wrapped my arms around my bent legs and planted my forehead on my knees, squeezing my eyes shut. “Hmm. Could be true.”

“Could be, all right.” Ethan laughed. “So how did you find out we did
not
sleep with each other?”

I lifted my head and planted my chin on my knees instead. “Sue showed up today. She said she ran off because of a family fight that night.”

“She actually came here to tell you that?”

“No, she came here because her parents are getting divorced.”

“
WHAT
?” His outraged shout startled me stiff, and my head snapped up. “And you’re only telling me this now?” He slid his phone from his pocket and hastily dialed a number.

“What are you doing?” Alarm rang in my words.

“Calling Susan, of course!” He pressed the cell phone to his ear, his sharp gaze on me while he waited. “Her parents are breaking up—she’ll be devastated.”

That about summed it up.

Ethan listened for a few seconds, then he put the phone down and grumbled, “Voice mail.”

I sucked in a breath through my teeth. “She’s not picking up?”

“No. Anything else you have to reveal about that?”

“Well, um…” I cleared my throat.

Ethan was getting impatient. “What, Chris?”

“It could be that she was quite mad when she left. Or maybe not mad. More like…er, confused. Or…”
Disappointed?
Was that the word I was looking for? “Hurt…”

“My God, what did you say to her?”

“I’m not quite sure, actually. After comforting her, I might have asked her to be my girlfriend.” I lowered my chin to my knees again. “And then again, maybe not.”

“So you told her that you’re in love with her?”

“I’m not exactly sure what I told her”—all the messy things were starting to blur together in my mind—“but I think she knows anyway.”

His brow furrowed. “And what did she say?”

My sullen gaze dropped to the square tiles on the floor. “That I’m too much trouble, obviously, and that she’d rather be with you.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.” Ethan glared at me in reproach and dialed Sue’s number again.

“Why is that bull?”

He growled when he apparently reached her voice mail once more and put the phone back in his pocket. “Because Susan knows I’m not interested.”

I raked my hands through my hair, dipping my head back against the wall. “See, that’s one thing I really don’t get. You two hang out all the time, and she’s totally into you. Yet you don’t want to date her. Why?”

“First of all, Christian”—gah, I hated it when my family used my full name—“as far as I can see, she’s really into
you
, not me.”

Did she tell Ethan that? If she did, there was hope for me, right?
RIGHT?

“And second, I don’t want to date her because…” As he sucked in a lungful of air, I raised one eyebrow, urging him to keep going. Suddenly, he spoke in a rush. “Because I’m not really interested in girls that way.”

What. The. Hell?
My hands dropped to the floor.

Ethan was gay. Like really and literally into boys.

I mean, that’s okay. It’s cool. I knew it. But—
what the fricking hell?

It was so much different to hear it from him after only assuming for so long. Mom’s guessing, my guessing…all the evidence I’d gathered… It was true. A breath whizzed out through my teeth. “Wow.”

“Now don’t act like you haven’t known that for a while.” His cheeks a light shade of pink, he lowered his face and glared at me from under the sweaty hair falling into his eyes. But what was that at the corners of his mouth? My brother really wanted to smile now, didn’t he?

And why not? I smirked. “You had Mom and me puzzling over it for the longest time.”

“Yeah, I suppose I should tell her the truth sometime soon, too.”

“She will understand, E.T.,” I assured him after worry lines replaced his relieved expression. “She loves you, and she doesn’t mind.”

He nodded, not fully convinced yet.

“Are you going to tell Sue as well?” I asked, to distract him from his fretting about Mom.

“She knows.”

“
Since when?
”

“She figured it out somehow after the weekend of your big game.”

“That was two weeks ago!”

“Yep.”

Whoa.
That girl could keep a secret. Then again, I had one to keep now, too. Until Ethan was ready to come out to people outside of this house—and he didn’t seem ready to do that just yet—I’d keep my mouth shut. But heck, it meant a lot to me that he’d told me. And after this horrible week, too.

All these years I’d been sure, if anything ever came between my brother and me, it could only be a girl. Seemed like I’d been right from the beginning. Except it had happened under totally unforeseeable circumstances.

Inhaling deeply, I leaned forward and held my fist out across the hallway. “I’m really sorry for being such a shit this week.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ethan bumped it. “It’s okay, bro.”

“So would you tell me what exactly happened last Saturday that led to Sue sleeping in our house?”

“I met her parents…sort of. They had a really bad fight.” Ethan rose from the floor and headed into the kitchen. “I swear, it was like
Mom and Dad Reloaded
.” The sound of the coffee machine starting up drifted to me and then his shout, “You want one?”

I picked myself up from the tiles and followed him into the kitchen. He handed me a cappuccino, then told me how he and Sue had tried to sneak past Susan’s fighting parents last weekend and were spotted by them. Apparently Mr. and Mrs. Miller were at a vase-throwing level already. I remembered that from my parents and could imagine how bad it must have been for Sue. It appeared she was ashamed Ethan was put in the middle of such a fight at her house. She’d walked up to them and given them a good piece of her mind.

“It was quite impressive,” Ethan said in awe. “You should have seen her. But she felt really bad afterward, and there was a lot of crying involved. She didn’t want to go back to her parents that night, so I brought her home with me. And that was that. She was beat when she curled up on my bed, and fell asleep within seconds. Even if I’d actually wanted to do anything with her, she was dead to the world. You really don’t need to worry.”

He didn’t have to look across the table at me so reproachfully now, I already believed him. But it was good to hear his side of the story and realize it corresponded with Sue’s version.

Then again, what good was it now? I’d screwed up. No chance to change that.

“So what happened when Susan came here today?” At my brother’s demand, I told him my miserable story. He listened carefully, though he tried to call Susan a couple of times in between. Still no answer. “Give her some time. A night to sleep on it,” Ethan suggested in the end. “She needs to calm down, and then maybe you two can talk about it again.”

“You think?”

“Mm-hm.” He nodded. “It’s probably just bad timing, what with all the trouble at her house. But I know she likes you. And she’ll forgive you, too.”

Jeez, I hoped he was right.

That evening, I found myself repeatedly knocking on my brother’s door and asking him if Susan had called him back yet. She wasn't speaking to me, so Ethan was all I had—my one connection to Sue. Each time he shook his head, my shoulders drooped a little more. I really wanted to call her, or at least send her a message. After our argument today, however, I didn’t dare.

At ten thirty, I checked for the last time. When I knocked on his door, he didn’t answer, so I poked my head inside, in case he was asleep. My heart kick-started when, instead, he was on the phone. Ethan looked up and beckoned me with his finger to enter and be quiet.

“Is that her?” I mouthed, sitting upright and anxious on his desk chair. “What’s she saying?” Jesus, could he not put her on speakerphone or something?

Obviously a little irritated by my pushing, Ethan turned his back on me and walked to the window. I could only hear his part of the conversation, and it drove me insane to wait.

“Do you want to do something this weekend?” he asked her. Whatever her answer was, it wasn’t a
yes
, because he added a moment later, “The offer doesn’t have an expiration date.” Another short pause and he, thankfully, turned around again, so I could see his face while he spoke to her. But one could read
any
thing into his expression, so maybe that wasn’t the best idea after all.

“Can I talk to her?” I hissed while Ethan was silent.

He made a shushing gesture at me, then spoke into the phone again. “Yeah. And hey…” His annoyed eyes rested on me, and he sighed. “Chris says good night.”

Okay!
That was good. Right?

“Will do. Bye.” He hung up and tossed the phone on his bed.

“What did she say?” I fired at him as soon as it was only the two of us again. “Is she all right? Did she talk to her parents? How’s she feeling?” I paused for a second, biting my bottom lip. “And did she say anything about me and what happened this afternoon?”

Ethan leaned against the window sill, impatiently folding his arms over his chest. “Are you done now or do you want to shoot questions at me all night?”