Heartbreaker Hanson (3 page)

CHAPTER 6

This
was how the night went: After dinner with Laurie and her mom, I was helping
with the dishes when Drew came by to drop off some stuff for Laurie.

Hearing
his voice, my heart exploded, and my knees went weak, and I almost dropped the
dish I was holding. (Yes, I’ve got it bad!) (And okay, yes, I’m a spaz.)
(Both.)

Drew
didn’t know I was there—at Laurie’s house. I could hear him talking with
her in the foyer while I worked in the kitchen as Mrs. Ashton had to take an
important call in the other room, so I was alone and able to eavesdrop without
even having to try. I listened while I dried the dishes—and tried not to
drop them. Not easy when the boy I’d dreamed about all summer was in the other
room—being adorable with cute little jokes about his football practice,
and his little brothers and sister. (
Aw!
)

Laurie
invited Drew in to have some dessert, but he declined quickly saying he really
needed to go. But then they talked a while more, as Laurie is able to do
that—make people linger, even when they have no intention of doing it.

Finally,
Drew said distractedly, “Geez, your house smells really good.”

I
could hear the happiness in Laurie’s voice as she informed him that it was the
lingering aroma from dinner, and invited him to have a plate of the leftovers.
He was swayed easy enough, as he’d just come from football practice.

He
admitted with a sheepish grin in his voice, “I’m actually starving to death.”

He
ventured into the house, then his eyes sparked when he saw me.

“Hi,”
he said with surprise, finding me there, trying to put away the Ashton’s
dishes.

“Hi,”
I mumbled, going up in flames for some reason (probably because he’d kissed me)
(and his eyes sparked when he saw me just now) (and he’s gorgeous), so I didn’t
look at him. Not just because of the flames-thing and everything else—but
because he was my friend’s
boyfriend
.

So
his hungry stare was bad. (Bad, bad,
BAD!!
)
And so was the fact it was making my heart explode. And had me on fire.

Yes,
I was a train wreck, and shouldn’t have been left with fragile dishes.

Laurie
quickly got him out everything we had just put away from dinner, and warmed him
a generous plate of food. Drew sat on the counter while it heated. Laurie came
and stood between his spread legs. They talked softly, kissing lightly every
now and then. I could feel him peek at me though, the whole time.

I
tried desperately to ignore it. But um …??

Instead,
I desperately tried attempting to find places to put the Ashton’s dishes, no
longer caring if I found the right place or not.

Needless
to say, I felt beyond uncomfortable. Would rather poke out my eyeballs than be
here with the two of them.

Though
I’d spent the last two years in their company on a regular basis, now it was
beyond awkward for me. It was that dreamy kiss on the bus. It turned everything
around in my head. Now whenever I saw them kiss I wanted it to be
me
he was kissing. I’d had a tiny sample
of what it would feel like, and now I yearned for the whole thing.

Drew’s
lingering eyes seemed to tell me that he wanted that as well—that he was desperately
yearning to kiss me too.

That
was the new part, actually—since I’d
always
longed for his kiss. Always. The thing
was, now he seemed to desperately long to do it—kiss me passionately. His
hungry eyes clearly told me that. (Well, maybe.)

So
this was royally messed up.

“I
should get going, Laurie,” I squeaked out when I finally had every single dish
put in a spot, no matter how unlikely the spot seemed to be.

“Okay,”
she murmured hypnotically, probably hoping that I’d go and leave them alone
anyway—since now she was getting exactly what she had been going to
complain to me about
not
getting:
Drew’s attention.

She
happily went on, “We can have our talk tomorrow.”

Joy.

(Not.)

I
reminded her awkwardly, “But I need a ride.”

Unfortunately,
it was completely dark out now—and raining. Like, torrentially.

Drew
offered quickly, “I’ll give you a ride.”

My
breath drew in sharply.

This
is not exactly what I was hoping for. At all. Obviously.

Nervously,
I looked at him and he looked at me. Neither of us stirred. He stared into my
eyes, making my heart explode and my knees go weak. Groan. (This was bad.) (
So
bad.)

Laurie
did a pouty face. “At least eat first,” she said to Drew sulkily.

Drew’s
jaw muscles flickering, he gave me a searching look. “Have a minute to spare?”

The
silence was heavy—at least in my mind. And soul.

“Sure,”
I mumbled finally. I mean, what else could I say?

Laurie
and I sat at the table with him while he ate. He was used to girl’s attention,
so this wasn’t weird to him. Well, I guess. But I was wanting to bash my head
through a window. And just make a run for it. Who cares about a little
rain?—and the possibility of being attacked? Anything was more bearable
than this: Laurie being all affectionate with him while I looked on like a
third-wheel. It had me all squirmy.

Yet
Drew just ate—like a football player that missed his dinner. (What I mean
is—normal.) But me? I was itching to pull a fire alarm. Or pull out my
hair. Both, actually.

After
a while of talking sweetly with him, Laurie tried to kiss Drew, but he peeked
up at me instead. “Hey Brooke, you missed Spanish class—both yesterday
and today.”

He
said it with a questioning look, yet it made it clear: he noticed I wasn’t in
class.

“Need
to borrow my notes?” he offered. “We have a quiz in the class tomorrow.”

I
rubbed my forehead. I’d been missing Spanish class due to band practice. We had
an important concert coming up, but unfortunately that didn’t mean I could get
out of taking the quiz—sadly.

I
bit my lip.
Oh no. I forgot my plan to
ask Ally for her notes
, I realized. Now it was getting too late.

My
eyelids closed. “I was going to beg Ally to let me borrow her notes.”

Drew
grinned looking puzzled. “You don’t have to beg
me
to borrow
mine
.”

Right.
Since he’d just offered. My eyelids squeezed tighter. Unfortunately, like I
said, it was getting way too late to bug poor Ally. I knew getting them from Drew
made way more sense, especially since we
used
to always study together last year. But things had changed a lot since then.
Duh. So, now I squirmed uneasily at the thought—though it was
just
borrowing his notes. Also, face it,
it would look (and
be
) weird
if I turned down his offer.

“Sure,”
I said stiffly. “I’d appreciate borrowing them—thanks.”

He
nodded, like no problem. But then he added, “My writing is pretty hard to
decipher though—as you know.”

“I
think I can manage,” I mumbled. “I mean, if you’re sure I can borrow them.”

“Of
course you can.” He gave me a curious look. Then he said with a playful gleam
in his eyes, “I would have been offended if you took them from Ally instead of
me.” He grinned teasingly, “—I’ll never make you beg.”

Then
he added, “Plus, we’re study partners … right?”

Well,
we
were
.

But
that was before he kissed me.

CHAPTER 7

Drew
stopped the car in front of his house. “Are you coming in?”

“No,”
I answered. “I’ll wait here.”

“Come
in.” He opened the car door for me. “Delia will be excited to see you.”

Delia
was Drew’s youngest little sister. I used to baby-sit her and Drew’s two
brothers, David and Danny when they were younger, but now I think his mom had David
do the babysitting. He was old enough to handle the responsibility now, and yet
young enough that she could make him stay home at night and do it—and not
pay him.

There
were eight children in Drew’s family (eight!!), and they all started with the
letter “D.” He was the fifth child, and the oldest still living at home.

“I
haven’t seen little Delia in over a year,” I mused as I reluctantly (and all
sorts of hesitantly) got out of Drew’s car. “I bet she doesn’t even remember
me.”

“Yeah
she does,” Drew said. “She’s always begging me to have you come over and play
with her.”

“No
she doesn’t.” I breathed out an incredulous laugh. “I really doubt she
remembers me.”

“No,
she
does
. She really does. She always
talks about how the two of you would play pirates.”

“Its
true. We did,” I smiled with delight. I’d really enjoyed babysitting his
brothers and sweet little sister. They were always fun.

“Look
who’s here,” Drew called out when we came into his house.

The
family was all in the den watching television with big bowls of popcorn in
their laps.

“Why,
Brooke how lovely it is to see you,” Mrs. Roberts greeted me enthusiastically as
she got up from her seat and came over to where Drew and I stood in the
doorway. “It’s been a long time! What a beautiful young lady you’ve grown to
be,” she announced as she took my hands to gaze at me.

“Thank
you,” I blushed.

“Did
I not always tell you, Drew, that behind those thick glasses and baggy clothes
was a beautiful girl?” Mrs. Roberts asked her son with a pleased smile.

“Yeah,
ma, you were always saying that,” Drew agreed grinning at me huge, since his
mom had me blushing.

“Well,”
her eyes twinkled, “—was I right?”

Drew
looked into my eyes and smiled. “Yeah, ma, you were right.”

“Of
course I was right,” she said with delight. “Your mother is always right—you
should listen to her more often.”

“I
will ma,” he promised and then asked where Delia was.

“She
went to a musical play with one of her little friends and their family. She’ll
be sorry she missed you, Brooke. She’s always wanting to have you over to play
pirates with her.”

“She
must be all grown up now,” I said wistfully.

“Oh
she is,” Mrs. Roberts smiled. “She is such a little lady. She carries a little
white purse to school with her everyday.”

“Oh
well,” Drew said cutting short our small talk. “She’s not here, too bad. Well,
we’ll see you ma.”

“Oh,
don’t rush the girl,” Mrs. Roberts instructed her son. “Girls don’t like to be
rushed. How is your brother, Brooke? He doesn’t come around much anymore.”

“He’s
started a new band,” I informed her. “It keeps him really busy.”

“So
he still plays the guitar? That’s so good. Tell him to stop by and see us. We
miss him around here.”

“Okay,”
I promised as Drew took my arm and dragged me away from his mom.

We
went up to his room and while he searched through his notebooks for his Spanish
notes I studied his bedroom with interest, as it had changed quite a bit.

It
had been almost a year since I’d been here. Back then he had to share his room
with his older brother. Drew’s half of the room had been devoted entirely to
Laurie. His walls had literally been plastered with pictures of her.

“You’ve
redecorated,” I murmured curiously as I gazed around the room, amazed to
discover not a single picture of Laurie remained on his walls. Not one. Instead
there were various sports awards and academic certificates, as well as many
newspaper articles relating to him that he had clipped and posted here and
there.

“Yeah,”
he agreed, looking up from the notebook he was searching through to gaze
absently about the room. He grinned sardonically, “I’ve kind of made it a
shrine to myself.”

“It
used to be a shrine to Laurie,” I observed.

“Yeah,”
he agreed, gazing at me closely. “It did … but that was a long time ago.”

“Has
she seen the renovation?” I asked curiously, my heart pounding hard from his
stare.

“No.”
His eyes were still on me. “I don’t have Laurie over much anymore. I haven’t
had her over in a long time.”

“That’s
weird,” I murmured, though I hadn’t meant to say the thought aloud.

“Yeah?”
he asked, looking at me closely again.

I
quickly glanced away, feeling awkward being studied and watched so attentively—by
him.

His
eyes lingered on me a moment longer, then he ran a hand over his face and went
back to searching for his notes.

Meanwhile,
I curiously browsed around his room some more, reading the articles on his walls.

I
guess I got fairly engrossed in what I was reading. Apparently. ‘Cause I was
startled when I glanced his way to discover him watching me. The way his hungry
eyes were on me, it was as though he had been watching me for a long time. My
insides did a funny loop to find him looking at me that way.

He
cleared his throat. “I found my notes,” he said.

“Great,”
I choked out, not even sure what I was saying.

I
felt definitely strange.

Quivery
and dizzy.

And
hot.

“They’re
really hard to read,” he said, looking over them again before he handed them to
me. “Good luck.”

“Thanks
a lot,” I smiled way too widely to be natural. (
Calm. Down!!
)

I
gushed out quickly/spastically, “Well, I guess we should get going.”

He
gave me this look, one I couldn’t read, his jaw muscles flickering.

His
eyes still on me, he said softly, so hesitantly, “I thought maybe we could
study for the chemistry test together—like we used to.”

I
gulped, knowing that wasn’t a good idea. At all.

Jerkily,
I shook my head. “I—I haven’t finished reading the chapter yet. I’m not
ready for the studying part.”

“That’s
okay, you can read it while I finish my history paper,” he suggested.

A
strange panic rose inside me. I felt trapped. And dizzy.

I
wanted to get away as fast as I could. I’m sure quite a bit of my spaz came
from the simple act of discovering him gazing at me when I hadn’t known that he
was. I loved the guy, so that incident had my heart pounding wild, but on top
of that there was the fact that he wanted to study here—in his room. We
had studied thousands of times together last year, but never in his room—not
even at his house. We usually studied in Laurie’s den or at my kitchen table.

We
had never studied in a private place before, and thinking of doing it now, tonight,
had me rattled, to say the least. Not that I thought he was going to attack me—of
course. I could only
wish
he would
attack me. Well, you know what I mean—if there wasn’t Laurie to consider.
But there
was
Laurie to consider. So,
even though he seemed to have put last year’s kiss on the bus out of his
mind—locked it away as a far-out blunder—
I
couldn’t lock it away. It was right up there in my mind, swimming
around making me breathless and dizzy, right along with his heated stare that I
had always craved, but never ever dreamed I’d get.

With
all my heart I wanted to get away from him as fast as I could, to the safety of
my own room, where I could think about his gaze, and fantasize about its
implications (and not worry/dwell on the fact that it was totally disloyal to
my friend—and made me an extremely bad person).

Also,
I wanted to fantasize about kissing him.

…
but of course it couldn’t happen for real. It couldn’t.

…
yet if I stayed, it seemed it might.

He
seemed to be over Laurie. I’d waited two long years for that. But now that it
was finally here, I knew it was hopeless. Laurie was my friend. Even if they
broke up—I mean, broke up for real this time (which never seemed to be
the case—but even if it was) Laurie was my friend. Which meant I could
never have Drew.

Even
if his eyes told me that’s what he wanted—wanted me. (!!!)

I
gulped. “I don’t have my book,” I said, practically clawing behind me at the
door.

“You
can use mine,” he offered, showing his book to me.

He
eyed me curiously as he did it, looking at me as though I’d gone bananas or
something. Possibly because we had studied so often together—yet now I
was being a spaz.

He
tilted his head. “Does it bother you that we’re in my room? We don’t have to
study here if you don’t want to.”

Maybe
I’d imagined his “heated” stare? Maybe it was just a normal, everyday glance
and I was just a pathetic delusional dork due to his kiss. His kiss that he
apologized
for, and had only happened in
the first place because I murmured his name in my sleep, so he knew I was
dreaming about him. He probably thought the kiss would be funny. Had intended
it to be a joke or something—but I took it wrong.

And
now I’m a spaz.

I
drew out a breath. “No, its okay,” I said, grabbing the chemistry book he
offered me and quickly taking a seat at his messy desk.

“It’s
kind of a mess,” he said. “We don’t have to study in here.”

“No,”
I said, acting like I was already engrossed in the book, though I just opened
it. “It’s great, don’t worry about it.”

He
looked at me a moment, and then grinned, “You’re really weird.”

“Thanks
a lot,” I laughed, relaxing a little.

“You
can’t sit there though. I need to use the computer,” he said, meaning that he
would need to use his desk, which I was sitting at (awkwardly). “You can just
throw all that stuff off the bed.”

Oh-kay.

I
sat on his bed with my back against the wall, kind of enjoying this
position—way too much. I could peek up from my book and study him as
often as I wanted without fear of being detected, because he would have to turn
his head to catch me in the act. (Score!)

So,
needless to say, it was hard to concentrate on the book. Instead, I found
myself wondering what it would feel like to be wrapped in his big delicious strong
arms. (Quiver.)

I
squeezed my eyes shut, then forced myself to focus my thoughts on chemistry. We
had a test the next day, and I wanted to do well on it. Over the summer I
decided I’d like to be a pediatrician and that meant I’d need a lot of chemistry,
and all the other sciences as well.

 
As always, it was extremely helpful to
read my schoolwork with Drew around. Whenever I came to something I didn’t
understand I just called him over and he’d stop what he was doing and patiently
explain it to me. He was extremely patient, and explained things thoroughly well,
but I’d already known that from the year before when we’d gotten together so
often to work on our homework.

He
finished his paper about the same time that I finished the chapter.

“Munchies,”
he said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”

He
went downstairs to get necessities—chips and soda. Then gasp! To my sheer
unease—we sat on his bed studying.

He
would quiz me, and then I would quiz him. We both had it down fairly solid, so
for the most part we just talked. I told him that I’d decided that I wanted to
be a pediatrician, and he was amazed, telling me that he wanted to be a doctor
too. I informed him that I already knew that. That surprised him. But I don’t know
why. It was common knowledge that Drew wanted to be a doctor.

“Maybe
we’ll go to the same med school,” he mused.

My
heart pounded. “Maybe.”

“I’d
like to go to the same school as you,” he murmured.

His
words sent a thrill through my entire body. Maybe it was more the way he said
it than the actual words he spoke. I mean, I have to admit “I’d like to go to
the same med school as you” is not the most romantic thing that has ever been
said. The way he said it though seemed to imply much more than what he had
actually said. I peeked up at him to find him staring at me again.

“Brooke
… I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.”

He
said those beautiful words so soft and husky that heat ripped through me. It
also helped that his eyes seemed to be flickering flames of passion as they
gazed into mine. Holy smokes!! I was on fire.