Kiss with Cherry Flavor (Grover Beach #4) (12 page)

“No.” His answer came out flat and emotionless, but in the next moment his eyes took on a mischievous shine. “But I
hope
you will.”

Oh, he could
definitely have that. Now I couldn’t wait to get inside and think of a nice good-night message to send him.

“Be careful,” he growled with a smirk, nodding at my hand on his thigh where I kept playing with the loose threads.

“Why?”

“Bigger kids than you
have gotten lost in that hole.”

That
made me giggle. When I didn’t remove my hand, he gave a sudden imitation of a wolf’s bark and clapped his hand on mine so fast it made me jump.

I
squealed and then broke out in a laughing fit, my eyes tearing up. Staring at me, fascinated, Tony waited until I got a grip again. I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand.

Tony cracked a smile. “Oh no,
I made you cry again,” he said, tilting my chin up with his knuckle and stroking his thumb across my lip.

“Yeah, but the
important part is, are they good tears or bad ones? You can make me cry like this anytime you want.”

A soft breeze whirled around us. I zipped up my hoodie, trembling slightly. Tony was only wearing his short-sleeved shirt and he didn’t seem cold at all. But my shiver didn’t go unnoticed. He rose from the concrete, took my hand, and pulled me up, too. “It’s late and you’re cold. You should go inside now.”

I nodded. “Will you go back to the party?”

“Nah.
Just going back to get my car.” He enveloped me in a tight embrace with my hands trapped between our chests. The warmth from his arms seeped through the fabric of my hoodie, but still, my shivering got worse. Even my lips trembled when Tony placed a soft kiss on them. “Freezing girl,” he complained with a chuckle. “No good-night kiss then.” Releasing me, he walked me up the drive but stopped in front of the steps that led to the door. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”
Tomorrow
. I smiled then I let myself in and tiptoed upstairs.

Taking a shower before going to bed, I thought of the sound of Tony’s laugh and it made me giddy. Lost in reverie, I forgot the time and stood under the warm spray for almost half an hour. He would be home by now. Hopefully, he hadn’t gone to bed already. I still wanted to send him a sweet message. Just what could I write?

When I got back to my room, the problem was solved. He’d already sent me a text while I was in the bathroom.

IF YOU’RE STILL UP, CHECK YOUR INBOX. NOT ON YOUR PHONE. DO IT ON YOUR COMPUTER.

My heart lurched to my throat. Another email? What couldn’t he tell me in a short text? And why couldn’t I check it on my iPhone? Oh, the guy had me taut, all right. I rushed to my desk and booted up my laptop. Nervous, I typed my password incorrectly twice.

When I finally got access to my inbox, there was one email waiting for me.

___________________________

From:
Anthony J. Mitchell

To:
Samantha Summers

Date:
Sat, 17 Nov 2013  23:57

Subject:
Why wait?

7
Attachments (12.27 MB)

Sam…I know I said
one day
, but tonight’s as good as any, I guess. Here are the pictures. I’m sorry you only saw the ugliest of them all.

T.

I took a look at the pictures in the slideshow viewer, but after the third I opened them fully, one after the other. My mouth dropped open as my eyes widened. All seven files were scanned pencil drawings of me in various positions I’d been in over the past couple of weeks. He’d dated them all and signed them with his distinctive T.

In the first drawing, I was doing stretches against a tree. My hair was falling into my eyes as I bent forward to grab my ankle and lay my head on my knee. The way he’d drawn me, I looked a little shy…like I’d been caught staring at him. Damn, he’d drawn that from memory? I couldn’t believe it.
So many small details. It was perfect. And so beautiful.

I switched to the next drawing. It was dated 11/8/13. Two days later. In this one I was sitting at the table in the cafeteria, sucking on a lollipop. This drawing made me giggle.

The next one was from 11/9/13. Me hunkering under a tree, arms folded on my bent knees and face hiding in my arms.

11/11/13. I was squatting in front of a campfire, warming my hands over the blaze. And I was wearing Tony’s black
hoodie.

On 11/12/13 he’d drawn two. In one I was standing in front of a dreamy forest, shoulders hunched,
rain falling on my head. I was smiling at the viewer. In the other—oh my freaking goodness—I was dancing.

The drawings were all gorgeous. But it was the last one that surprised me most. It was the exact same picture he’d drawn of me in AVE, which I’d shredded before returning it to the sender. Tony had replicated it—last Wednesday.
The day I’d given him the sweatshirt back.

Leaning back in my chair, I laced my fingers behind my head and studied the screen for what seemed an eternity. The picture started to swim in front of my eyes. What I saw in my mind then was how he’d gazed at me during that lesson. How he’d looked at me in the restroom today when he didn’t want me to leave.
And how he’d looked on the stairs in Ryan Hunter’s house tonight, shortly before he kissed me. Oh, he could make a girl go dreamy, all right.

Releasing a deep, happy sigh, I smiled to myself,
then typed an answer for Tony.

___________________________

From:
Samantha Summers

To:
Anthony J. Mitchell

Date:
Sun, 18 Nov 2013  00:41

Subject:
I can’t believe you did this!

Dear crazy stalker!

The drawings are beautiful. Thank you for showing me.

See you tomorrow.

:-) Sam

It took all of forty seconds for him to reply.

___________________________

From:
Anthony J. Mitchell

To:
Samantha Summers

Date:
Sun, 18 Nov 2013  00:42

Subject:
Re: I can’t believe you did this!

I’m looking forward to it.

And so was I. I shut down my laptop, turned off the light, and climbed into bed, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“MOM
! DAD! COME quick! There’s something wrong with Samantha!”

Ugh
. Something was wrong with me? I forced my eyes open and groaned. Bright light was blinding me. Hell, what time was it?

Tuning
my head to the side, I shielded my eyes with my arm, fighting against a murderous headache. Too little sleep. Vaguely, I noticed that my quilt was gone.

Worried voice
s drifted from downstairs, then footsteps rushed closer. I pulled my arm away from my face, blinking a few times, trying to focus. The lights in my room and in the hallway were on. Outside the window it was pitch-black. I knew I couldn’t have slept longer than an hour or two.

“Goodness gracious!” a deep male voice barked.

Without a clue why three people were suddenly standing in my room, I sat up in bed and kneaded the spot between my eyes. “What’s going on?” I murmured. Was there a fire in the house?

“Sam!
Oh my God!” Wrapped in a light blue dressing gown, my aunt fell on her knees in front of my bed, pressing her palm to my forehead and then touching my cheeks, my shoulders, and my upper arms. “Are you all right?”

I pulled my legs to my chest. “Yes. Sure.” Just dead tired and confused as hell. “Why’s everyone so upset?”

All of a sudden, Pamela’s eyes grew as wide as her porcelain saucers. She leaned away from me but held me tight by my shoulders. “Samantha…have you been drinking?”

What stupid change of topic was
that? My brows knitted to a frown. “No.” Then I caught a glimpse behind her of my uncle lifting my desk chair from the floor. Had it fallen over? How strange. And not just my chair. The doors of my wardrobe stood wide open, clothes littered the floor, and—
Shit!
My laptop lay open and upside down next to the desk, pieces of the shattered screen all around. “Was there an earthquake?”

“If only!” Jack snarled. H
e stood in front of me now in long flannel bottoms, his feet and chest bare. In each hand he held a bottle for display. One empty, the other containing a mouthful of—what? I read the square black label. Scotch?

“When did you drink these?” my uncle demanded, his voice growing louder
with each word.

“I
didn’t
drink them.” What in the world made him think that?

“Don’t lie to me, Samantha! These are the bottles that disappeared from our
living room,” he thundered. “So when the fucking hell did you drink them?”

“Jack!” Pamela shouted, shocked, and whirled around to him. She sure wasn’t used
to her husband swearing. Frankly, no one was.

My mouth went bone
-dry. My mind started to swirm. “I didn’t take them. And I didn’t drink them. I promise.”

“You promise? You smell like a distill
ery, and you honestly expect us to believe you?”

I smelled like
a
what
? Dammit, now that he’d said it, I noticed the heavy odor of alcohol in the room. But where exactly it was coming from, I couldn’t say. I opened and closed my mouth a few times. No sound came out. This was too weird. I hadn’t had any alcohol at the party. What the hell was going on?

Then my gaze fell on
Chloe for the first time. She had her PJs on and her hair was a mess from sleeping, so she must have come home a while ago. She stood behind her father and wore a frightened face.

I swallowed hard, struggling to find my voice again. “Why are you all in my room anyway? What time is it?”

“It’s three in the morning, Sammy,” my aunt told me.

But her husband overrode her with his angry shout. “We came
in here because you scared Chloe. She heard noises in your room and came to check on you. Then she found you in this chaos!”

Chloe
clung to her father’s arm, her eyes on me. She actually shivered. “You were shouting. I thought you were having a fight with someone. Then I heard a rumbling and came into your room, but no one was there, and you were lying on your bed, knocked out cold. I was so scared.”

S
he was one hell of an actress. “For heaven’s sake, what are you talking about?” I shouted. “I came home before midnight, and I went to bed an hour later. Everything was normal at that time. I didn’t drink at the party or afterward, and I sure didn’t trash my room!”

“That’s the problem with drinking,” Jack exclaimed. “
You have no control. You don’t know what you’re doing in that condition.”

“And you don’t know what you’re talking about!” I rubbed my temples, trying to concentrate. Ha
d they all gone nuts?

“I recognize a drunken teenager when I see one. And since you
’ve been caught, you can give back the other things you stole from your aunt and me, as well.”

“What?” I screamed at him, straightening my back and
tucking my legs underneath me. I shook from cold and horror.

“You know what I mean!
My watch. The two hundred dollars from Pamela’s purse. Did you take the expensive brushes too?” He removed his arm from Chloe’s hold and started pulling open the drawers of my desk, one after the other. “Where are they?”

“Jack, I beg you,” my aunt whined, crossing to him and
tugging gently at his arm. “Sam would never steal. This is just a big misunderstanding.”

“Is it?
IS IT?
And what the hell do you call this, Pam?” He shoved two crisp hundreds he’d just pulled out of my bottom drawer in front of her face.

I gulped.

Everyone turned to me.

“I didn’t put th
ose in there,” I whispered. “I didn’t take them.” My pleading gaze found Pam’s eyes. “You must believe me, Aunt Pam. I didn’t steal the money from you.”

“Sam…” Her voice
cracked.

“Do you see now that she’s a bad influence on our daughter?” Jack hissed at Pamela. “We should have
never agreed to take her in. Go and call Miranda. Tell her we’re sending Samantha home on the first flight we can get.”

What
?
He was kicking me out? Oh my God. Why? What had I done? This was a mistake—not my fault. Didn’t he see that? He couldn’t send me home!

My heart almost gave out on me. I didn’t want to leave.

“Jack, I don’t know,” my aunt croaked as she tore her gaze away from me, holding her husband’s hand. “Maybe this is just—I don’t know.” She clapped her hand to her mouth, cutting a painful look at me and back at Jack. “We should go downstairs and talk about it. Maybe there’s an explanation. Maybe Sam just has problems.” She turned to me again. “Do you have problems, Sam? Do you want to talk about anything? Maybe I—didn’t I listen
carefully
enough? Please, tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened
! I swear this wasn’t me!” Kneeling on the bed, I wrapped my arms around myself, but it brought no comfort at all. Tears clogged my throat.

“It’s not our job to
take care of this girl, Pam. If she has a problem”—he grabbed the almost empty Scotch bottle, holding it out to her—“and she definitely does, then it’s her parents’ duty to take care of her. Go and call Miranda. Now.”

“It’s the middle of the night. At least let’s wait until the morning to talk to them.”

“Why? Egypt is half a day ahead of us. You’ll reach them in the afternoon.”

Obviously, Pam wanted to say more, but after a second she closed her mouth again
, resigned. With another sorrowful look at me, she turned and walked out of my room, leaving me to my doom.

Jack
put his arm around Chloe’s shoulders then. “Go back to sleep, darling. Everything is under control. You don’t have to worry anymore. We’ll take care of it.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and led her out. The doorknob in his hand, he glared at me across the room one last time. “Tidy up here, and in the morning pack your things. We’ll book a flight home for you as soon as possible.”

The door slammed shut.

My world broke apart.

I sat on my bed for several more minutes, just staring at the closed door. Breathing hurt. Tears blurred my vision. My whole body trembled.

What would I do now?

Slowly, I rose from the mattress. My feet were cold. I walked to the middle of the room, turned around,
and looked at all the mess on the floor. I felt like a stranger in my room. Who would do this?

But I
already knew who. And I also knew why. Chloe had warned me, oh my God. And I hadn’t taken her seriously enough. Our fight tonight must have caused her to snap. Now she’d gotten her way. They were tossing me out of their house.

I sobbed into my hands, my lips wet and salty from my tears.

On autopilot, I walked around the room and picked up the scattered clothes. In the end, my arms were loaded, and I just didn’t know what to do next, so I dropped the clothes again, sinking onto the edge of my bed. For an endless time, I stared into the distance. Finally, I closed my eyes, hoping this was all just a bad dream. But when I opened them again, the chaos was still there. Nothing had changed.

Minutes ticked by. Bit by bit, I emerged from my shock.
My panic grew.
Mom
. I needed to call my mom. Tell her what happened. Tell her the
truth
, because by now, Jack had surely talked to my parents and dished out lies about me drinking and trashing my room.

Phone! Phone! Where was my phone? Moving things aside
on my nightstand and desk, I searched madly for the damn device but couldn’t find it anywhere. Next I dug my way through the clothes on the floor, feeling inside the pockets of my pants and hoodie. Nothing there either. Where else could it be? I had to talk to my mom!

Finally, I moved the broken laptop over and found my cell underneath.
I always turned the ringtone to silent at night, so I hadn’t heard it. There were several missed calls.

My fingers trembled as I called my mom on
speed-dial and pressed the phone to my ear.

“Sam?” my mom cried
, her voice strained from worry. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for the past twenty minutes.”

“Sorry,
Mom,” I sobbed, then I choked on my tears. Speaking was no longer possible.

“Oh, my dear
. Are you all right, darling? Your father has Jack on the phone right now. Tell me what happened.”

I sobbed and whined some more until my
mother’s loving tone finally cut through to me. “Calm down, darling,” she said softly. “Take a deep breath. And now tell me what happened.”

“I was at a party last night. I didn’t drink. And I was home early.” Sniffing, I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “Then they all came running
into my room and woke me. My room is a mess. But I didn’t do it. I promise, Mom. Please believe me!” My voice cracked. “No one believes me. They all think I’m drunk. And that I stole money and alcohol from Jack and Pam.” New, hot tears trailed down my face.

“Shh, darling.
It’s all right. We’ll find out what happened and take care of it.”

“I know what happened.
Chloe hates me. She warned me the other day that she would get rid of me. I met this guy. Tony. I told you about him. We’re together now. And she hates me for it. Because she’s in love with him. And she hates me because Pam was really nice to me.”

“
Chloe? You didn’t tell me that you had trouble with her.”

“Because I didn’t realize it was that bad.” Curling up on my bed, I hugged my legs tightly to my chest with one arm while I held the phone to my ear with the other hand. Tears dropped
onto the pillow. “She’s been so ugly to me since I came here.”

“So she
’s jealous?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell your aunt and uncle about it?”

“Jack won’t listen. He shouted at Pam. They don’t believe me,” I sobbed. “Mom, I don’t want to go back to Egypt. I like it here. I have
friends
here. Please. I want to stay.”

“Oh, my dear baby.”
My mom sighed. I knew she was feeling my pain, too. “I’m afraid if they don’t want to listen and see the real problem, there’s nothing we can do about it. Jack told your dad that he’s already booked a flight for tomorrow. Maybe it’s best if you come home for now and we’ll think of something then.”

Oh God, no
!
He’d already booked a flight? So fast? I pressed my lips together, squeezing more tears out of my shut eyes. If I had to go back to Egypt, I wouldn’t see Tony for almost four months. Until we finally moved to the States in the spring. I didn’t want to be without him for so long. Or without Susan. Or Lisa, and Simone, and Nick, and Ryan.

“I don’t want to leave,” I whispered
, pushed to my limit.

My mother took a deep breath. “It’s the middle of the night for you. Go to sleep, Sammy. Get some rest. I
’ll call you again in the morning. Then we’ll find a solution. Don’t worry now, my dear.”