Ryan Hunter (15 page)

OKAY.
TALKED TO MITCHELL. SO THE CAT’S OUT?

No answer came to that text, and after a few minutes I considered calling her number. But then I had a way better idea. Yeah, it was just the right thing to get her mind off her misery. I typed a new message.
CAN YOU SLIP OUT AFTER DARK?

It didn’t take long until one came back this time.
I PROBABLY COULD. BUT WHY WOULD I DO THAT?

I smirked at the phone while I punched in: DISTRACTION ;-)

She was quick to reply. REALLY, I’M NOT UP TO MORE TORTURE.

That wasn’t quite encouraging, but neither was it a definite
no
. I pushed off the chair and headed to my wardrobe, skimming through the many dress shirts in there. A white one would be just fine for what I had in mind tonight. I rolled up the sleeves, slipped into tattered blue jeans and light gray tennis shoes, and grabbed the Indian’s cap from my desk lamp. The ball cap had always brought me luck in the past, and I wouldn’t leave it behind tonight.

Loping down the wide, winding stairs, I told my mom, who just came out of the dining room, that I was off to see Rachel and Phil and that she didn’t need to wait for me. Then I headed out into the garage and started my Audi.

It was already dark when I reached the avenue where Liza lived. There was light in her room, and the window was open again with some depressing music drifting out. I thanked God for the high temperatures in California as I said a bit louder than usual, “Get down here, Matthews!”

The volume lowered, and a couple of seconds later, Liza appeared in the window, dabbing at her cheeks. Yeah, the crying wasn’t yet over.
“Why did you come?” She narrowed her bloodshot eyes at me. “Can’t you read? I said no.”

Her tone didn’t quite match her annoyed message. In fact, there was this eighty to twenty percent chance that she was actually happy to see me.
“You said
no torturing you
. I’m not going to. Now get into some nice clothes, wash your face, and come out.”

“I’m not in the mood—”

Blah, blah
. I jumped, grabbing a thick branch of the tree, and hoisted myself onto the shed. That shut her up. And it didn’t matter in which mood she was. I’d make sure to get her into the right mood if she only gave me a chance.

“
May I come in?” I said through a smirk as I balanced on the roof of the shed toward her room and climbed inside without waiting for her invitation.

Obviously trying to catch her breath, Liza stumbled backward away from the window until she landed on her butt on the bed that was centered in the room with the headboard attached to one wall. There was a cool desk with a computer and tons of
book, and a Hello Kitty poster stuck on the door opposite the window.

I sat down on the windowsill and grabbed the edge.
“Nice room,” I said, then I narrowed my eyes at her and added, “
You
look miserable.”

“Gee
, thanks for the news update,” she snarled back.

Okay, I wasn’t really prepared for seeing her down like this, though I should probably have known. This made me a bit uncomfortable, and I wished we weren’t in a dimly lit room with the soundtrack from
The Lord of the Rings
playing. Lifting my cap, I raked a nervous hand through my hair. “Listen, I totally suck at this whole
want-to-talk-about-it
crap.”

“Then why are you here?”
She clearly tried to stake me with her cynicism, but I wouldn’t let her have it.

I gave a cool shrug
. “Perhaps because I’m good at having fun and taking your mind off certain things,” I suggested. “So what do you say? Want to come party a little?”

“I think I’ll stay home and listen to some music instead.”

At this precise moment, she looked like another party with me was the last thing she wanted in her life, and I saw my plan vaporizing. Damn. I needed her to come with me, because I knew she’d like it once she stopped thinking about that douche bag, Mitchell.

“Don’t do this to
yourself,” I begged. “No guy is worth it.” And before I knew it, I had walked over to her, took her hands, and pulled her up from the bed. “Come on,
Liza.”
It felt like the right thing to use her first name, just to get us on a more personal level.

And when this really small smile tugged on her lips for a millisecond, I knew I scored. But she stopped it immediately and made a whiny face instead.
“I really don’t know—”

“I do,” I said firmly, and since she’d always given in to my pushing in the past few days, I added,
“And now stop arguing.” We stared at each other’s eyes for the length of a breath. It was hard not to reach up and stroke her rosy cheek and that silky soft hair.

In the end she let out a deep sigh
. “Can I shower first?”

“Oh please, do that,
” I said. She really needed some pepping up before we went where I had planned to. I dropped onto her bed, all set for waiting until she was ready to leave. But then my gaze fell on a pile of photo albums.

She noticed they were lying there exactly when I did and
grabbed them before I could. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.”

Aye sir! I lifted my
hands, palms up to show my innocence. “Nothing,” I solemnly swore. But then I couldn’t resist mocking her. “Apart from your diary and maybe your lacy underwear.”

I knew she wanted to smile at that, because a set of lovely dimples appeared on her cheeks, but she tried to look more shocked than infatuated.

When she disappeared from the room, heading for the shower, I really intended to be nice and not touch anything. But after a couple of minutes I got bored and started to look around the room. At the end of her bed, a bit of plaid flannel peeked out from under the comforter, and I leaned forward to pull out whatever it was. It turned out to be the bottoms of her jammies, really cute boy shorts. A gray tank top was there too, and I had a very intense vision of her wearing it when I would press her against me for a hot goodnight kiss.

Stuffing the things back under the quilt, I stood and walked over to her desk. There must have been a pile with a billion books, but nothing that I would be interested in. There wasn’t any Stephen King or Joe Hill. Just loads from someone called Kenyon, and there were pictures of half-naked guys on most of them.
Hunky guys. Was that Liza’s preference? I looked down at myself, lifting my shirt, and decided if she went for the muscular built, then I was just her man.

Lowering into her desk-chair, I spun around a few times, until I started to get dizzy. I did the same amount of spins into the opposite direction,
then I stopped, grabbed the edge of the desk, and pulled myself toward it with the chair. It was a nice place to sit and do homework…if you were a girl. Because she had this really terrible poster of
High School Musical
hanging above her desk.

The drawers to my right called to me, and I thought it would be okay to take a look inside, because Liza was only gone for five minutes and she wouldn’t be back too soon. There were all kinds of note pads in the first drawer, some pens, and a box of tissues. Probably for the moments when her books turned into real tear
jerkers, I thought with a grim smile.

As I moved to the second drawer, I immediately regretted opening it. Fuck me blind, there lay her diary. I slammed the drawer shut. But after a half-minute of chewing my lip, I opened it again and took out the little book with a heart drawn around the word diary on the front. There could be a page or two about me in it. I gulped, fighting a hopeless battle against my curiosity. Because, let’s face it, it wasn’t a question of wrong or right, it was simply a matter of
never leave a guy alone in your room
.

With my heart thumping like that of a silly little girl, I opened the book and skimmed to the last entry.

August 17
th
. That was yesterday. I cut a glance to the closed door, making sure no sound came from outside, announcing Liza would come back. Then I started reading…

Chapter 9

Dear Diary,

I don’t know what’s happening. One
moment I think the entire world is okay, and the next—BAM—I’m totally knocked out of my shoes. I’m a soccer player now. Well, I try to be, but we’ll see how much of a good idea that turns out to be. I did it for Tony, because he’s behaving really strange since he came back from camp. There’s this Barbie Clone, who doesn’t leave his side ever. I hate her.

Yeah, that was totally Liza. Grinning at the name she’d picked for Summers, I skimmed over the next paragraph to where she pointed out exactly why Cloey was the wrong girl for Tony, and why she was the right one. I couldn’t contradict in any point, but it was the next passage that I read more carefully again, because my name stood out.

But that’s not the only thing I’m confused about. There was a party at Ryan Hunter’s house. And this time, I was there. The evening went from crazy to confusing to blurred to hot. I think Ryan flirted with me. And holy cow, batman, that guy smells amazing. I woke up in his bed. Somehow wrapped around him. He touched my leg, and I forgot how to breathe.

A fuzzy warm feeling streamed through my body at that information. How very nice. Reading faster, I had to find out what else she said about that moment with me.

This is totally weird, because I know I’m in love with Tony, but when Ryan Hunter smiles, something happens to me.
Something that makes me go stupid and dreamy over him.
I never thought I’d go for demonic black instead of angelic blond, but that’s just what’s happening. This afternoon, I threw Tony out of my room because I couldn’t stop thinking about Hunter. He has those beautiful eyes that remind me of—

The door opened. Shit! In a panic-reflex I snapped the diary shut, jumped out of the seat, and hid it behind my back. I held my breath, totally ready to find an excuse for snooping in her personal stuff. But it wasn’t Liza coming in. In the doorway, looking as shocked as I was, stood a much older version of Liza with her hair cut to her shoulders.

“Hello—” With all the surprise, there was no room for accusation in Mrs. Matthews’ voice.

“Hi,” I said back, with my heart waiting in line for the next beat, and after a second I remembered I could smile, too.

She slowly walked in, carrying a pile of laundered clothes, and scanned around her. “Where is my daughter?” There was a baffled smile on her face, which made her look a lot friendlier than one would expect from a mother coming into her grounded daughter’s room, finding a total stranger inside.

“She’s having a shower.” I dropped the book into the drawer again and closed it with a small step backward then leaned against the desk.

Only a little taller than Liza, she didn’t match my six foot two, so when she put the clothes on a chair next to the wardrobe and turned back to me, she tilted her head a little to look at my face. “And you are?” she drawled.

Totally screwed
. I crossed the room to her and reached out one hand, which she immediately took. “My name is Ryan Hunter, Ma’am. I’m a friend of Liza’s. We play soccer together.”

She didn’t let go of my hand. Frowning, she searched my face. “You’re
doctor James Hunter’s son, right?”

I nodded.

It was cute to watch how a woman in her mid-forties was stunned speechless in her own house. She looked back at the door, stroking her lips with one finger. Then she faced me again. “Just how did you get in here? I know you didn’t come through the front door.”

I coughed and rubbed the back of my neck.
“Um, no. I actually came in through the window.”

Suddenly she laughed, and I liked it because she sounded exactly like Liza. “You guys really make that a habit,” she said, reminding me that I wasn’t the only one coming in that way.

“Yeah…for what I’ve planned, this was the only option.” I grimaced, but it was too late to find excuses. The truth was probably the best way to deal with this awkward situation.

“And what have you planned?”

Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders. “I’m going to kidnap your daughter.”

“Oh, really?”
Mrs. Matthews made a small step back and folded her arms over her chest. “And may I ask why?”

“Because I think she needs a little distraction. She’s having a really bad day.”

Abandoning her recently adopted defense, she suddenly made a compassionate face. “I noticed that something was wrong with her today, but she didn’t tell me what happened.” Coming forward, she placed a hand on my forearm. “Do you know what it is?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I do. But I can’t tell you. That’s her choice, not mine.” Automatically, I put a little distance between us. “But if you want Liza to feel better as much as I do, then it would help if you could bend the rules tonight and let me steal her.”

To my absolute astonishment, she didn’t throw me out for that. Instead she seemed to actually deliberate my words. “You look like a nice boy. And I know Liza is hurting a lot today. If I let her go with you, will you promise to take care of her?”