The International Kissing Club (42 page)

Chapter 23
Izzy

Everyone was returning home—soon!—and the closest thing Izzy had come to kissing was her toothbrush.

In her defense, it had been a particularly bad week guywise. Thursday night her brother had invited the entire team over for hot dogs—the one thing her mother rarely burned. After the meal, he’d loaded up a montage of him playing football that he’d been putting together for college recruiters. When none of the other guys were interested in watching—because, hello? who would be?—he’d pulled up the old home movies Izzy had just converted to digital and played all the low points of her life for comic effect. Like her very first attempt at driving, when she’d jumped a curb, knocked over the mailbox, and nearly killed their elderly neighbor. And the time he’d videoed her when she’d had the Norovirus and had spent four days on the sofa puking her guts out. And the shots of the family vacation in Mexico, where she was sunburned and sweaty, practicing her Spanish with the locals. It was like
America’s Funniest Home Videos,
for the psychotically inclined.

And now, there were twenty guys who couldn’t be bribed into kissing her. Not that she’d wanted to kiss any of the knuckle-dragging apes who thought someone puking was funny.

Turning her attention to more academic types, she followed Piper’s advice and tried flirting with her lab partner in chemistry. Poor Cruz
had nearly swallowed his retainer, then told Mr. Szachowicz he was feeling sick and spent the rest of the period in the nurse’s office.

Was it wrong to hope he was gay? Because if she couldn’t get a short, geeky guy to flirt with her, then maybe she really was repulsive.

By the time Saturday rolled around, she was back out at the Sun Valley Orchard and relieved just to be away from school. Most of the guys on the football team had taken to speaking to her in broken Spanish. When Germaine had first heard about it, she’d laughed, then linked her arm with Izzy’s. “I think it’s cute. They’re probably doing it because they like you. In fact, I think I saw Jackson Grosbeck checking you out the other day.”

For a moment there, Izzy thought she’d been struck by the Norovirus again and she nearly lost her lunch. Or she would have if she’d eaten any. Germaine criticized the girls at the table who ate more than carrots and celery sticks. Which Izzy might have ignored, if the guys at the table hadn’t made so many snide comments about her vegetarian lunches. She’d taken to sneaking her food into homeroom and eating most of it there.

All in all, being one of the popular kids was way more work than she’d been prepared for.

She might have felt guilty for sitting at Germaine’s table, if she’d gotten any enjoyment out of it at all. Germaine didn’t treat Izzy any different from her evil handmaidens, but she ruled the people she considered friends with a fist even tighter than she ruled her enemies. Being a lifelong fan of PBS’s
Nature
, Izzy knew why Germaine acted like she did. The alpha in any pack had to constantly nip at the betas to keep them in place. Nevertheless, the steady diet of insults and manipulation did little for her appetite.

It had gotten to the point where the farm was the only place she could relax. Tanner’s parents were no-nonsense and they expected her to work just as hard as they did. They treated her like all their other employees, even though she was just a high school student. She’d fallen in the habit of going by for a couple of hours after school
and for most of Saturday and Sunday, doing whatever needed to be done, from turning the compost pile to plowing under the crops that had already been harvested.

She rarely saw Tanner. During the week, he had football practice after school. On Saturdays he sometimes went with his parents to the farmers’ market. Carlos, one of the men who worked on the farm, was always around to supervise her.

The truth was, she was glad she didn’t see much of Tanner. He’d been there the other night at Linc’s film festival of embarrassment. She’d walked in toward the end—she hated to think what humiliating clips of her they’d watched that she didn’t know about. Standing there in the darkened doorway, listening to them all laughing at her expense, she’d considered her options. The old childhood standby—I’m going to tell Mommy!—would gain nothing. Their mother wouldn’t have time to deal with it. Their father would slap her on the shoulder and tell her to toughen up. Smothering Linc in his sleep seemed like a viable option, but not nearly painful enough. No, if she was going to murder him, she wanted him to see it coming, to experience a great deal of pain, and to know she was responsible. Poison might do the trick.

And then she’d looked across the room to see Tanner sitting on the sofa, watching the screen.

Why that made it worse, she didn’t know.

His expression had been grim, his jaw clenched. He’d held a can of Dr Pepper propped on his thigh and the can had dents from where he was holding it too tightly. She’d been seconds away from storming out, when he tore his eyes away from the screen and met her gaze. The bottom dropped out of her stomach.

Something flickered across his expression. Something like … pity.

She fled, dashing up the stairs to her bedroom, where she stood with her back to the door, palm pressed to her belly for a long moment.

A few minutes later, Shane came in and found her sitting on the floor with her back against the wall. He slid down to sit beside her and laced his hand in hers.

“Linc is a complete asshole.” He gave her hand a squeeze.

“Agreed.” Shane normally lived so much in his own head that she didn’t think he would have noticed. The fact that he was even aware of Linc’s dumb-assery was a sign of just how bad things were.

“If he wasn’t so much bigger than me,” Shane said, “I’d kick his ass for you.”

She stared down at Shane’s delicate hands, with their long, elegant fingers. “Please don’t. You’d probably break something just punching him, and I think one career-crippling hand injury is all this family can take.”

Shane just smiled. And even though she smiled back, having him there was somehow worse. Shane—like their mother—had a gift for drifting in and out of her life just enough to make her yearn for more. At least with her father and Linc, she knew to always expect nothing. They had that emotionally stilted football gene.

But—she wondered once Shane had headed back to his room to practice—if the football gene turned guys into morons, then what was up with Tanner? And why did she want him to be an exception to that rule?

No. She couldn’t even think about that.

Okay, so maybe she didn’t actually hate him, the way she’d always thought she had. So maybe his knuckles dangled a few inches above the ground instead of actually scraping it. So maybe ever since he’d helped her get the job at the farm and she’d been sitting at his table at lunch … maybe he was almost like a friend—or at least the closest thing she had to a friend here in Paris. At least until the girls got back.

If he really was her friend, maybe that was why her chest felt so tight. No one wanted a new friend to see them at their worst—surely that was the only reason she felt this crushing despair. And the truth was, she’d be perfectly happy if she didn’t see him at all. For the rest of the semester. Though, apparently, fate had other plans.

Come Saturday, there he was, sauntering out of the barn, his gimme cap pulled down low against the bright autumn sun. Her nerves jangled
at the sight of him, and she tried to tell herself that was a normal reaction to facing someone who’d watched Linc’s mockumentary of her life.

She’d felt similar the other day when Jackson had cornered her outside the gym and made suggestive remarks to her in Spanish. True, that had been tinged with more hatred and disgust. But surely the feelings were rooted in a similar place.

Then Tanner smiled at her and thumbed back his hat.

Nope. This feeling wasn’t the same at all. No hatred. No disgust. Just …

Oh God. Had she developed a crush on Tanner Colt? How stupid was she, exactly?

Okay, yes. He was
super
hot. But she’d thought she was immune to that. He’d been hanging around her house since the ninth grade, when he’d first earned a place on the team as kicker—the position she’d gone out for. All these years, he’d been strutting around her house oozing testosterone and charm, but she’d been able to ignore him. Partly because Piper liked him and partly because he was just too …

Just too much. Too perfect.

And she never wanted to be one of the girls who trailed around football players like groupies. So ignoring Tanner had been easy.

But it wasn’t easy anymore. Out here on the farm, she didn’t have to listen to Piper gushing about how hot he was, or see him laugh at some dumb-ass joke her brother had made, or listen to her father brag about how he was the golden boy who would bring them back to State this year. Without all that other nonsense buzzing in her head, it was too easy to see him as he really was. Smart. Funny. And the only person who’d actually been nice to her in ten weeks.

And she thought he was too perfect before.

Shit.

She yelled a greeting and then made her way toward the tractor, quickly formulating a plan. If she could just get on the tractor and start it up, then she could pretend to be unable to hear anything he
said over the roar of the engine. She’d almost made it to safety when he reached her.

“Hey, Isabel, about the other day at your house—”

She held up her hands in a hey-I’m-cool sign. “It’s no big deal.”

Since no one else seemed to take her humiliation seriously, she was doing her damnedest to pretend it didn’t hurt that she had the worst brother in history. Intellectually, she got it. Linc was used to being the center of attention. The star of the school. When he couldn’t be in the limelight on the football field, he had to invent ways to get noticed. But understanding sure as hell didn’t make it hurt less.

Like her dad would have said, though, toughen up—and she was trying. Besides, if Tanner would just act like a normal football player and laugh his ass off at her expense, then she’d be able to ruthlessly squash this stupid crush of hers.

“That home-movie thing,” she said, waving her hand dismissively, “that was no big deal. I mean, if I can’t take a little teasing …”

“I’m going to talk to the guys on the team about it,” Tanner said seriously. “It’ll stop.”

“Thank you.” Her voice sounded as weak as her knees felt. Not the reaction she was hoping for. She cleared her throat. “But it’s really not necessary.”

“Someone said Grosbeck cornered you out by the gym on Friday.”

Jackson was the least of her worries. He was easily controllable. “I took the opportunity to correct his Spanish pronunciation.”

Humor laced Tanner’s voice as he asked, “Is that why he’s been telling people in Spanish that his dick is the size of a peanut?”

“Well, it’s better than what he
was
saying about his dick,” she explained, with no small amount of pride. Maybe there were benefits to toughening up.

Tanner studied her for a second and then nodded. “I guess you can take care of yourself then.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I can.”

Being alone for ten weeks had taught her that about herself. She
was stronger than she’d thought. She didn’t need anyone to take care of her.