The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) (37 page)

She snickered. “Does that mean Ethan managed to sway you?”

“By unfair means, yes.”

“Wicked! And yes, tonight is perfect. Susan is still a little stubborn, but we have a plan to make her go anyway.” I wouldn’t have expected anything less from Sam. “So what’s that favor you need?”

I blew out a breath. “Did Sue open my present yet?”

“Umm…no. Sorry.”

“Did you tell her what’s inside?”

“Nope. If she wants to find out, she’ll have to look.” The determination in Sam’s tone was sweet. She was totally on my side. Awesome.

“Good. Where is she keeping it?”

“If she hasn’t moved it, it’s in a drawer in her room.”

“Do you think you’d have a chance today to sneak it out and bring it to the party?”

Excited now, Sam sucked in a breath. “You want to give it to her again?”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“Oh my, this is so—”

“Romantic, I know,” I cut her off, making her laugh. “So, you think you can do it?”

She hummed into the phone. “I’m not sure. It would be like stealing. I have a weird feeling about this.”

Hey, what happened to fricking
romantic
? “Come on, please!” I whined. “This is the last time I’ll try my luck with her.” Then I remembered that whimpering weakness that had gotten me nowhere in the past and, with more determination, said, “I can’t do it alone. I need you.”

She sniffed but eventually relented. “Okay. I’ll try. But you owe me.”

“Whatever you want!”

Instantly, she stated, “A cherry-vanilla sundae.”

“All right!” Laughing, I told her, “I’ll treat you to as much ice cream as you can eat if this plan works. Do we have a deal?”

“Deal.” She chuckled. “See you later.”

We hung up, and I let my head tip back, fingers laced behind my neck. A smirk tugged at my lips. The die was rolled. Time to see where it would end up…

Filled with a whole new load of confidence, I grabbed the armrests of my chair and pushed myself up. It was time to thank my brother for changing my mind after all. As I walked into his room, though, I froze on the spot, startled by what I saw.

Leaning against his wardrobe, Ethan sat on the floor, his face pale as chalk. His hand lay loosely beside him, clasping his phone. Shit. Bad news.

I took a wary step forward. “E.?”

His eyes slowly traveled to mine. Other than that, he didn’t move a muscle.

Heart beating fast, I strode to him and hunkered down. “What the hell happened?”

The vein in his throat beating rapidly, he held out his phone to me. There was a text open. After checking his face one more time, I read the message that came from an unsaved number.
Hey Ethan. I was wondering if you had any plans for tonight. Maybe we can meet for a New Year’s drink. Ted.

My jaw literally smacked against my chest. Ethan made a small noise in his throat that sounded half like a laugh and half like a panicky gasp.

“But…but…that’s actually good, right?” I stammered. “I mean, from what I figured out on that date with Sue, he was really checking me out…well,
you
! He was checking
you
out!” Oh man. “Of course, he thought I was you, so he wasn’t really checking
me
out. That would just be wrong. But with you, I mean…”
Damn, could somebody shut me up, please?

I dropped to my butt.

Ethan seemed so busy concentrating on actually breathing that he probably didn’t hear a single word of my blabbering. Inhaling deeply to steady myself, I placed my hands on his knees. “So. A text from Ted. That’s cool.”

Not yet out of his shock, he whimpered, “I don’t even know where he got my number.”

“Yeah…” The weight of guilt crept over me, and my eyes rolled to the side. “Me neither.”

When Ethan remained silent, I prompted him, “What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea.” My brother’s face scrunched up with horror. “Text him back?”

When the initial shock eased out of my nerves, a smile made it to my face. “Yes, that would be a good start.”

“Okay.” With shaky fingers, he typed a message, repeatedly taking a break to suck in a lungful of bravery. When he looked up with questioning eyes, I supposed he was done but afraid to send it.

“What did you write?” I asked.

A streak of red crossed his cheek and suddenly his voice was defensive. “You’re insane if you think I’m going to let you read it.”

His shyness was understandable, but in his current state of panic, it was doubtful he’d managed to write something appropriate. Especially because it took him almost four minutes. I arched my brows. “
You
’re insane if you think whatever you wrote is cool enough to send to a guy who practically asked you out on New Year’s Eve.”

His throat bobbed with another swallow. “You’re probably right.” He handed me the phone and I read, mumbling along, “Hello, Ted. Thank you for the invitation, but sadly it’s ill-timed.”
Ill-timed? What the hell?
I suppressed a snort and tried to read on with a straight face. “I will be celebrating with my friends tonight and can’t cancel on them. Hopefully, you can understand that and maybe we can have that drink some other time. Happy New Year. Ethan.” When I was done, I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning. “Well, it’s…um…long.”

Ethan hung his head. “It’s shit!”

I couldn’t object. But not all was lost. Tossing the phone in his lap, I crossed my legs and braced my elbows on my knees. “If Susan had asked you to hang out with her tonight, what would you have said to her?”

After a short moment of deliberating, he raised his head and gazed at my face. “I’m going to Hunter’s party. Wanna come?”

I cocked my head, casting him an encouraging grin. “Now delete all you have there and write exactly that.”

“You think it’ll work?”

“I think it’s the best chance you have. And he would be a fool to say no.”

His chest lifting and falling with a couple of deep inhales, he typed in the new message. And then we waited together. Minutes ticked away in the silent room. My heart beat fast for Ethan. And his probably did twice as fast. Eventually, a quiet whistle jerked us both out of the waiting trance.

While Ethan read it, I demanded through gritted teeth, “What did he say?” The anxiety nearly killed me.

The edges of his mouth tilted up, his joyful smile quickly reaching his eyes. “He said it’s cool and he’ll meet me there.”

I punched the air with my fist. “Yessss!” Then I tipped backward on the floor and let out a relieved breath, arms falling to my sides, spread-eagle.

This should turn out to be an interesting night for both of us.

NINE THIRTY. I stood in front of my open wardrobe. Where was that stupid tie? I knew I had one. The girls had this funny idea that the New Year’s party should be some sort of ball with an exclusive guest list, so it wasn’t the usual three-hundred-plus people getting drunk and dancing the night away at Hunter’s house. Per the dress code, I had put on black trousers and a white shirt, rolling up the sleeves to my elbows. The tie I finally found went loosely around my neck, but no one was going to make me wear a frickin’ coat.

“Are you ready?” Ethan asked from outside my room.

A final glance in the mirror. Agh, still too preppy. Reopening the top button of my shirt, I headed out, kissed my mother goodbye, and followed Ethan to his car.

He was quiet on the drive to Hunter’s house, probably a little nervous. Funnily enough, I couldn’t say the same about myself. In truth, I hadn’t felt this confident and positive since the day Susan and I had been alone in my kitchen for the last time. Who could have known that in the end it all came down to attitude?

As we walked through the door of Ryan’s house, an immediate sense of being in a fairy tale struck me in the face. Almost as if somebody had tried to transfer the North Pole into their hall. Stars—or maybe they were supposed to be snowflakes—were cut from white and blue cardboard and hung up all around the place. Crepe paper of the same color scheme wound around the posts of the stairs and a string of lights wound up the handrail. Some plastic reindeer with big, saucer eyes guarded the entrance.

Whoever did this clearly had a weakness for Disney and the winters we never got in California. It couldn’t have been Hunter’s doing, that was for sure. Probably the girls’ idea.

White stuff like heaps of powdered sugar covered a few narrow, high tables and shelves. As we passed, I dipped my finger into the mass and found it was sticky, ill-smelling artificial snow. I wiped my finger clean on my shirt and scanned the place for Ryan.

He was talking to a couple of girls dressed nothing at all like on usual party nights. No tight-ass jeans or the typical LBD. Instead, floor-length ball gowns in bright colors clung to their slim figures.

“Hey,” I said to them all, then borrowed Ryan for a moment. “Is Susan here yet?”

“No. She and the girls are still at her place. They’re dressing her up, if I got that right. But wait, I’ll ask Lisa.” He pulled his phone from the pocket of his tuxedo and typed a message. In the meantime, I pivoted and scanned the couples on the dance floor for any familiar faces. Luckily, Tyler was already here. And, it seemed, he’d unwillingly found himself waltzing with Becks to “Winter Wonderland.”

“They’re on their way now,” Hunter informed me.

I turned back to him. “Cool.”

“Mitchell said you called Sam today for a favor?”

I pinched a handful of peanuts from the bowl on the table next to us, tossed a couple in my mouth, and nodded. “Mm-hm. I needed something that only she can get me.”

He narrowed his eyes at me as if a tiny devil sat on his shoulder, poking him behind the ear. “It’s about Miller, right?”

“Yep. You have a problem with that?”

“No problem. Just…be careful with her. I don’t want her to run from the party tonight and be mad at me just because whatever’s going to happen happened in my house.”

His concern was certainly justified. Popping the rest of the peanuts in my mouth, I promised, “No worries. I’ll make it right with her and won’t get you in trouble for being involved.”

At that moment, Lauren—looking really beautiful in a narrow, green satin dress—appeared from the kitchen, hanging on Wes Elephant-ears’s arm. “Hi,” she greeted me with a bright smile and, without any warning, hooked her other arm through mine, pulling me with them. “Jake and Trevor are trying to talk some girls into dates over there.” She nodded her chin back toward the entrance. “I think they need some serious advice about that. Tell ’em that fart jokes aren’t what a girl wants to hear, will you?”

“Jeez, are you serious?” Snickering, I shook my head. “Have they been drinking too much?”

“I hope so. Because if those are their usual pick-up lines, someone should have mercy and just shoot them.” Then she pulled me a little tighter and spoke in a whisper, only meant for me to hear. “By the way, I knew you wouldn’t be showing up in a coat tonight, but you couldn’t even tuck your shirt in?”

Turning my head slightly, I winked at her for old times’ sake. “Hey, I didn’t show up in a tee. Is that nothing?”

Lauren let go of my arm as we arrived at a chest-high table, and Brady was the first to push a drink into my hand. “Finally, the team is complete.” He lifted his own beer and raised his voice above all the others in the group. “Here’s to an awesome ending of a—” He didn’t get to finish, but instead spilled a few drops of beer on his dark gray jacket as Rebecca tackled him, using him as a brake.

“Whoa, dude! A toast and you’re not waiting for us?” she scolded him with a reprimanding glare, adjusting her hair and dress after obviously rushing to us from the dance floor. Tyler, right behind her, handed her a glass of sparkling wine. Then we all clinked our glasses and beer bottles together in the middle, and Becks took over the toast. “To great friends and a fantastic last year of high school!”

I took a sip from what turned out to be vodka and grapefruit juice, when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Putting the glass down, I turned around and found a beaming face a foot below my chin. In a baby-pink dress, Sam appeared even more like a little girl than she already did, but to her credit, she looked seriously cute.

“Hi!” I blurted, happy to see her. “Do you have it?”

“Right here.” Sam slipped the little package into my hand. “I have to go. Susan’s talking to your brother.” She cast a quick glance over her shoulder. “She shouldn’t see me here with you when she comes back. It would kinda ruin it all, wouldn’t it?”

Her conspiratorial whisper made me laugh. “All right. Get back to your friends then. I guess I’ll see you later.”

Sam nodded. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Whirling around, she hurried away, her dress flaring in her wake. I slid the present into my pocket, my fingers still wrapped around it.

Laughing along with my friends even though I was only listening to the conversation between Becks and Jake with one ear, my mind strayed off, thinking up a situation for the perfect moment to give Susan the bracelet. She was already here, but I hadn’t seen her yet. At the mere thought, my heart pounded in anticipation.

Deliberately slow, I let my gaze skate over the semi-dark room, past some dancing kids and a couple making out in a corner. Nick, Tony, and Sam stood huddled by the stairs. Alex Winter had just joined them with a drink in one hand and his girl, dressed in a sparkling red dress, in the other. And from behind them, a set of striking green eyes stared at me.

My pulse raced in my ears. Unable to remember what I’d just laughed about with my friends, I tilted my head and blinked a couple of times, totally drawn into Susan’s spell. Sam unknowingly took a step to the side, revealing Sue’s entire form to my view. As if she’d been carved right out of the same fairy-tale book as the whole party, she looked like an ice princess, fitting perfectly into this place. Her light blue satin dress hugged her beautiful chest and fanned out from the waist downward like the one she’d worn on our last date. About the same length as well, it left her stunning legs, clad in strappy, high-heeled sandals, bare for everyone to see. That girl over there was gorgeous, and my heart beat faster with every second I looked at her.

Obviously caught in the same spell as me, Sue, for once, didn’t turn and run. On the contrary, she lifted her hand in a shy greeting, the edges of her lips twitching slightly. One side of my mouth tilted up in an answering half-smile. Right then, the space between us seemed to shrink in half.

Gripped by the magic of the moment, I beckoned her over with a subtle nod. Making up with someone usually worked better face to face and not from twenty feet away. Unfortunately, it seemed to be too much for her just yet. Something close to regret shone in her eyes as she slowly shook her head. Then she lowered her gaze and turned to her friends.

Okay. No need to rush this. I could wait.

Moments later, she and Nick walked to the dance floor together, although from the baffled looked on Nick’s face it appeared that he’d actually been forced into it. Soon it became clear that Susan was using him as a shield to keep me at a distance. Before tonight, this might have hurt me. But not after the moment we’d just shared. I would give her all the time she needed to relax into this. Well, all the time until midnight, because I did want a New Year’s kiss.

Controlling myself, I turned all my attention to my friends around the table. Brady had found Cassidy in the meantime and dragged her over. His arm draped permanently over her shoulders, they were joking and kissing a lot. From what I could see, the two were seriously into each other and started their personal chapter in this crazy book called
The Best Years of My Life Were High School
.

Was it asking too much to want this for myself with Sue?

When a little chill ran down my spine, I realized I’d been caught watching them. Lauren gave me a knowing look from opposite the table. Her fingers were laced with Wesley’s, and she seemed to be happier than ever.

Couples were building and staying. Priorities had changed, people had become more important than other things in our lives. It felt like we’d all grown up a little bit more in this final year of high school. Some of us would leave Grover Beach to go to college soon. Some would make new friends and never look back. But there would also be the ones going home on the weekends to see their beloved.

I wanted to be one of those. When I headed off to school at UCLA next fall, I wanted to know that Susan would always be waiting for me and would welcome me with a hug every single Friday of the year. And to make that happen, I had to go find her now.

Finishing my drink, I put the glass in the middle of the table with all the other empty ones and told my friends, “Guys, I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going?” T-Rex demanded as everyone else turned to stare at me.

My gaze moved from him to Lauren, to Becks, and back to him. Then I cracked a smile. “I’ve gotta find my girl.”

With an encouraging nod, Tyler slapped me on the shoulder. “Go get her, bro.”

Heading off, I glanced at my watch. It was nearly eleven thirty. Sue wasn’t shaking with Nick on the dance floor any longer, but with only eighty or ninety guests tonight, Hunter’s house was fairly manageable. It couldn’t be too hard to find her.

A handful of people hung out in the kitchen, but not her. Also, most of her friends were missing, too, which struck me as odd. Ryan wouldn’t move upstairs to his room with guests in his house, so there was only one place left to look. The pool room.

A lively girl with black hair and a pink dress crashed into me coming out of that very room. Sam giggled and said sorry, but she was in such a hurry to get away that she didn’t even recognize me. Tony’s hand in hers, she dragged him along. But after a few more steps, she stopped dead and turned around to me. Her face split with a grin. Because the music was too loud to shout, she pointed her finger to the pool room.

I sneaked a quick glance inside and found the whole soccer bunch gathered in there. In the middle, on the pool table, sat Sue. I turned back to Sam and mouthed the word, “Now?”

She nodded with happy enthusiasm and then flitted away with Mitchell.

All right. It was now or never. And
never
really wasn’t an option.

Quietly, I slipped around the corner and stopped in the open door. With my hands in my pockets, I leaned against the doorframe. Ryan’s girlfriend, who looked like some sort of Christmas angel in her white silk dress, rubbed Susan’s arm, obviously to give her some sort of comfort. “I’m sure it’s nothing too bad,” she said.

Susan’s ironic laughter drifted to me. “Say that again?”

Lisa was the first of them to notice me. The moment she did, her snicker died in her throat, and her face fell. Of course, it only took a second for everyone else to track her gaze and see me standing in the doorway. Susan was the last to turn around.

Her face pale with shock, she didn’t get a word out. I pushed away from the doorjamb and slowly walked toward her.

Hard to say what they’d been talking about, but from Hunter’s face, this was obviously a bad moment. He and Nick came around the pool table to block my way like Sue’s personal guard dogs.

“Hey, buddy,” Ryan said, scrunching up his face. “I’m not sure this is the best moment to show up. Susan will come when she’s ready.”

Seriously? He was still afraid things might blow up and screw him over?
Please…give me a little more credit, Hunter
!

I inhaled a slow breath, cutting Susan a glance to make sure she stayed where she was. Then I cleared my throat and sent Ryan a look between friends, hands still in my pockets. “I get that you want to protect her. From assholes like me. I appreciate it, because you’re her friend, and I would do the same.” Having said that, here was where I put Susan above our friendship. Lethal cold crept into my voice. “But now get the fuck out of my way, Hunter, and let me talk to my girl.”