Kiss with Cherry Flavor (Grover Beach #4) (9 page)

I DIDN’T WANT to go home after the game.
What had happened there earlier wasn’t forgotten. But I wanted to change clothes and get out of Tony’s jersey. As long as it clung to me, he roamed through my thoughts far too much. And that was the last thing I wanted right now.

I managed to get into the house without being seen by anyone. Hastily, I changed into my army pants, the black
crop top that laced in the back, and a dark gray hoodie, leaving the zipper open. I pulled on my Doc Martens and left the laces untied. Then I grabbed Tony’s shirt and sneaked down the stairs to avoid being seen by my cousin or her parents. As a member of the soccer team, Chloe would be at the party later—no getting around that fact. But
later
was soon enough. No need to meet her until then.

Fortunately,
Lisa and Ryan had agreed that I should come early and help with the party preparations. Keeping myself busy was my brilliant plan for today.

I arrived at Ryan’s house just as he and his parents were moving some of the furniture aside.
Lisa had opened the door and dragged me inside, a happy grin on her face. She certainly was excited, because today was their three-month anniversary and Ryan had taunted her with a surprise for later. I wondered if it was maybe a necklace. I knew Lisa would love to get one from him.

When Mr. Hunter saw me, he came over and placed a hand on my shoulder. “Samantha. How is your leg doing?”

“It’s fine, Mr. Hunter,” I replied and playfully hopped from one foot to the other. “No troubles at all.”

“Perfect, perfect.”

“Are you going to party with us?” I asked him.

The doc grimaced. “I don’t think so. Jessie and I prefer to go out on party nights. More fun for you and
fewer headaches for us.” He whispered the last part and winked at me.

When
Mr. and Mrs. Hunter left the house a short while later, Lisa and I went into the kitchen and prepared some snacks and plates of candy to place around the party zone. All the while, I carried Tony’s jersey draped over my shoulder. I just didn’t know where to put it so it wouldn’t get lost.

“You can leave that in my room,” Ryan told me after some time. “I’ll give it back to Tony later.” He gave me directions to his bedroom
then, and I hurried upstairs.

I refused to snoop around in his room, but from the first glimpse, I liked it. There was a wide cappuccino-colored desk placed in front of a wall. To the right, near the window,
was a nightstand and a bed, and to the left was a huge wardrobe. A boyish room, cool, but cozy.

Tossing the jersey on his bed, I headed back downstairs to help
Lisa in the kitchen some more. She was still wearing Ryan’s jersey, and I could tell by his expression each time he looked at her that he liked it.

At seven thirty, Susan called me, asking if one of us could pick her up from home. She’d just come back from the hospital. No serious damage to her leg, but she wasn’t allowed to drive a car for a couple of weeks.

As I talked to Susan on the phone, Ryan got a call from Tony. Ryan didn’t hesitate to dump the job of picking up Susan on him because we weren’t done yet. About twenty people had already shown up by then, and more were filing through the door as we spoke. I wasn’t sure what to expect from tonight, but I stopped counting people as the crowd grew.

Music blasted from various speakers placed about the big entrance hall. There were high,
round tables like in a bistro, bearing crackers and drinks. Those who didn’t gather around them or in the corners of the room started dancing on the tiled floor in the dim lighting.

I rushed from the Hunter’s kitchen to the hall, refilling some of the cracker bowls,
then I danced my way back through the crowd.

Nick was leaning
against the wide arch leading to the kitchen and dining area of the house. The orange shirt he was wearing today clashed terribly with his red hair, but it looked extremely cool combined with his dark gray pants. For the first time I wondered why he didn’t have a girlfriend.

Nick
was bracing himself against the wall with one hand, blocking the entrance and my way, but he didn’t seem aware of it as he spoke with Ryan and a few other guys.

Infected by the party mood,
I didn’t bother to ask Nick to move but just limbo-danced under his arm.

“Hey, Finn Girl, having fun?” he asked me when I straightened.

I smiled at him over my shoulder. “Absolutely.” Light-footed, I danced over to Lisa, grabbed the can of lemonade she offered me, and took a swig. “I had no idea how big this was going to be. There must be over a hundred people out there already.”

“Yeah…and that’s not even half the expected number,”
Lisa replied.

My eyes turned wide as I gaped at Ryan. “Do you know all these people?”

Ryan sipped from his root beer, then he draped his arm around Lisa’s shoulders with the bottle in his hand. “Not all of them but most. Sometimes they just bring friends or their siblings. I don’t mind. You know, the more, the merrier.” He grinned and planted a kiss on Lisa’s brow. She turned in his arms and met his lips, grabbing him by the collar of the black shirt he’d changed into.

Yeah…that was my cue to leave the kitchen. Nick followed me, making gagging
noises. “They’ll never get tired of it, will they?”

I glanced at him sideways
then playfully rolled my eyes. “Not for a long time, I believe.”

“Speaking of making out
, Finn Girl—” He reached for my hand and twirled me under his arm. “How’s your plan with Mitchell working out?”

My smile faded. “It’s not
my
plan. And nothing’s working out, either.”

“Aw. Why’s that?” He pushed me away from him, not releasing my hand, and then pulled me back to him and caught me in a light embrace. “He seemed thoroughly pissed on Wednesday. Doesn’t that mean your
friends’
plan worked?”

“Seriously, Nick, I don’t want Tony to be pissed. And
what’s more, I don’t want to talk about him.” His intense gaze in the restroom this afternoon was hard enough to forget, even without a reminder. Two weeks had passed since our first meeting, and I still didn’t know what to make of Anthony Mitchell. He hadn’t gone to Lisa’s place on Wednesday, but he couldn’t make up his mind either. If I was wise, I’d just pull my heart out of this game once and for all. “He shouldn’t have kissed me. So now I’m just trying to forget about it.”

Nick pulled me tighter against him, our dance turning a shade sexier. “Oh, if you need help with that,” he drawled, “let me know.” By the playful gleam in his eyes and the
playful tone of his voice, I knew he wasn’t serious. It was just his way of trying to cheer me up.

I tilted my head back and laughed. Then I wrapped
my leg around his, pressing myself against him just briefly. “Was that an offer, big guy?”

“My offer’s always up, Finn Girl.” He twirled me around once more.

In the middle of the twist, I stopped dead.

Susan had just arrived and was standing right in front of me. And next to her was Tony.

My heart stuttered into shock mode. The saying “in the wrong place at the wrong time” took on a wholly new meaning right now, even though I couldn’t explain to myself why I even cared. I released Nick’s hand.

“Hi, Sam!”
Susan shouted over the music. She was on crutches, a small detail she’d forgotten to tell me on the phone.

“Hey,” I said
back, but my gaze had fastened onto Tony’s cold eyes.

He stared at me for the length of a breath. Then he came forward and his expression turned blank. “Samantha,” he said coldly as he passed me. He disappeared quickly into the crowd.

Sighing, I squeezed my eyes shut. Nick’s hand landed on my shoulder. As I looked at him, he scrunched up his face. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“No, don’t! Please.” It didn’t matter if Tony had seen us, or whatever he’d interpreted in our dancing. I wasn’t right for him and he wasn’t right for me.
Simple. So what the hell was his problem? I could dance with whoever I wanted. If Tony’s heart was still hung up on Lisa, he wasn’t in a position to look at me like I was a traitor because I was having fun with a friend.
Duh!

I suggested finding a place for Susan
to sit, and just so Nick wouldn’t get any funny ideas and find Tony after all, I grabbed his hand and pulled him with us. Susan told me the doctor had done some X-rays on her leg and apparently was a little worried about her ligaments after all. Even if they weren’t torn, they were thoroughly overstretched. The fancy-colored tapes around her knee would supposedly help with that. She pulled up the leg of her jeans to let me have a look at the pink, monster-size strips. If nothing else, they looked way cool.

When she w
ent to get up and get a drink, I made her sit down again and offered to get her a soda from the refrigerator. Nick would keep her company while I was gone.

Elbowing my way through the bumping crowd in the hall, I headed for the kitchen, but as soon as I stepped through the doorway, I regretted it.

Ryan and Tony were in there, alone. They were talking urgently with each other—until Ryan saw me coming and all conversation died in the fraction of a second. When he smiled at me, Tony turned around, too.

He
didn’t smile.

The muscles in his arm tightened as he clasped the edge of the kitchen counter harder. I could see them twitch underneath the short sleeves of his white shirt. With shock, I realized he was also wearing the ripped jeans from the time I’d been in his room.
The ones that had made my mouth water.

I tore my gaze away from him and mumbled, “Umm…just grabbing a soda for Susan.”
As I hurried past the two of them, both pairs of eyes followed me. Jeez, I’d never felt this wary of disturbing a conversation before. And it made me feel more than certain they’d been talking about me.

I pulled the fridge open, found a Coke, slammed the door shut, and rushed out, only then daring to breathe again. Back in the hall, I bumped into
Lisa and Simone. Instantly, the girls caught my uneasiness and hooked their arms through mine.

“Babes, what’s got you so nervous?” Simone asked, almost worried.

“Nothing,” I answered flatly.

Lisa
leaned back as we walked, catching a glimpse of the guys in the kitchen. “I think I know,” she declared. Then the two girls looked at each other over my head and simultaneously stated, “Tony.”

Suddenly, Simone gave me a little push to the left, steering all of us toward a long table with food and drinks on it. “I know what you need.”

“Pretzels?” I made a hopeful face, because I sure as hell wouldn’t drink any of the beers lined up there.

“Nope.
We’re going for the strawberries.”

“Strawberries?”
Didn’t sound bad either. Except the strawberries were swimming in a pool of wine cooler.

“Are you sure?”
Lisa whined, holding me back, starting a staring argument with Simone. “Claudia’s strawberry punch is a monster. You don’t want Sam to be in the same position I was a few months ago.”

I had no idea what
Lisa meant, but it was interesting to see the flicker of mischief in Simone’s eyes then. “Now, you honestly want to tell me that wasn’t the best night you ever had? Or rather”—she waggled her brows—“the best morning after?”

Lisa
laughed. “True.” She took a toothpick and stabbed one of the strawberries in the bowl with it.

But before she could pop it into her mouth, someone reached around her from behind and took the piece of fruit out of her hand. “Oh no,
you
don’t.”

We turned around to face Ryan, who pulled the strawberry from the toothpick with his teeth and ate it.

“Why not?” Lisa drawled, a secret smile flashing across her face.

Ryan took her hands, wound her arms to her back, and shackled her wrists with his long fingers. “We had that once. Not a very good idea, remember?”

Lisa tilted her head up, gazing at him in a way that shut out all of us others. “I only remember that you carried me to your room afterward.”

Leaning in, he drawled into her ear, “I can carry you to my room now, if
that’s what you want. No strawberries needed.” Apart from Lisa, I was probably the only one who’d heard it, because I was standing so close. “Or better yet, carry you outside to the swing.”

As he bent and scooped
Lisa up over his shoulder, she squealed, drumming at his butt to make him set her down. Ryan refused. He headed toward the back door, laughing at her struggles, but then he turned around once more. “Right, I forgot. Sam?”

“What?”

“Tony’s waiting in the kitchen. He’d like to talk to you.” Ryan made a pleading face. “Be nice to the guy. He’s confused as hell, and it’s not up to me to explain everything to him.”

Oh no. My stomach slipped to my feet.