Ethan came to the window, too, and gave me a quirky look. “I’ve never been introduced to a girl’s father. Is it weird that I feel uneasy now?”
I laughed, taking his hand, and pulled him to the door. “I promise not to use the word boyfriend. He’ll leave his shotgun in the closet then.”
“Ha. Ha. You do know how to make a guy feel comfortable, don’t you?”
I opened the door and instantly froze. Mom must have heard him coming home, too, and she beat us downstairs. The first thing she shouted in a volume that could take down a house was, “You can’t always run away when things get tough, Richard!”
Filled with horror, I turned to Ethan. The shock in his eyes ceased the moment his gaze met mine. Embarrassment and pain surging through me, I let Ethan pull me back inside. He closed the door, but my parents’ voices still carried to us like the walls were made of paper. Their horrid accusations slinging back and forth grated on my emotions. God, why couldn’t they just be silent for once?
I didn’t know what to do, but my shaky knees wouldn’t hold me much longer.
“Susan—” Ethan said in a compassionate voice, stroking my forearms. “I’m sorry. But it’s okay. It’s not your fault they’re fighting, and I heard worse when my father still lived with us.”
“It’s not—it’s just—” Squeezing my eyes tight, I covered my face with my hands. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Don’t worry. I don’t care, really.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have insisted on coming here.”
When his touch left my arms, I opened my eyes to see what he was doing. Checking the window again, he cast me a grimace over his shoulder. “It’s not too high, I could escape this way, but I’d land on your dad’s car.”
He wanted to jump out? My awkward reaction must have shocked him more than my parents’ fight. Was it that obvious I wanted him out of the house? But jumping…?
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I told him. “You’d break your neck.”
“Mm, maybe. But I’m afraid you’ll never speak to me again if we sit through their argument.”
He might be right. How did we get into this horrible situation?
Ethan took on a determined expression all of a sudden. He walked back to me, took my hand, looked me sternly in the eyes, and said, “You know what we should do now? We go downstairs, get out, and we’ll go have a coffee. In a couple of hours, when you come back, things will have cooled down, and everything will be fine again.”
He had no idea what he was saying. Nothing was going to be fine in this house tonight. I was going to sleep at my grandpa’s place like I did so often, and worse, I would never again look at Ethan without feeling the shame I felt right now. But I let Ethan drag me out of my room and down the stairs anyway.
The shouting got louder the closer we got to the living room. There was no way we would get past them without being seen. Porcelain hit the wall. I don’t know which of the two vases on the mantelpiece Mom had broken, but from the tinkling sounds, a sea of shards now covered the floor.
My first thought as Ethan and I stopped in the doorway was, Aha, it was the white vase. Then I met my mother’s thunderstruck gaze and said, “Mom, Dad, this is Ethan.”
Thankful for Ethan’s hand holding mine at this moment, I squeezed it tight for support. He returned the pressure, stroking his thumb across my knuckles in a gentle, soothing way.
“Darling,” my mother squeaked.
My father came forward, raking a nervous hand through his hair. His lips moved, too, but with the terrible ringing in my ears, I couldn’t hear what he said. Swallowing hard, I pushed Ethan on and out the door. With every intention to follow him, I only stopped when my mother cried out my name, sounding the worst kind of sorry I’d ever heard.
My hand slid from Ethan’s and I turned back to her. Maybe everything after that wouldn’t have happened, if he had held my hand tighter…
My chest quirked with shallow, painful breaths, and I fought against tears of shame and anger. “Why can’t you behave like normal parents?” I screamed at both of them. “Just for one freaking night? Why do you always have to fight? Mom! Dad didn’t kill Grams, for heaven’s sake!” That must have hurt her more than anything my father ever said to her. I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop myself at that moment.
Ethan reached for my hand from behind, but I yanked it away and exploded once again. “And Dad! Why do you always have to give her reasons to be angry with you? Why can’t you two talk things out like normal people? Did you decide to make my life hell on purpose? So I can't even have friends over? Because if so, you did a great job! I hate you!” Tears spilled over. “Both of you!” And for this very short episode in my life, I meant it.
*
Ethan held the front door open for me. I slipped through and tiptoed to his room. After the terrible argument in my house, going into town held no appeal. At my request, Ethan had driven us down to the ocean instead, where we’d strolled along the beach for what seemed like hours. He offered to take me home after that, but the truth was I couldn’t face my parents just yet. As he randomly cruised through the streets, exhaustion beat at me and my eyes started to close. Ethan suggested it was best if I crashed at his place. That was at two o’clock in the morning.
We didn’t make a sound, just kicked off our shoes, and Ethan stuck out his arm on the pillow so I could snuggle up to his chest for the comfort I needed not to fall apart. He pulled the bedspread over us and caressed my hair. I passed out within minutes.
Dawn was breaking through the windows when I woke up again.
Still lying on his back with his arm draped around my shoulders, Ethan quietly dozed next to me, his chest heaving and falling with deep, even breaths.
Gently, I shook him until he opened his eyes. “I need to go home,” I whispered.
To his credit, he sat up, wide awake in seconds. “Why? It’s Sunday. No school. And you texted your mom last night, so she knows where you are. At least stay for breakfast. I’ll drive you home later.”
“No.” I shook my head, grimacing, and climbed out of his bed. “I don’t want anyone from your family to find me here—it doesn’t feel right.”
Ethan frowned at me, but got up and put his shoes on, too. I was already at the door and sneaked out into the hallway. The coast was clear. Ethan followed me, whispering, “Not my family. You just don’t want Chris to find out…”
Right. Maybe I shouldn’t have told Ethan that Chris kissed me last night, but some things just come up when you walk along the beach together for hours. “I don’t want him to ask stupid questions,” I whined. Turning around, I touched his arm and gave him a pleading look. “This is really something I’d like to keep between you and me.”
With a sigh, Ethan relented. “Fine. I won’t say a word about it.”
“Thanks, Ethan.” And since I’d slept in his bed—more like in his arms—last night, there really was no barrier between us any longer. Flinging my arms around his neck, I buried my face in his shoulder.
He patted my back, then quietly opened the front door and led the way to his car.
*
Ignoring the apologies from my parents, my mom’s tears, and my dad’s sorrowful face, I ran to my room and locked the door. Right now, I didn't want to talk to them. Not after they’d destroyed what should have been the perfect ending to a lovely date last night.
Arms folded on my pillow, I hid my face in them and sulked. There was nothing that could have lightened my mood…
Or maybe one thing could.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and glanced at the screen. Still no new messages. My heart sank once more.
Chris hadn’t sent me a single text last night. The first time, in two weeks, that he didn’t tell me good night this way. I sniffed. Maybe he hadn’t because he’d told me his usual finishing line at his house already. At the memory of how his hand had softly brushed against mine before I left, a small smile made it to my lips. There must be a reason why he hadn’t texted me. C
ertainly he was going to message me again tonight.
But I didn’t want to wait that long. Something had happened the previous week—something I didn’t know how to deal with. For a while, denying it to myself seemed like the best idea. But when Chris had kissed me, and all these butterflies caused chaos inside me, there was no doubt left. I had fallen for Ethan’s brother, and much deeper than I’d ever anticipated.
Proof was that not twelve hours had passed since the last time I saw him, and I missed him already. That was bad. More than bad. It was shocking.
What had happened to my solid “your charm will get you nowhere with me” attitude?
Oh, but I knew what had happened. Somebody coated it in molten chocolate and made me swallow the whole damn thing.
When all these sweet memories came up again, I chanced my luck and typed a message to Chris. Good morning. Are you still asleep?
Usually, he was fast with his replies. Not this time, though. Minutes ticked away and turned into half an hour. My attention continued to wander back to the screen, checking for new messages. Nothing. Curled up on my bed, I waited and my anxiety grew as the half hour dragged on into a couple more, me still staring at the damn phone in my hand. My heart had become a walnut in a nutcracker by that time.
He must have seen my text. So what kept him from answering? A lazy morning? Or was I just not worth any more of his time? He’d gotten what he wanted after all. Aside from teaching me a lesson in how irresistible he was and how he got every girl to fall for him, getting serious with one had never been his intention. He’d made that clear from the beginning.
I’d been a fool.
But hope dies last, they say.
Somehow I convinced myself he’d just send a text later today. In the evening. Yeah, at his usual time. To tell me good night and call me sweetness, like he always did. Feeling a little better, I came out of my room around noon to eat lunch with my parents.
As soon as they saw me, they came around the table and wanted to hug me or something, telling me how sorry they were for sure, but I held them off with a raised hand. “Don’t! Really, I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just eat. I’m hungry. And my head hurts. Mom?” I rubbed my temples. “Can I have a painkiller later?”
“Of course, honey.” She gave my hair a caress when she set my plate of spaghetti in front of me. It was nothing as good as Ethan’s steaks—or Chris’s dessert—but I ate enough to keep me going for the rest of the day and night, because I didn’t intend to come down again today.
The evening came and passed, it was just shy of midnight, and still there was no text or call from Chris. Not even after I’d sent him a good-night message at five to ten. If nothing else, this was enough to convince me that the only one who’d fallen for someone in the past few days was stupid me.
As punishment for being such an idiot, I should’ve prohibited myself from my beloved liquor-filled pralines, but to be honest, they were the only thing that kept me from bursting into tears that night.
Ethan had called me earlier to check how I was doing, but he’d said nothing about his brother. And I didn’t ask.
After the silent treatment all Sunday, I almost didn’t expect to see Chris at school on Monday morning. But he must’ve had a class close to mine first period, because this was the time when we’d met most often in the hallway in the past…and again today.
With my books under my arm, I walked to science, keeping an eye out for Sam or Nick. Distraction would do me one hell of good today. So, dammit, where were they?
Rounding the last corner and heaving a frustrated sigh because they were nowhere to be seen, I stopped dead with a sudden gasp. Only a few steps ahead, Chris was talking to Justin, a friend of Hunter’s and somebody I’d gotten to know pretty well since I started hanging out with the guys.
Frozen to the spot, I just stared across the corridor. Walking up to Chris and saying something would have cost me an amount of bravery I couldn’t muster after the weekend, but it didn’t take long for Justin to notice me. He smiled and waved back when I did, which also made Chris look in my direction. For the length of a painful heartbeat, we gazed into each other’s eyes, but no one moved or mouthed a single word. Chris pressed his lips together in annoyance, lifted his brows in a cool look, and turned back to Justin.
He didn’t act like he didn’t know me. He just acted as if…he didn’t care.
My chest constricted. I sucked in a painful breath and made my heavy legs move, trudging on to my first class. Sam and Nick were already in there and beckoned me over to their table with a wave. Now is a bit late for distraction, guys. The catastrophe had already occurred.
But that incident wasn’t even the thing that hurt most this week.
Because I didn’t visit Ethan in the afternoons for obvious reasons, I didn’t meet Chris, either. Several times, temptation got hold of me to tell him what a big, fat, and complete ass he was. It verged on a miracle that I didn’t send the text off, even when my thumb hovered over send for almost half an hour on Wednesday night.
I hadn’t told anybody about the kiss. Mostly, because it filled me with shame to see that I—in spite of better knowledge—had let myself fall for the worst playboy when all the warning signals had been there and so obviously, too.
At school, I tried to act my normal self in order to not give my friends any reason to grill me about my problems. I even bantered with Ethan and the others at lunch. Ethan asked me a couple of times how things were at my house, and he was the only one to whom I told the truth. That I wasn’t speaking a lot with my parents and that they didn’t speak a lot with each other these days, either. My outburst must have had some severe effect on them. Time would tell, though, what came out of it.
That same day, I dared to ask Ethan for the first time if Chris had said anything about me after that dinner on Saturday. The sorrowful face Ethan made gave me chills. “He seems to be avoiding me as much as he avoids you. I asked him what his problem was yesterday, but he got really aggressive and told me to f—to get lost. What in the world did you do to him, Susan?”
“Me? I did nothing.” Other than letting him kiss me. But that was probably the whole point. “I can understand why he’s no longer interested in me. He got me where he wanted me in the first place. But I don’t understand what that’s got to do with you.”
Ethan shrugged. Neither of us had an answer.
Most nights, I slept with Chris’s bandana tightly clasped in my hands, pulling from it what little comfort it would give me. Of course, I needed to return it to him soon, but I was just not ready to give away the only thing that I had from him. Nor could I bring myself to delete all the messages he’d sent me. I must have read them a thousand times over the week, but all they did was make me sadder than before.
Friday finally appeared, and I was glad I only had to battle through one more day before I could sulk an entire weekend in my room alone. I wandered from my history class to math on autopilot, focusing on my steps instead of on the happy people surrounding me in the hallways.
With a loud “Uff,” I came to an abrupt stop when I bounced into someone.
“Whoops,” a familiar voice said.
Please, let this be Ethan. Please, let this be Ethan. Please…
I looked up and gazed into a face that held the warmth of a Canadian winter. So much for “God hears every prayer sent to him.” If he’d heard mine, he happily ignored it.
“Hi,” I mumbled and added, “Sorry.”
Chris stared at me so hard that I couldn’t bear it much longer and lowered my gaze—which was the worst mistake I could have made. He was wearing the dark gray shirt which only a week ago I had dug my fingers into when he kissed me. Where the short sleeves ended, his tanned, smooth skin reminded me of how warm he’d felt. And his hands, his fingers that he’d hooked through my belt loops…they were leisurely laced through someone else’s fingers now.
I swallowed so hard that the small group of students next to us might have heard it, too.
The girl at Chris’s side was a stranger to me. Long, fair hair fell smoothly down her shoulders. Her slim legs were wrapped in mega-tight jeans. The moment Chris seemed to notice my appalled stare, he tightened his hold on the girl’s hand, somehow forcing me to look up at his face again.
“Anything wrong?” he bit out in a cold voice that I hadn’t heard him ever use before.
Slowly, I shook my head, horrified. My gut churned and I wanted to throw up right there. With bile rising in my throat, I stepped aside to let him and his new catch pass. I headed on toward math but took a turn for the head office instead. Telling a lie about having period cramps got me a pass to leave school early.
Mom looked surprised when she saw me walking through the door, but not as surprised as I was when I found both of my parents home that morning.
I dropped my schoolbag on the floor, grabbing the backrest of a kitchen chair, and told her, “Afternoon lessons were canceled. Some teachers’ conference or something.” Casting my father a sidelong glance, I asked, “Why are you home? Don’t you have to work today?”
“I took the day off.” He hesitated, looking at my mom—for support, it seemed. What the hell?
My mother came to me and caressed my hair. In a soft, terribly foreboding voice, she said, “It’s good that you’re home, honey. There’s something we want to discuss with you.”
Both of them lowered to the metal kitchen chairs, their eyes on me. Their sad faces triggered a rush of adrenaline inside me. The urge to storm out the door and run over to my grandfather’s house to check if he was all right took hold of me. Since there were no tears on my mom’s cheeks, though, it couldn’t be that.
Warily, I sank into the chair that I’d held onto until now, preparing myself for more bad news.
Chapter 17
“YOUR MOTHER AND I are getting a divorce, Susan.”
Dating Trouble (Grover Beach Team Book 5) Page 19
