I didn’t think so.
Close as we might be, discussing kissing with Grandpa was not high on my to-do list.
“I’ll be right back,” I said. I turned and gave my grandfather a mock threatening glare. “Don’t even think about peeking at my cards.”
He let out a guffaw and waved me off.
I didn’t look up at Lucas as I swept by him into the hallway. It was easy to avoid meeting his eyes since he was a solid foot taller than me. He was big all around, with the kind of muscular chest and shoulders that made him look older than he was. He could pass for a college guy, and the perma-smirk he seemed to wear didn’t help matters. It made him look worldly…and cruel.
Which he was, I reminded myself.
I crossed my arms over my chest defensively. Fleeting looks of hurt and sadness aside, it was best to remember that this guy was not nice. And he certainly wasn’t my friend.
When he didn’t say anything for a while, I finally looked up and saw him eyeing me critically like he was sizing me up. “You changed,” he said.
I let out a snort of amusement. Way to state the obvious, bro. “Sadly for me, you didn’t.”
I wasn’t referring to his hospital gown and he knew it. His lips twitched a bit and his eyes lit with grudging amusement. “Funny.”
I lifted one shoulder. “I thought so.”
His gaze was still moving over my outfit. “So…why does it still look like you’re going to a costume party?”
I hate you. I clamped my lips together to keep from uttering it aloud. I’d always liked retro stuff. I wasn’t going to justify myself to this guy. Blame it on the fact that my grandfather was my best friend but I’d always had a thing for all things forties and fifties. Was it odd that I used old-timey rollers to get my hair to do the right kind of pin-curls?
Maybe.
Were cat-eye glasses and vintage dresses considered cool in any of the zillion schools I’d attended as an army brat?
Definitely not.
Did any of that matter to me?
Big fat no.
I’d never cared what classmates said before, so why the hell should I start caring now?
With that thought I gave a disdainful sniff and pushed my glasses further up my nose. “What did you want to say to me?”
“First of all, I’m sorry about kissing you like that.” He ducked his head and looked up at me, the very picture of sheepish humility.
I didn’t buy it for a second. Narrowing my eyes at him, I said, “Let’s try this again, shall we? And this time, try being honest. What do you want from me?”
He blinked once and then the mask of insincerity slipped away. The guy facing me was resigned and not even a little bit sorry. “I need you to be my girlfriend.”
Chapter Three
Lucas
If looks could kill, I would have been slaughtered and left for dead.
“Excuse me?” She managed to say it in a way that didn’t sound like she was asking to be excused at all. The underlying tone said, “Have you lost your mother-flipping mind?”
Her undertone had a very valid point.
It was extremely possible that I had totally lost my grip on reality because here I was—a varsity football player with the name and number of at least a hundred willing and able girls, all of whom would be happy to be my new girl.
And yet…
I sighed as I studied her new outfit.
And yet, it had to be this one. The one who dressed like she was the waitress at a drive-in diner where they wore roller skates and had soda fountains, or whatever.
“Seriously, why are you wearing a costume?” I just couldn’t let it go. And I couldn’t keep the disdain from my voice.
She folded her arms across her chest and scowled. “It’s not a costume. These are my clothes.”
I held back a sigh. Of all the girls in all the hospitals, why did I have to kiss this one?
This girl was just too weird. No one would believe I actually liked her.
I narrowed my eyes and focused on the lips, which were still a vivid red, the face beneath those ridiculous glasses, which was actually pretty cute, and the body, which was still deliciously curvy beneath the bizarre dress.
The dress’s only redeeming quality was that it didn’t try to hide her curves, for which I was immensely grateful. I tilted my head to the side as if that might help me see past the outfit.
She wasn’t not pretty. If she just dressed differently and acted like someone else entirely, she might even pass for cool.
I could work with this.
“Are you going to explain what you meant by needing me to be your girlfriend?” she demanded.
I tried to meet her gaze and found myself staring at her lips. I didn’t have a choice, did I? I had to work with this—I’d kissed the girl. In front of Eleanor.
I groaned and rubbed at my forehead, where a tension headache was rapidly brewing.
Lola spun on her heel and headed back toward her grandfather’s hospital room. “Okay then,” she said, her heels clicking on the linoleum tiles. “Good talk.”
“Wait.” Desperation had me going after her. “Please.”
The ‘please’ got her to stop walking, but I had nothing to convince her. Why hadn’t I thought this through? I stared at the back of her head, at the curls that bounced and gleamed in the hallway lighting.
I guess I’d thought it would be easier than this. She’d been so nice when she’d first shown up in my room. So eager to please.
And then…
And then she’d given as good as she’d gotten.
But still, where had that girl with the eager smile gone?
“Please, just hear me out,” I said.
She turned slowly, crossing her arms again in challenge. “I’m listening.”
Crap, I really should have thought of a reason why she might want to go along with this. I had one—the most obvious one—but somehow it didn’t seem terribly convincing in the face of her mutiny. Still, it was all I had to offer…
“You would be popular,” I said.
Sure enough, her face crinkled up—part confusion, part disgust. Her lips twisted into a sort of sneer as she repeated the word like it tasted bad. “Popular?” She shook her head as if clearing it. Then she met my gaze again, and this time the confusion was gone. It was replaced by amusement. “You think I want to be popular?”
No. I didn’t. It had seemed like the obvious motivation to dangle in front of her when I’d been lying on my hospital bed, desperate to salvage a lie. But here, now, looking at the walking freak, it was very clear that she wasn’t trying to fit in.
Oh crap. I shoved a hand through my hair, trying to ease my throbbing head. I’d gone and kissed one of those girls who wanted to be different.
I scrambled to think past the throbbing. What did girls like that want? I drew a blank. When in doubt ask, right? “What do you, uh…what do you want?”
She stared at me for a while before bursting out in a laugh. There was that smile, the one I’d chased away out of sheer irritation. It was a genuine smile of amusement and laughter.
I got the feeling this was the real Lola. This was what she’d be like most of the time. You know, when she wasn’t stuck dealing with me.
She shook her head with disbelief. “You’ve really gotten yourself into a pickle, huh?”
I didn’t want to smile but her amusement at my situation wasn’t mean-spirited. She was genuinely amused and I found my lips twitching up against my will. “Yeah,” I admitted. “I’m in a…pickle.”
She laughed again at my use of her old-fashioned phrase.
There were a million other terms I would have used to describe the crapfest that was currently my life. But yeah, sure. Let’s call it a pickle.
She hitched her arms up higher on her chest as she took a deep breath. “So, Eleanor thinks we’re together, I take it?”
I didn’t deny it.
She shook her head. “No one would believe it.”
>
I shrugged. “She did.”
Lola rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because you kissed me. In front of her.”
“Yeah…” I scratched at the back of my head as she arched her brows meaningfully.
“Well?” she said when the silence stretched too long.
I cleared my throat. I knew what she was waiting for but apologies didn’t come easy for me. In fact, I couldn’t even think of the last time I’d had to apologize for anything.
I didn’t do apologies.
But her stare was turning to a glare and she literally started tapping her foot to show her impatience.
“Sorry about that,” I mumbled.
She blinked and then after another long silence, she arched her brows. “That’s it? That’s all I get?”
“What? I said I was sorry.”
She pressed her lips together and glared at me. “Not good enough.”
“What do you want me to do?” I lifted my uninjured shoulder in a shrug. “Do you want me to say that it’ll never happen again? Because I am more than happy to make that promise.”
Whoops. That was…not the right thing to say.
Her cheeks turned pink, but I was pretty certain it was due to anger and not embarrassment. I made that assumption based on the fact that sparks seemed to be shooting out of her eyes. I found myself taking a slight step backwards, as if that might help.
It didn’t. She took two steps toward me and jabbed a finger into my chest. “You can keep your apologies, and your kisses,” she said. “I don’t want either.”
Then she spun around on her heel and headed back toward her grandfather’s hospital room, the wide skirt of her old-fashioned dress whipping around her dramatically. As she walked away, I watched my chances of making Eleanor jealous disappear.
I had a sudden vivid image in my mind’s eye of what this year’s Christmas party would look like with beautiful Eleanor draped all over that D-bag Ryan, and me…stuck in a corner with my arm in a sling.
Alone. Unwanted.
Pitiful.
Hell to the no.
“Wait up!” I hurried after her, but she didn’t pause. “Tell me what you want.”
That made her stop, but she kept her back to me. I watched her shoulders rise and fall. This time when she turned, she turned slowly, as if she was trying for patience.
If she was, she was failing.
She forced a smile that was condescending and cold. “I don’t want anything from you.”
I studied her, all sassy and confident. Some of my own confidence faded. When Eleanor had wished me good luck with my new girlfriend and left the hospital room, I’d been so sure that I could talk this girl into going along with this. Just for a little while. It wasn’t like I wanted to date forever. But now…well, now it was clear that this girl really didn’t have a use for me.
“Just one week,” I said. “Just one party.”
She arched a brow. “The Christmas Eve party Eleanor mentioned?”
I nodded.
I was almost certain I saw a flicker of pity, and that hint of weakening made me simultaneously ecstatic and furious.
Who was she to pity me?
But then again, if she felt sorry for me she might cave.
Yeah, that didn’t sit right. I might be at a low point in life—you know, begging some freak to pretend to be my girlfriend, and all. But I still had some pride.
To be pitied by an outcast loser like Lola?
That had me backing up in the hallway, half wishing I’d never started this conversation in the first place.
“Why don’t you just ask someone else?” Lola asked, looking slightly more torn than she had before now that she felt sorry for me.
I shrugged. “I would, but unfortunately for me…I kissed you.”
She pressed her lips together in annoyance, but because I’d kissed her or because I’d said ‘unfortunately for me?’
“You are not very good at asking for favors, do you know that?” she said. “If you want something from someone, you should try and refrain from insulting them.”
I got this weird urge to laugh at her teacherly tone. She was kind of cute when she was all uppity like this. “You’re right,” I said. “But I didn’t mean that I didn’t like the kiss, I just meant—”
She got weird in an instant. She got so weird I had to stop talking because her reaction was so crazy. I mean, it was a kiss. A stupid little kiss.
Yeah, there’d definitely been some chemistry there. I’d felt it, for sure. But it was little more than a peck on the lips. The fact that she turned beet red and looked down at her shoes seemed like she was blowing things out of proportion.
Was she really so modest that one little kiss made her this embarrassed?
I cleared my throat, suddenly awkward in the face of her awkwardness. “I just meant that I wish it had been someone else. Someone who wouldn’t mind playing along.”
She nodded, but her gaze was still on those ugly grandma shoes of hers. “Yeah, I get it. Pretty much any other girl at Briarwood would be happy to play along, I’m sure.”
“Exactly.” I wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not, but what she’d said was the truth. Of course, I probably sounded like a cocky jerk admitting it, but what was the point in denying it?
I was popular. I had a certain clout, thanks to my position on the team—even injured, everyone knew I’d be back and I’d take my place as quarterback again next year. Our second string was a joke.
Aside from that, I was hot and I had friends.
So yeah, any girl who wasn’t Lola would have been happy to be my girlfriend—fake or not.
I held back a sigh. But I’d gone and kissed this one. Awesome. “Look,” I said, taking a step closer. “There’s got to be something you want. Something I could give you.”
That had her looking up finally, but while her cheeks were still a vivid shade of pink, her eyes sparked with disdain. “You really think you can just buy people like that?”
I shrugged, feigning a confidence I didn’t quite feel. “I’ve got a lot to offer. If it’s not popularity you’re after, what about money?”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I could make someone jealous for you,” I said quickly, hoping to erase the money offer that seemed to have offended her. “You help me make Eleanor jealous and I’ll get you whatever guy you’re after.”
She had to like someone, right? She was a high school girl. All girls had a crush on someone, it was a known fact.
Lola’s nose wrinkled up like she smelled something rotten. “You think I like a boy at Briarwood?”
I didn’t miss the way she said ‘boy,’ like we were all a bunch of little kids.
She sniffed and tossed back her weird curls. “No thanks.” She started backing away. “Sorry, but you’re going to have to be honest with Eleanor.”
I frowned at the thought. “No way in hell.”
She pursed her lips and I saw that flicker of sympathy again, but she didn’t cave. Instead, she lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Then come up with another lie, I guess. Sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you.”
I opened my mouth to try and argue some more but she’d already disappeared back into her grandfather’s room.
Besides, what else did I have to offer her? The girl was a complete and utter freak. Who didn’t want popularity? Who didn’t want to be wanted by every guy in school?
And I could’ve made that happen for her. I could have made her cool.
I turned back to head toward my room again.
Fine. So Lola wanted nothing to do with me? Great. I’d find another way.
* * *
I’d figured out a new plan by the time my next visitors arrived, just before visiting hours ended.
My best friend Trevor showed up with his girlfriend Blake in tow.
Now, while Eleanor was the antithesis of the clichéd mean girl, Blake gave the term new meaning. Briarwood’s former reigning queen of mean, Tina Withers, gr
aduated in the spring, and I had no doubt that Blake intended to take over her throne.
At least, she did her very best to try.
“Dude,” Trevor drawled in a knowing tone the moment they walked in the door.
Blake’s mouth was pursed like she’d eaten a lemon and her long, straight blonde hair swung as she whipped her head to face me head on.
They knew.
Blake was friends with Eleanor. I would have said they were frenemies but Eleanor was too nice for that sort of thing. Blake was clearly envious of Eleanor’s beauty and her popularity, but not even a wannabe queen of mean like Blake could stay annoyed with a sweetheart like El.
So they were friends, and Blake had taken on the role of protector whenever it came to Eleanor.
Clearly Eleanor had told Blake about the kiss because I was getting glared at so hard I could almost feel the sting.
“How could you?” she snapped.
I held a hand up to stop her, ignoring Trevor’s laughter at my expense. The only thing Trevor enjoyed more than making fun of people was watching his girlfriend tear them a new one.
Blake stomped over to the side of my bed. “You kissed retro girl?”
I arched my brows. “Retro girl? Is that what we’re calling her?”
Also, was I the only one who hadn’t noticed the new girl with the weird clothes and the strange hair?
“I can see it,” Trevor said. He’d shot up over the summer and was now almost my height, though he was all skin and bones despite the ridiculous amount of food he was always consuming.
He could see it? What did that mean? Clearly he was being sarcastic. He shoved one of Eleanor’s cookies into his mouth and grinned. “She’s kinda hot.”
Blake smacked his stomach and he doubled over, but he was laughing. “Seriously, she’s got a killer body and she’s not bad to look at, if you ignore the clothes and the hair and—”
“Shut up, Trevor,” Blake snapped. “You’re not helping.”
Trevor was still laughing. He thought Blake’s nasty streak was hilarious. Thank God someone did. I wasn’t nearly as amused.
The Candy Cane Kiss: Briarwood High Series Page 4
