The Boyfriend Bet (Boyfriend Chronicles #2)

by Chris Cannon

  He turned the car off and sat there for a moment. “The last time I saw him, he was pale and hooked up to all these IVs.”

  “He must be feeling better if he wants his book.” I squeezed Grant’s hand.

  As soon as we stepped foot in the hospital, the smell of antiseptic, fear, and desperation hit me. I hated that smell. Breathing through my mouth I concentrated on being there for Grant. This wasn’t my tragedy.

  When we reached his private room, Grant’s grandfather sat in a chair flipping channels on a flat screen television.

  “You’re out of bed.” Grant sounded relieved.

  “I told you the doctors were worried over nothing.” He spotted me and frowned. “Who’s this?”

  Great. He disapproved of me on sight.

  “This is Zoe.”

  “You’ll have to excuse my appearance.” Grant’s grandfather adjusted his robe. “I don’t normally receive visitors in my pajamas.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, anyway.” I remembered something. “I think you went to school with my grandmother, Monica Brooks.”

  His eyes narrowed, and then there was a spark of recognition. “She was a lovely girl.”

  The nurse came in. “Sorry to break this up, but it’s time for your grandfather to prove he’s ready to go home. We’re going to walk the stairs.”

  “I’m up for the challenge, my dear.” Grant’s grandfather smiled at the nurse.

  “I’ll put the book in your overnight bag.” Grant reverently tucked the book in his grandfather’s suitcase. On the way out the door, he stopped and took his grandfather’s hand. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”

  “You and me both.”

  …

  Zoe

  The week settled into a comfortable routine. Grant and Aiden ate lunch with Delia and me every day, but they never mentioned the upcoming date.

  “Why haven’t they said anything?” I asked Delia Thursday afternoon as we carried our trays across the cafeteria to the table where Aiden and Grant were already seated.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We need to know what’s going on.” It was driving me crazy. “I’m going to ask them.”

  “Maybe we should give them time to say something first. Aiden is like a frightened rabbit reaching for a carrot. I don’t want to startle him away.”

  “What part of you is a carrot?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Yeah, that didn’t come out like I thought it would. New plan. You ask and I’ll play back-up.”

  “Works for me.” When we reached the lunch table I sat next to Grant. “So where are we going on our double date tomorrow?”

  He blinked, like he could have cared less. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  Not the answer I’d hoped for. I glanced at Delia, signaling she was up to bat.

  “Have you thought about our date?” she asked Aiden.

  He froze for a second. The rabbit metaphor was beginning to make more sense.

  “My first response was going to be no.” Aiden studied Delia. “But I’m pretty sure that’s the wrong answer. So where would you like to go?”

  “Well done.” Delia congratulated him. “We could go to a movie.”

  Grant’s cell buzzed. He checked a text and frowned.

  “Who’s that from?” I leaned in, but he’d turned off the screen.

  “No one important.”

  Why didn’t he want me to know who texted him? “Then why did you turn it off so fast?”

  He pulled his phone out and handed it to me. “See for yourself.”

  I should have handed him the phone back, not caring who texted, but I wasn’t that mature. Instead, I clicked on messages. Amber had invited him to a party. She’d added one of those stupid blowing kisses smiley faces. I gripped the phone tighter and checked the texting history. Ten messages came up from the past week. What the hell did she think she was doing? Amber chasing after him set the short fuse of my temper on a slow burn but I wouldn’t play the jealous girlfriend.

  “Nice smiley faces. The next time I text you, maybe I should use fluffy pink bunnies.”

  “From you, I’d expect shotguns or hedge clippers.”

  …

  Friday I met up with Delia and we went to the same spot where we’d met up with Aiden and Grant every morning this week. When Aiden spotted Delia, he smiled, like he was happy to see her. Grant didn’t notice my approach because he was talking to Amber. And she was touching him. She brushed her fingers across his arm as she talked to him. On the positive side, he stepped away from her. When he did, he caught sight of me and rolled his eyes.

  She didn’t notice. Instead, she moved closer and touched his shoulder.

  Why wasn’t Amber taking the hint? Should I tell her to get away from my boyfriend? Not that Grant was my boyfriend. He was just a guy I was going on a date with, or according to my brother, he was a guy trying to humiliate me in front of the whole school by making me the Ringer. I hated that Jack had planted that thought in my head.

  Since saying anything about a relationship would be awkward, I decided to go with a more direct approach.

  “Excuse me,” I said to Amber right before I squeezed between her and Grant, threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. At first, he seemed surprised, but he caught on to the idea soon enough.

  “Miss Cain,” an authoritative voice called out.

  Busted. I moved away from Grant and turned to see my first hour teacher, Mr. Fletcher.

  “You know the rules.”

  “Detention for both of us?” I asked.

  He nodded and walked off.

  Grant sighed. I grinned at him. “Sorry, had to be done.”

  Amber muttered something under her breath and stalked off.

  The day flew by. Before I knew it, I was in the principal’s office standing next to Grant. Principal Stephens was packing a briefcase. “You two are lucky. I don’t have time to call your parents today. In lieu of that punishment, I want you to write sentences during detention.”

  He shoved two pieces of paper at Grant. “You know where to go.”

  We shuffled over to the table. Grant handed me one of the sheets of paper. At the top was written “Principal Stephens will call my parents if I end up at this table again.”

  Who knew the man had a sense of humor? It didn’t say how many times he wanted us to copy the sentence, so I wrote at a leisurely pace waiting for the dead chicken timer to go off. When it did, I tried to hand the sentences to the secretary.

  “Why would I want those?” she said.

  Okay. The woman needed some happy pills.

  It took every ounce of self-control I possessed not to bug Grant about where we were going on our date. By the time we made it to his car, I was ready to burst.

  “I’m impressed.” Grant opened the car door for me.

  I slid into his low slung sports car, holding my backpack on my lap so I wouldn’t flash him. “Impressed about what?”

  “You haven’t asked about the date.” He said this like he knew it was killing me and then walked around the car.

  I let him start the car and put it in drive, before I commented. “What are we going to do?”

  “Now that I think about it, detention and the ride home should count as the date. So once I drop you off, I’ll go home, call Aiden and see what he wants to do.”

  “Faulty logic and bad plan.” I punched him on the shoulder. “Besides, Delia would not be pleased, and you don’t want us plotting against you.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but you’re not that scary.” Grant pulled onto the highway. The speedometer needle edged above seventy.

  “One, you’re speeding and two, you have no idea how scary we can be.”

  He eased off the gas. “Right. What have you done?”

  I grinned at one of my fondest memories. “You can’t repeat this to anyone. Understand?”

  “Got it.”

  “When we were kids, Delia and I set up a lemonade stand at the Fields Cro
ss baseball diamond. Jack told everyone he peed in the lemonade, so no one bought any.”

  “Did he pee in the lemonade?”

  “I wasn’t going to drink it and find out because he might have. So, Delia and I didn’t sell anything, and we’d spent days painting signs and drawing on all the paper cups. That night, when we went back to my house, we put Nair in Jack’s shampoo bottle. The next morning, he took a shower and came out bald. No hair, no eyebrows, nothing. It was awesome.”

  He sucked in a breath. “Ouch.”

  I laughed. “It took him a month to grow back enough hair so that he could stop wearing a hat.”

  “So the moral of this story is, I have to keep our double date or I’ll end up bald?”

  “Pretty much, so what do you want to do tonight?” A movie sounded good to me, after everything else that happened today, I wanted to be low maintenance.

  “Do you like air hockey?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I rocked at air hockey but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Let’s go to Edison’s.”

  Edison’s was a combination restaurant and arcade, which had laser tag and video games. “That could be fun as long as you’re not one of those guys who has to win every game all the time. Because I like to win, too.”

  “I could throw a few games for you.” He turned off onto the road, which led back to my house.

  “I could do the same for you.”

  “Right. I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  Four hours later, I stood in the kitchen in front of my grandma and mom, showing off my outfit of an off the shoulder sweater and my good butt jeans. Jack refused to acknowledge me, but he muttered under his breath a lot.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “You look hot,” my grandmother said.

  “Mother.” My mom sighed.

  “What? Do you want her to go out dressed like an old lady?” Grandma asked.

  “You’re looking pretty good yourself, Grandma. Where are you going?”

  She straightened the collar of her black wrap dress. “Thank you. I’m helping out at the silent auction for the garden club tonight.”

  I wiggled my eyebrows. “Grandma’s on the prowl.”

  “We’ll see.” She winked. “Maybe Everett will be there.”

  Gross. “You can’t date Grant’s grandpa. That would be weird.”

  “Cancel your date, and stop acting like an idiot and it won’t be a problem,” my brother shouted from the living room.

  “Jack, stop giving your sister such a hard time,” my mother called out.

  Yeah. Like saying that to him accomplished anything. The sound of a car coming up the drive had me darting to the window. A beige Volvo sat in the driveway. Had to be Aiden’s car.

  The back door opened and Grant climbed out looking amazing in dark jeans and an emerald green shirt. And he’d caught me gaping at him through the window. Great. Way to play it cool.

  I wanted to rush the door, but let my grandma open it instead. “Hello, I’m Zoe’s grandmother. You must be Grant.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “Just so you know, those shotguns are real.” My grandmother pointed to the back wall where the weapons hung above the mantle.

  Grant’s smile faltered. “Okay.”

  “Grandma.” I couldn’t believe she’d done that. I half ran to the door, before anyone said anything else to ruin my date. “See you guys later.”

  Grant’s gaze went to my exposed shoulders.

  “I saw that,” my grandma said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Zoe

  “Go.” I pushed Grant out of the doorway onto the porch. “Let’s make a run for it before this becomes awkward.”

  “Too late.” Grant put his hand on my arm and we headed for the car.

  Heat from his hand seeped through my sweater, warming my skin. When we reached the car, he opened the door for me. I climbed in, but wasn’t sure if I was supposed to climb over to the other side, or if he was going to walk around the car and get in from that side. Why did life suddenly seem so complicated? When he shut my door I had the answer.

  Delia turned around and said, “Nice sweater.”

  I pointed at Delia’s hair. “Nice purple streaks. I think I like them better than the pink.”

  “I had the matching eye liner, so I figured I’d give it a shot.” Delia jerked her thumb toward Aiden. “I don’t think he likes the new me.”

  “I never said that. I asked why you did it.”

  The reason was obvious to me. She’d done it to mess with Aiden’s head. “Should I tell him why?” I asked Delia.

  “No,” Aiden and Delia said at the same time.

  We all looked at Aiden. “What?” he said. “I like to figure things out for myself.”

  …

  Edison’s parking lot was packed. What would it be like inside?

  “Grant, did you call to see if there was a birthday party here tonight?” Aiden asked.

  “No.”

  “They have parties here all the time. What’s the big deal?” I said. “Maybe we can scam some cake.”

  Aiden pulled into a spot in the row farthest from the building and turned the car off. “You can’t take someone else’s birthday cake.”

  “Sure you can,” I said. “Everyone buys one of those monster sheet cakes, and there’s always some left over which they have to lug home. If I take a piece of cake, I’m helping.”

  “You can’t believe that.” Grant opened his door and climbed out.

  “Wrong,” I said. “I can believe whatever I want.”

  The four of us trekked across the parking lot. Inside Edison’s we were surrounded by a sea of little kids.

  Aiden froze. “Maybe we should go to the movies.”

  Grant leaned in close and whispered, “Little kids make him nervous because they’re unpredictable.”

  Delia pointed toward the restaurant side of the establishment. “Come on. We’ll hide out in a booth over there, and they’ll probably be gone by the time we’re finished eating.”

  Seated in the booth, Aiden appeared less stressed. The waitress came and took our order, and then Aiden said, “You made your skirt. Is that what you want to do, design clothes?”

  “I love to design all sorts of things.”

  “Delia and I plan to open an eclectic boutique where she can sell clothes and artsy stuff while I sell cookies and cupcakes.”

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to open a normal bakery?” Grant said. “I mean there is a reason they don’t let you take food into most stores.”

  His dismissal of my dream job ticked me off. “We want to create something different. We aren’t shooting for normal.”

  He blinked. “Why do you sound upset? We’re just having a conversation.”

  “No,” I said, “you’re using the ‘implied idiot’.”

  “You lost me.”

  “Your comment implies I’m stupid about business. So you pretty much called me an idiot, even if you didn’t say it.”

  “That may be what you heard, but that’s not what I meant.” Grant paused for a moment. “Let’s rewind this conversation and I’ll try again. That’s an interesting idea.”

  “You can rewind conversations?” I kind of liked the idea.

  “If you can revoke freak outs, I can rewind conversations.” He looked at me like he was daring me to argue.

  “That works for me.”

  “Here we go, one extra-large pepperoni pizza.” The waitress set the pizza down in the center of the table. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

  “No. We’re good.” And we were. Grant’s rewinding comment had dissolved the tension that had sprung up between us. I grabbed the spatula and put a piece of pizza on my plate and then passed it to Grant.

  “New topic. What games do you like to play?” I asked Grant.

  “Air hockey and anything where I get to shoot a gun or make things explode.”

  I laughed. “I lov
e House of the Dead.”

  “I didn’t think girls liked games like that.”

  “I like shooting guns and making things explode too, but I don’t like the ones where you kill people.”

  “Zombies are people,” Aiden said.

  “No they’re not.” I shook parmesan cheese onto my pizza. “They used to be people, now they’re the undead. So it’s okay to shoot them and watch their heads explode.”

  Grant choked on his pizza, almost spitting food across the table. Delia laughed.

  “What do you like to play?” Aiden asked Delia.

  “I like foosball.”

  “Why do you like foosball? And before you pull a Zoe, there is no implied anything. I just ask a lot of questions because I like to understand things.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Zoe

  For the rest of the meal, we kept to safe small talk about school and the games we wanted to play. Once the table was cleared, Grant pointed toward the air hockey tables. “Let’s start over there.”

  Time to show off my air hockey skills.

  Grant pulled an Edison’s card from his wallet and swiped it through the scanner. “You know how to play?”

  “First to seven points wins?”

  He nodded and slapped the puck. I deflected it and sent it sailing back to his side of the table. He blocked my attempt at a goal and slammed it toward me where it smacked into my goal. The buzzer went off announcing he’d won a point. I groaned. Grant chuckled.

  Time to wipe the smile off of his face. I served the puck bouncing it off the corner of the table in the exact angle to slide into his goal. The buzzer went off. His mouth fell open. “You lied to me.”

  “I did not.” I set my paddle in a defensive position while he served. “You never asked if I was good at air hockey. You asked if I liked it.”

  “Now you sound like Aiden.”

  I checked to see where Delia and Aiden were. Smack. The buzzer went off.

  “Hey, that’s cheating. I wasn’t ready.”

  “Did you call a time out?” he asked.

  “No.” I smacked the puck sending it flying toward his goal. He blocked and ricocheted the puck off the right wall. I slapped it back to him hitting the corner of his goal. He blocked. Back and forth, we went point for point until we reached six-all. Winded, I held the puck. “Time out. I need a break.”