“Wait, you don’t have to—”
“I do, actually.” She came to stand. “I promised my brothers a rematch tonight while my parents are at couples’ therapy.” She said that last phrase with a roll of her eyes that did a poor job of hiding her unease over the situation.
“Okay,” I said, not wanting to see her go even though I knew I’d see her at school tomorrow. Even knowing that, though, it didn’t feel like enough. “Any chance I could talk you into having lunch with me tomorrow? I know this fabulous restaurant called la cafeteria.”
She grinned. “With you and your stepsister?”
I flinched. “When you say it like that, I sound lame. It’s me, Harley, and Lars.”
Now it was her turn to cringe. “Lars Ulrich?”
“Yeah, why?” I crossed my arms. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be that snobby cheerleader who looks down on a guy like Lars just because he’s a little…weird.”
I was putting it nicely. I’d been sitting with the dude every day since I’d started Talmore and Lars was an odd duck. He didn’t say much, just wore this dopey grin and watched me and Harley like we were his favorite TV show. That meant that Harley and I did all the talking, for better or for worse.
Our conversations entailed quite a bit of bickering, and more than a little mocking from both our sides. We might not have figured out this whole new blended family thing, but Harley and I were starting to excel at being siblings in all the worst ways.
“Tell me again what it’s like to like your siblings,” I said to Rosalie.
She laughed and reached out to pat my cheek playfully. “Be nice. Having a sibling can be nice…” She started to walk away. “You know, when they’re not annoying the crap out of you.”
I was a little embarrassed by how quickly I chased after her. I seriously did not want to see her leave, and I was more than a little resentful of her brothers for taking her away from me right now.
Stupid and petty, I know, but that was the truth of it. This girl had gotten to me. She was in my blood and I was officially hooked. I needed more time with her…preferably alone, but I’d take what I could get.
“You free for another study date this week?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Sorry, but I’ve got cheer practice and then the game on Friday—” She turned back when she reached my front door and arched a brow. “I don’t suppose you’ll be going to the game?”
“And miss the chance of seeing you do backflips in that cute skirt of yours?” I teased. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
She worried her lower lip and I knew exactly where her mind had gone.
“I’ll stay out of trouble, I promise. Besides, the goons who want to kick my butt will be busy getting concussions out on the field.”
Her lips twitched upward with a little smile. “Okay, because you know I won’t be able to save you again…”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said with a roll of my eyes. I couldn’t resist and I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close. I was just going to hold her, I told myself. I wouldn’t kiss her. Not until I eased my guilty conscience. “I guess I’ll just have to make do without the ice queen’s protection.”
She was beaming up at me, clearly loving that she was in the role of savior here. That was fine by me. So long as she kept smiling at me like that, I was more than happy to be at her mercy.
“So, I’ll see you after the game on Friday?” I asked.
She made a funny face. “Only if you want to go to a team party with me at Danny’s house. I already promised my friends I’d go and—”
“You go,” I said. “But I should probably pass. You won’t have much fun if you have to babysit me all night long.”
“I won’t have much fun, period,” she said with a wry twist of her lips. “But I promised Erika and Allie, and I hate to break promises.”
“Of course you do,” I said softly. It was official. The more I got to know her, the more I liked her and that was…terrifying.
Not bad, just…terrifying.
There was no other word for it.
“What about Saturday?” The moment the words slipped out I realized just how pathetic I was sounding. There was interested and then there was clingy. I was dangerously close to the latter.
Her eyes flickered with regret. “I’d love to hang out on Saturday but my brothers will be back and I don’t want to leave them home alone in the war zone.”
Of course she didn’t. My heart did some weird new move that was either a sign of how much I liked this girl or a symptom of a heart attack. I was honestly torn on which would be worse news right about now. Heart problems were treatable, right?
Falling for a girl for the first time in my life?
Something told me there wasn’t an over-the-counter medicine for this.
“Bring them.” Yup. I definitely had it bad if I was suggesting our first real date include her two little brothers.
She gave me the cutest puzzled little smile. “You want to hang out with my brothers?”
“If it means hanging out with you? Sure.”
Her smile was dazzling. I suddenly had visions of being the older brother these little twerps never even knew they wanted. Heck, I’d be the best darn pseudo-brother in the world.
“Bring them,” I said again, this time with a note of urgency that startled us both. “I’ll cook.”
“You’ll cook?”
“Yeah.” I shifted uneasily. “I cook.”
“Oh.” She smiled again. “Cool.”
I shrugged. It definitely wasn’t cool, but whatever. “You guys should come over Saturday afternoon. I’ve got tons of video games to keep your brothers occupied and then I’ll make a romantic dinner for you.” I winced as I added, “And your brothers.”
She laughed.
“And probably Harley.”
She nodded. “Awesome, I’d love to get to know her. I’m in one class with her but we’ve never actually spoken.”
“Consider yourself lucky,” I said, but it was more out of habit to tease my stepsister, because the mention of her made me superbly uneasy right now. Thoughts of Harley came with thoughts about the stupid challenge that started all this in the first place.
A challenge that would hurt Rosalie if she ever learned about it.
My arms were still around her and I went to loosen them. No matter how much I might have wanted to pull her close, I couldn’t while this guilt was still gnawing at my gut. I’d set things straight, make things right, and then I’d kiss her.
My gaze fell to those pretty pink lips. Then I would kiss her until she melted in my arms.
I went to take a step back but right at that moment, she reached for me. One of her hands came to rest on my chest and she went up on tiptoe and…she kissed me.
My world came to a halt as she gently pressed her lips to mine, her breath sweet as she sighed softly. I couldn’t move. I was so stunned I just stood there, letting her kiss me but not trying to deepen it or take control.
I think some part of me knew that she needed to be the one to be in control right now, and that was fine by me. I was too busy absorbing the delicious feel, the intoxicating taste and scents of this beautiful girl in my arms.
When she pulled back, her gaze was anything but cold. Her eyelids looked heavy as she peeked up at me through her lashes. “I kissed you.”
“I noticed.”
She bit her lip, a rare sign of uncertainty in this girl who’d made an art out of playing it cool.
I leaned forward until my forehead rested against hers. “I noticed and I liked it,” I said. “A lot.”
Her smile was slow and sweet. “Yeah?”
I tangled my hand in her hair at the base of her neck, wishing I could show her just how much I liked it, but that stupid conscience of mine just wouldn’t let me.
“This weekend,” I said, more for my own sake than hers.
I saw a flicker of confusion before she smiled up at me. “This weekend.”
And first
thing tomorrow, I was going to make it clear to Harley that the bet was off. She could have my car, because this thing with Rosalie?
It was real. And I wasn’t going to risk this for anything.
13
Rosalie
“Geez, girl, could you at least pretend to play hard to get?” Erika said beside me.
I’d been caught staring…again. I tore my gaze away from Conner’s and turned back to my friends at our lunch table. “Sorry.”
I’d barely seen him over the past few days, thanks to school and cheer practice.
“Why is he sitting with Lars?” Allie asked.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Tara said in an annoying sing-song voice that had me shooting a glare in her direction.
She cowered in the face of the ice queen.
Ice queen. Ha! So laughable considering the way I was losing my cool over Conner. Last week I’d actually felt like the nickname fit…and now?
Well, now I knew that I had passion inside of me and I knew what it felt like to feel.
I’d always known I’d had emotions—obviously—but being with Conner, I knew how to show it. It was a revelation and I wasn’t even sure how he’d done it.
Maybe it was because he was so easy to be around, or because he saw things in me that nobody else ever acknowledged…not even my family.
He saw that I was strong, and that made me want to be strong. He thought that I was funny and that made me feel comfortable making jokes I wasn’t sure anyone else would get. He thought I was kind, and I loved that beyond all reason. I hadn’t realized how tired I was of being thought of as cold and hard until his touch made me melt.
“There she goes again,” Allie muttered, but her tone was lacking in the snark department.
I snapped my gaze back to my friends with a little grimace of apology. I’d been staring over at him…again. Could I help it if Conner was the hottest guy I’d ever seen? It was really hard not to look at him. Even harder now that I knew what a great kisser he was.
I looked down at my carrot slices as heat spread through me at the memory, so fast and fierce it stole my breath.
“Oh wow, is our little Rosalie blushing?” Allie said. Once again, her mocking was filled with amusement but it didn’t have the edge it used to. So weird. Everything seemed to have changed this week, even my friendship with Allie. Ever since that scene at the diner she’d been acting different towards me, but I wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Seriously though,” Erika said, her gaze still on Conner’s table, which consisted of him, his stepsister, and Lars. “Doesn’t he know about Lars?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about it yesterday because I’d gotten distracted by thoughts of homecoming and kisses and… There I went blushing again. Another something new this week—my ability to blush. But honestly, I was still so incredibly awed by myself. The fact that I’d asked him to homecoming, that I’d initiated our first kiss…
Who had time to think about his weird friendship with Lars when I was still floating in a bubble of pride, disbelief, and excitement?
I’d asked Conner to homecoming!
Why? It was something Conner had said. He’d said that I’d come to this school and fallen into a charmed life. And in a sense, it was true. Even I had thought my life was too perfect to be true for a while there.
But even then, I hadn’t been happy. Not really. I’d been playing a new role that I’d been cast in—the quiet ingénue. Erika and Allie’s new sidekick and Danny’s cute little girlfriend. The freshman cheerleader who had it all…
And then I’d lost it—or I’d lost a lot of it—when Danny had cheated on me. Ever since then I’d felt lost, cast in a whole new role as ice queen, with no idea how to get out except to keep my head down and hide in plain sight.
But then when Conner was talking, it occurred to me. I’d been given all the things I was supposed to want, but I’d never really wanted them. So my next thought had been so stupidly simple, and yet so very novel for me.
What do I want?
Standing there, comfortable and happy, feeling so warm and loved—I’d wanted to be right where I was. For the first time in a long time I was exactly where I wanted to be. With Conner.
And I wanted more of that. I wanted it to be real; I wanted to feel like he was mine, not just for an afternoon of studying, but for always. It wasn’t like I was about to propose marriage, so yeah…asking him to be my date seemed like the best possible option.
I hadn’t told my friends yet, not because I cared what anyone thought about him going as my date but because…for a little while, at least, I wanted to keep this for myself.
“Someone should probably tell him that Lars is the world’s worst gossip,” Erika said, interrupting my gleeful reverie.
It took me a second to catch up. Oh yeah, she was still on about Lars. Erika had had it in for him ever since he’d spilled the beans on the fact that she’d been overweight as a kid before she’d come here. That particular scandal broke before my time at Talmore, but Erika still held a grudge and I couldn’t blame her. I mean, the guy had posted photos online before she’d forced him to back down.
I looked back over at Conner’s table and wrinkled my nose in disgust as I watched Lars watching Conner and Harley, who were deep in conversation. Whatever they were talking about, Lars was eating up every word. “You’re right,” I said. “I’ll talk to him.”
Tara’s voice cut across the table and the level of smug taunting in her tone made me tense instantly. “Oh really? Will that be before or after you drag him along to homecoming?”
I blinked in shock and my stomach sank at the cruel satisfaction in her eyes that she didn’t try to hide.
Allie and Erika were staring at me. “What’s she talking about?” Allie asked.
“Uh…” To be clear, the sick feeling in my stomach had nothing to do with the fact that they knew I was going to homecoming with Conner. It had everything to do with the look on Tara’s face. So smug. So mean. So…knowing.
Tara held up her phone. “From what I hear, our ice queen here all but begged Conner to go with her.”
“Ugh.” Allie snapped out of her state of surprise first and turned her attention to Tara. “Don’t you have anything better to do than spread ridiculous lies?”
“Of course she doesn’t,” Erika said calmly, her voice making it clear who the true ice queen was at this table. “No boyfriend, no real friends, and now? No place at this lunch table.”
My eyes widened in surprise as Erika and Allie turned to stare at Tara, who looked sick as she scrambled up out of her seat, her friends avoiding eye contact as she made her ungraceful exit from the A-list table.
Normally I wouldn’t condone that sort of mean-girl move but I was still reeling from what she’d said. “How did she know I asked him to homecoming?”
“Did you?” Allie asked. Her tone didn’t hold judgement…more like amazement.
I nodded.
“Good for you, girl,” Erika said.
I wrinkled my nose at what Tara had said. “I didn’t beg him.”
“Of course not,” Allie agreed. “No one would believe that story.”
“But where did she hear it?”
Erika was glaring over at Conner’s table. “I have a guess.”
I followed her stare to a blithely unaware Conner, his animated stepsister Harley, and… “Lars.”
“Bingo,” Erika said. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he pays.”
I swallowed, trying not to think about what Conner had said for Lars to have spread that rumor. Wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, and yet…
As if he could feel my stare, Conner looked over. The moment his eyes met mine, I looked away. He wouldn’t have said that I’d begged him, because I hadn’t.
Right?
He wouldn’t be that mean, not even as a joke.
“You okay?” Erika asked when the bell rang and I clamored out of my seat toward the door. I opened my mouth to say yes,
to explain to them that while humiliating rumors sucked, this one wasn’t true and it wasn’t Conner’s fault. But before I got the chance, Allie spoke up on my behalf.
“Of course she’s okay,” Allie said, coming to stand by my side. “This girl stood up to Danny, she can totally handle a loser like Conner.”
“He’s not a loser,” I snapped.
“Don’t stand up for him,” she said. “If he said that—”
“We don’t know what he said,” Erika replied calmly. “All we know is he trusted the wrong guy in Lars.”
My gut churned at the look of disbelief on Allie’s face. “Please. The guy is clearly desperate to be accepted.”
Was he? I didn’t think so. But then again, hadn’t he even said that he was used to being popular? Maybe I didn’t know him as well as I thought.
14
Conner
Something was up. It was obvious the moment I looked over at Rosalie in the cafeteria. Suddenly she wouldn’t make eye contact. And then when I got up to follow her out, she all but ran away from me.
I should have let it go, but I didn’t. When I didn’t run into her in the hallway that afternoon, I texted her. I knew she was leaving for the football game right after school so maybe that was why she didn’t text me back.
But still, her silence unnerved me. What could have happened between this morning when she’d given me that shy sweet smile in the hallway and now?
“What’s wrong with you?” Harley asked as I finished up the Bolognese sauce.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” I said on autopilot.
She made a snorting noise of disbelief.
Our parents were in the other room watching a true crime documentary that had creeped out my stepsister so she’d come in here to annoy me instead.
Okay, fine. For the most part she and I had been getting along better these days, minus her freakout after that night when I’d left her at the diner.
She’d had to get a ride home from Tristan. While she’d totally chewed me out for leaving her there, she’d refused to tell me what had happened between the two of them.
Charming the Cheerleader (The Bet Duet Book 1) Page 10
