The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) (9 page)

The yellow bowl was Mom’s, and it said so on the side with
Best mom in the world
in cursive. But which one to give Susan? There were two left. A red one with the word
Milk
on it, and an orange one that would have marked her as
Cereal
. I picked
Milk
because the color fit her dress.

A small radio with a CD deck stood next to the microwave, and cooking was more fun with music—that was one of the few things my family agreed on. Mom’s latest discovery was Sam Smith. His voice blared through the house most of the time she was home, therefore it didn’t surprise me that his album was in the CD player. I turned it on and, knowing all his songs by heart by now, I sang out loud to “Stay With Me” while peeling and chopping the oranges, kiwi, bananas, and peaches.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow move past the kitchen door. Or maybe not quite
past
, because when I looked up, I found Sue standing close to the doorjamb and casting an intrigued glance into the room.

Our conversation from detention was certainly as apparent in her mind as it still was in mine. So had she come to spy on the foe? Intrigued by what I had to offer?

Because she didn’t walk away when I caught her watching me, it was worth a try to beckon her closer. Still singing this stupid song, I crooked my finger at her. And, heck, she moved. Slowly. In the right direction.

Come here, kitty, kitty, kitty…

When she stood directly across from me with the island between us, her gaze roamed over the bowls filled with cream. Although her mouth obviously watered, she didn’t dip her finger into it like Mom had.

From the plate holding the chopped fruits, I picked a peach wedge and dunked one side into the cream. All this time, I sang the lines to “Stay With Me” like I was giving an exclusive concert for Susan Miller. It was the weirdest thing to do, but I also knew, if I stopped singing, I would say something imprudent, probably about her hot dress—and she would stomp away.

As I held the peach wedge out to her, to either take it or simply bite off the tip, Sue shook her head. Fine. Perhaps not her favorite. With a casual shrug, I bit the cream end off myself and put the rest of the slice back on the plate. There, my gaze got stuck on the heap of kiwi slices. She’d eaten one of them at lunch today. Were they more to her liking than peaches?

Putting that theory to the test, I reached for the kiwi and watched her reaction. Her mouth tugged up at the corners. Ah, there we go. Smiling, and still singing along to this nagging song, I dipped a round kiwi slice into the cream then held it out to Sue. Only problem was she couldn’t take it like she could have taken the peach. Cream was all over the kiwi and my fingers, too. If she wanted this bite of dessert, she had to let me feed it to her. I was fine with that. Was she?

Sue looked at me intently, yet she didn’t move an inch.

Aw, c’mon, don’t leave me hanging, sweetness. We’ve come so far.
There was, after all, a challenge to win and, as everybody knew, the love of a girl was won with dessert.

I could almost hear the silent argument she was having with herself. Her eyes switched back and forth between mine and the fruit between my fingers with a hunger that made even
my
mouth water. Just not for kiwi.

Anticipation tickled the inside of my stomach. I stopped singing. A gambler must feel this way when he puts all in and waits for his opponent to show his cards.

Seconds ticked by.

What’s in your hand, Sue
?

Lips pressed together, Susan started to lean forward. Her flaming gaze captured mine. Or maybe it was the other way round, I couldn’t tell by that time. When she warily parted her mouth, I could barely keep my glorious smile in check, so I ground my teeth behind closed lips and tilted my chin a little lower.

Her teeth caught the kiwi, and her lips caught my fingers. That was the plan. Yet when it happened, adrenaline shot through my body in all directions. Had to be the anticipation of getting a head start in the challenge.

Sue pulled the fruit away, and it vanished in her mouth completely. A tiny spot of cream remained on her bottom lip. She wiped it off with her thumb. Too bad for me. If I’d been a little faster, I could have wiped it away for her and would certainly have dazzled her with that move. All I could do now was lick the rest of the cream off my own fingers. Delicious. The cream
and
Sue’s blush as she watched me.

Once again shocked out of a world where the possibility of
she & I
existed, she sucked in a sharp breath. Then she spun on her heel and stalked away without looking back.

Still trying to fight me? Laughing, I dragged my gaze away from her swaying backside and the swinging ponytail. But I’d read her face. She had let me in once, she would let me in again. Susan Miller was in for a ride to hell. And by the time we got there, the North Pole would seem like a warm place in comparison.

I HELD A handful of chopped fruit over Susan’s dessert bowl. About to drop them into her cream, a wedge of peach sticking out caught my eye. She hadn’t bitten into that one, probably hated it. To be on the safe side, I made sure no peach landed in her bowl.

Once done, I headed for Ethan’s. A quick knock on his door and a shout to Mom in the living room was enough for the entire pack to file into the kitchen two minutes later. Sue’s wary glance didn’t escape me. She seemed guarded, kept a wide distance, and wore a stern face. If she was worried I was going to out her to my brother for enjoying being fed from my hand…well, it was kind of tempting.

But Mom would never forgive me.

As Sue sat down, I reached over her shoulder and placed the dessert bowl in front of her, casually brushing her shoulder with my arm while I whistled the melody of “Stay With Me.” A personal reminder of how much fun we’d had in this room five minutes ago—just the two of us.

She threw me a furtive look from the corner of her eye, probably getting a mental cramp from willing me to stop whistling already. I responded with a tight smile and slid into my chair. Under the table, my knee knock against hers. Couldn’t waste a chance to make her aware of me.

Sue obviously tried very hard not to look at me after that, but I sneaked a peek at her every now and then. One spoonful of cream and fruit after the other disappeared into her mouth. After the fourth or fifth, I started fantasizing. Me holding out a juicy green grape as she stole it with her teeth, her lips closing around my fingers like before. A warm tickle spread in my stomach. The next grape I would put between my teeth and—

Jeez! My spine stiffened with shock from that image. Or rather because of the anticipation that gripped me by the neck. Daydreaming of fooling around with a geek. At which point in this evening had the challenge actually become so appealing to me?

I shook off the thought and concentrated on my own dessert—which was cream and not
Susan
.

When Sue left the house with my brother that night, my head was still filled with visuals of a hot red dress and stupid things I wanted to do to charm it off her. Much,
much
too appealing.

To clear my head with some distraction, I logged on to Facebook. Lauren had posted from the shopping center.
Change of plans
it said beneath the picture of her and Rebecca, each toasting the camera with a fancy cocktail and smiling big.

Looks like more fun than a Spanish book
, I typed in a comment under the picture.

Lauren was fast with a reply.
Come join us. ;)

Heck, maybe I should. I grabbed my phone from the desk, navigating to the recent calls list to dial her number. At the very top of that list appeared
Weird Geek
. My thumb hovered.

No.
No
! I wouldn’t call
her
. Not now and definitely not when she was with my brother. I gritted my teeth and pressed
Lauren 10
right beneath Sue’s entry. That was the moment I heard Ethan’s voice outside my room.

What the hell was he doing home already?

Before Lauren’s phone started ringing, I ended the call and walked into the hallway. Ethan said “good night” to my mother and “hey” to me as we passed each other in front of his room.

“Hi,” I replied before he disappeared inside and shut his door. Confused, I sauntered into the kitchen to see if he’d brought Susan with him again. For all I knew, she might be chatting with my mother.

Well, Mom was watching a movie in the living room all by herself, and the kitchen was empty. A quick peek around the corner to check the front door. No girl there. No shoes or jacket either. Ethan had returned alone. And
much
too soon. Made me wonder if he’d even stopped in front of her house for her to get out, or if he’d just slowed down a little and made her take a reckless jump.

Shaking my head, I returned to my room, my phone still clasped in my hand. Hmm, Ethan was home. Sue was back at her house. Odds were he once again hadn’t kissed her. And no one would blame me if I dialed her number now. After all, my brother just wasn’t interested, right? Considering she’d worn that hot little dress that had sorely tempted me throughout dinner, yet
he
was obviously immune.

Or maybe a text would do for starters. Settling on my bed with the pillow squeezed between my back and the wall, I typed a message.
Not like a geek.
Tonight’s outfit kicked her right out of that department.

Some minutes ticked by, and nothing happened. Annoyed by her lack of response, I tossed my phone to the side just as it beeped with a message. Ah, somebody changed her mind.

Weird Geek
wrote:
What?

Since she seemed ready to talk to me, I took the chance and dialed her number instead of sending another text. Sue picked up quickly, although her voice sounded anything but delighted. “Chris, why are you calling me?”

“To wish you a pleasant night and to answer your question,” I told her, suppressing a laugh.

An audible sigh traveled through the line followed by her grumbling, “Does your brother know that you’re talking to me?”

“No. He just came in…too soon after he drove you home, if you ask me.” Contrary to her growl, I strived for a light, playful tone. “Does that mean he, once again, didn’t kiss you?”

“None of your business!” Whoa, her saliva had probably just turned a radioactive green from the venom in her voice. But after having her almost plant a kiss on my creamy fingers tonight, I begged to differ.

“Come on, it’s a simple yes or no question,” I teased her. “I’ll sleep a lot better if I know the answer.”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself, if you want to know so badly?” hissed the kitten.

Did she hate me because she’d liked when I’d coaxed her to eat the fruit from my hand? Or because I looked like the guy she had a crush on and she just couldn’t deny it? Her attitude about this was quite immature, considering she wouldn’t stand a chance in this challenge anyway. I rolled my eyes but gave her that. “Okay… Since you told me to…” I rose from my bed, walked out the door to my brother’s room, and stuck my head inside. He was doing a workout on the floor. “Hey, Ethan,” I interrupted, hiding the phone behind my back. “Did you kiss Susan tonight?”

He turned only his head toward me. “No.” A grunt as he did a pushup. “Why?” Followed by another grunt.

I waved at him to continue his evening workout and shook my head, mouthing, “Never mind.” On the way back to my room, I pressed the cell to my ear. “Ethan said no.” Then, as I slumped into my desk chair and started to swivel, I innocently added, “I wonder why he didn’t. Could it be that he’s just not interested?”

“FYI, he asked me on another date.” It wasn’t a snappy remark as much as a self-assured jibe. Or maybe it was simply her wishful thinking. Someone should rattle her awake.

“Aw, playing video games again? Is that really your idea of a successful date?”

“We’re going to the movies.
Your
idea of a successful date is probably coming out of your room with bed hair and a messy shirt.”

I stopped spinning in the chair. Dammit, she
had
been checking me out when we met in the hallway! And my incorrectly buttoned shirt had certainly given her some wild ideas. A sly grin escaped me at the memory of her almost eating me up with her eyes. “I knew you noticed that.” Now the far more important question was, “Did it bother you?”

Sue gasped. “Why the hell would it?”

Obvious, girl.
“Because, for one, I look exactly like my brother and, from what I can tell, you’re totally into him. Means you’re totally into me, too.” Some rules of the universe just couldn’t be broken, no matter how hard she fought it. “And two, only one out of us seems to be dying to snatch a kiss from you these days.” Even if it was only to come out of this game the winner.

The absolute silence on the other end of the line shocked me. No snappy retort for once? I must have hit a nerve. “You stopped breathing, Sue,” I told her warily, unsure if she was still there. Her quick intake of air then made me chuckle. “I guess that means you agree with me on both points.”

She was breathing again, good, yet she took a long moment before she asked me something in a very low and, for her, unusually soft voice—when she spoke with
me
, anyway. “Chris, tell me one thing.” Another pause. Gee, I was really itching to hear where this was going. “You had the most beautiful girl in your room this afternoon. Why do you want to kiss
me
?”

Oh, I would tell her why. “Because Lauren, like most other girls, is an easy catch.” Spanish lessons or not, I only had to snap my fingers, and she would make room in her calendar for me. “You, on the other hand,” I drawled into the phone, hoping to stroke Susan’s senses awake with it in spite of the late hour, “challenged me today—and in front of my friends, too.”

“So you want me because you can’t have me?” Her voice traveled up an octave at the end of the line.

“Who says I can’t have you?” I teased.

“I do.”

Think again, sweetness. You have no idea who you’re dealing with.
But her naivety made me smile. “Oh, okay. So yes, then I definitely want you.”

Now, Sue actually laughed out loud, but I wasn’t so sure whether she sounded amused or frustrated. “You need to understand that I could never kiss a guy without having true feelings for him,” she informed me as if making an official statement, “which I don’t have for you, Chris.”

“Really?” Could somebody enlighten me now as to what one had to do with the other, please? “I’ve kissed more than twenty girls the past few months, and it was lots of fun. But not one of them made me
feel
anything.” No, that wasn’t quite the truth. In fact, it depended on how the word
feel
was interpreted here, so I added, “Well, other than—”

“Stop it!” Sue cut me short. “I don’t want to hear it.”

No?
I laughed. “Okay, okay.” I wouldn’t like to hear about her ex-lovers either. If she’d had one yet. A geek and sex in junior year? Mmm, I wouldn’t bet my life on it. Then again, tonight she’d totally busted the geek image of herself. Which got me back on track. “Anyway, there’s another reason why I want you.”

“What’s that?” She sounded truly curious. A good sign.

Eyes closing, I recalled the sexy sway of her hips, then cleared my throat, and said in a low rumble, “You looked
way
hot in that dress today. Definitely not like a geek, which should answer your question to begin with.” After a short pause in which I stared into the distance and suddenly saw myself in Ethan’s place, taking Sue home earlier, I added in an even lower drawl, “If I’d been the one driving you home tonight, I would have kissed you. And you would have liked it.”

Sue stopped breathing again. Mission accomplished.

Blinking a couple times helped free myself from the beguiling vision of kissing her. “Sleep tight, sweetness.” It came out as a whisper. Smiling, I hung up, so she could revel in that fantasy herself.

Phone dropped to my lap, I expelled a long breath. When was the last time a girl had gotten me edgy like this? The feeling of not knowing if I could really land her in the end began to screw with my mind. It came with a load of excitement and weird anticipation. I had to go back in my memory as far as Amanda to recognize a similar feeling. Amanda hadn’t been a challenge. She’d been my first love…and my last, for that matter.

Love.
What a strange word to bring up now. I wasn’t feeling anything remotely close to it for Sue. Nevertheless, the girl had something about her that made me think of funny ways to crack through her walls. It wasn’t only about showing her that she was no different than any other chick and I could have her if I wanted. Tonight, the course of this challenge had taken a turn. Now I needed to have her to actually prove to
myself
that I could.

*

Two hours later, lying in my bed, bored and wide awake, I wondered if it had been a mistake not to meet with the girls in the shopping center. If Becks was there, Tyler couldn’t be too far, and some foosball would have provided the distraction I needed. Lauren could have been that kind of distraction too, but somehow I wasn’t in the mood.

Eyes shut, I planned my next move with Sue. I kept replaying our encounter in detention, followed by the delicious moment of me feeding her a piece of kiwi tonight. Now if that wasn’t some serious progress, I didn’t know what was. And then we had that phone call to boot.

Although I didn’t know if making her aware that—with the twin thing—she was actually sort of crushing on me too made things about this challenge easier or more complicated. The trouble was, even if she was aware of her attraction to me, she would only try harder now to keep me at a distance.

Counterproductive.

Exhaling a sigh paired with a smile, I rolled onto my back and put an arm beneath my head, the other hand flat on my stomach. Sue really was a piece of work. Considering her resistance, winning her in the end would be an even bigger glory.