Life in the Lucky Zone (The Zone #2) (26 page)

Mrs. Mac clapped her hands. “That’s it for today. We’ll pick up again tomorrow, and hopefully we won’t resemble an episode of
The Walking Dead
quite so much.”

People chuckled and set about gathering their stuff to leave. Berger was nowhere in sight. Was he already gone?
Dang it.
I wanted to at least talk to him. I took out my phone to text him when Mike and Parker appeared in front of me.

“We’re going to Sonic,” Parker said. “Want to come?”

Their faces shone with overeager smiles, which I knew they were doing on purpose. I laughed. “Y’all are crazy.”

“Come on,” Mike said. “We haven’t hung out with just us in a long time.”

Yeah, so that “just us” obviously meant no Berger. Which wasn’t going to work, because as much as I would have liked to sit around laughing with them, I wanted to do the same thing with Berger a whole lot more. “Some other time, guys. I need to get home.”

Parker looked skeptical, but Mike clutched his chest. “Okay, just break my heart all over again.”

I laughed, which was what he wanted. “Bye, guys.”

I grabbed my stuff, then headed out to my car. Once inside, I took my phone out again.

Lindsey: Where’d you go?

Berger: Had to leave early to help with Nana. Started to tell you, but you looked busy with the girls

Lindsey: Ok See you tomorrow.

Berger: Yes you will

His response made me smile.
Why, Lindsey, why?
It was just a simple phrase. It didn’t mean anything.

Then why did it feel like it did? And why did I want it to?

Fifty

Lindsey

“Oh,” I said the following Thursday afternoon at my house. “You never told me how things are going with Nana.”

Berger looked up from the book of poetry he was reading. “Some days she’s great, some days she’s not.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged.

We weren’t rehearsing. There didn’t seem to be any reason to since we’d gone over the play a thousand times. So we’d decided to study instead and chose the formal living room because it was farther away from the back of the house and the noisy yard workers with power tools.

Berger shifted his position on the other end of the couch, causing his legs to bump mine. We sat facing each other with our knees bent, but since his legs were a lot longer, his feet were practically in my lap. I tugged on the toe of his sock. “You’re in my space.”

“
I
am? You’re hogging the whole couch.”

“There’s no way I could be doing that. You’re bigger than me.”

He smirked. “And don’t forget it. I still owe you for knocking me off the other couch a while back.”

Oh my gosh.
How many times was he going to bring up that night? It was enough to make me swear off peppermint schnapps forever. Almost. I stared back at my biology textbook, the words and pictures blurring together. Until I’d interrupted his reading, I was actually getting a lot of studying done. And I did have a test tomorrow.

But I’d much rather flirt with Berger. We’d been hovering on the edge of flirtdom for most of the afternoon. And I was really curious about what was on the other side. Would he be normal flirty? Or, because something new was happening with us, would he give in to it? Only one way to find out. Dive over the edge. “So what poet wrote that book?”

“Not just one, it’s a collection,” he said, not looking up. He leaned his elbow against the back of the sofa and idly chewed on his thumb while he read.

“Well, who wrote the one you’re reading now?”

“Shelley.”

“Shelley? That’s it? Just Shelley?”

He lowered the book and jiggled my hip with his foot. “Are you really interested or do you just want attention?”

My mouth dropped open. “Jerk,” I said with a laugh. “Yes, I’m really interested.”

“Percy Bysshe Shelley. A nineteenth-century poet.”

“Would I like him?”

He cocked his head and considered me. “You might.”

“Read it to me.”

“Nope.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“Today’s not a good day for that.”

Hmm. Very secretive. “Will there ever be a good day?”

“To read you a poem?”

“Yeah.”

His lips curled in a lazy smile. “Maybe.”

The smoldering look was back. I hadn’t seen it in so many weeks that I’d almost decided I imagined it. My heart rate sped up, so I stared at the blurred words in my textbook. Berger was so different from other guys I’d been interested in. He didn’t pursue, didn’t make what he wanted obvious. And that made it hard to know how to act.

All I knew was one thing: I wanted to kiss him. My sweet, lucky boy. And I didn’t know how to do it without embarrassing both of us. I wouldn’t throw myself at him again, that was for dang sure. But getting closer to his lips was definitely the first step. I stretched my legs out flat, pointing my toes.

He grabbed my ankle and chuckled. “You are seriously taking up all the room. I’m getting squished here.”

“I can’t sit the same way forever.”

“For-e-ver,” he said in a robotic voice. “We’ve been sitting here forever?” He pressed his fingertips into my ankle slightly, causing me to squeak.

“That’s not what I meant.” I started wiggling around, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit.

“Hang on,” he said, as though I were exasperating him. But his eyes gleamed. He moved my legs onto the floor out of the way, then swung his off the couch. He scooted closer to me, placing my legs over his lap and putting his feet on the coffee table. He bent my legs at the knee and then rested his stupid book of poetry on them. “See?” he asked with a grin. “This is perfect. We both get to stretch out our legs and still share the sofa.”

Was he was messing with me? It sure seemed like it. “What if I want to put my legs down?”

“Hmm. Then I wouldn’t have a book holder, but maybe we could trade off. Up for a while, down for a while. What do you think?” He ran a hand up and down my shin.

Okay. Definitely messing with me. Because it wouldn’t have been a big deal if I were wearing jeans, but I had on leggings, and it almost felt like he was touching my bare skin. “I guess it could work.”

“Great.” He sighed and settled back like he was ready to read for hours.

His lips were closer, true. But he didn’t appear to be smoldering anymore. Hmm.

My mother’s footsteps rang out against the marble flooring of the front hall. I quickly looked down at my biology book.
Studying, we’re only studying.
She stopped in the doorway. “I’m going—” She covered her mouth with her hand, then cleared her throat.

Was she hiding a smile? What was that about?

“—going out in the back to check on the gardener’s progress. Do y’all need anything?” she asked, her voice lifting a bit too high.

“Nah, we’re good,” I said.

“No, thanks, Mrs. Taylor.”

“Very good.” She left, the tap of her quick, light steps changing tone when they reached the tile in the back hallway. The door closed with a distinct thud.

This was my chance. No sudden interruptions. Just Berger and I in a quiet house. I looked over to find him watching me, his expression relaxed.

“I shouldn’t have answered for you,” I said. “Do you really not want anything else to eat or drink?” His ice tea glass sat empty on the table.

“No, thanks. I really am fine.” He reopened his book.

I was starting to hate poetry. Something I’d never even thought about before. But whatever. Poetry would not stop me now. “I want to kiss you,” I blurted out.

He turned toward me so gradually it was like super slow-mo. “Why?”

Why?
Trust Berger to make this even more awkward than it already was. Heat prickled across my chest and up my neck. I had to get out of there. I couldn’t meet his gaze. I’d probably just ruined our friendship, and if not, this was going to be teasing fodder for months. “Okay, um, I need to … ” I twisted to escape the couch, but Berger clamped a hand on my knee.

“I mean,” he said, “is it a science experiment?” He indicated my biology textbook that was about to fall on the floor.

I closed the book and set it on the coffee table, my hand trembling. But I didn’t think he noticed. Why was I so nervous? I usually felt in complete control in these situations, but not this time. Maybe because I never knew what he would say or do next.

When I finally got the nerve to look at him, my heart did a backflip. His brown eyes were warm with humor. And something else.

“Huh. No answer,” he said. “That must mean it’s an experiment. Or maybe it’s for research purposes. You want to practice kissing another actor so that it looks real, but actually isn’t.”

The book of poetry had been set on the floor. Now
that
was a confidence booster. I smiled. “No. Guess again.”

He looked at the ceiling. “Um, you’re really a secret agent who mistakenly thinks I’ve hidden the key to the safe deposit box in my mouth.”

I grinned and shook my head.

He leaned a little closer. “You want to practice your feminine wiles on the most available idiot around.”

“I want to say yes to that one, but no.”

He pursed his lips. “Oh, I see how it is. No, wait. I don’t. Why do you want to kiss me?”

He’d inched even closer, and I couldn’t resist running my fingers along the stem of his glasses and then around the curve of his ear. “Because of everything you just said, Dragon Boy. Because you’re you.”

“Ah. Well in that case … ”

I watched his lips, ready to feel them on mine, my nerves pinging all over my body, but they didn’t come any closer.

“You have my permission,” he said.

“What?”

Mischief glimmered in his eyes. “You may kiss me.”

I suddenly wanted to smash him into the sofa cushions like the night I’d thrown myself at him. Because he needed to be tickled or wrestled or tortured in some merciless way. But I didn’t want to slow down our current progress. “On one condition.”

He reared back. “What? You can’t put conditions on your own request. That makes no sense.”

That last word came out muffled against my mouth, because I grabbed his neck and yanked his lips against mine in what can only be described as a smooch. Hard, fast, and uncomfortable.

He broke off, laughing. “That was horrible.”

I grinned. “I know.”

“I think we can do better.”

“I hope we can,” I said, putting a challenge in my words.

“Let’s see.” He slid a hand into my hair, then moved toward me. My eyes fluttered closed. His lips brushed lightly against mine, then moved onto my cheek. “What was your condition?” he whispered.

Huh?
It took me a second to figure out what he meant. “Oh. I’ll kiss you if you kiss me back.”

He tsked. “You’re so demanding.”

I gently tugged his glasses off. “I know.”

Then we truly kissed. Deeply. Rightly. My hands tightened on his shoulders. My toes curled inside my socks. My heart did another backflip.

Kissing Berger, and being kissed by him, turned my world upside down. It wasn’t just the way he kissed as though he’d be happy to do it all day. It was because after one of his long, slow kisses, where he nuzzled down my neck and back up again, he lifted his head and looked at me with an expression that stole my breath. At first I couldn’t place it, but then it sank in. It was tenderness. I couldn’t remember a guy, any guy, ever looking at me like that.

Tears stung my eyes so I squeezed them shut. No one wanted to kiss a crying girl. But somehow Berger knew. He pressed his lips to mine again, then whispered, “That bad, huh? If we keep practicing, I’ll get better at it.”

“You don’t need any practice,” I whispered.

He pulled back a little. “Oh. So is it time to stop?”

I gave him a wobbly smile. “No. And I’m okay. You’re just … really surprising.”

He propped his head up with his hand and, with a gentle smile on his face, ran a fingertip across my lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I threaded my fingers into his soft, messy hair, and a sigh escaped my lips. Right. That was a little embarrassing.

Berger grinned. “I’d be happy to surprise you in more ways, but I need to go.”

I tugged on a lock of his hair. “You could’ve waited a long time before saying that.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you could’ve begged me to kiss you a lot sooner.”

I laughed and then pushed at his shoulders. “Get off me.”

The gleam in his eyes should’ve warned me. He swooped in for another kiss, this one so hot that when he finally broke it off, he looked a little dazed. I probably did too.

My mother’s footsteps rang out on the tile.
Uh-oh.
I hadn’t heard the back door close. Good thing we’d stopped kissing. Berger grabbed his book from the floor.

“I’m back,” my mom called out, but didn’t come into the living room.

“Hand me my glasses, you wild animal,” he said, holding out a hand.

I laughed and scrounged around on the carpet until I found them. Then, ignoring his hand, I carefully slid them onto his face while he smirked at me. I smoothed his hair back over his ears. Only fair since I’d been the one to mess it up. Well, more than it was usually messed up.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said.

“What?”

“You’ve got that,
I wonder where my styling gel is?
look on your face.”

“There is no such look.”

“Well, yeah, it’s not universal, but you definitely have it.”

I gave my head a tiny shake. “Whatever. I don’t want to style your hair. I like it just the way it is.”

He gave me another fiery look. “Oh, really?”

I shivered. “Yes, and don’t look at me like that.”

He grinned. “Why not?”

“Because it makes me want to grant your every wish.”

He laughed. “Excellent. You’re going to regret telling me that.”

“I hope so,” I whispered.

Berger moved my legs aside and got up. “I must beg, O adorable one, that you take me home. Ashley will have picked up Nana by now at her senior day care place and needs to run an errand for my parents after she drops her off. So I have to be there.”