T is for...he's a TOTAL jerk (Grover Beach Team #3) (26 page)

“I love you, Mom. Please believe me.”

“I do believe you, Sammy. And I love you, too. Now go to sleep. I’ll call in the morning.”

I pressed the phone to my ear until my mom rang off, then I let it slip through my fingers. It dropped onto the pillow. Hugging my bent legs with both arms, I cried until I had no more tears and drifted off eventually.

*

“Sam?”

A gentle shake woke me. I opened my eyes. They felt sticky and swollen.

Pam was sitting at my bedside. She stroked my hair, her face in soft but sorrowful lines. “How do you feel?”

I remained silent.

“Do you want to come down and eat breakfast?”

I shook my head.

“Shall I bring you something up here?”

I shook my head again.

My aunt paused for a moment, her fingers skimming softly across my forehead. “I’m so sorry about last night and all the terrible things that have been said, Sammy. But you shouldn’t have gotten drunk. You’re far too young.”

“I didn’t drink.”

Pam sighed.

I closed my eyes. “You don’t believe me.”

“Sam…you should have come to me if there was anything troubling you. I know you’ve been upset because of this guy, but—”

Focusing on her again, I cut her off, “We’re together.”

She cocked her head. “Really? Now that’s…good.”

“Cloey still has a crush on him. Can you imagine how she feels now?”

“I—well…”

My voice got sharper. “Can you, Pam?”

“I believe it makes her sad.”

“She’s jealous. She hates me.”

“She sure doesn’t hate you.” My aunt frowned at me, looking like she was in pain. “You’re cousins. You’ve always gotten along so well.”

“You know
that’s changed. You’ve seen it. Why are you denying it now?”

Pam took my hand, holding it in her lap. “Does it make a difference?”

Shit, of course it did! I pulled my hand away. “Apparently not to you. Nor Jack.” Tears burned in my eyes again, but I fought to keep them under control. At least as long as my aunt was with me. “I fly home tonight?”

She nodded slowly. “I couldn’t dissuade Jack from booking the earliest flight.”

“When?”

“Ten o’clock. You still have time to say goodbye to your friends.” She paused
, then added, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.
Me, too.” I closed my eyes again. For me this conversation was over.

“Look, Sam. Maybe it’s best this way. And when you come back with your parents next year, perhaps you and Cloey can start anew.”

Sure. Like I would really want that. If I wasn’t so close to tears, I might have laughed. When I remained silent for the next couple of minutes, my aunt eventually realized there was nothing more to say. She caressed my hair one last time, then the mattress shifted as she rose to her feet and silently walked out.

At the low sound of the door closing, I opened my eyes again, glaring at the wall and struggling to keep new tears at bay.

My cell phone started blinking on my nightstand. A call. My mom keeping her promise. I reached for the phone and answered. “Mom?”

“Umm…no.”

Crap.
Tony!

“Hi,” I croaked, fighting for a steady voice.

“Hey. You sound weird.” And he sounded every bit alarmed.

“I— It’s—” Taking a deep
breath, I struggled for control. Impossible.

“Sam? What.
Happened?
”

“They’re sending me home,” I got out eventually.

“What?
Who?
Your family?” Tony sounded like he wanted to crawl through the phone to get out more information.

“My uncle.
Cloey tricked me. Everything’s destroyed. I have to go back to Egypt.”

“Fuck!
When?”

I fought so hard not to sob, but in the end I lost that battle.
“Tonight.”

I glanced at my wristwatch. After I’d told Tony what happened in my room, he’d said he’d meet me outside the house in ten minutes. That gave me just enough time to wash my face and dress in dark pants and a black sweater. When I pulled my tank top off, I finally realized where the stench of Scotch was coming from. Cloey must have splattered it on me while I was asleep.

Who cared?
Certainly not my aunt and uncle.

Leaving my room as it was, I trudged downstairs and past the kitchen, where
Pam and Jack seemed to be having another argument…over me. I didn’t bother to stop or listen. Pamela must have seen me, though, because she shouted, “Sam?”

“I’ll be outside,” I
murmured.

Tony
was waiting already across the street, leaning against the hood of his mother’s car. I walked up to him, and he pulled me into a tight embrace. I sighed against his chest, relaxing for the first time in seven hours. But only for a moment. There was nothing I could do to keep the panic and ache from my heart.

Brushing my hair out of my forehead, he gazed down at me. “You look miserable.”

“I feel miserable.”

“How much time do we have?”

Until what? Until I had to leave the country and not see him again for fourteen weeks? “I don’t know. The flight leaves at ten. I need to pack and…” Heaviness settled in my chest. “And I want to see the others and say goodbye.”

Tony shaped his warm palm against my cheek. “So we have a few hours to come up with a plan.”

I sniffed. “A plan?”

“I’m not going to let you go, Sam.”

He was so sweet. I placed my hand on his, leaning into his palm. “I don’t see what we can do about it. Jack is determined. He thinks I’m a bad influence on Cloey.”

“Ha! I should go inside and tell him a few things about his daughter,” he growled.

But I couldn’t let him. If anything, he’d only change things for the worse. “I can’t believe that I actually felt sorry for my cousin last night,” I said in a low voice. “How stupid of me.”

“No, you aren’t the stupid one. She is. And she’ll have to answer to me later. But for now we need to figure out what to do about you. Did you talk to your parents?”

“To my mom. At least she believes me. But she doesn’t know what to do about it either. It’s not in her hands.”

“I see.” His voice was flat as he looked above my head into the distance. “So it’s up to us.” Tony suddenly released me and nodded toward the passenger side. “Get in.”

“Where are we going?”

“
To meet with Hunter and the others at his beach house. I called him on the way to you.”

I hesitated, throwing a glance at the house. My phone was still in my room, and my mom hadn’t called me yet. Pamela would also expect me to get back inside soon. “Should I tell them I’m leaving with you?”

“Sam. They’re sending you back to Egypt. In ten hours. They’re probably happy to be rid of you.”

Wow, that sounded harsh. But it was the truth.

“Do you honestly want to go in now and pretend you’re still the nice niece, asking permission?”

“I guess not then.”

“Don’t worry. If we can’t find a way out,” he snarled, “I’ll have you back in time so you can pack and get to the airport.”

Heaving a deep sigh, I went around the car and climbed in. He drove us out of town and down to the nice bungalow the Hunters owned at Misty Beach. Two familiar cars were parked in front of it
: the silver gray Audi Ryan had driven me home in once and Alex’s black Jeep. Liza and Simone were sitting with their boyfriends on the couch in the front room when we entered. When they saw me, both girls jumped up and enveloped me in a tight hug.

“Oh my God, Sam.
This is so terrible,” Liza exclaimed. “How could Cloey be so mean?”

“Yeah,
that bitch!” Simone snarled.

They dragged me over to the couch and made me sit down. Tony lowered
himself next to me, pulling my hand onto his lap and lacing his fingers through mine. He probably didn’t even know how much this comforted me. I looked at him, trying for a brief, thankful smile.

At that moment, the door opened and Nick came in with a limping Susan on his arm. Ryan stood so she could sit down. Nick, for once, didn’t greet me with his ever
-cheerful ‘Hey, Finn Girl’, but this time he studied me with concerned eyes.

“Tell us what happened,” Alex prompted me then. “Did Cloey
really snap?”

I gave them all the facts.
As far as I knew them, anyway. In the end, I had seven people gaping at me, openmouthed.

Alex whistled through his teeth. “Deep shit, baby.”

“Mighty deep,” Susan agreed. Then she leaned forward, stomping one of her crutches on the floor. “All right. What do we do?”

I quirked my brows at her.
“What you mean?”

“Well, we’re certainly not going to let that bimbo win. Apart from those two chicks”
—Susan nodded at Liza and Simone—“you’re my best friend. I won’t let you go home. No way. So what we need now is a plan.”

The corners of my mouth twitched. “Tony said the same
thing just a few minutes ago.” It was overwhelming how these guys didn’t take crap…from anyone. “But since I’m only seventeen and dependent on my family, I don’t see a way out. My uncle wants me out of his house. And my parents won’t be able to move to the States until next spring.” I scrunched up my eyes. “I’m so screwed.”

Tony
put his arm around me and yanked me against him. His gentle fingers drew small circles on the back of my neck. I let out a long breath.

“Don’t you have any other relatives in the States?” Simone asked.

“My grandma,” I told her. “But she lives in Boston. It wouldn’t exactly help my problem if I moved in with her.”

Silence fell in the room. Everyone looked sheepish. And the
n I realized for the first time that they were as scared as I was. They didn’t want to lose me, and I didn’t want to lose them. In the past two weeks, I’d experienced for the first time what it meant to have real friends. People who cared if you were happy or sad. If you were there or not.

I wanted to pull them all into a tight embrace and never let go. But right now, I could only hug one of them. I buried my face in Tony’s shoulder, wrapping my arms around him
tightly. He was the only one who could hear me when I whispered, “I don’t want to go.”

We sat there for a long while. No one spoke. Only deep sighs sounded in the room every now and then.

Suddenly, Tony rose to his feet, startling me and the others. “I need to get out of here,” he said flatly and strode to the door.

I gazed after him over the backrest of the couch until the door
banged shut. When I turned back to the others, I found Ryan’s eyes on me. His lips were pursed and he seemed to be deliberating something. Finally, he sighed and walked after Tony.

Liza offered us something to drink then, and we tried to come up with a solution to my misery. But the idea stream was meager. The situation seemed hopeless.
An impasse. And the sooner I accepted it, the better for me. I didn’t want to spend my last day lamenting.

I wanted to spend it with Tony.

Excusing myself from the others, I went outside. Tony was sitting on the swing on the porch, head dipped back, studying the roof as he gently swayed back and forth. Ryan was leaning against the post next to the steps leading down to the beach. Both boys were silent.

With my hands shoved deep into my pockets, I walked to Tony. “Care for a walk?” I said in a low voice.

He lifted his head and looked at me for a couple of seconds. Then he nodded, stood up, and took my hand. When we passed Ryan, he placed a companionable hand on Tony’s shoulder and the guys briefly looked each other in the eye, but neither of them said a word.

Ryan went inside then, and we strolled off along the beach, our fingers intertwined. The waves crashing on the shore was the only sound for a long time. I wondered why Tony was so silent. But then, I didn’t know what to say either.

We had walked about half a mile when he finally found his voice. “It sucks. But you know, it’s doable.”

“Hm
m?” I turned to him. “What do you mean?”

Tony stopped and pulled me in
to his arms, giving me a meaningful look. “A long distance relationship.”

My heart filled with joy at his words, and yet a
grave sadness pierced my soul. “You’re willing to do that?”

“Spring, huh?” He tried to smile. “I think I can wait that long.”

I stood on my tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss on his mouth. “You know, sometimes I wonder where the asshole has gone that I met a couple of weeks ago.”

He smirked. “I can throw you over my shoulder and dump you in the sea, if that makes you feel better.”

What actually made me feel better was his trying to cheer me up. If nothing else, I loved him for it. Stretching as high as I could, I looped my arms around his neck. In turn, he wrapped his around my waist and pulled me tight against him. He sighed close to my ear, then he said, “Shall we go back?”

Back in time.
Fourteen days. Start out differently. Make everything better. Yes, I would like that. But I knew he meant back to Hunter’s beach house. Releasing him, I nodded.

When we
reached the bungalow, Ryan was on the phone, ordering pizza for everyone. The pizza house wasn’t far away, and a young guy brought the food ten minutes later. We sat around the table in the kitchen, and along with the rest of them I forced myself to eat a piece.

“Maybe my mom can talk to your aunt,” Ryan suggested between two bites. “They
’re friends. We might have a chance.”

“She can try, but it won’t help. It’s not Pam we have to persuade. She tried to talk my uncle out of i
t last night, and again this morning, I think. But he won’t listen.”

“He’s a la
wyer. They can be real assholes,” Susan pointed out.

Next to me, Tony stood and walked to the fridge. When he turned around, he held two cans out to me. A Cherry Coke in his left hand and a bland Coke in his right. I pointed at the Cherry Coke, smiling because it reminded me of our kiss last night, and he placed the other one back into the fridge. Opening
my can, he set it in front of me, then walked over to the window, leaning with his butt against the sill.

I enjoyed watching him for the next couple of minutes, trying to memorize every detail
of him. For later.

One dimple appeared
in his cheek when he realized I was staring at him. He had the most adorable smile a boy could have. The sunlight flooding through the window accented the golden streaks in his blond hair. His blue eyes burned with longing.

“If only you could camp out in a hotel for the next few months,” I heard Susan say.

Yeah, that was a nice idea, and it probably would have been manageable if I were a few years older, had a job, and could pay for it.

Tony’s expression changed, his eyes narrowing. “Hotel…” he repeated. Then he suddenly straightened.
“Of course. Miller! You’re a
genius
!” He strode to her, bent over, and kissed her on the top of her head.

Everyone shot a startle
d glance at him, but Tony didn’t care. He rushed around the table, grabbed my hand, and pulled me up. “Come on, Bungee!”

As he dragged me out of the house, I cast a puzzled look over my shoulder
at the others, but they seemed as clueless as me.

Tony gave me no time to ask questions or to even think. My hand in his, he pulled me to his car and had me climb in. The engine roared when he turned the key in the ignition, and with a screeching of tires, he drove off.

Once on the road, he shifted funnily and fished his cell phone from his back pocket, swept his thumb across the display twice, pressed down, and held the phone to his ear. Cutting a glance at me, he wouldn’t explain what he was up to, but a second later he told somebody on the phone, “Hi, Tony here. Are you home? I need to talk to you.”