T is for...he's a TOTAL jerk (Grover Beach Team #3) (8 page)

I choked. “Is…
That
is how you see me?” A single tear slid down my cheek.

The lines of Tony’s face hardened. It looked like he was trying not to grimace. His hand came up to reach for me. Like a snake. Like the enemy. I was lost so deep in hysterics I felt the urge to hiss at him. But all I managed was a trembling drawl.
“No…oh my
God
! Just don’t touch me.” Still on the floor, I flinched back.

He didn’t. He just clamped his folder under his arm, rose from the ground, and strode into the classroom. As soon as he was gone, some kids helped me gather my sketches, too, but I couldn’t appreciate their help right now. I left all my stuff behind and ran in the opposite direction, down the corridor, and out onto the campus. With tears coming fast now, my vision got blurry. I stumbled around for a few moments, not knowing what to do or where to go, until eventually I fell to my knees in the grass underneath the wide crown of a tree.

I dropped back against the trunk, dragged my legs to my chest, and covered my face with my hands. Sobbing violently, I felt every painful breath in my too-tight throat. No way would I go back to AVE now, or ever again.

“Sam?” A concerned but familiar voice made me look up. “What the hell happened?”

Yeah, it was just my luck that Liza’s boyfriend would find me out here, crying like a little whelp. I quickly rubbed my tears away but couldn’t say anything to him, so I just shook my head.

“Hey,
guys, go on!” he called over his shoulder to a small group of students some twenty feet away. “I’ll catch up with you later.” Then he squatted in front of me, resting his hands on my bent knees. “Did your cousin give you shit again?”

I could only stare at his face,
then my tears spilled over anew.

“Dammit! It’s Mitchell.” He sighed and dropped to his knees on the dirt, then fished for a pack of tissues in his backpack and handed me one. I took it and cleaned my face, then wiped my nose and fought hard to get my sobs under control. He waited in total silence until I had gathered myself and finally stopped crying.

“Wanna tell me now what happened so I can knock the idiot’s head off?”

Ryan’s compassion touched me. It almost made me smile. I understood right then that he was amazing and why Liza had fallen for
him
in the end.

I shoved the tissue into my pocket, rubbed my palms over my burning hot cheeks, and finally ran my fingers through my hair, lifting my gaze to the sky. “I ran into him,” I said, still a little shaky.

“Okay…”

Looking back at him, I sniffed. “And he dropped his drawings. There was one of me.”

“Oh.” His eyes widened a bit with surprise, which made me pause. Then he chuckled. “So you saw it, huh?”

I frowned at him. “You think it looks funny?”

“In fact, I think it looks quite awesome. So why did that picture make you cry?”

Sorry, what?
Did he come to rub salt into my wounds? “Awesome? He made a freaking witch of me.”

Now it was Ryan who looked a bit confused.
“A witch?”

“Yes.
With a warty nose, hunchback, broom, and all.”

“Oh,” he said again. Then his lips compressed to a thoughtful line and his dark brows furrowed. “Well, that wasn’t the picture I saw of you.”

There were more? What was wrong with that guy? It had only been a stupid glass of club soda, and goddammit,
I
hadn’t the hell knocked it over.

“Why does he hate me, Ryan?” I pleaded.

“He doesn’t hate you, Sam. Currently, he’s just ticking a little complicated. Your cousin left a deep dent in his bonehead.”

“I don’t see how that’s my fault.” I shook my head. “Anyway, I’ve had enough of his bullshit. Would you tell the others I’m not coming tonight? I’m really not up for round two.”

“It isn’t your fault, and he sure knows it. And no, Sam, you won’t cancel on us because of him. Liza and Susan will never let you. Tony just has to get his shit together like a man, but that’s not your problem.” Ryan squeezed my knees and his voice turned even softer. “By the way, he’s waiting over there.” He nodded to my left.

I snapped my head around, finding Tony leaning against another tree with what looked a lot like my portfolio clasped in his hands. My stomach tightened in a knot.

“Want me to kick his ass for you?” Ryan asked in a serious tone. “Because if you do, I will. Otherwise, I think I’ll leave you two alone. The guy looks like he has something to say.”

Thunderstruck, I stared at Tony. His face was carved in hard lines, but his eyes didn’t hold the usual animosity when he held my gaze.

“Okay, I guess that means no ass kicking.” Ryan pushed himself up, using my knees. “I’ll see you later.”

When I looked up at him, he lifted one eyebrow, which suggested I shouldn’t even think about not showing up because he’d personally come and haul my butt out of the house if he had to. I didn’t doubt it.

Adjusting his backpack on his shoulders, Ryan Hunter walked over to Tony, who pushed away from the tree and looked at the ground. “Seriously, a witch?” Ryan laughed and slapped Tony on the shoulder. “Man…you’re such an idiot.”

I didn’t want Tony to come over to me now that Ryan was gone. I didn’t want him to say whatever he had to say. And most of all, I didn’t want him to see how my eyes were red from crying because of him. All I wanted was for him to go away.

But he didn’t.

Only a couple of seconds later, he was standing right over me. My folder landed next to my boots on the ground.

“You ditched class.”

“So? Obviously, you did, too,” I replied with the warmth of an Arctic storm.

“Yeah, someone had to bring you your stuff.”

“Thanks.” I fixed my gaze on my knees instead of him, my tone cold and sharp. “Now leave me alone.”

Slowly, Tony squatted in front of me, just like his friend had done before. “I will. In a minute.”

Right now, a minute with him was an eternity too long. But I figured he’d be gone sooner if I kept my mouth shut and let him say what he wanted to get out. Anyway, my throat was too hoarse to start an argument right now.

“Listen…”

I did. But he paused so long after that single word that I looked up at his face
involuntarily. Heck, he actually looked sorry. And I mean really sorry as in,
I don’t know how to make this up to you
sorry.

His tight white tee stretched across his chest as he drew in a deep breath. “I don’t know what it is with you,
Summers, that draws out the worst of me. It just…
is
.”

Oh, wow.
If this didn’t go down as the most brilliant apology of all times.

“Anthony, you turned me into a
witch
,” I croaked.

“I know…
That picture should have never gotten into my folder. It was a damn accident.”

“That you drew it in the first place was a
damn accident
!” I screamed at his thick skull.

He remained calm.
“Yeah…that, too.” There was a sad note to his tone that I didn’t understand. “Look, I know I’ve given you hell since the day you came through the doors of Charlie’s. Won’t happen again. I’ll keep away from now on.”

And then he stood and walked
off.

I had no intention of going back to class with a face that was red and swollen from crying, so I made my way home.

Pamela, who knew my schedule, looked a bit worried when she saw me coming in through the door. “Is something wrong?”

I should have told her that everything was fine and that I just had a little headache, but when she placed her palm on my cheek and asked, “Have you been crying, dear?” I felt my composure slip.

“I just had a really, really bad week,” I told her. Then I dropped into one of the high-back chairs in the dining room and buried my face in my folded arms on the table.

I expected to hear her soothing voice asking for details, but all I heard was noises in the kitchen. Finally, I looked up and found her sitting next to me. She pushed a steaming cup toward me and the fruity smell of strawberry tea wafted in my face.

For that alone, I decided she was worthy of hearing the details about Tony and how he’d made my life hell for no obvious reason other than that he had dated Cloey some time ago and it hadn’t worked out for them. However, I thought it was pushing too much to also tell my aunt about her daughter’s bitchy behavior, so I just left out that part.

“It’s really hard to believe that a nice boy like Anthony Mitchell could be so mean to you. And you’re sure it has to do with Cloey?”

“So I was told.” Again I left out the part where she’d dumped him after sleeping with him.

“But you said he apologized today. I’m sure, if he said he’ll leave you alone, he will.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I could only hope so. But with camping tonight, the odds were slim. “By the way, the sleepover I wanted to go to tonight is cancelled. Instead, they invited me to go camping in the woods. Is that okay with you and Uncle Jack?”

“Of course.
We should have a sleeping bag for you somewhere in the cellar.” Pam paused. “You look worried. Do you think Tony will be there, too?”

“I know he will. And it’ll be so much fun,” I added with a wry glance into my cup. But already I was feeling a little better. Then I sighed, put the tea down, and leaned my head against my aunt’s shoulder. “Will it be like this for the rest of my life—guys being complicated?”

Pam pressed her cheek against my hair. “Er…is that a trick question?” She hugged me tight and we both laughed. “But it will get a little better as they get older, honey.”

“When who gets older?”
Cloey’s voice drifted to us from the kitchen. I lifted my head a split second before she appeared in the doorway to the dining room. Her appalled expression when she saw me in her mom’s embrace made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. An apple slipped from her hand and dropped to the tiled floor, rolling under the table.

I’d totally missed her coming home.
Bad mistake. I ducked under the table and picked up the fruit.

Aunt Pamela didn’t seem to notice my or Cloey’s shock. “We were talking about boys,” she told her daughter. “Sam’s just discovered how complicated they can be.”

“Has she now?” Cloey turned to me and flashed a smile that had nothing to do with friendliness. “So, you’re still hanging out with those losers? But if I think about it, you fit right in.”

“Cloey, what in the world’s got into you?” Pam snapped before I could even suck in a breath to reply and, with her hands on the table top, she pushed herself up. “I don’t care for your rude manners toward Sam lately. She belongs in this family, and you will apologize to her this minute.”

“What?”
Cloey gave a baffled laugh.

“You heard me.”

As was to be expected, Cloey didn’t apologize, and I didn’t really care. But what she said to her mother next took me unawares and shocked me into stunned silence.

“So now you love her more than your own daughter?” My cousin
directed a condescending glare at me. “The little scamp that was left on our doorstep? I should have known.” She turned on her heel and stormed away.

Pam stood next to me, appalled. She stroked her index finger over her lips, turning from the empty doorway to me and back again. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, Sam. She didn’t mean it.”

“Actually, I think she did.” It all just added up to a wonderfully miserable day. And though I couldn’t understand why, I felt sorry for Cloey. “But it’s okay. You should go after her.”

Pam
ela walked to the door, then sent me a sorrowful look over her shoulder.

I tried to smile. “Thanks for
listening to me, Pam.”

Elbows on my knees and head resting in my hands, I sat on the training bench at the side of the soccer field, staring little craters into the grass. I didn’t know when I had last felt so shitty. No, that was a lie. I knew exactly when I’d last felt down like this. It was when Hunter and I had fought over Liza in her room. More precisely, when Hunter had accused me of having slept with Cloey and destroyed my last chance with Liz. While that wasn’t exactly the truth, there had been no way to deny that I had royally screwed up.

Right now I wished I could turn back
time for a few hours, just like I had wished back then. Mistakes sucked. Especially when you were the one making them and they ended in someone else crying because of you.

How in the world could I have forgotten to take the damn pictures of Samantha Summers out of my folder? I never wanted to hurt the girl like this. But then I had been an asshole around her since the moment I had laid eyes on her. No one of Cloey’s inner circle had ever bothered me that much.
So why Sam?

I heard footsteps behind me but didn’t turn around until Hunter slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Man, you fucked this up.” He stepped over the bench, planted a soccer ball in the dirt by his feet, and sat down next to me.

“That’s all your fault,” I muttered.

He laughed. “Why?
Because it’s the second Friday in the month?”

“Because of you I shoved the pictures into the folder in the first place. And after training I forgot to take them out.”

“Oh whoa, wait a minute, dude. I did nothing but marvel at them yesterday. No one said rip the pictures out of my hands.”

Yeah right, and let him find out how Samantha Summers had suddenly found her way into mostly every picture I’d drawn this week, when I couldn’t even explain to myself why that was? Damn, I’d had to do my AVE homework four times until I’d finally managed to sketch a sorceress who didn’t have Sam’s huge, chestnut eyes or that sweet little nose.

Hunter leaned forward and rested his elbows on his thighs. “How come she saw your drawings? Did you hang them out in class?”

“Do I look like an idiot?”

“You want an answer to that?” He lifted a brow at me. I fucking hated when he did that. The girls might go gaga over this shit, but we were guys, goddammit.

“She bumped into me before class, and my stuff scattered across the corridor.”

“Ow, that’s bad.” Hunter paused, then picked the ball up from the ground and spun it on his fingertips. “Anyways, in the picture I saw of her, she was doing exercises against a tree. Where was
that
picture? I don’t think she’d have collapsed over that one if she’d seen it.”

“It was right underneath the one with the witch. I was lucky she didn’t pay more attention when she gathered them for me.”

“Why not show her? I bet she’ll love it. After all, girls are supposed to love being any artist’s model.”

A sigh pushed up my throat, but it wasn’t exactly cool to sigh like a sissy around your soccer buddies, so I growled. “She’s not my model.”

“I think she would be if you let her.”

“Why do you think I want her to be?” Then I added in an angrier tone, “And why are we discussing that bungee troll anyway?”

He abruptly stopped spinning the ball and stared at me like I had grown a second head. Then he started to grin. “Oh boy, it got you bad.”

I liked Hunter.
A lot. But sometimes he pissed me off like no one else could. “Oh really, great prophet? Why is that?”

Leaning closer in a boy scout-ish, conspiratorial way, he chuckled.
“Because you already gave the girl a nickname.”

Shit. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means you like her.”

I laughed at that, but I realized I didn’t sound as amused as I wished. “You’re so fucked up, Hunter. She’s just another
Summers, and I don’t do business with their likes.” I knocked the ball out of his hands.

He stood and picked it up, then tucked it under his arm as he turned to look down at me. “Hey, little princess, let me tell you something. And you’d better listen up now, ’cause I’m only saying it once. Not every girl is like Cloey Summers, and definitely no other girl is like Liza. So stop the hell waiting for her, because I don’t intend to let her go.”

“Yeah, got it,” I said through a tight, cynical grin.

“Some
crap
you got. I’ve watched you turn down about fifteen girls in the past three months. I didn’t care, because they were all just nameless chicks. But this one…Sam…” He shrugged. “She’s cool. And you know it. She’s nice and funny and, whether you like it or not, the girls have decided that she belongs in our group.”

Where the fuck was Hunter’s off button? I hated it when he played the big brother around me.
“So what?”

He waited a moment, and I feared he’d give me more crap to eat. Instead, he grinned. “So…let’s play some soccer.” He kicked the ball at me. I ducked, and it knocked against the bleachers behind me, bouncing back and landing in the grass again.

“Just you and me?” I said, picking up the ball and kicking it up several times with my right leg.

“Yep, you and me.
Same goal. Three scores.”

I agreed with a nod and kicked the ball high up in the air. As it zoomed down again, Hunter and I went for it as if it was a matter of life or death. Well, soccer always was for us. Hunter got to it first, but as he headed for the goal, I skated in from the side and smoothly took over. It was my run for the goal now, and the first score should have been a surefire thing. Only Hunter crashed into me from the left and knocked me off my feet. Hitting the ground hard, I skittered along in the grass.

“What the hell—”

Hunter scored.

“That was a foul!”

He came over to me, his fists on his hips. “Who are you going to complain to, little princess?”

I crunched my teeth as I got to my feet and steered the ball in short kicks back to the middle of the field. “I get it, we’re playing without any rules now.”

In round two, I was prepared for his tackling me and blocked an attack with one of my own. But when he went down, he reached out, grabbed my ankle, and I landed in the dirt with a belly-flop that pressed the air out of my lungs. I rolled onto my back and sat up, glaring at him. “Seriously,
hands
?”

He shrugged it off,
then kicked the ball over my head between the posts. “Two, zero!”

Still sitting on the ground, I lifted my arms in surrender, having lost all appreciation for his no-rules game.

He offered to pull me up. “All’s fair in love and soccer.”

I refused his help but felt the need to smack that stupid grin off his face.

As we went back to the middle to start round three, Hunter placed his hand comradely on my shoulder. “Where’s your defense, Mitchell?”

Kicked to the dirt.
I grunted at him, taking up positing for the next go. This time he wouldn’t get me. I was prepared.

But Hunter scored again, and I called him every unholy name I could think of, because he’d managed to take the ball away from me by ramming his elbow into my stomach.

“Oh, such mean words from a pretty mouth like yours.” Ryan Hunter laughed at me. “But finally, we get to the point.”

Doubling over with my hands braced on my knees and still gasping for air in between cursing him, I spat on the ground and looked up. “And what
is
the point?” I snarled.

His laugh ebbed into
an
I rule
grin. “You’re always so touchy when someone breaks through your barriers.” He tossed the ball at me, and I had to straighten fast to catch it before it hit me in the face.

Hunter gave me a second to make sense of what he’d just said. And, oh my freaking Jesus…

Ryan did that stupid eyebrow thing again, which meant he could clearly hear the bells of my realization. “See you later, little princess. And don’t forget to bring your good manners.”

I flipped him off and walked to my bike.