T is for...he's a TOTAL jerk (Grover Beach Team #3) (22 page)

My heart stopped. I clapped my hands over my mouth, staring, paralyzed. Then our guys rushed to her and blocked my view of Susan. Everyone had fallen silent.

“What’s going on there?” Allie whispered, shock lacing her voice.

Simone answered, “I don’t know. Should we head over to her?”

Turning to Simone, I grimaced, feeling the same urge. “I don’t think we’re allowed to.”

It took an endless half-minute until the crowd finally split and Ryan emerged, carrying Susan in his arms. He sat her down on the trainer bench, and we girls started off toward her.

“Is she all right?” Liza shot anxiously at Ryan.

For once, Ryan ignored Liza, his concentration on Susan as he squatted before her, gripping the edge of the bench at both her sides, looking at her face. “Don’t stand up. Frederickson is calling your parents. They can take you to a doctor.”

“No,” Susan whined, her face red and blotchy. “I don’t need a doctor. I can bend my knee. It just hurt an awful lot when she kicked me. The pain’s easing now.”

“I don’t care. That was an ugly crash. I want to make sure you don’t have any torn ligaments.”

“Hunter is right,” Simone said as she hunkered down next to him, placing a hand on Susan’s good leg. “For a minute there, we thought the bitch had popped your knee.”

“Hunter! They want to continue!” Sasha shouted from the lines.

Ryan cut a look over his shoulder. “I’m coming!” Then he stood and briefly hugged Liza. “Take care of her until her parents show up. And maybe bring her some ice for that knee.”

“I’ll get it,” I said and hurried over to the water cooler. It took me some time to find a box big enough to transport a few handfuls of crunched ice. Just when I was done loading the box, another gasp from the audience made me spin around.

I didn’t know what had happened, only that this time it was Tony. He lay on his back, knees bent, and his hands clapped over his face. Ryan reached down, pulling him up to stand.
Apparently, this foul—or accident—wasn’t as bad as the last one, because Tony walked away on his own after talking to Ryan for a second. But when he turned our way, my breath caught in my throat.

Blood ran down in two thick streams from his nose.

I hurried back to Susan, giving her the ice for her knee, and waited impatiently for Tony to reach us. His eyes were glassy, but that was normal when you got hit on the nose. He wiped his face on his sleeve and sat down. Liza tended to him with a tissue that she’d dampened with water from a bottle.

Tony took the tissue out of her hand, tilted his head back, and tried to stop the blood flow. “Relax. It’s just a nose bleed. Nothing’s broken.” After a minute, he rose to his feet. “I’ll go wash my face.” He took a few steps in the direction of the school building,
then stopped. Stumbling slightly, he pressed a palm to his temple. “Whoa, my head’s spinning.”

“What? Something finally got past your bonehead?” I taunted him in a wry voice. Only when he slowly directed a surprised gaze at me did I realize what I’d actually let slip. “Sorry,” I mumbled and grimaced. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

His eyes narrowed briefly at me before he headed off, swaying.

I sighed, hurried over, and steadied him by his elbow. “Come on. I’ll walk you to the restrooms.” Draping his arm over my shoulder, I felt his reluctance. It didn’t matter. He was in no condition to be on his own. With my arm wrapped around his waist, I steered him toward the entrance of the school building and farther on to the men’s toilets.

His side pressed so tightly against mine made me remember how he’d escorted me out of the woods last Saturday, and what a good time I’d had with him that weekend. Wishing myself back there, I wondered where we would be now if he hadn’t kissed me on Sunday. Or again on Tuesday.

Maybe we’d still be the good friends we’d been for a short while.

We stopped in front of the restrooms, and I searched his face. “Can I let you go in there alone?”

“Sure, Summers. I’m a big boy,” he mocked me,
then went through the doorway.

Leaning against the wall, I counted the minutes on the big clock hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the hallway. After ten minutes, he still wasn’t back. I started to worry. Cautiously, I opened the door and slipped my head around it.

“Tony…you all right?”

“M-hmm.”
His moan came from the floor. I found him sitting up against the wall, his long legs stretched out on the white tiles. His head was tilted back, and two pieces of tissue were plugged in his nose and soaked with blood.

He opened his eyes to slits as I walked closer and squatted beside his legs. “Can I do anything for you?” I asked, unsure how to help him.

Tony slowly shook his head.

I felt at a total loss, and since he seemed to just want another minute to recover, I scrunched up my face. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Our gazes locked for an eternity. Then he shook his head again.

Sam just stared at me. I must have looked terrible with the tissue bits in my nose and the blood on my jersey. I wanted to reach out, cup her lovely cheek, and tell her that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed. That she didn’t need to worry. But seeing she actually
did
worry, I kept my mouth shut and enjoyed her nearness after the awful past week without her.

“I can wet that paper towel again, if you want,” she offered.

I took it from my neck and handed it to her. Sam threw it in the bin, then pulled two new ones from the dispenser, held them under the tap, and finally knelt down beside me once more. Carefully, she placed her hand at the back of my head, making me tilt it down so she could place the cold, wet towels on my neck again. I complied.

When Liza had tried to clean up my face earlier, I’d stopped her because it made me feel weak and sort of like a toddler who couldn’t do those things on his own. But with Sam in here, it was different. Silently, I watched her and enjoyed everything she did to me.

She pressed her hand to my neck for a few seconds. Cold water drops slid down my back. How could that make me feel so warm? When she released me, I dipped my head back against the wall, pulled the bloodied plugs out of my nose, and tossed them in the bin dead-on. Sniffing once, I swallowed the rest of the blood.

“Feel better?” Sam asked warily.

I nodded.

Her pretty eyes narrowed to slits. “You know you’ll scare me if you don’t
say something nasty soon.”

I let a smile slip.

What did she expect to hear? That with the plugs gone I could finally smell her vanilla body lotion again and I wanted to drown in that scent? Or that the view of her belly button piercing reminded me of the most sensual kiss I’d ever shared with a girl?

Neither seemed appropriate.

When I remained silent, Sam grunted. I liked that sound, even if it meant I’d frustrated her again.

A second later, the door burst open. Winter and Torres strode in, scanning the room.

Winter came forward, reaching down for my hand. “Hey, pal. How’s that nose? Any fractures?”

“I don’t think so,” I answered as he pulled me up from the floor.

Sam rose to her feet with me, planting her fists on her waist. “Oh, now he can talk…” She rolled her eyes, then looked up at my face, her frustration easing. “I believe you don’t need me any longer.”

She had no idea how much I wanted her to stay. But with the freezing atmosphere between us over the past few days, I didn’t intend to tell her that. I shook my head.

Sam pressed her lips together, her eyes turning sad. She spun on her heel and walked to the door.

Okay, that was shit of me. Fuck. I hated it when I behaved like a caveman. “Sam?” I said over the noise getting louder in the restroom with
Winter and Torres fooling around on a victory high. As she turned around, I held her gaze in the wide mirror over the sink. “Thanks.”

This time, she was the one who was silent. She only nodded once,
then walked out the door.

At the same time, Hunter came in. He stepped aside to let her pass. “Hey, Sam,” he acknowledged her with slight surprise in his voice.

“Ryan,” she replied. Then she was gone and the door was shut.

Hunter came forward. “Mitchell, how’s your head doing? You’re not backing out of the after-match party tonight?”

Tearing the wet towels from my neck, I arched my brows at him. “You kiddin’?” Cold water from the faucet cooled my cheeks and washed away the rest of the blood. I wiped my face dry, using the front of my shirt. “When have I ever missed a party at your house?”

Ryan narrowed his eyes, deliberating.
“When your gran was in town a couple of years ago.”

I cast him a wry look. “My
gran isn’t in town this weekend.”

“And Sam?”

“What about her?”

“She’ll be at my house tonight, too.”

“And…”

“You cool with that?”

I shrugged. “Sure.”

Hunter went to the rear to pee,
then he came back and washed his hands, casually asking, “Sam looked a little frustrated when she walked out of here. How are things going between you and her?”

Winter and Torres, who wanted to leave this minute, fell silent and stopped in their tracks, apparently awaiting my answer, too.

“She’s speaking to me again.”

“Is that all?” Hunter dug deeper.

“Seems so.”

Alex cut a bored glance at the ceiling before he shoved Torres out the door. When we were alone, Hunter turned around, leaned against the sink, and folded his arms over his chest.
“All right. The guys are gone. You can be honest.”

I turned my annoyed gaze at him. “Why do you always have to second-guess my answers?”

“Because, Mitchell… I. Know. You.”

A sigh escaped me that made me feel an uncomfortable lot like a girl. I gritted my teeth and frowned. “No offence, Hunter, but you don’t know jack.”

“Is that so?”

“Obviously.”

“Okay, just a random guess then…You finally figured out who you really want—and just for the record, I’m more than glad that it’s not Liza.” Hunter let go of a relieved breath. “But now Sam’s pissed because you kissed her at a time when she wasn’t the
one
.”

Fuck. Did he read the woman’s journal when he was bored, or what?

“She probably thinks you’re still in love with Liza.”

“When did you become such an expert, Hunter?” I muttered.

“Last summer. Because the same thing happened to me, idiot. Can you imagine how I felt when Liza couldn’t make up her mind for so long? I’ve been there—and I don’t want to go back ever again.”

Wow. I’d never looked at it that way. He did know what he was talking about. And I’d found out many times in my life that I couldn’t hide anything from Hunter. After Liza, he’d always been my best friend. The ranking had even switched after they’d become a couple.

I knew I should be happy to have a friend like him. Someone who knew me from the inside out. But frankly, sometimes it sucked.

“Tonight is your best chance to win her heart. A party is always a good place to hook up.”

“I’m not going to hook up with Sam. I tried to explain my feelings to her, but she’s a stubborn little troll who won’t listen.” Her dismissal in school and, later, her flirting with Frederickson had opened my eyes. Not to the fact that I was in love with her, but to the fact that for Sam I was easy to replace.

“Maybe you didn’t try hard enough to make her listen. Know what, Mitchell? I think at our age we can’t afford to be lazy and just wait for them to throw themselves at us. If I learned one thing from Liza, it’s this: There’ll always be another guy if you’re not fast enough and seize your chance.”

I sighed again. “She’s just so…” I growled, frustrated, dragging my hands through my hair. “You should have seen her and Frederickson at Charlie’s this week.”

Hunter pursed his lips. “There’s nothing going on between them, believe me. Frederickson knows about your feelings for her.”

“You weren’t there. You didn’t see them.”

“I didn’t have to be there. Someone else was.” He smirked.
“Someone very close to me.”

The hairs on the back of my neck bristled. “What did Liza tell you?” I demanded.

“Can’t say.”

“Why not?”

“Promised.”

“Fuck.”

I tipped back against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. What was he holding back? And why? Frederickson knew that I’d enjoyed kissing Sam. But he liked her as well. Maybe not as much as I did, but a lot. He sure would hook up with her if she was interested. And sometimes she just seemed to be, dammit.

“If you
really like her,” Hunter said, “give it one more shot at least. Can’t hurt tough guys like us, can it?”

I knew he meant that in a taunting way, because he’d told me how much he’d suffered after Liza had sent him off that night after our fight in her room.

“There’s just something about her,” I confessed. “Something that pulls me in like a fucking magnet. I can’t resist touching her whenever I get a chance, or just sniffing her hair.”

“Or just kissing her?”

Exactly. “Why do girls always have to smell so good?” I whined.

Hunter slapped my shoulder.
“Because they’re made of candy.” Laughing, he walked out the door.