T is for...he's a TOTAL jerk (Grover Beach Team #3) (9 page)

While I packed my things for a night in the wilds, I tried not to panic at the thought of seeing Anthony Mitchell again after what had happened today. He’d promised to leave me alone, so it could still turn out to be fun, I tried to convince myself.

Yeah right.

I heaved a frustrated sigh. It would all be easier if only I hadn’t picked friends from his circle.
But dumping Susan, Liza, and Simone because of him? And even Nick Frederickson? I didn’t think so. The guy had grown on me, just like the rest.

I stopped in the middle of rerolling the sleeping bag. If Tony insisted on being such a jerk, I’d simply ignore him. I wasn’t going to allow him to spoil this weekend for me. Six other friends were coming, so I should be good. With that decision made, I felt far better and could finally take a deep breath and relax as I finished packing.

Susan picked me up around four in a monster that looked strikingly like Mater
from
Cars
. Only the two front teeth were missing.

“Sorry about this,” she said and grimaced. “My mom’s car is in the workshop. This is my
granddad’s. I swear he’s just as much a relic as this vehicle is.”

I shrugged, tossed my camping stuff on the cargo area and climbed into the passenger seat, throwing my hoodie into the backseat. “No worries. It’s better than riding a bike and bringing all the stuff on the carrier.” I closed the door
carefully, afraid the rusty thing would fall apart beneath my ass.

Music from an ancient time sounded from the two speakers in the dashboard. “You like the sixties?” I asked.

“It’s okay. Well, not really. But Grandpa said I mustn’t touch the radio. It’s always tuned to this channel. You want me to turn it off?”

“Nah.
Leave it.” It was good for my mood somehow.

We sang along to “
Lollipop”, which Susan declared as the Sam Summers theme song, with the windows rolled down and the warm wind ruffling our hair. After several miles, Susan took a turn off the highway and continued down a dirt road. She followed that path for another few minutes and it led to a gravel parking lot by a romantic brook. She parked between a shiny black Jeep and Hunter’s dark grey car and cut off the engine. “We have to hike from here. It’s not far. About half a mile.”

We climbed out, grabbing the tent, mats, and sleeping bags. It wasn’t a long walk, but with all the things we carried, I broke into a sweat before we reached the small clearing where everyone was already busy building their tents and setting up a safe fireplace.

I tried not to look out for Tony, but my eyes seemed to have a will of their own as they scanned the place for him. Always know where your enemy is, my brain tried to tell me.

I found him kneeling in the dirt with his back to us. His white muscle shirt exposed bulging biceps as he worked on putting up the bars of his tent.

“Hi, everyone!” Susan shouted.

At that moment, Tony turned to glance at us over his shoulder. I was too slow to look away, and he caught me staring at him. I tried hard for a blank expression, but I knew panic and hate were written all over my face. Why the hell couldn’t I ignore this guy?

Tony said nothing. Not to me or Susan. But his sheepish gaze locked on mine for several seconds, which kind of started to freak me out. In the end, he pressed his lips together a little harder than he already had and returned to his work.
Yeah, feel sorry, you ass!

Nick was helping Tony. He smiled when he saw us. Liza gave a quick wave,
then held a metal bar that Ryan was trying to anchor to the ground.

Simone shouted, “Hey, guys, what took you so long?”

“We couldn’t risk Mater running out of breath, so we had to drive really slowly,” I answered.

Simone made a face. “You came in your grandfather’s car?”

Susan shrugged. “Had no choice. It was either that or walk.”

We started to set up our tent next to Nick and Tony’s. I would have picked a different place, but it seemed this little piece of earth had been saved for us. We laid out the tarp and sorted though the many thin bars. Unfortunately, this thing came without a construction plan. We were totally lost.

I sat on the dirt, cross-legged, and studied the elements. “Nothing seems to fit anywhere,” I muttered.

“I think we have to stick them together, like into each other,” Susan said, holding two bars like chopsticks.

She was right. The bars slid into each other’s ends if you turned them right. But after five minutes of slotting them together, we had no idea what to do next.

“Great,” I said. “What do we do now? Wrap it to a circle and hold it over our heads all night?”

“Either that or we sleep outside.” Susan flexed the endless line of sticks, making a disappointed face. Then she let it go, and it snapped back into straight form, lying across the place.

A slim tree branch appeared suddenly in my peripheral vision and pointed to the middle of our bar. “You have to break it up here.” Tony’s voice came from above me. “Then you put the spare ends you have to either side.”

What the heck was that? A peace offering? He could shove that right up his ass. I wasn’t going to follow any orders from him.

But Susan did. Damn if what he said didn’t make sense.

“Now you lay them out like a cross and shove them through the loops in the fabric,” he explained in a patient voice. More, he sounded friendly. Something that was totally new to me—and I wouldn’t tolerate after how he had hurt me.

“Thanks,” I grunted. “But I’m sure we can manage alone.”
Somehow. With lots and lots of time.

“All right,” he said, colder than before, and walked away.

I could breathe again.

Susan and I each held a bar in our hands now, looking at each other. Obviously, she was as clueless as me as to what to do next. I hated that I had sent our only help away, but I’d be damned if I’d work together with Tony to build up a tent.

“We could make a hammock of this,” Susan offered with a grimace and poked the bar into my ribs, which made me laugh. “Or we just sneak into Liza’s tent when they’re sleeping.”

Tony cleared his throat behind me. “Simone, would you tell the girls to run the ends into the holes at each corner and tie the middle of the tent to the cross?”

I quirked my brows but stopped myself just in time before I scowled over my shoulder at him. He wasn’t worth even that.

Simone came over. “Um, girls?” she said in an amused voice, clearly suppressing a laugh. “I think you should run the ends into the holes at each corner next and tie the middle of the tent to the cross.”

“We heard him,” I muttered, giving Simone an irritated look.

She shrugged and chuckled as she sat on an ice-box, watching us proceed.

Sliding the bars into the holes troubled us a little as we had to lift the middle of the cross at the same time and the fabric strained quite a bit. It was like trying to shove a slippery fish into a loop as small as the nail of my pinky. I cussed under my breath.

Somebody hunkered down by my side, and I caught a whiff of masculine shower gel. I turned and looked straight into Tony’s eyes. I wanted to tell him to piss off, but the next thing I knew his hands were on mine.

In a heartbeat I went stiff, even holding my breath. His hands felt way too warm against my chilled ones.

“Let go,” he said in a voice that was a mixture of soft and irritated.

I didn’t want to. All I wanted to do was shove this idiot out of my way and finish this stupid tent on my own. But with my brain shocked out of function, I slid my hands away from under his, and he grabbed the bar instead. I dropped to my butt, scooting a few feet away, and watched him thread the bar’s end easily into the designated hole.

Ignoring my bafflement, Tony and Nick worked together to finish setting up our one-night hotel. After a couple of minutes, I eventually managed to rise from the ground and dusted off conifer needles and dirt clinging to my butt.

When the boys were done, Tony stopped in front of me, angled his head with tight lips, and lifted his brows. It probably translated to something like:
That’s how you build a tent, stupid.
It was clear that he didn’t expect me to say anything. Probably didn’t even want me to. Then he walked past me and over to the fire.

“Thank you, Tony!” Susan shouted after him.

He lifted his hand over his shoulder but didn’t look back.
“De nada.”

Yeah, right. It
was
de nada
. Nobody asked for his help, so thanking him was the last thing I was going to do today. Dammit! Chewing on my lip, I started to lay out our sleeping bags with Susan.

Darkness was setting in by the time we pulled the zipper of the mosquito tent closed to join the others around the campfire. Four logs, placed in a square around the fire, served as benches. Ryan straddled one and Liza sat between his legs, with her back snuggled against his chest. Simone fondled Alex’s hair as he laid his head on her lap on another tree trunk. Susan sat down next to Simone. That log was full, and since I didn’t want to sit with Liza and Ryan when they started kissing, I dropped my ass next to Nick on the ground and used the log behind us as a backrest like he did.

A moment later, Tony came out of his tent and sat on the ground in front of the remaining tree trunk. He ripped a package of cheese crackers open and started shoving fistfuls into his mouth. He didn’t look at me, and I wouldn’t look at him either. I concentrated on the crackling flames instead.

Nick opened a can of Pepsi and passed it to me. “Want some?”

The afternoon heat and the struggles with building our quarters had made me thirsty. I took the can with a grateful smile and gulped down half of the soda, then handed it back to Nick. He sipped from the can and placed it between our hips on the ground.

It didn’t take long for Simone to retrieve all the good stuff from the cooler down by the stream. We speared sausages on sticks and threw potatoes into the embers at the side of the fire. Between the sizzling sausages we roasted marshmallows on our sticks.

After we had eaten, I pulled out a cherry lollipop from my pocket for afters. A breeze whizzed around the fire, and I rubbed the chill from my arms. No one seemed to be bothered by the wind, other than me. I had yet to get used to the climate in California.

“Are you cold?” Nick asked me.

“Nah, it’s okay.” I only wished the wind would turn and blow the heat of the fire straight at me. I’d rather smell like a fried weenie than be shivering when everybody else was warm and comfortable.

“I’d offer you a sweater, but I didn’t bring any.”

I laughed when Nick scrunched up his face. Then I said, “Don’t worry. I brought my own.” Only I had left it in the truck. Great. “It’s back in Susan’s car. I’ll get it later.” Or maybe not. A walk through the dark woods to get it was so not an appealing idea.

“Hey, want to play truth or dare?” Simone suggested after she’d thrown her stick into the fire, announcing that she’d eaten enough to last
a week.

“No…” A collective moan came from the guys.

But Liza and Susan were enthusiastic enough to sway their boyfriends, and finally Nick shrugged and gave in, too. I didn’t like this game, because in most cases you had to either verbally or physically embarrass yourself, but I didn’t want to be a spoilsport, so I agreed, too, and Tony had no chance since he was outnumbered.

“I’ll go first,” Susan cheered.
“Ryan, truth or dare?”

“Truth,” he said after a second.

“Why didn’t you hit on Liza before last summer, when you were in love with her for much longer?”

Liza tilted her head and smirked over her shoulder at him.
“Yeah, Hunter. Why?”

Ryan cut a quick glance to his side, and when I traced it, I found Tony staring into the dancing flames.

“Because she’d been in love with a good friend for eternity,” Ryan said and stroked Liza’s hands on top of her stomach. “It seemed nothing could have dragged her eyes away from pretty-face Mitchell.”

We all laughed, and even Tony let slip a smirk.

“Nothing but you,” Liza whispered back to Ryan and smiled.

“Truth or dare, baby?” he asked her next.

“I feel brave tonight. Dare.”

“I dare you to switch places with me and do the same thing as Simone does to Alex.” He grinned broadly as he rested his head on her lap a moment later.

Brushing her fingers through Ryan’s hair, Liza dared Nick next to jump over the fire. Which he did. And with a ballerina mockery, too. It was hilarious to watch. But when he asked me, “Truth or dare?” I nearly choked on my lollipop.

Afraid he’d make me do something as stupid as fire jumping, where I would definitely land in the fire and become toast, I answered, “Truth.”

He put a finger to his mouth, looking like he wanted to come up with something really shitty and cruel. But then he smiled, and I knew he was only winding me up. “Okay, what’s the worst thing someone’s said about your height?”