The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) (30 page)

Sue started scooping up some of her latte’s foam, too. “That’s a difficult thing to explain.”

And I looked like a dimwit or what? “When’s your curfew?”

“What?”

“Home? When do you have to be there tonight?”

“Um—” She scratched her head. “Nine. Why?”

“That gives me about three hours to make sense of what you’re going to tell me.” Cocking my head, I mocked her with a tilt of my eyebrows. “I think I can cope.”

Now she laughed. “Fine. But you have to promise that you’ll never tell anybody about it.”

That, I could promise without regret. “I’ll keep all the good stuff to myself, I swear!”

She took a sip, putting me on hold with her irritating attention to her drink. After she licked the foam from her lips, and I nearly offered to do that for her, she put the cup down and began, “The problem is…Chris scares me.”

“He does
what
?” I blurted out in utter shock. “Why?”

“You see”—she nervously tugged at her left earlobe—“when I met him, he was this really arrogant…popular…lionized guy.”

“Lionized?” Now that was a cute way to put it. I chuckled.

“Yes.” She cut me silent with a stern look. “So, I just ignored him, because—duh—I was head over heels for you.” She rolled her eyes. “At some point, he decided he wouldn’t let me ignore him anymore. I hated myself because he started giving me butterflies and managed to break through my defenses with stupid little things.”

“Butterflies? That’s sweet.” Heck, I knew she loved those tingles in her gut! Everybody loved them. “So what where those little things that brought you around?” Curiosity was torturing me at this point.

“Text messages, mostly.” A dreamy expression crossed her face. It was so adorable, I wanted to start playing footsy with her under the table. Except, I was Ethan, and Ethan wouldn’t do that.
Get a grip, Donovan
. Still, there was nothing I could do to stop my flattered snicker.

“That’s not funny,” she scolded me. “I mean, me and the playboy? Come on, that’s just not right.”

“But you did fall for him.” I shrugged to play down my excitement. “That’s cool.”

“No, it’s not cool. Because I kinda
really
did,” she whined. “And Chris is not the guy to take feelings seriously.”

Wait!
Where the heck had she come up with that kind of crap? What had happened between her and me in the past few weeks, I took very seriously. I had to muster every bit of self-control not to tell her so this minute.

“I let you guys talk me into that stupid date at your house and it was…fun,” she confessed, briefly lowering her eyes. When she looked at me again, she said in a small voice, “And then he stole my first kiss.”

I choked on the whipped cream in my mouth and coughed under my breath.
Sorry, what?
My hand holding the spoon sank onto the table as I slowly sagged against the backrest of my chair, a stunned breath leaving me. “That was your
first
kiss?”

Lips pressed together, she nodded. “Mm-hm.” She also blushed a lovely pink. “I don’t know if you’ve ever kissed anyone. If you have, you know what that first kiss meant to me.”

“I think I do.” I’d kissed a high two-digit number of girls in my junior and senior years, but I still remembered my first.

“Please, Ethan,” she suddenly begged, grabbing my hand with her cool fingers. “Don’t tell him that. For Chris, it was probably a godawful kiss, and nothing that he was used to from his other, more experienced girls.”

Was she kidding? She was a flipping natural. I made a wry face at her. “Oh, you’re so wrong.”

She pulled her hands away from mine. “What?”

Shit. I needed to find a way to tell her without giving away my identity. I bit my bottom lip, thinking hard, and decided to just keep acting the part of Ethan. “When Chris told me about that kiss, he said he found it pretty
amazing
. I think you should believe him this one time.” Really, I wanted her to trust me on that.

Sue contemplated my words, then rewarded me with the tiniest smile and rosy cheeks. Oh yes, she did like hearing that bit of truth.

“All right, so let me recap,” I said, straightening in my chair. “You had a crush on Chris. He gave you your first kiss. You liked it. He still gives you butterflies.” One by one, I ticked all these things off on my fingers. That was a lot in my opinion, and to anyone who could have overheard, it must have sounded like she was totally smitten. A very simple conclusion, in fact. Except, Susan didn’t go by this reasoning. She wanted
distance
. I leaned forward on the table, staring into her pretty eyes, and tried to figure her out. “What’s the problem?”

She was reluctant with an answer, and her voice was low. “The problem is that I sort of take romance quite seriously. I might have been more into Chris than he was into me. I don’t want to be his next go-to girl.”

First off, sweetness, you can’t like me more than I like you.
That was not technically possible at this time. And then I said, “Go-to girl…?” My eyebrows dipped together in confusion.

“Yes, you know, what you said about Chris and Lauren the other day. Even though I’m not one of those girls who want to wait until marriage before they…er…sleep with a guy, it doesn’t mean I’ll give it away to some arrogant womanizer either.” She chewed on her lip. “I think the first time should be something special with the guy I love…and not just about a stupid challenge.” Avoiding my gaze, she resumed stirring her latte. “But I don’t expect you to understand that.”

Whoa.
That was quite the chunk of information. If she’d known it was me and not Ethan listening to her, she certainly wouldn’t have opened up like that. In fact, it was hard to believe she’d really say all that to any guy. I’d been lucky to get the full, unedited version. The only thing bothering me was that she actually thought I wouldn’t understand that.

With a soft smile, I reached out and lifted her chin with my finger. “Did you just say that because I’m a guy?”

“Who can tell what’s really going on in that head of yours?” She frowned, probably wondering about that for the first time today. Then she fished a strand of hair from her neat ponytail and tauntingly twisted it around her finger.

Uh, a little more credit, please. “It seems you have a completely screwed up view of us guys,” I reprimanded. The first time meant as much to us as it did to any girl—especially if it was
their
first time. “Someone should show you one day. And I’m sure, if Chris was the one, he wouldn’t mess that moment up for you.” As an afterthought, I added, “Believe it or not, I know he’s done some serious thinking on that matter the past couple of weeks.”

“Chris is thinking about getting in my pants?” She laughed with dry humor. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Oh, come on. Give the guy a break,” I pleaded for myself—but kept playing Ethan’s role perfectly. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. He’s really not that bad.”

“What, are you trying to play matchmaker now?” She lifted her brows, then grimaced. “Please don’t.” And just as fast, she cheered up again. “That’s my job, anyway.”

“Your job?”

“Yes. I think you brought me here for a reason.”

Most definitely, though not what she thought, so I asked her, “And that would be what?”

“Helping you get on with your own romance.”

Of course. Me and the waiter, right? Chuckling, I reclined in my chair. “I don’t think I have a romance going.”

Chin lifted, Susan cast me a cocky smile. “Well, maybe not yet. But with a little push you might just start one today.” With a subtle nod, she confirmed my suspicion about the waiter.

Acting more on reflex than out of curiosity, I tracked her gaze to the bar. The black-haired guy had his eyes on our table—on me, particularly. He must have been watching us for a while, but when our gazes met, he quickly looked away. And so did I. Damn, this was weird. I rubbed my neck, feeling uncomfortable now, and whispered to Susan, “He’s staring at me, isn’t he?”

She cut another brief glance to the bar and grinned. “Well, I don’t think he’s staring at
me
.”

God, the next time,
I
would pick the location for our date.

“Know what?” Susan said a moment later, lighthearted enough to make me start. “I’ll just pop to the loo and you go engage Ted in a nice chat. If it works, I’ll call Sam to come hang out with me.”

Ted, uh-huh.

Wait,
what
?

When Sue got to her feet all of a sudden, panic strummed my throat closed. “No!” I hissed with what little air was left in my lungs and clasped her arm. “Don’t leave me alone with him.”

“Honey, it’s okay,” she reassured me. “You talked to him for an entire hour a few weeks ago.” Amused, she pried my fingers loose from the sleeve of her white cardigan. “He won’t eat you.”

“You can’t know that.” My voice was a whiny whisper.

“Relax. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Remember that game from middle school—seven minutes in heaven? Well, this would be my personal seven minutes in
hell
.

Susan patted my shoulder, her look full of encouragement. “Just be yourself, and no one can ever resist you.”

When she flitted off to the restrooms, my legs began to shake and my neck cramped from the way I kept my gaze focused strictly on the cup of cappuccino in front of me.

Jeez, was he staring at me again? What if he decided to come over and engage me in a conversation? Oh God. I shuddered.

My throat suddenly dry and my hands annoyingly shaky, I fished my phone out for self-defense. Of course, it wouldn’t help me ward off an infatuated teenage boy, but if I looked really busy here all by myself, Ted might not even come up with the idea of talking to me.

A message from Ethan was in my inbox.
How’s the date going? Did Susan buy the charade? How did she react?

Irritated, I sucked on my front teeth and typed:
She’s trying to hook me up with the waiter.

The message was barely sent when the brush of a whisper stroked the side of my face. “Who are you texting?”

“Whoa!” My heart nearly gave out from shock. I jumped in my seat, jerking around to Sue. “Don’t you sneak up on me like that, woman!”

She laughed. “Why? Did you think it was Ted?”

Obviously!
I made a grumpy face. “Not funny.”

“Okay, sorry. So who are you texting?”

I pressed my lips together and thought about something to say that wasn’t a lie again. “My brother.”

“Why?”

“He asked how the afternoon was going.”

Susan looked a little horrified. “You did not tell him what I said before!”

Too late.
I’d already heard it all—firsthand.

Her stricken expression made me smile, because the way she wanted to keep her true feelings from me could only mean one thing: She was far from being over us.

Reaching for my cell in a panic, she commanded, “Give me that phone and let me see!”

“Does the term
privacy of correspondence
ring a bell?” Laughing, I pulled it away quickly and tucked it back into my pocket. Then I made a decision. “Drink up, we’re leaving.”

“We are?” Baffled, she ogled her still half-full hazelnut latte. “Why the rush?”

“Things aren’t working the way I’d hoped.” She was far too fixed on hooking me up with someone else, when all I wanted was her. We needed more privacy. A place where no potential matches for Ethan would come between Sue and me. Of course, I couldn’t tell her exactly that, so I cut a glance at Ted for her benefit and told her, “It wasn’t a good idea to bring you for cover.” Maybe this way I could make her believe that I—Ethan—would rather talk to Ted alone.

Sue pulled a disappointed face but relented. “Okay. What do you want to do instead? And don’t suggest
Mario Kart
. You know I’m not going anywhere near your house right now.”

Nowhere near
Chris
, she meant. I rolled my eyes. “I wasn’t going to suggest that. Let’s just go find another place. There’s a nice bar in Pismo Beach.” With lots of older people. She wouldn’t want Ethan hanging out with one of those guys. “We can grab some food, and they have great music.” It was Pismo Beach’s answer to Hard Rock Cafe, quite cozy, but still hip.

Susan understood my urge to get out of here when I rose to my feet. While she practically inhaled the rest of her coffee, I tossed a few dollars on the table to pay for both our drinks and even added an extra dollar for Ted.

From the corner of my eye, I saw him walk around the counter, probably to exchange a few more words under the cover of cleaning our table. I was so not ready to do that, so I grabbed Susan’s hand, hastily pulling her outside with me.

With an apologetic note in her voice, she shouted, “Bye, Ted!”

“See ya!” his answer drifted after us.

As soon as we were out the door, Susan dug her heels into the asphalt and made me stop rather abruptly. “What the hell, Ethan!”