by Chris Cannon
I laughed, thinking she might not be all bad.
Chapter Four
Grant
Talking to Amber proved to be a mistake. She seemed to think she was auditioning for the part of my next girlfriend. I’d had enough of controlling females, and I wasn’t interested in heading back down that road. I snuck a glance at Zoe, who was talking and laughing with Amber’s friend, Katrina.
“Zoe, how did detention go last night?” I asked.
She grinned at me like she knew something I didn’t. “It was fine. I stapled papers for Mr. Fletcher. Not a big deal.”
Katrina sucked in a breath. “You’re the girl who called Lena a bitch?”
Zoe shrugged. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”
When I left the cafeteria, Amber stuck to me like glue. Lucky for me, her next class was in the opposite direction, so she had to leave. I caught up with Zoe and fell into step beside her.
She made a show of looking around me. “Lose your barnacle?”
I laughed. “Interesting description. Not inaccurate.”
“Even I know the quickest way to make a guy run away is to throw yourself at him.”
“But you threw yourself at me the other day.”
Her mouth fell open and then she said, “Wrong. I used you to annoy my brother.”
“Used me?”
She laughed as we rounded the corner and headed for Foods class. “You were convenient.”
“Convenient?” I pretended to be offended.
“Pretty much.”
“Is this some sort of reverse psychology? Because if I wanted to kiss you again, I’m one hundred percent sure you’d kiss me back.”
“Keep telling yourself that.”
We were twenty feet from the classroom door, but ten feet from a side hall, which led to the restrooms. And I wanted to wipe the all-knowing grin off her face. No teachers in the immediate area. What the hell?
When we came even with the side hall, I grabbed her hand and tugged her down the hall.
“What are you doing?”
Answering would take too long. I leaned in and pressed my mouth against hers. She froze for a second, and then she kissed me back. The noise from the hall faded away as she leaned into me.
“Mr. Evertide.”
Damn. I stepped away from Zoe and turned to find the principal glaring at me.
“Sir?”
“Are public displays of affection allowed in this school?” His tone took condescending to a new level.
“No, sir. It won’t happen again.”
“To make sure it doesn’t, you both have detention in my office after school. Now, get to class.”
Zoe shot me a this-is-all-your-fault look and headed to class. I followed along, tempted to gloat, but figured it might be better to wait until she wasn’t so angry.
Seconds after we took our seats, Ms. Ida launched into a speech about the different kinds of vanilla. Not that I cared, but I pretended to be fascinated to avoid eye contact with Zoe.
“All right, class. Back to the kitchens to start mixing your cupcakes.”
Jumping out of her seat, Zoe made it to the kitchen before me and started sorting ingredients on the countertop. I strolled back to meet her.
She met my gaze and laughed. “Don’t you look pleased with yourself.”
“Because I was right.” I leaned in like I was checking out the recipe on the countertop and whispered in her ear, “One hundred percent right.”
A quick inhalation from Zoe meant what? Anger? Irritation?
She retrieved a large mixing bowl from one of the cabinets. Grabbing our Ziploc bags full of ingredients, she dumped their contents in the bowl. “Yes, and you are one hundred percent giving me a ride home from detention, because my brother has to work tonight.”
That was not part of my plan. “I don’t—”
She bumped me with her hip, knocking me off balance. “Wrong answer. Try again.”
I caught myself on the counter.
“You brought this on yourself.” She shoved the bowl at me. “Stir this while I crack the eggs.”
“You’re bossy.”
“I prefer to think of myself as confident.”
Why did I suddenly feel like she’d manipulated this entire situation?
…
Zoe
I’ll admit it, I had teased Grant, hoping he’d kiss me to prove me wrong. But I’d meant for him to kiss me after school, not in the hallway in front of the principal so I’d have detention, again. It was hard to be mad now, though, especially since he’d be giving me a ride home tonight. I couldn’t have planned this better if I tried.
Was there any way I could convince him we needed to stop and have pizza on the way home? Probably not. I could, however, accidentally leave one of my earrings in his car, which would give me a reason to talk to him tomorrow. There. I had a plan.
“What’s next?” he asked.
At first I thought he was talking about the earring plan. Then I realized he meant the cake batter. I read the recipe. “Crap. We should have preheated the oven.”
“The ovens are still on from the last class, but you should remember to check next time,” Ms. Ida said.
“We will.” She sidled off to sneak up on some other unsuspecting students. I elbowed Grant. “What kind of ninja shoes is she wearing?”
“Ninja shoes?”
“You know, quiet like a ninja, and able to sneak up on people.”
“No, I got it. It’s just a weird thing to say.”
I threw the wax paper cupcake liners at him. Catching them, he turned them over examining them from all sides. “This is what we put the batter in?”
“No.” I grabbed the cupcake pan from the drying rack. “Those are the liners you put in the pan. Haven’t you ever made cupcakes?”
“Why would I make cupcakes when there are bakeries?”
No way. “You’ve never made cupcakes with your mom? Or watched her bake them?”
He laughed. “I’m not sure my mother knows how to turn on the stove.”
My mind boggled. “No baking cookies and eating them warm from the oven?”
He shook his head.
“Not even the slice-and-bake kind?”
“What’s the big deal?”
“That’s just wrong.” So many of my warm family memories came from baking with my mom and grandma: fresh peach pie, birthday cakes, Christmas cookies. I grabbed the cupcake liners from him and started filling the pan. “You’ve led a sad life.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“No. If you’ve never had chocolate chip cookies hot from the oven when the chocolate is all melted and gooey, then you’ve missed out.” I checked the drawers and found an ice cream scoop to ladle the batter into the pan.
“What are you doing with that?”
I demonstrated how to scoop the batter into the cupcake tin. “Here, give it a shot.”
“Because otherwise I’ll be sad?”
“Smart ass.” I mouthed the words in case our ninja teacher was sneaking up behind me.
Once the cupcakes were in the oven, I took off my grandfather’s watch and tucked it in my pocket, grabbed the dish soap, and filled one side of the sink with hot water.
“I thought we were done.” Grant edged away from our kitchen.
“Do you think dishes clean themselves?” I tossed him a towel so he could dry.
“They do at my house,” he muttered.
The sweet scent of vanilla filled the air. I inhaled and my mouth watered. “I wish we were eating these today.”
“We’re not?”
“They’ll finish cooking, but then they’ll need time to cool. And we still have to make the icing. No eating until tomorrow.” I washed the mixing bowl and held it out to him.
He pretended not to notice.
“You can dry it or you can wear it as a hat.”
“Or you could dry it. You seem to be doing so well—”
Standing on tiptoe,
I made a half-hearted attempt to put the upside-down bowl on his head.
He snatched it from my hand. “Did you really think that would work?”
“It was worth a try.” Plus it accomplished what I wanted—the bowl was in his hands now, so he could dry it. Should I gloat? Probably not.
Parting ways with him when class ended sucked. Whenever he paid attention to me warm sunshine filled my chest. Not that it meant anything, but it was nice to have a guy like Grant notice me. In a weird way, it sort of validated that I belonged at Wilton. And yes, that was some messed up logic, but that’s how I felt. Not that I’d admit it to anyone, not even Delia.
Lena must’ve heard about the kiss, because in my next class she glared at me like she was trying to set my hair on fire with her mind. Was I surprised she’d heard about it already? Not really. Rumors are the currency of any high school. Come up with a good one and your status is elevated. Ten minutes after I received detention, I bet the entire school heard about it. And it did seem like the entire student body had heard about it.
What was the big deal? Why were boys I didn’t know snickering and muttering under their breath when I passed them in the hall? It was a kiss. I even overheard a few boys say something about a ring. Did they think Grant had given me a ring? Grant wore a class ring. I’d seen it on his hand. Did they think I kissed Grant because he asked me to be his girlfriend? That would be a little stalker-ish at this point, since we’d just met a few days ago.
My brother cornered me after school, looking like he’d spit fire when he opened his mouth to speak. “You’re an idiot.”
Oh, good. No flames. Just the usual insults. “And you’re a jerk.”
He stepped closer, invading my personal space. I hated it when he used his height to loom over me when we argued.
“Zoe, how can you be so stupid? I told you—”
“You’re not in charge of my life.” I whipped my backpack off my shoulder and around to my front, holding it like a shield. “Go away, Jack.”
“Fine. I work tonight, so you better hope Delia can give you a ride home. It’s a long walk.”
“Grant is giving me a ride.”
He backed up a step, like I’d shocked him. Eyes narrowed, he marched off to bestow his fabulous personality on someone else.
Delia ran up to me a moment later. “I expect a full report when you get home.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Make sure you have something interesting to share.”
I laughed and headed to the principal’s office where the secretary directed me to sit at a table in the back corner of the office. “Be quiet, do your homework, and you can leave when the timer goes off.” She pulled a chicken-shaped kitchen timer from her desk drawer, twisted the bird’s head a quarter of the way around and went back to her paperwork. Whoever made those timers had a sick sense of humor.
Grant showed up with a frown on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Your brother is an asshole.”
“No argument there.” I opened my history text book. “What did he do?”
“He accused me of something.” Grant pressed his lips together in a thin line and checked to make sure the secretary wasn’t paying attention to us. “What he said…I’m not doing that.”
Okay. “There was a big chunk of information missing in that explanation.”
“No talking,” the secretary called out.
Her timing sucked. What wasn’t Grant doing? Minutes dragged by. Did my brother accuse him of using me? Was that it? It was a kiss, for heaven’s sake. If Jack’s interference messed this up for me I would kill him, slowly, by poisoning his food.
By the time the secretary dismissed us I was crazy with curiosity. We were two feet from the office when I cracked. “What aren’t you doing?”
“I’m parked in the side lot.” He kept walking like he hadn’t heard me.
“That wasn’t an answer.” Keeping up with his longer stride meant doing an awkward half run. “And you need to slow down.”
He didn’t answer me, but he did slow down. A small victory. “We’ll talk in the car.”
Did he think the hallways were bugged? “There’s no one here.” I gestured to the empty space around us.
“Trust me. When I fill you in, you’re going to be mad. And we’ve already established that you’re not quiet when you’re angry.”
That warm feeling I normally had around him changed into a bucket of ice water dumped on my head. “Angry at my brother or angry at you?”
“I’m innocent in this.” We exited the building and I shivered. Whether it was due to the cool autumn air or the upcoming reveal, I wasn’t sure.
Grant pulled out his keys and pressed a button. An ink black sports car beeped and flashed its lights.
“Cute car.”
He stopped mid-stride. “Cute?”
The appalled expression on his face had me clamping my lips together to keep from laughing. I held my hands up in surrender and took a steadying breath. “Sorry. Let me try again. My, what a masculine, studly car you have. Better?”
“Much better.” He held his fingers out like he was measuring something two inches long. “You were this close to walking home.”
I laughed. The earlier tension faded away. When we reached the car, he opened the door for me. The seat seemed lower than normal. And I was wearing a skirt. Solution? Awkward squat while praying I didn’t flash Grant. Reality? Skirt sliding halfway up my thighs, but thankfully my lime green underwear with day-glow yellow hearts, which I’d purchased off the clearance table, remained a secret. Note to self, buy sexy or at least non-embarrassing underwear.
During the time he walked around the car and climbed in, I adjusted my skirt to provide respectable coverage.
“Which way is home?” Grant started the car, which roared like a lion. The vibrations from the engine rattled my teeth. I don’t understand why guys think that’s cool.
“Out Highway Twenty and then a left on Bakersfield Road.”
We were out of the parking lot and onto the highway in seconds. “Tell me when we’re close to the turn off. I’ve never been out this way.”
The little voice in my head urged me to continue our earlier conversation. But right now, there was a happy calm between us, and I didn’t want to let that go. “We’ll hit the turn off in about ten minutes.”
“How long until we reach your zombie-apocalypse-safe compound?” The teasing tone of his voice made me laugh.
“About ten minutes after that.” I relaxed back in the soft leather seat, wanting to forget about whatever my brother had accused Grant of, but it was like an irritating pebble in my shoe—impossible to ignore. “Are you going to tell me what happened with my brother?”
“No matter what I say, you’ll end up pissed off.” He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Have you heard the term, ringer?”
“Like when you’re throwing horseshoes?”
“No. It’s short for dead ringer, like a copycat. Every year, there are a few guys who have a competition to see who can get a hick—I mean a local girl—to fall for them. Once they hook up, the guy breaks things off because she’s not someone he wants for a real girlfriend. She’s a ringer.”
Volcanic rage erupted inside me. I took a deep breath so I wouldn’t spew lava all over Grant. “They have a competition? Any guy who does that should be neutered with hedge clippers.”
Click. My brain made the connection and my mouth went dry. The snickering boys muttering about rings. No not about rings, ringers. They were calling me a ringer. “That’s why Jack was mad. He thinks you’re—”
“I’m not.”
I turned in my seat to face him. “You swear, because I have hedge clippers and pitch forks and—”
He pulled off the road, taking an exit, which led to Rural King and Betty’s Burgers and Baked Goods.
“Where are you going?”
“I have no idea. Someplace we can sit and talk.”
The sign for Betty’s, which depict
ed a grandma wearing an apron and holding a burger in one hand and a pie in the other, came into view.
“We can stop there.” I pointed to the sign. We took a right and Grant pulled into the parking lot. The savory scent of burgers cooking on the outside grills drifted into the car.
“Whatever’s going on between us is because we’re attracted to each other, not because of some stupid contest.”
Oh, how I wanted to believe him. Though the set of his mouth and the intensity of his fabulous blue eyes did make him seem sincere.
“Would you swear on a pair of hedge clippers that you aren’t trying to make me the ringer?”
“I swear by all the sharp and pointy tools on your farm, I am not involved in that stupid contest.”
He meant it, but that didn’t change one horrific fact. “Everyone thinks you are.”
“Only the idiots.” Reaching over, he grabbed my hand.
The warmth of his touch reassured me. Still, he wasn’t the one people would be talking about. “In between classes, I heard some guys talking about a ringer. I didn’t know what they meant at the time.”
“It’s not like I can idiot-proof the world, but at least you know the truth.” His stomach growled and his gaze traveled to Betty’s door. “Do the burgers taste as good as they smell?”
“Yes.” What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
“Come on.” He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door.
Once we were seated in Betty’s reading the menus, I gave him the good news. “Do you remember when I said Jack had to work?”
He closed the menu. “Please tell me your brother won’t be touching my food.”
“No. He works the cash register.” I pointed across the room to the bakery display case where Jack stood glaring in our direction. I gave a small wave. He scowled and rang out the next person in line.
“And you didn’t think to tell me this earlier…because?”
“You only asked about the burgers. Besides, I was hungry.”
Muttering under his breath, he opened his menu. We placed our order and it wasn’t long until I was biting into a burger hot from the grill.
“What’s up with your friend’s hair?” Grant asked.
There was only one person he could be talking about. “Delia is super-creative and she likes to be different. None of her clothes are the same as when she bought them. She colors on her jeans with markers, and cuts her shirts, and sews different pieces together. With the Wilton uniforms, all she can change is her hair.”