The Boyfriend Bet (Boyfriend Chronicles #2)

by Chris Cannon

  After class, I hung behind while the room cleared out. “Ms. Ida, do you know where Grant is?”

  “He signed out for a family emergency,” Ms. Ida said.

  Family emergency my ass. Grinding my teeth, I headed for my next class. That jerk had left me here to deal with this by myself. The next time I saw him he was a dead man.

  I was halfway to my class when a boy with teeth too big for his fake smile blocked my path. “Hello, Zoe.”

  “Hi.” What did this guy want?

  “I’m Phin.” He gave me more of his off-balance smile. The guy should model for toothpaste commercials.

  “Nice to meet you.” I tried to dodge by him, but he moved with me. “Phin, I need to go to class.”

  “My family has more money than the Evertides.” He ran his hand down my arm in a way that made me want to run and take a shower.

  “How nice for you. Now get out of my way.” I pulled my backpack off and held it in front of me so he couldn’t get too close.

  And then he winked at me and backed up a few steps. “We’ll talk later.”

  “No. We won’t.” Weirded out, I ran to class, barely making it to my seat before the bell rang.

  Lena smirked at me from her seat across the room. I fantasized about slamming her face into the desk, repeatedly.

  By the end of the day, I felt like a slingshot someone had pulled back but forgotten to release. On the way to meet Jack at the car, Phin popped up again.

  “There you are.” He gave me that smile again. Did he really think that was a good look?

  I walked past him, figuring I wouldn’t encourage him. A hand grabbed my arm, and I jerked to a stop. Whipping around I yanked my arm from his grasp. “Back off.”

  “Whoa.” He held both hands up and laughed.

  “Whatever it is you want, I’m not interested. Go away.” There. I couldn’t be any clearer.

  His smile tightened, and his eyes turned hard and mean. “That wasn’t very nice.”

  The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Something about this guy was off. Backing away from him, I said, “Nothing personal. I hate all guys right now.” And then I spun around and headed to the car, where Jack stood watching me.

  Once we were on the highway, Jack said, “From Grant, to Phin, you sure know how to pick them.”

  “I didn’t pick Phin. I was trying to get away from him.” I wiped my sweat coated palms on my skirt. “Thanks for the help.”

  “How am I supposed to know which assholes you want to talk to and which ones you don’t?”

  “For the sake of argument, let’s say Grant is the only snob I want to talk to. If you see some other jerk grabbing at me, come help.”

  He was silent for a moment. “Sorry. I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

  “Thanks. Speaking of my life going to hell, did you see the video?”

  “I did, but I wasn’t going to say anything.”

  Huh. “Is that because you didn’t want to upset me, or because you like what the video means?”

  “Both. Want me to stop at Betty’s for a pie on the way home?”

  I laughed. “Yes, and now I believe you really do care about me.”

  …

  The weekend passed with no word from Grant. What had I expected? He didn’t owe me anything. He wasn’t the one who looked like an idiot on YouTube. I’d had to set my account to friends only, which I’d narrowed down to Delia, because guys were sending me pervy messages. Somehow Grant not kissing me made guys think I was open to kissing, or doing other things with them. What kind of stupid logic was that?

  Sunday morning, my grandmother came into my room. “I heard about what happened at school Friday.”

  Great. I pulled the covers up over my head. “I’m staying under here until someone destroys the Internet.”

  She tugged the cover down from my face. “When I was a teenager, if you made a mistake, everyone teased you for a while and then forgot. The internet makes that more difficult.”

  “Can you home-school me?” I asked, only half joking.

  “No, but I can help you get over this.” She patted my leg. “Come on. Let’s go shoot cans off the back fence.”

  It was better than nothing.

  …

  When Monday morning rolled around, I wanted to lie on the kitchen floor and throw a fit like a toddler. I settled for saying, “I don’t want to go to school.”

  My mom downed her coffee and checked the clock. “I’m sorry, sweetie. You have to keep moving forward. One foot in front of the other.” She gave me the same pained smile she’d worn since Dad died.

  “Okay, Mom.”

  “That’s my girl.” She patted me on the shoulder as she walked by.

  My grandmother waited until Mom walked out the front door. “She can’t help it, Zoe.”

  “I know.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. My mom had suffered serious depression after my dad died. Not like the rest of us hadn’t, but when she came out of it there was something missing. Like she never came back all the way, she never really felt anything anymore, or seemed to care about any of us.

  Right now I’d give a million dollars not to care about the stupid video.

  The only bright spot in my morning was Delia promising to meet me in the parking lot with a cup of coffee so she could give me a pep talk before I faced the masses.

  …

  “I say we kneecap Lena, Grant, and Phin,” Delia said as we sat in her truck drinking coffee.

  “Sure, why not?” I took a deep breath and checked the lot for Grant’s shiny black sports car. No luck. A ton of students milled about, like they were waiting for someone to make fun of. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to hide in your truck all day.”

  “Nope. We are wearing our big girl panties today and we’re going to deal with this.”

  “How?” I threw my hands up in disgust. “Pretending it doesn’t bother me is not the answer. It bothers me. It bothers me a lot. I’m not sure who I’m madder at, Lena for posting the video, or Grant for rejecting me and then leaving me to deal with the fallout by myself.”

  “Yeah, that was a dick move.” She opened the truck door. “Let’s go find him and cause a scene.”

  Oh, God. “How will that help?”

  Delia strutted through the parking lot like she was the reigning queen. “It may not help, but it’ll be fun.”

  “Can’t we sit quietly on a bench somewhere?”

  “No. As your best friend, it’s my job to help you show everyone you don’t give a crap what they think.” We headed for the spot where Grant and Aiden normally hung out. Aiden was there, but no Grant.

  Delia marched up to him. “Where is he?”

  Aiden adjusted his glasses and tilted his head. “He who?”

  “You’re too smart to play dumb,” Delia said. “Where is Grant?”

  “He’s trying to solve a problem.”

  “And what problem would that be?” It better be my problem, or I was going to do something really ugly to the next person who messed with me.

  Aiden hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder. “He’s talking to Phin.”

  That was good. “Wait a minute. How did he know Phin was bothering me?”

  “Phin has a big mouth.” Aiden gave a tight smile.

  “I’m sure I’ll regret asking this, but what does that mean?”

  Looking down at his shoes, Aiden cleared his throat. “Phin bragged that he’d make you the Ringer before Grant could.”

  “He’s dead.” Fists clenched, I whirled around looking for the idiot. His too large teeth in his obnoxious fake grin were nowhere in sight.

  “Zoe.” Grant’s voice came from behind me.

  I whipped around. “Where the hell have you been? Do you know the kind of crap I’ve been dealing with? Everyone is watching that stupid video, and Phin is stalking me.”

  “He won’t bother you anymore.”

  “How do you know that?” My face was hot, and my eyes burned with ang
ry tears.

  “He works with my father, so I know certain things about his family he doesn’t want everyone at Wilton to know. Believe me when I say, he won’t come near you again.”

  I wanted to believe him. And I was grateful, but Phin was just the tip of the iceberg of the colossal mess my life had become. “And the video? Have you seen it?”

  “Yes. People keep sending me links.”

  “Because of you, I’m going to have to transfer back to public school.”

  “This isn’t all my fault,” Grant said. “If you hadn’t run off Friday morning, with your weird rule of three thing—”

  I held up three fingers. “The video was number three.”

  “Whatever. If you’d talked to me instead of acting like a drama queen, I could’ve told you I saw Lena pointing her phone at us, which distracted me, so I didn’t realize you were trying to kiss me until after you had run off.”

  Oh. My. God. “Why didn’t you come find me and tell me that? Where did you go?”

  “I wasn’t here because my grandfather was rushed to the hospital.”

  And my anger deflated like a helium balloon the day after a party. “Is he all right?”

  “He is now. It was something with his heart. They’re running some tests.”

  “I’m sorry about your grandpa.” And I was, but I was in the middle of my own crisis. “Back to Friday, are you saying you would’ve kissed me if you’d been paying attention?” I was setting myself up, and I knew it. I might as well give him a bat to smack me in the head with.

  “I stopped to talk to you, didn’t I?” Grant shoved his hand back through his hair. “I could have walked past your car.”

  Over Grant’s shoulder, I saw girls pointing and snickering. “That makes me feel better, but everyone thinks you blew me off. Guys I don’t know are sending me pervy messages. How are we going to fix this?”

  “Better yet, how are we going to get revenge?” Delia asked.

  “Catch Lena doing something stupid and put it on You Tube?” Aiden suggested.

  Delia reached over and patted his arm. “You’ve redeemed yourself.”

  “I don’t understand you.” Aiden stared at her like she was a problem he couldn’t solve.

  “Ask me on a date and I’ll give you a few clues,” Delia said.

  “We could go on a double date,” Grant suggested. “That would show people I wasn’t blowing you off.”

  Part of me wanted to jump up and down and celebrate, but the other part of me needed this humiliation taken care of right now. “Sure. I guess. But that doesn’t change how everyone is looking at me now.”

  Grant tilted his head and studied me. “You guess you want to go on a date with me? You mean you’re not sure?”

  Was he trying to start a fight? “You know what I mean. A date would be nice, but it won’t fix the big problem I’m having right this minute.”

  “A date would be nice.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Nice. That’s what all guys strive for.”

  “Oh my God. Could you pull your head out of your ass for a minute and focus on the real issue here.” And there was dead silence all around us. I cringed. “I said that a little loud, didn’t I?”

  Delia was biting her lip like she was trying not to laugh.

  Aiden looked back and forth between Grant and me like he was waiting for something to explode.

  Grant’s eyes narrowed and he moved closer, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You want me to fix this right now?” His tone wasn’t mad, but it had an edge that made me nervous.

  Afraid of what might come out of my mouth if I opened it, I nodded.

  “Fine.” He wrapped his other arm around my waist, pulled my body flush against his, and kissed me. It was a no-holds-barred-kiss like you see in the movies. Catcalls sounded in the background. There might have been some clapping. Not that I cared.

  “Mr. Evertide,” a voice thundered.

  Grant stepped away from me and turned to face a teacher I didn’t know. “Yes?”

  “Detention for both of you.”

  Grant pointed at me. “She started it.”

  My jaw dropped, and then I laughed.

  The teacher did not appear amused. “Report to the principal’s office after school.”

  “Will do.” Grant put his arm around my shoulders. “Happy?”

  “Yes.” And I was.

  “All done,” Delia said.

  “What’s all done?” I asked.

  Delia passed me her phone. On her You Tube page there was a video of Grant kissing me, with the caption: Suck on that, Lena.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grant

  After school, Grant and I headed to the principal’s office together. Unlike last detention, we were ushered into Principal Stephens’s office, where he waited for us behind his desk like he was holding court. There were chairs but he didn’t tell us to sit.

  “If there’s another incident of this nature between you two I will be forced to call in your parents. You know where to go.” He waved us toward the door. We made a quick exit and headed over to the table where we’d sat before. By the frown on the secretary’s face, I could tell her demeanor hadn’t improved. She pulled out the chicken timer, twisted its head around with a little too much enthusiasm, and then ignored us.

  Since we were stuck I figured I might as well get some homework done. I could feel Grant staring at me while I did my math problems. Should I look up and smile at him? Maybe, maybe not. Let him wonder what I’m thinking, for a change. In my mind, I was mentally skipping through a field full of flowers, singing, He likes me. He likes me. He really, really likes me. In reality, I decided to keep things a little more low key.

  Kissing me like that, on the quad in front of everyone, made us look like we were a couple. Something he claimed he didn’t want. So, my plan was to avoid any sort of relationship or girlfriend/boyfriend type talk. I could do cool and controlled, now that I knew he cared enough to land himself in detention to save my sanity.

  It took forever for the dead chicken timer to go off.

  When it did, I casually packed up my bag and headed for the door. No clingy girl here. Nope. Just a cool girl who liked a guy who was taking her on a real date this weekend.

  “What are you smiling about?” Grant opened the office door for me.

  “Detention is over. I finished my homework. Life is good.”

  “Doesn’t take much to make you happy, does it?” He checked his cell as we walked down the hall. “I need to make a stop before I take you home. Is that all right?”

  “Sure. Where are we going?”

  “My grandfather wants me to pick up a book for him.”

  We took the door which led to the side parking lot. Cold crisp air swirled leaves in mini tornadoes on the ground.

  “What kind of book does he want?”

  “He collects first editions of the classics. Something he’s been waiting for came in at Bibliophiles.”

  “I’m guessing that’s some sort of bookstore.”

  “Brilliant deduction, Sherlock.” He pulled out his key fob and pressed the button, which made the shiny black sports car beep and flash its lights.

  “Is it one of those bookstores that has a cafe in it where I can buy an obscenely large cookie and a mocha latte?”

  “No.”

  I pouted, hoping he’d take the hint.

  He shook his head and laughed. “Fine. We’ll get food. But we’re not eating in my car.”

  Bibliophiles was like no other bookstore I’d ever seen. Most of the books were in locked cases. Those books that were set out on shelves had leather covers with the title stamped on the spine in gold ink. “I’m guessing they don’t have the latest New York Times bestsellers.”

  “No. And it’s best if you don’t touch anything.”

  I would’ve been offended if there was anything in the place I wanted to touch. While we stood at a counter in the back of the store, I peered around, searching for a price tag poking
out from one of the books. None were visible which reminded me of the adage, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

  A man in a suit greeted Grant and then disappeared into the back of the store and came out with a book wrapped in clear plastic. “The Mylar cover protects the book from your touch. Please handle it carefully, and keep it out of the sun.”

  A book you weren’t supposed to touch. That was a new one.

  Grant accepted the book like it was a glass sculpture. “Thank you. I know my grandfather will love it.”

  I had a weird thought that in the future these books would be mementos of Grant’s grandfather. Books were nice, but I preferred something I could wear or keep with me all the time, like my watch.

  Once we exited the store, I had two questions. “Where are we going now, and when do we get to the food part?”

  Grant’s cell signaled that he had a text. He checked the screen and frowned. “My grandfather wants me to bring the book to him now.” He stared down the street. “There’s a deli nearby. I could drop you there and then come back after I see him.”

  Was he trying to ditch me? “You don’t want me to go with you?”

  He blinked and looked at me like I was insane. “You said you were hungry. I was trying to be nice.”

  Lame excuse. “I don’t want to eat by myself.”

  “Fine. You can come to the hospital with me.”

  And now the deli sounded like a good idea. “He’s still in the hospital?”

  “They’re running tests before they send him home. It’s no big deal.”

  Was he trying to convince himself or me? “Maybe I’ll wait in the car while you run the book up to him.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  We drove to the hospital in silence. I told myself Grant was irritable because of his grandfather. His mood didn’t have anything to do with me. Fifteen minutes later when we reached the parking lot of the small private hospital, I’d almost convinced myself it was true. Time to suck it up and be a better person.

  “I can come in with you if you want company. Hospitals can be hard to take some times.”