me?” he called to Jessica before Tanner could respond. “Waitress?”
Hands fisted on the table, Tanner leaned forward. “I will kill you.”
Josh waved that away. “No need to thank me. That’s what friends are for.”
“All set?” Jessica asked when she reached their table.
“Actually, no,” Josh said, giving her what Tanner recognized as the smarmy look he used when he thought he was being charming. “There’s one more thing we need.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“We need you to go out with our friend here.” Josh gestured to Tanner. “He thinks you’re hot.”
She glanced at Tanner dismissively. “Not interested.”
“Come on. You have the chance to make this young man very happy.” Josh trailed his fingers down the back of her hand and Tanner wanted to bash his friend’s face in. “Think of it as your good deed for the day.”
“You are a dead man,” Tanner promised him, the words all the more threatening due to his low tone.
“Yeah, come on,” Nate added. “We’re heading out to Kane’s Beach. Should be a good party. And since you don’t drive, you could ride out with Tanner.”
“You two are risking life and limb,” Christian told them, not even looking up from his phone as he texted someone. “He’ll kick both your asses.”
That got Jessica to finally look at him with something other than pure disinterest. But the curiosity in her gaze only lasted a second. “Are you ready for me to take your checks up or not?” she asked Josh.
“Tell you what,” Josh said softly, glancing around as if to make sure the other diners couldn’t overhear. “You agree to show our friend a good time tonight and I’ll throw in an extra fifty. Think of it as a different kind of tip.”
Jessica went white and then her face flooded with color. The rest happened in a blur. Tanner got halfway out of his seat, reaching across the table to wrap his hands around Josh’s neck but Christian grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him back. At the same time, Jessica flicked her hand to the side, upending Nate’s glass, spilling the remaining iced tea into Josh’s lap.
“You bitch,” Josh seethed as he leaped up.
“Oops,” she said, her eyes glittering, her teeth bared in a fake smile. “Sorry.” She swept up their cash and slips and sauntered away.
“I’m reporting her to the manager.” Josh pressed paper napkins to the wet spot on his pants. “She did that on purpose. You all saw it.”
“It was an accident,” Tanner said.
Josh tossed the soaked napkins onto the table. “What?”
Tanner got to his feet, looked down at Josh, had the satisfaction of seeing the cockiness on his face be replaced by apprehension. “It was an accident,” Tanner repeated softly. He sent Christian and then Nate pointed looks. “Right?”
Nate lifted a shoulder. “Sure. Don’t be such a pussy, Josh.”
“And you deserved it,” Christian pointed out as he got out of the booth. “Just be glad Tan doesn’t give you a beat down and let it be.”
“Whatever,” Josh grumbled as he left, hitting Tanner’s shoulder as he passed him.
Tanner took a step after him but Christian raised a hand. “Ignore him,” Christian said as Nate followed Josh out. “You going to the party?”
Tanner shook his head. “I have to work tomorrow.”
Which meant getting up at 5:00 a.m. and spending the next ten to twelve hours sweating his ass off. Not that his buddies understood that. Half the time they got pissed at him for ditching them. Neither Josh nor Nate worked; both got their seemingly endless supply of cash from their parents. Christian logged a few hours at the video place but that was mostly nights.
“All right,” Christian said, glancing at his buzzing phone. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll hang, play the new Call of Duty.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Christian walked out, texting as he went. Dude’s girlfriend liked to keep close tabs on him.
Tanner waited a minute, then two, but Jessica didn’t come back out from behind those swinging doors where she’d disappeared after taking Josh down a peg. The back of his neck got itchy. He hunched his shoulders and glanced around, saw Keira Seagren, a cute redhead in his grade who also worked there, watching him curiously. Feeling like an idiot, he lifted his hand in a half-assed wave and then walked out into the warm night.
Hands shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts, he kept his head down and turned the corner to the parking lot behind the tall, blue building. The setting sun glowed brightly, stark against the darkness of the cloudless sky, reminding him of that scene in Star Wars where Luke steps outside to watch the two suns of his planet go down. The warmth of the day hung in the air, promising a hot, sticky night.
He rounded the back of a blue Camry and stopped, his mom’s keys falling from his hand to land with a soft jingle on the concrete.
Jessica was there. Sitting on the top of a picnic table at the far end of the parking lot, her back to him, her head down, her light hair and white shirt like beacons in the growing darkness.
She turned to face him. He couldn’t move, didn’t know what to do. Even with the distance between them, he could feel the heat from her glare. She didn’t want to talk to him.
Figured she’d rather castrate him.
And damn Mr. Bauchman, his freshman year science teacher, for showing them that video of what castration entailed. He seriously could’ve lived his entire life without ever knowing its definition, let alone witnessed how it was done to bulls.
Her head held high, she turned away again. He quickly scooped up his keys. Eyes on the ground, he wove between two pickups to his mom’s minivan. Unlocked and opened the door.
And made the mistake of glancing at her.
Before he could change his mind—or think better of it—he slammed the door shut and walked over to her.
She stiffened, her shoulders snapping back. “What?” she asked, the word practically dripping frost.
His mouth was dry. His palms damp. When he was a kid, his mom used to tell him that one magical day, he’d outgrow his shyness. It would thrill her if he suddenly started blabbering on about useless, stupid topics. If, even a few times, he struck up a conversation with strangers the way she did.
Why he should do that when he had no interest in doing so, he had no clue. But she still held out hope.
Because other people got nervous when he had nothing to say.
Which he didn’t get. He liked the quiet. Liked listening. Watching. Taking it all in. Even his friends thought he was too shy or scared to talk to girls. Not true. He simply preferred to take his time and think about what he wanted to say first, that was all.
And right now, he wanted her to look at him. Had no problem waiting in silence until she did so.
She huffed out a breath, whirled around. Her eyes were blue, light blue like the midday sky over the water. And right now she was rolling them so far back, she probably caught a glimpse of her brain.
“Okay,” she snapped, “the whole heavy-breathing, prank-phone-call thing is super freaky when you’re doing it in person.”
“You’re not in trouble.” He wasn’t breathing heavily so he saw no reason to respond to that part of her comment. “I told Josh not to report you to your manager.”
She looked at him as if she wanted to plant the thick heel of her shoe in his face. “My hero,” she said, saying hero in a tone