The Trouble with Dating Sue (Grover Beach Team #6) by Anna Katmore Page B

anticipation swamped me. I hoped it would finally put me to sleep with some happy dreams, but no such luck. At some point, and it felt like hours later, I started making faces at the ceiling, only because the silence in the darkened room was killing me. Gah! Foosball would have been so much better than this.
     
    *
     
    Sleep-deprived, I trudged through the house with a foggy head and glassy eyes on Friday morning, struggling to get into my routine. A hot shower and coffee so strong it could burn a hole in my stomach helped matters a little, but not much.
    “Want a ride?” Ethan asked as he walked past the kitchen, where I lounged, half lying on the table.
    I gave him a thumbs-up for a yes.
    “Then shake a leg. It’s late.”
    A tired grunt left me. After chugging down the rest of my coffee, I put the cup in the sink and rushed to get my stuff for school. Ethan was already waiting in the car, engine humming, by the time I walked out the door.
    Head lolling against the window, I caught three minutes of sleep on the ride, but if anything, the short nap put me in a worse condition than before. With my current tunnel vision, I felt like Grover Beach High’s in-house zombie as I shuffled through the hall to first period.
    Luckily, the caffeine kicked in over the morning, and the yawns I had to smother during history and trig stopped when we played a hard game of basketball in gym. Done with the second shower of the day, I jogged to Spanish afterward and sank into the seat next to the one already claimed by Lauren. “Hi,” I greeted her with a bright smile.
    She said “hey” a little curtly and didn’t even look at me for a full three seconds.
    Uh-oh.
    My brows knitted together. “Everything okay?”
    “Yep. Everything’s fine.”
    Shit. Nothing was fine. But what had I done? Gaze uncomfortably darting around the room, I cleared my throat. “Are you pissed because I didn’t come down to the shopping center last night?” If she was, I really didn’t see why, but with girls one could never know.
    Now Lauren turned her head in my direction as slowly as the velociraptor in Jurassic Park when it scented its prey. It gave me the chills. She inhaled deeply, slanted her head like she was pondering how to answer that, then obviously decided not to answer at all, and just rolled her eyes.
    Mrs. Sanchez walking into class as the bell rang cut our not-so-funny conversation short and forced me to retreat. I could only speculate for the entire next hour. Sometimes I sneaked a glance to Lauren’s side, but each time she noticed she expelled an angry snort. She might’ve breathed smoke the next time I looked at her, so halfway through Spanish, I stopped and kept my gaze to my notes in front of me.
    When the bell heralded my lunch break and Lauren slipped out of her seat faster than a viper, I dumped my books in my schoolbag and hurried after her. Just outside class, I caught her arm, stopping her in her tracks. She would talk to me now whether she liked it or not. It was Friday, and I had an important basketball game tomorrow that I wanted her to come watch. And on top of that, I didn’t handle parting in anger very well, because I’d had enough of that shit when my parents were still together.
    “What is it?” I snarled at her face, clasping her arm harder as she tried to jerk it free. “Tell me what your problem is, please , because I really don’t know.”
    For an extended moment, she tried to kill me with her stare.
    “Please,” I repeated more insistently.
    Lauren knew about my issues with arguments, and that was probably the only reason she relented now. Her voice, however, was like a lethal injection. “How did the school project with your brother go?”
    I swallowed, hard. “Uh—”
    When my grip on her loosened, she finally pulled away and folded her arms over her chest, a muscle jumping in her jaw as she waited for my reply.
    “It…umm…went good?”
    Her mouth fell open, and her eyes grew wide. Dammit,