Page 22 of Thunderstruck
Derek’s words flash through my mind.You’re angry. I was never angry before Sage, and I hate that he’s right. I hate more that I don’t know how to fix it. I’m not hung up on my ex, but I can’t move past her either, and I’m just…stuck. Sinking.
With her lips twisting in an amused smirk, Carissa looks to her left and meets Bean’s gaze. “He won’t be any trouble. We understand each other now.”
Whatever that means, I don’t like it, but her deliberate eye contact pulls Bean all the way over to us, a bounce in his step. “Need a ride, Magic Hands?”
“Dude,” I breathe, shaking my head at the nickname.
He, of course, ignores me. “I know you don’t have a car, and Rihanna here doesn’t drive, so he’s useless.”
I curse again as Carissa’s warm brown eyes fall back on me, her curiosity on full display. “Why don’t you drive?” she asks.
Because every time I get behind the wheel I get too anxious and tense to drive smoothly and safely.But I will never in a million years admit as much to my teammates. I need them to respect me, to tolerate me, and that will never happen if they think I’m too wound up to do something most adults can do by muscle memory.
Shrugging, I keep my mouth shut, and I feel like a pathetic moron when Carissa hooks her arm through Bean’s and follows him to his car. There was nothing nervous in her body language, so I think she’ll be okay. She had better be. As far as I know, Bean is a decent guy, but if I hear he did anything she didn’t like…
“You’re wasting your time, Rihanna,” Tink says, bumping his shoulder into mine like we’re buds. We’re not. “A girl like that won’t look twice at a guy like you.”
A few other guys chuckle, and then they all head to their cars and leave me standing on the sidewalk with my jaw clenched so hard it might never open again. I don’t need these guys to like me, no matter what Freya wants for me. But I really don’t want their opinions of me to be right.
Gramps is just taking the ribs off the grill when I step through the back door of Dad’s house in Sherman Oaks, which means they waited for me. Guilt threads through me, but I ignore it and grab the plate out of Gramps’s hands as soon as he loads the last of the meat.
“Smells good, Gramps!” I say, holding the plate high out of his reach when he swipes for it. “What are you two going to eat?”
Gramps’s next swipe is more of a fist to the stomach, knocking the air out of me. He snatches the plate and snickers. “You’re getting slow, Lemon.”
“I am not,” I complain breathlessly.
“Then what took you so long?” Dad asks, coming through the back door with a bowl of his famous potato salad. “You should have been here over an hour ago.”
“I told you.” Massaging my abdomen, I settle myself at the patio table and start dishing up coleslaw onto the three plates already set out for our dinner. “Something came up. Geez, Gramps, have you taken up boxing? That was quite the uppercut.”
“The senior center has a kickboxing class every Tuesday and Thursday,” Gramps says. He sets the ribs on the corner farthest from me, apparently convinced I’ll still try to steal all of them.
I laugh. “Kickboxing, huh?”
Dad rolls his eyes as he sits across from me. “He already bought a bag and installed it in the basement.”
Oh, they’re not kidding? “I’m going to have to see that in action,” I say with a chuckle.
I’ve been here less than three minutes, and already I’m feeling the weight of the day melt away. I shouldn’t have stuck around after practice. Carissa can take care of herself, and she doesn’t need me messing up her life. What was I even trying to protect her from?
There must be something in my expression because both Dad and Gramps grow still and fix their eyes on me.
I become suddenly engrossed by the cabbage on my plate. That lasts maybe two seconds before I can’t help but look up at them again because they’re never this quiet.
It’s moments like these, when they give me matching looks of bemused curiosity, that father and son’s similarities are the most obvious. Gramps still has his hair, though it has gone mostly gray, and he also has a pep in his step, enough for him to keep up with Dad. And take up kickboxing, apparently. Dad has Gramps’s round chin, a trait I also inherited, and though his eyes are a lighter shade of green, they have the same piercing power that Gramps’s do.
I don’t have their eyes. I got mine from my mom, who I’ve been told was everything warm and dark and sensual.
No kid wants to hear his mom described like that, but seeing as I never knew her, I’m happy my dad talks about her at all.
“What?” I finally say when the staring continues beyond what I’m comfortable with.
Dad blinks and dishes himself some potato salad.
Gramps is not so easily deterred. “Something is different about you, Coleman.”
“Ha!” I roll my eyes. “Nothing is different.” That’s part of my problem.
