“Where are we going?” I asked Sean for probably the tenth time in as many minutes.
“You’ll see,” he said with a self-satisfied grin. He was loving every minute of this. And why not? He knew something I didn’t know. It was his favorite state of being.
I, however, was flat-out nervous. I figured when Sean asked me out, we’d go to a movie, or, if he was feeling really adventurous, maybe he’d take me to a planetarium or something. He was, after all, a science geek. But instead we were walking along a deserted back street in who-knew-where LA without another soul in sight.
“Okay, but if you’re taking me to some underground chicken fight or something, I’m gonna bail,” I joked, trying to lighten my own mood. “I’m all for poultry rights. It’s a little-known fact about me.”
“You’ve been watching too much TV,” Sean replied. “I promise it’s nothing freaky.”
“Yeah, but define freaky,” I said. “Cuz your definition of freaky and my definition of freaky might not mesh.”
Sean just grinned.
Maybe I should have done a background check on this guy before agreeing to go out with him. And just to make it that much more confusing? Polo-and-T-shirt-loving Sean was sporting a trendy black button-down, distressed jeans, and a knit skullcap. I couldn’t even believe he owned those clothes.
“Here it is,” Sean said, upping the pace.
I glanced up and saw a truck-sized man in an all-black suit standing outside a nondescript door. Where the hell had he come from? My first instinct was to shrink away, but Sean stepped right up to the guy.
“I’m with Fritz,” he said.
The guy looked at us through tiny, watery slits of eyes. Oh, Lord. I was going to be the headline on the morning news, wasn’t I?
Finally, Truck Man nodded. He reached for the door and opened it. Loud dance music bounced out, reverberating through the alley.
“After you,” Sean said.
I stepped past him, and another huge man held back a velvet curtain so that I could slide through. On the other side of the curtain was a world of red. The couches were red leather, the bar was red wood, the floor was red tile. It looked like hell. If hell were an extremely cool place packed with fashionable people who were having the time of their lives.
“You like it?” Sean asked, placing a hand on my lower back as he stepped up behind me.
“That depends. Where are we?” I shouted to be heard over the music.
“It’s called Rouge,” he said. “My cousin owns it.”
“Oh, so is your cousin Fritz?” I asked.
Sean’s brow creased for a moment, then he laughed. “That was just today’s password. It changes every day. You have to be on their e-mail list to get the new one. It’s how they keep the riffraff out.”
“Exclusive.” I tried not to sound too impressed, but I don’t think it worked.
“Oh, yeah. It’s, like, the hottest underground club in LA right now. There are celebrities here pretty much every night.”
Suddenly my eyes were wide, searching the throng of shadowed faces for anyone I recognized. The guy at the corner table surrounded by fawning, miniskirted girls looked vaguely familiar, but he was wearing a hat and sunglasses, which made it harder to place him. One thing was for sure. Half the girls in this place were probably models. They all had a foot and a half on me and were showing twice as much skin. I wished Sean had warned me so I could have gone with one of Becca’s skimpier outfits instead of my blue tank top and jeans and with hardly any makeup to speak of.
“Do you come here a lot?” I asked.
“A few nights a week,” Sean said with a shrug, as he lifted his chin to acknowledge the bartender, whom he clearly knew. “It’s how I unwind.”
“Huh. You are just full of surprises, Sean Phillips.”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. So, wanna dance?” he asked, slipping his arms around me from behind. His breath was warm on my neck.
A shiver went down my spine, both from his proximity and a sudden case of stage fright.
“I don’t dance,” I told him, shying away toward the bar.
“Come on! Everybody dances,” Sean said, gently taking both my wrists. He moved his hips back and forth as he held my arms, and, I swear on my life, it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen. Still, I resisted. He had no idea of the level of awkwardness he was dealing with here.
“Really, Sean. You don’t want me out there. Trust me,” I said. “A girl has to know her limits, right?”
Sean stopped moving and raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you saying you can’t keep up with me?” he challenged.
I felt myself blush. Already my inner competitor was rising to the challenge. “Don’t. Don’t do that,” I said.
Sean lifted his shoulders. “Fine. If you, Jenna Appleby, think you’re not good enough…” he said, turning away.
“Sean!” I half whined.
He turned and held out a hand, giving me the most adorable pleading eyes ever. I groaned and slapped my hand down into his.
“Fine! But I warned you!”
Sean grinned as he pulled me out onto the red tiled floor. He wove his way right into the center, underneath a huge strobe that was flashing to the beat. He set me up so that I was facing him, and then he just started moving. Moving in ways I’ve only ever seen on the MTV Video Music Awards.
A few people around us started watching, awed. I just stood there. How had I gotten myself into this?
“Come on, Jenna!” Sean said, noticing my catatonic state. He put his hands on my hips and started stepping back and forth. Only the way he was stepping back and forth—bent knees, turned-out feet—looked like a dance move. “Right, together, left, together,” he instructed.
Seeing no way out of this, I did as I was told. I stepped from side to side with the beat, and since Sean’s hands were still on my hips, I held my arms bent at the elbow. I felt ridiculous. I even smiled apologetically at a few of the people around me, truly sorry for subjecting them to this.
“There you go!” Sean said. He stepped back, watching me appreciatively. I couldn’t believe he was actually looking at me as if I was doing something impressive. I felt totally stiff and awkward.
Then Sean placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye, still dancing. “Forget everyone else,” he said. “It’s just you and me.”
“Just you and me,” I repeated, feeling warm all over.
He nodded, still to the beat, and quickly kissed my lips. When he danced back again, he raised his arms, and I mimicked him, cracking up laughing. He laughed, too, and I closed my eyes for a moment, shutting out the world. When I opened them again, we were dancing—together alone—right in the middle of a huge crowd of people. Just him and me.
As I walked up the beach toward Kyle on Friday morning, nervous butterflies circled in my stomach. After our last encounter I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. Would he be back to his fun-loving self, or was I about to meet Tense Boy again?
It was amazing to me, how much I cared what Kyle thought—and, specifically, what he was thinking about me. I’d had a few hot-and-heavy encounters with Nicholas and one fabulous date with Sean. How could I possibly want a third guy to like me? But I did. I couldn’t help it. Kyle was just so…perfect.
I clung to the straps on my backpack and tried not to think about anyone else. I could figure it all out later. For now I had this particular guy to deal with. Kyle was crouching on the sand, looking for something in his bag, as I approached. When my shadow finally fell over him, he looked up and grinned.
“Hey!” he said, as if absolutely nothing weird had happened the last time I’d seen him.
“Hey…” I replied tentatively.
He turned around and sat down on his towel. “Mind if we sit for a sec before your lesson?”
“Okay.” I dropped down next to him on the towel.
He crossed his legs Indian style and looked at me, biting his lower lip. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about,” he said.
I held my breath, wondering what was coming next. Was he going to tell me who Manette was and why he had totally lost it?
“About the other day…I’m sorry I acted like a nut case with the whole phone thing.” He took a deep breath and glanced at me. “Manette is kind of an ex.”
“Kind of?” I said.
“No. She’s an ex. Definitely an ex,” he said.
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain this to me. I had a million questions, but I didn’t ask any of them. I had to see where this was going first.
“The thing is, I wanted to be totally honest with you about it because…I like you, Jenna,” he said quickly.
My heart completely turned over in my chest, and my whole stomach warmed.
“What?”
Kyle pressed his hands into the sand at his sides, lifted himself up, and turned to face me before dropping down again. Before I could even react to the swift movement, he’d grabbed up my hand.
“I think you’re just…amazing.”
“I am?” It was all I could think of to say.
“Are you kidding? You’re smart, you’re daring—”
“Daring.” Suddenly I couldn’t stop staring at our hands. He was holding my hand.
“Yeah, daring. You came all the way out here without your family, you take on this whole new sport—which you’re really good at, by the way. I really admire you.”
“You…admire me.”
Kyle laughed. “I mean, you’re completely unlike any other girl I’ve ever met. It’s like there’s not a superficial, game-playing bone in your body, and…I really like you.”
Suddenly I could not stop grinning. “You do?”
“Yeah, I really do,” he said. “I felt it the second we met, but I’ve been trying to resist it because, you know, you were a client, and I like to be professional.”
So he had felt that connection that first day. I knew it couldn’t have been just me!
“Plus, with the Classic coming up, I didn’t want to get distracted,” he continued. “But it turns out I can’t help myself from being distracted when I’m around you.”
“Wow,” I said.
“So, do you think that…I mean…what do you think?” he asked.
My pulse was racing so fast I could feel it in my ears. “I think…I like you, too,” I said, blushing.
Kyle’s smile widened and his grip on my hand tightened, as if this was the most exciting thing he’d ever heard.
“But what about this Manette person?” I asked. “I mean, she can’t be that ex if she’s still calling you.”
“She just had a hard time accepting it was over,” Kyle said, shrugging it off. “But I’ve made it clear now. You have nothing to worry about from Manette. I swear. She’s everything I don’t want.”
Implication? I was everything he did want. Sigh.
“So, I have a question to ask you.” He eyed me hopefully. “Would you come down to the Classic? With me?”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, a bunch of us are going, and it’s gonna be kind of a scene, but I think you’d like it. And I know I’d like to have you there, you know, cheering me on,” he added.
My heart skipped. “I would love to come.”
Of course, the Classic was the same weekend that Becca was supposed to be visiting, and I still hadn’t returned any of her increasingly incensed phone calls, but I wasn’t going to think about that now. I also wasn’t going to think about Manette and her phone calls. I could think about those issues when I wasn’t smack in the middle of a romantic moment.
Kyle reached up and touched my cheek with his fingertips. “I am so glad you came to California this summer,” he said.
My heart flip-flopped. “Me, too.”
Then Kyle leaned forward and pressed his salty lips to mine. His kiss was perfect. Sweet and slow and tender. It was so perfect, I felt like I had been waiting for this moment my entire life.