He called then, and told me that they were having a special on prime rib at the restaurant and they'd probably have some left over. If I thought my family would use it, he'd drop it by after he finished work around ten o'clock.
This immediately presented a glitch in my plan to hide the fact that I was seeing Tanner Debrock. I couldn't very well parade Tanner around my house and not expect Adrian to notice this fact. At the same time, after our rocky start, I wanted to convince Tanner that I was as normal as possible. If he pulled up to my house and I was sitting outside on my lawn in the cold at ten o'clock waiting for him, and then didn't let him into my house, he might cross me right off the normal list.
I said, " Um . . ."
"You don't like prime rib?"
"No, it's great. It's just that I'm going to be at Samantha's house tonight."
"At ten o'clock?"
"Late-night studying. Do you mind dropping by there instead?"
He said he didn't mind, so I gave him directions, hung up with him, and then called Samantha. I explained the whole situation to her—how it was all for Adrian—and asked if I could come over.
She listened quietly, and sighed when I was done. "We're back to verbal camouflage? Aren't relationships supposed to be based on honesty?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I said. "If relationships were based on honesty, none of us would wear makeup."
"If you date Tanner for long, Adrian will find out about it. She'll put two and two together."
"Yeah, but hopefully by then Rick will have moved on to the next girl who's tragically lacking in taste and common sense."
Samantha's voice sounded patient, as though trying to show me reason. "Adrian will be mad at you for deceiving her."
"I haven't deceived her. I've told her all along that there's nothing going on between me and Rick. Is it my fault that she won't believe me?"
"Chelsea . . ."
"Can we talk about this later? Like at 9:45 at your house?"
She sighed again. "I'll see you then."
It was 10:15 when Tanner came by, which was plenty late considering that Samantha had done nothing all night but shake her head and throw out sayings like: Honesty is the best policy, a clear conscience is a soft pillow, and all sorts of stuff about a tangled webs. When these didn't change my mind she finally said, "You're letting your sister think Rick likes you. That's just mean."
"Yeah, but the ends justify me being mean," I told her. I didn't get to say more because Tanner finally rang the doorbell. I told him Samantha and I had finished studying and did he want to go out for a bite to eat and to talk?
He stood on the doorstep, a warm silhouette against the cold night air. "We've both got school in the morning. I won't keep you up any later." He lifted the bag in his hand. "But besides the prime rib, I also brought you some cheesecake. We can eat a slice at your house if you want."
Samantha, who stood next to me in the doorway, sent me an arched-eyebrow all-of-your-plotting-was-for-nothing look.
I smiled back at Tanner. "Cheesecake sounds great, but this late at night my sister is usually wandering around the house half dressed . . . why don't we just eat in my car?"
He looked over at my Hyundai. "Let's eat in my car. It has a better heater."
I said good-bye to Samantha, all the while giving her my I-told-you-my-plotting-would-work look.
She watched Tanner and me head across the grass. "Good luck on your ethics test!" she called to me. "Remember, the ends don't justify the means."
"Ethics? Is that what you were studying?" Tanner asked.
I glanced back at Samantha, but she'd already shut the door. "Yeah." I didn't want to have a conversation about ethics right now. Especially since Tanner would probably expect me to know all sorts of philosophical things for my imaginary test.
"Oh look, it's snowing," I said. As we walked to his car, chunky snowflakes fell on our head and shoulders. Apparently winter had decided to move in.
Tanner left the bag with the prime rib on the hood of his Accord where it would stay cold, but took a Styrofoam box and some plastic forks out so we could eat the cheesecake inside the car. I liked the fact that he'd packed plastic forks. It meant he'd thought about it and wanted to eat dessert with me tonight. Well, either that or he thought my family was too poor to afford utensils.
We climbed into his car and he turned the heater on high. I shivered for a minute, but I wasn't sure if it was from the cold or just being so near to Tanner.
At first we didn't talk much. We just said the usual sort of, "So what have you been up to?" small talk. I watched the snow glittering in the light of the street lamp and wondered if that's all he'd say. But when we were nearly done eating, Tanner's face grew serious and I knew he was getting ready to say whatever it was that he'd come to say. He leaned against his door so he nearly faced me. Slowly, as though he'd given it a lot of thought, he said, "I've told myself since Monday night that things would never work out between us so I ought to forget about you."
I shrugged as though hearing this didn't bother me. "Oh? How's that going?"
With an almost accusing look, he shook his head. "Not so well. It turns out you're hard to forget." He waved his fork absentmindedly in my direction. "It's probably your eyes. Did you know they're the exact same color as the ocean at Oahu?"
"I've never been to Oahu."
"You'll have to trust me about that then." He took a bite of cheesecake and considered me for a moment. "It could also be your smile. When you smile you look like you have all these secrets you're about to share, like you'll let me in on some inside joke because you think I'm special."
"Oh." I didn't plan on smiling then. It just happened.
"We seem to smile a lot around each other," he said. "Have you noticed that?"
I nodded.
Tanner gazed up at the ceiling of the car. "Of course maybe it's just impossible to forget you because Richard brings you up every five minutes."
I stiffened. "Rick talks about me?"
"Oh yeah. Mostly along the lines of: How can you like the girl who wants to ruin my life? Or, Mom, talk some sense into Tanner. He can't date Chelsea. She tried to kill me."
The fork went limp in my hand. "He told your mother I tried to kill him?"
"Yeah, death by locker door." Tanner sent me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, Mom didn't believe him. Very few people are actually killed by locker doors." Tanner's warm blue eyes rested on mine and his voice softened. "Besides, my parents like you."
"Your parents have good taste."
"So do I. I have good taste." His gaze turned intense then, and my insides warmed by degrees. "I want to keep seeing you, but I'm not sure how to work this out. Do we try to reach a truce with our siblings? Do we ignore them and pretend we're both only children? Or maybe we should lie to each other—I'll say I think your sister is sweet and you can tell me my brother is charming."
"Let me try that." I put my fork to my mouth, gently tapping it against my lower lip. "I think Rick is charming."
Tanner nodded, his lips slightly twitching. "And Adrian is a sweet girl."
I pointed my fork in his direction. "I can tell you're lying." Tanner dipped his chin down and laughed. "Well, you said 'charming' like it was an insult."
"Yeah, and let me tell you Rick is the prince of charming."