Chapter 10

Suzie

I heard Luke calling but I couldn’t stop. My heart was in my throat and I couldn’t talk anymore. I didn’t want to. This night had felt too good to be true, and now I knew why.

It had been.

While the others had stood there arguing and throwing insults, I’d had the nauseating sensation of falling, back to earth, back to reality, back to the real world. I’d been letting myself live in some sort of fantasy land all week and now I could see it all so clearly.

Nothing had changed. I was still a nerdy computer geek who couldn’t care less about fashion and had never even learned how to put on makeup. Standing there next to Cara—heck, even next to Margo—I saw myself through their eyes. I could see how I must’ve looked—like a little girl playing dress-up. Like a plain, boring kid who spent all her free time playing video games trying to act like she belonged beside a guy who everyone admired.

A guy who everyone had kissed. I was one in a long line of girls, and I didn’t hold a candle to any of them. I wasn’t pretty, I didn’t know how to flirt, and I’d never fit in in Luke’s world.

Did I really think he’d taken me out tonight just to humiliate me? No. Not really. Part of me thought maybe it would be easier to ignore his voice calling after me if I truly did believe that. Because then he would be a grade-A jerk like Joel, not even worth my time. But I didn’t think he was cruel, just like I didn’t believe that he intended for me to feel like an idiot tonight.

But that didn’t change the fact that I did. I saw the way Cara was laughing at me, the way Joel was smirking in disbelief.

They knew what I should have known—they knew what Matt had been saying all along. This wasn’t right. We lived in two different worlds, and while we may have a common interest in winning this gaming contest, that was all we had in common.

“Suzie!” he shouted again, this time closer.

I stopped, not because I wanted to talk but because I didn’t know where I was going.

I stared at the parking lot full of cars and instantly realized my mistake. Luke had been the one to drive and I had no idea where the rest of my friends had run off to. I could either start walking home or turn and face the music.

By the music, I mean the Fonz. For a second there I forgot all about Halloween and at the sight of him bearing down on me in full-on fifties attire…I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Nope, that wasn’t true. My body made the decision for me and I started to cry. I tried looking up at the dark night sky and blinking rapidly but I had a feeling that only made me look even more pathetic as Luke came to a stop right in front of me.

“Suzie Q,” he said softly, quietly, his voice so gentle it nearly made me start crying all over again.

“I’m fine,” I said stiffly.

“You don’t look fine.”

Dang, I hated that his teasing tone made me want to laugh even when I was about to cry. “Stop,” I said. “Just stop.”

I finally brought my gaze back down from the sky and found him watching me with such sweet tenderness in his eyes it made it hard to breathe, let alone think.

“Stop what?” he said.

“Stop being so nice to me.” I realized how ridiculous that sounded when he arched his brows in surprise. “I mean it,” I said. “It would be so much easier if you would just stop being so nice.”

“I bet it would,” he said, his lips twitching up at the corners in that look of barely suppressed amusement that I’d come to know so well. It was tempered with a sadness, though, and I was a little stricken to realize that I was the cause of that.

He moved a little closer to me. “I’m sure it would be much easier to pretend that what we have between us isn’t real if you went back to thinking of me as the big bad wolf.”

“I never thought—”

“Yeah, you did,” he said, but there was no anger in his voice. “You lumped me in with Joel and those other morons, and I get it.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, shame mingling with embarrassment that I’d ever thought of him as just another dumb jock. “You do?”

He nodded. “I might not have noticed you before this year but you didn’t really see me either.”

I swallowed. It was hard to deny that. But it didn’t change anything. I could still see Cara’s expression when she’d spotted his arm wrapped around me. She couldn’t understand why Luke would ever want anything to do with me, and in that moment I hadn’t either.

He seemed to read my mind as he took another small step forward and reached out to push one of my curls out of my face. “I like you, Suzie Q. What I don’t get is why you find that so hard to believe.”

I couldn’t for the life of me explain why that simple statement made the dam burst and tears start flowing.

“Don’t cry, babe,” he said. “Please don’t cry.”

I sniffed and didn’t resist when he pulled me against his chest. His chest was warm and solid beneath my cheek, and his scent that I knew so well mixed with leather and whatever hair product he’d used to mold his hair into that style.

Even through my tears I had this moment—one of those rare, fleeting moments of clarity. I knew that this would be a memory I would never forget. I knew without a doubt that the smell of him, the feel of him against me, even the sounds of shrieks and laughter coming from the carnival, they would be permanently ingrained in my long-term memory.

He stroked my back. “Why are you crying?”

I sniffed. It was so embarrassing, too humiliating to admit. “I don’t know why you like me.”

He pulled back slightly to look down at me. “Don’t you?” he asked. “You can’t imagine a world in which a guy finds you beautiful and smart and funny and sexy—”

“Now I know you’re lying,” I said with another sniff. “No one finds me beautiful, or…or sexy.”

“I highly doubt that’s true,” he said. “But I can’t speak for anyone else, I can only speak for me.” His arms around me tightened and his expression grew uncharacteristically serious. “If other guys don’t see your incredible appeal, then clearly they don’t know you very well.”

I let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Who knew Luke Warner could be so sweet? I hadn’t. I wouldn’t have if he hadn’t gone out of his way to get to know me. But much as his words made my heart squeeze and my chest ache, it didn’t quite ring true.

I didn’t think he was lying, exactly, but there was something missing. This wasn’t the whole story. I eased back a little further so I could look up and see his face while still standing in the warm comfort of his embrace. “What aren’t you telling me?” I said. “What changed at the start of this year that suddenly made you aware of me, that made you…” I hesitated, hating how insecure I must have sounded. “What made you see me?”

He drew in a deep breath but it was the flicker of wariness in his eyes that made my stomach sink. It had me attempting to pull back even more as I steeled myself for the truth. But Luke tightened his grip with one arm and brought his other hand up to cup my cheek. Then he slid that hand into my hair, holding me still as he leaned in to kiss me.

The kiss was just as hot as always, but I felt a sliver of fear, a chill that made it impossible to enjoy the feel of his lips against mine because a part of me was waiting for the other shoe to drop. That kiss wasn’t one of longing, but one of warning…like he was preparing me, or him, or maybe both of us.

It set off an alarm in my brain, one that made it hard to breathe as I waited for him to speak.

His hand stayed in my hair, his palm cupping my skull as his hand on my back moved in little circles. “You keep saying that I don’t know you,” he said. “But that’s not true.”

I blinked up at him as I tried to make sense of his words, but more importantly his wary tone.

“What do you mean?” I said. “You and I barely spoke up until we partnered up for the competition. I mean, you’d been annoying me for weeks, but we never actually—”

“That’s the thing, Suzie Q. We have talked before this week. A lot, actually.”

I frowned up at him and he sighed, his whole body seeming to deflate as he did. “You say that you don’t know me, but you do, Prince Z. Sometimes I think you know me better than anyone.”

The blood rushing to my head roared in my ears as my stomach dove into a freefall. My body was quicker to register what he was saying than my mind. My stupid brain could only manage to fixate on that name—Prince Z.

Prince Z, Prince Z, Prince Z.

It played on a loop as I struggled to fully understand what he was saying.

He knew I was Prince Z, which meant…what?

The implications came swift and fierce. He’d been spying on me. He’d interacted with me online. He somehow knew me from the game, and he thought that I knew him too.

He thought I knew him well. Very well.

Ice filed my blood as I looked up to see the anguished look in his eyes. “Suzie, I never meant to lie—”

“Who are you?” I said through lips that seemed frozen and stiff. “Who are you in the game?”

I think I knew before he said it, but I needed to hear it. I needed to hear him say it.

“I’m DataG.”

Oof. There it was. The truth bomb that landed like a physical blow to my chest. All of those suspicions and implications were replaced by something so much worse.

Memories.

Lots and lots of memories of all-night chats, and stories, and jokes, and sharing.

And all that had been with Luke.

“When?” I asked. It was hard enough to get that one word out so I was glad when he understood what I was trying to ask.

When had he figured it out? Oh God, had he always known?

No. No, that couldn’t be the case.

“Labor Day weekend,” he said.

I stared at him in shock. Labor Day weekend? I remembered it vividly, of course. Most embarrassing moments were memorable like that. But that was more than six weeks ago. Almost two full months ago. That was…

That was the exact same time that he’d started to notice me.

I dropped my head into my hands as horror swept through me. All this time I’d been telling DataG everything. I’d been opening my heart to him and all that time he’d been mocking me at school, probably laughing at me behind my back.

“I think I’m going to puke,” I moaned.

I felt Luke’s hand on my back and I jerked away from his touch. “Don’t,” I snapped. “I can’t believe I trusted you.” I didn’t even know who I was talking to as I said that—my online buddy who I’d thought was my friend or the guy who’d given me my first kiss.

I closed my eyes as I tried to reconcile the two. To think I’d had such a crush on DataG and all that time he’d been lying to me. Pretending he didn’t know anything about me, when he’d been seeing me every day at school.

“Suzie, please let me explain,” he said. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I turned away from him, hugging myself to keep warm as shivers ripped through me. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“But I need you to know—”

“No,” I said sharply as I started to walk away. “You’ve had months to talk to me, you’ve had months to get used to the idea. I think I deserve that too, don’t you?” I barely recognized my voice it was so hard and cold, but at least it hadn’t been shaky. At least I hadn’t cried again.

That was what I told myself as I headed back toward the carnival, ignoring Luke’s pleas to at least let him drive me home.

But the thought of sitting in the same car with him as I replayed the memories of all the things I had said and done—with DataG and with Luke—it was too much. So I ignored him and headed back into the crowd.

After aimlessly wandering the carnival I finally spotted Matt and his AV club friends at one of the games. I went up to him and touched his arm. He took one look at me and told his friends he had to leave. With one arm wrapped around my shoulders he led me out of there and into his car.