The Boyfriend Project Read online

  “I wonder how she keeps her balance,” I mused.

  “Practice, probably.”

  I turned to face him. “Do you find that kind of walk sexy?”

  “I hadn’t really thought about it, but now that you mention it—not really.” He grinned. “So what’d you bring?”

  “A surprise.”

  Most of the workers were taking their break now. Jeremy led me over to our tree. He didn’t have a tree with Jade. We sat in the shade. I opened the basket and handed him a sandwich. He examined it, grinned.

  “Your grandmother’s chicken salad?” he asked.

  “Yeah, except I made it. Something’s missing. I think she may have a secret ingredient that she didn’t write down.”

  He took a huge bite, chewed. “Tastes the same to me.”

  “Thanks.” Nibbling on my sandwich, I didn’t agree with his assessment. I’d eaten way more of my gran’s chicken salad than he had. I swallowed, having difficulty getting the food past the lump in my throat. I opened a Coke, took a long sip. Better. “So, uh, what were you and Jade talking about?”

  “Oh, Scooter Gibson’s having a party tonight at his parents’ lake house. They’re out of town. She wanted to make sure we knew about it.”

  Yeah, I was pretty sure she couldn’t have cared less if I knew about it.

  “I was thinking we’d go,” he said as he finished off his sandwich.

  “We haven’t seen each other much lately,” I pointed out.

  “Which is why I thought we’d go.”

  “But I was thinking just you and I would do something.”

  “We haven’t done anything with anyone else since I started working this job. I’m beginning to feel like an old married person or something.”

  I knew he hadn’t said that to be hurtful. It wasn’t in Jeremy’s nature to be hurtful, but I liked when it was just us.

  “I figured you’d jump at the chance to do something different. You’re the one who said we were getting boring, should shake things up.”

  My quick burst of laughter sounded more like I was choking. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah. Ask Avery and Fletch to go with us.”

  Fletch? Some of the cool kids at school had called Fletcher that, but Jeremy never had before. It seemed odd, and yet, it didn’t.

  “Okay, I’ll text her before I check in for my shift.”

  “You can do it now,” he said, just before starting in on another sandwich.

  “This is our time.”

  “We’re only eating. That way we’ll know if we’re picking them up or not.”

  Our time together was so precious that I wanted to be selfish with it. Still I pulled out my cell phone and sent Avery a quick text about the party. A couple of seconds later, her response came back.

  “She says they’re in.”

  “Cool. Fletch doesn’t drink. He’s designated driver.”

  I stared at Jeremy for a minute. He didn’t drink, either. Well, one beer when we arrived at parties with booze and no parents. He was always completely sober by the time we left, even if I was a bit tipsy. Although maybe he’d never drunk more because he was always the driver.

  He reached into the basket and brought out a foil-wrapped item. Opened it. Grinned. “Brownies!” Leaning over, he brushed a kiss over my cheek. “Thanks.”

  That was the Jeremy I knew, the one who never took anything for granted. I tugged on his shirt. “This is new.”

  “Gets hot out here, and I got to thinking about what you said about a little tan helping win the contest. The tank we got when we were at the beach, I’m saving for the competition.”

  “I like it.” I considered touching his arm, but then I thought about Jade doing the same thing. I didn’t want to be like her.

  Jeremy finished off his brownie. “I need to get back to work.”

  “I’ll see you tonight then.”

  “Yep.” He pushed himself up and sauntered off.

  There was something different—a toughness—about his walk, the way he moved. Stronger, more confident.

  I didn’t know why it made me feel less confident about us.

  Chapter 24

  JEREMY

  When we arrived at the party, Fletch and I left the girls by the pool and went to get drinks. We’d been to a party here before graduation so we were pretty familiar with the setup. The hard liquor was in the kitchen. Beer was in ice coolers near the deck that ran along the back of the house. As we neared, I caught sight of Chase. He was holding Jade in his arms, lifting her up and down like she was a set of barbells and he was doing a workout. People standing around were counting off the reps.

  “That’s him,” I said to Fletch.

  “Who?”

  “Chase. Over there with Jade.”

  “Impressive.”

  I scowled at him. “You’re not supposed to be impressed. You’re supposed to be pissed. He’s such a show-off.”

  We reached the coolers. I opened one, grabbed a beer, twisted the cap, and took a long, slow swallow.

  “We can beat him,” Fletch said.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been doing the crunches until they almost kill me, and I’m starting to see some definition but realistically—look at that guy.”

  “But he’s showing off everything he’s got. We’re more subtle. That’s better. And we’ll have a secret weapon.”

  I finished off the bottle, tossed it into a nearby trash can, and reached for another. “Oh, yeah? Fill me in on that.”

  “This guy who brought his car into the shop is a personal trainer. Totally buff guy. So we got to talking about tricks of the trade and he said if we add just a dash of grape seed oil to our abs, biceps, shoulders, it’ll really make them pop.”

  I felt this wave of appreciation. “You could have kept that to yourself, given yourself an edge.”

  “Probably would have if I was having to watch this guy flirt with Avery. Although it looks like maybe he’s moved on to Jade.”

  The counting came to an end with a round of cheers and applause. Chase bowed, then he and Jade wandered off.

  “Maybe.” I downed more beer.

  “Shouldn’t you take it easy with that?” Fletch asked.

  “You’re designated driver.” I dug my keys out of my jeans pocket and tossed them to him. “I’m in the mood to party, especially now that we have a secret weapon.”

  When the bottle was empty, I did a free throw move to get it into the trash can. I grabbed three more beers. “Let’s get back to the girls.”

  We were halfway there when Jade was suddenly standing in front of me. “Hey, handsome.”

  No one had ever referred to me as handsome. Cute, maybe. But not handsome. I vaguely wondered where Chase was. Then I was struck with this crazy thought that she had abandoned him so she was free to come over to speak with me. I dug the possibility that she might have tossed him aside in favor of me. Served him right for flirting with my girl. More surprising, however, was the realization that Jade didn’t even seem to notice that Fletch was standing beside me. I was used to him getting the attention when we were together. I had to admit that I liked being noticed. I liked it a lot.

  Chapter 25

  KENDALL

  “Can you believe they broke up?”

  Tamara Dailey, who had barely given Avery and me the time of day while we were in high school, was suddenly acting like we were best buds. As soon as the guys had walked off to get us something to drink, Tamara—one of the biggest gossips in high school—had rushed over like she’d just heard Channing Tatum was going to make an appearance at our sides. But her news was more sobering: Amber Montgomery and John Ramirez had called it quits.

  “They’ve been together, like, forever,” Tamara said. “Since freshman year.”

  “He’s going to Stanford, isn’t he?” Avery asked. She knew all the smart people.

  “Yep,” Tamara said. “And Amber is going to the junior college.”

  “It’s hard to have a lo