Free Kiss with Cherry Flavor (Grover Beach #4) by Anna Katmore

I sank lower in my chair, trying not to follow him with my gaze as my heart tapped a frantic rhythm in my chest.
    The girls immediately knew what was up, and they all gave me their best See? look.
    Not long after Simone’s call, Alex and Nick entered the café, laughing hard as they scanned the place for us. They saw Tony first and went over t o say hi. We couldn’t hear what they were talking about, but Simone grunted under her breath, “They’d better not dare tell him about our plan.”
    Next, Tony laughed out loud, too. It was an amazingly beautiful sound. One that made me want him to return my look. But he didn’t. He wiped the counter, then went through a swing door to a connected room, and the other two came over to us.
    “Hey, girls, what’s up?” Alex said as he lifted one leg over the backrest of Simone’s chair and took a seat right behind her, moving her forward to the edge but wrapping one arm securely around her middle.
    Nick pulled a chair from a nearby table and turned it around so he could straddle it backward next to me. “Hey, Finn Girl. What’s so urgent that you had to see me straight away?”
    Yeah, what was that again, Simone?
    I shrugged. “Umm…nothing important, really. So…you guys been playing video games?”
    Simone banged her head on the table. “Ugh, Sam. It doesn’t work like that.”
    “What?” I snapped at her, lifting my shoulders. “I just don’t think this is a good idea.”
    “What’s not a good idea?” Nick wanted to know—of course.
    Simone lifted her head, shoving her hair out of her face, and fixed Nick with a determined expression. “All right, since Sam doesn’t want to do it, could you please flirt a little with her?”
    Nick stared back at her for a couple of seconds, then he tilted his head at me like he was deliberating the idea. But in the end he looked back at Simone, totally clueless. “ What ?”
    Simone moaned. “We want to show Tony that he should take Sam a little more seriously or she’ll be off with someone else. And we need your help.”
    “Nuh-uh, baby,” Alex said behind her. “You can’t expect us to betray our pal.”
    “I can and I do.” She shifted between his legs so she could look at him over her shoulder. “Last night, you said yourself that Mitchell needs a kick in the butt to work up the guts to ask Sam out. Or didn’t you?”
    “Well, yeah. But I didn’t mean we should trick him. I mean, he’s our friend after all.”
    “Yes.” Nick sent me a quirky look. “No offense, Sam, but I don’t think he’d like it if I fooled around with you.”
    “But that’s the whole point,” Lisa explained. “If he doesn’t like it, he’ll realize that he likes her more than just as a friend. Get it?”
    The boys looked at each other for a moment. Eventually, Nick shrugged. Alex reasoned, “Weird girl logic.”
    “Folks! Do I get a say in this, too?” I grumbled, because I didn’t want anyone to help me make Tony jealous. I didn’t want Tony jealous at all. Heck, I was done with him. Couldn’t they understand that?
    “No!” all three girls replied at once.
    Fantastic. I was so screwed.
    Nick scooted a little closer to me. “So basically you want me to do what? Sit with you like Simpkins and Winter?”
    I scrunched up my face. “In fact, I’d feel very uncomfortable if you did that.”
    He leaned into my ear and said in a very low and almost whiny voice, “I think I would, too.” Sounding far too sweet for his six-foot-something, it made me giggle.
    At that moment, I caught a glimpse of Tony looking over at us. He’d come back from the other room and was wiping the menu boards now. A muscle in his jaw ticked.
    Oh my God . Did this mean Simone’s stupid plan was already working?
    Tony stopped wiping. Our gazes locked across the distance. His brows suddenly pulled to a deep V, but the glare wasn’t meant for me. He was looking to my right—where Nick was sitting, just as he was putting his arm around my