Free Dating Trouble (Grover Beach Team Book 5) by Anna Katmore

time for either forgetting his homework or talking in class. At least that’s what I’d heard about him.
    The girls and I headed into the cafeteria together. A line had already formed in front of the food counter, and it would take us ages to get there. Luckily, Nick, Tony, and Ryan stood quite a bit ahead in the line. They called to us, offering to take our food on their trays, so we didn’t have to line up at all.
    “Pizza and kiwi for you?” Nick asked me, reciting my usual.
    “Yeah, but grab an extra kiwi, please,” I told him, following my friends to the long table by the window that was known by all as the soccer table. Hoping Ethan would join us, since he’d temporarily taken my place on the soccer team, I searched the room for him and found him sitting with a bunch of seniors, two rows away from the science club table. On the way to my seat, I had to pass him. It was nice how he cracked a smile when he saw me. He also reached for my hand and stopped me.
    “Meet at Charlie’s today?” he asked and winked.
    Yeah, I have to admit, I kind of melted a little right on the spot. The sigh that came out of my throat was unintentional, but it couldn’t be taken back. “Five okay?”
    “Want me to pick you up?”
    A million thoughts shot through my head at once, all of them connected with my parents having another argument and Ethan walking into the middle of it. No way! “Um, why don’t we just meet there? I need to get a few things from town anyway.”
    “Cool. See you then. And please, Susan…” At his dragging out my name, I swooned a little more. “Don’t stand me up again.”
    Our short conversation earned him some curious looks from his friends, but none of them said a word. At least not in front of me.
    “I won’t,” I said with a smile and headed off to my friends.
    In my usual place, Nick had already put down a plate with two slices of Hawaiian pizza—ham and pineapple, my usual toppings. “What’s the extra kiwi for?” he asked me as he tossed both fruits, one at a time, across the table.
    Flames of shame licked at my face. Lowering my head, I mumbled, “It’s for later.”
    “What’s later?”
    Since I couldn’t just ignore his question, I said with some hesitation and my voice as low as possible, “I have detention.”
    “You what ?”
    I swear all the kids at the table turned their heads and their disbelieving gazes on me.
    “Very subtle, guys,” I muttered, aware of other heads now turning in our direction as well. Grabbing the fork on my plate, I scattered the heap of pineapple pieces on my pizza, put the fork down and took a bite. “Miss Hayes caught me saluting someone with my middle finger this morning, so she put me in detention. It’s no big deal.” The food in my mouth muffled my voice. “Alex is kept after school every other day.”
    Alex Winter laughed at me. “But I’m not flipping people off in the hallway.”
    “Yeah, and that’s totally not like you,” Lisa said. “What happened?”
    I swallowed and sipped from my bottle of Sprite. “Some dick got on my nerves. Never mind.”
    “Ooh, language, Miller,” Tony said and chuckled as he bumped his shoulder against mine. “All you need now is a tacky tattoo in a striking place and you’ll have a rep as the school’s new bad girl.”
    Everybody burst out laughing at that visual. Only Ryan kept it low with a chuckle and a teasing look at me, as though he might have an idea about just who the mentioned dick was. I neither denied nor agreed to his suspicion but kept munching my pizza. Once done, I peeled and cut one of the kiwis into slices. The other one I slipped into my backpack.
    Simone and Lisa pestered me about my punishment in PE until I told them how it was Ethan’s stupid brother who got me into trouble. Loyal friends they were…they giggled their heads off again.
    My final class of the day was journalism. Lisa was in it with me. We sat down in our front-row seats and watched the rest of the