Page 22 of Crazy for this Girl

I roll my eyes. “According to you, no.”

He looks over at me and smirks, his careless dark locks giving him the nonchalant vibe he always carries. “Then there’s your answer.”

“Dad—” I flick my attention to him—“tell Cal that the Beach Boys are the best oldies band ever.”

My own parent quirks a brow and betrays me. “Absolutely not. The Eagles are.” Cal and I both blurt out a prompt ew as Dad points a finger to the door. “Alright, both of you, out. You kids are disrespectful.”

“You think Take It Easy is a top ten song of all-time, Dad?” I tsk and shake my head. “I don’t think so.”

“You think a bunch of men talking about the beach all day is a cool band,” Cal complains back. “How many times can you sing about catchin’ a wave, surfing, and girls?”

“Isn’t that what you do all day?”

“Sing, no.”

I roll my eyes and glance at my brother now eating his strawberries. “What do you think, Jon? Beach Boys?”

“I like what Cal likes,” he says, chomping on his berry and signing his allegiance to the men in the room.

Unbelievable.

“I’m leaving this lot of goofballs.” I rise to stand, but before I can even push my chair back (I might as well go get some reading done while Cal’s eating), he grabs my hand.

The feel of his fingers wrapped around mine sends warm flurries floating around in my stomach, and I sit down—for many reasons.

One, because I don’t want Mom to see that he just touched me so intimately in her eyes, then I’ll get another lecture.

Two, because he silently wants me to stay and has never grabbed my hand like that before.

And three, it’s like he jolted my body to his silent command.

Cal allows our joined hands to hang carelessly between our chairs, and I don’t bother to pull mine away. His long fingers lace tightly between mine, sending summersaults to perform an Olympic performance in my gut and chest.

It feels nice... right. Not awkward or weird, forced nor strange, just nice.

But this is how things begin to get muddled up and crash, right? Signals gets crossed and... I inwardly groan.

My mother is starting to get to me, causing doubt in my relationship with Cal. He’s just holding my hand so he doesn’t have to chase me down before he eats

“Laynee and I were heading into town in about an hour, Cal” Mom states, completely disregarding what I had said previously. “When she gets back—”

“Mind if I come?” Cal asks, squeezing my hand because he knows I hate going into town with just Mom. I’ve complained enough about it. “I need to grab a few things.”

Highly doubt that he does, but he sure knows how to swoop in and rescue me.

Maybe I should lay off smacking his ego down and let the JV football team allow him to think he’s cool for a little while.

“I wanna come too,” Jonah chimes in, only because now my best friend is coming. He drops his fork against his glass plate and slides from his chair.

“Sweet, little buddy. I’ll buy you some comic books if your mom says it's okay. I’ll help read them to you.”

“Yeah!” My brother jumps up and down, throwing his little fists excitedly in the air, while Mom remains quiet—AKA she doesn’t want him to go.

I don’t know how much longer she thinks she’s going to keep me from dating (not that I’m going to date Cal), but she’s definitely making an effort to keep him away as much as possible.

She’s going to lose.

The giant smile on my face is authentic while I watch Cal flick his gaze from my face to my shirt and back to my face again. He must’ve forgotten or thought I was kidding when I told him I bought a Good Charlotte t-shirt, but I’m proudly sporting it right now and he couldn’t look any more revolted if he tried.

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