Just for kicks by Susan Andersen

Author:Susan Andersen [Andersen, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romance
ISBN: 9780778323150
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2006-01-14T23:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Sixteen

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"I think we made decent progress tonight," Niklaus said as he and Natalie returned their pile of reference books to the biology stacks. He studied the pretty teenager from the corner of his eye.

"I know!" She shoved the last book onto the shelf and twisted toward him, her face alight. "Our project is gonna rock!"

She enthused over the enterprise while they gathered their book bags, then chatted about it the entire time it took them to reach the first floor of the starkly modern library and push through the entrance doors out onto the pale stone plaza. Finding himself effortlessly sucked into the conversation, Niklaus admitted he really liked that he never had to rack his brain to come up with clever stuff to say when he was with her.

Once they reached her car, however, she suddenly fell silent and stared at him over its roof. Staring back, he swallowed a lump in his throat and braced himself for the big brush-off. She was probably dying to dump him on his doorstep so she could go meet up with her friends.

She cleared her throat. "Would you mind terribly if we stopped at Burger King before I drop you off?" she asked. "I'm starving and my parents never have anything worth eating at home. They're into this totally disgusting macrobiotic crap."

Pleasure suffused him that she didn't intend to burn rubber to unload him as quickly as possible. "No, that sounds good."

They piled into the car and roared out of the parking lot. "I'm telling you," she said as she took a left onto West Sahara, "when your uncle offered me some of your Chinese food, I nearly dove headfirst into one of the cartons."

"No shit? You should have fixed yourself a plate."

"I was afraid I'd take one bite, lose control entirely and start stuffing it into my mouth as fast as I could until every last carton was emptied." She grinned over at him. "That might have been kind of hard to explain."

They pulled into the burger joint's parking lot a moment later and went inside. "Whoa," he said when their orders arrived. "You weren't kidding about that starving thing. Fries and onion rings?"

"So what's your excuse?" she demanded, nodding at his full tray as they wound through the tables to an empty booth in back. "At least I only got one Whopper."

"I'm a growing boy, I gotta keep up my energy." Sliding into the vacant booth, he watched her unload her meal onto the table across from him. "I got like two bites of Chinese food, and those burned off an hour ago. At least you probably got some brown rice or something else that sticks to your ribs."

"Why did you only have two bites when you had all those cartons of food?"

"We were supposed to eat earlier, but Carly was late getting there." Unwrapping the first of his burgers, he took a big bite and groaned ecstatically. "Now, this hits the spot. Great idea, Natalie."

"I know,

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