Project Smile

Eight

"Peter Daniel Bailey, get your butt back here with my dang hoodie! It's freezing!" I yell, chasing after him. He keeps running, laughing hard as I slip on the frosted ground before regaining my footing and continuing to run. Pete keeps giggling as he runs before he finally slips, falling right on his butt.

We have been at this for half an hour. My alarm woke me up an hour early. Instead of going back to sleep like a normal person, I decided to get up and get ready for school. Luckily for me, Pete always arrives early. Not so luckily for me, Pete decides to act like a little brat and steal all of my sources of warmth. This is one of those days.

Before Pete can push himself up, I'm towering over him and pulling him up, stealing my hoodie back in the process. He playfully scowls at me as I grin and slide the article of clothing over my head. He knows that he can't take it while I'm wearing it. Once, he tried to and accidentally grabbed the shirt I was wearing under it as well. Then he ran away right as the bell rang and everyone was passing by me on their way to class. It was quite an interesting day in the principal's office.

"Are you going to work today?" I ask, looking at him and changing the subject.

"Yeah."

"Need a ride?"

"Please. But don't push me through the ordering line while I'm wearing my roller skates again." I laugh and shoot him an evil grin, not providing an answer to his request. "Cass, you're scaring me. Don't do it."

"I don't know, it sounds pretty tempting," I tease as he groans. Pete works at Sonic, the only one near us that requires all of its employees to wear roller skates. Since I'm almost always stuck with the task of driving him to and from work four days a week, I like to have a little fun. This includes pushing him around in the ordering lane while no one's coming through, mainly because I know that Pete can do absolutely nothing about it.

"Alright, but if you do, I'll steal all of your Fall Out Boy CDs and you'll be forced to listen to the mainstream music on the radio," he smirks.

"You wouldn't," I say, holding a hand to my chest.

"Try me. You'll never hear the voice of Patrick Stump again."

"Shut up," I laugh. He knows that I'll cause him a ton of bodily harm if he even tries to take them away from me.

"Make me," he replies. We hold a staring contest for a few moments, but I can't handle staring into his dark brown eyes for long.

A nearby horn honks, breaking our concentration. Pete and I both look back to the parking lot, where Erin's car is now. She rolls her window down and smiles before yelling, "Kiss and get it over with!"

I roll my eyes, stepping away from Pete. He steps away from me at the same time, a clear message to Erin that we're not doing anything of the sort. She sighs and gets out of the car. "Come on, guys! Please do it so I can get my twenty bucks!"

"There's a bet on it now?" I yell back, not sure if I should be exasperated or in disbelief that they have honestly bet freaking money on if I'm gonna kiss someone, and who I'm gonna kiss.

"Should I tell her that she's already been winning that twenty since about four years ago?" mutters Pete, grinning at me and waggling his eyebrows a little. I smack him in the chest.

"You know that we don't speak of that. And it wasn't even a real kiss," I insist.

"Keep telling yourself that," smirks Pete. I roll my eyes and look over at Erin, who's walking up to us now. "And you heard none of that," he says quickly when he spots her. When she gives us a confused glance, Pete smiles sweetly. "I think that should spare me today."