Eenie Meenie Minie Mo

Chapter Seventeen

    The spell the Civil War spirits cast on me wore off not when I got home, but when I woke up. My mom graciously said not a word, but either she kept sneaking smiling glances at me because she already knew or she was just happy. I was betting on the former, but praying for the latter.

  I felt the need to suffocate myself in my pillow as soon as dawn arrived. Jeeze, had I really kissed Leander? So much for one kiss not meaning anything. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, my mind was going into overdrive. What happened now? Did we still hate eachother? Did he want to date me? Did he want to kiss me again?

  What?!

  It was enough to cause a minor aneurism.

  Jason wasn’t helping the cause with the incessant questions he asked about last night that I felt no need to answer. If he wanted to know so badly, he could ask Mom. Or, better yet, he could have left without his manipulative bitch fiancé and gone himself!

   “What’s your deal?” he asked me around lunchtime.

  I glared up at him as I slopped too much mayonnaise on my turkey sandwich. Every once and a while, I would catch myself glancing out the window, wondering if Leander was going to make the move. Then again……he had sort of made the first move last night. Did that mean I was supposed to make the first move? Did I even want there to be any moves taken?

  “What are you staring at?” Jason finally asked, coming to stare out the window beside me.

  I looked guiltily down at my poorly made sandwich. “Nothing,” I mumbled.

  Jason gave me a suspicious look, but he didn’t say anything of the matter. “Baby, you want anything?” he asked Kaitlyn, whose lazy ass was just across the room.

  She smiled faintly. “No, hon. I’m good, thanks.”

  I scanned her up and down judgmentally. What was the bitch trying to do, starve herself? I swear, I hadn’t eat her eat an ounce since she got here. Ungrateful little…..

  “Okay,” Jason answered happily.

  And, without meaning to, my gaze shifted to that damn window. I was beginning to memorize the patterns the bees were making. Was I that pathetic? Why couldn’t I just talk to him? Would that seem lame? It would. That was a total girl thing; overanalyzing a simple kiss. It hadn’t seemed like a simple kiss to me, but I could be way off base.

  And then a bright idea zapped through me like a lightbulb. I would just take Riggins out for a walk! Leander always seemed to appear when my golden fluff ball was out. I guess I would know then if things between us were different or just….awkward. But this was Leander! I was almost certain there wasn’t an awkward bone in his very fine body.

  In any case, Riggs must have had extra wheaties in his dog chow that morning because he was dragging me sporadically through the yard; only a bit away from ripping my arm clean out of its socket.

  “Rig-gins!” I scolded loudly. “Ugh, you little shit! Stop!”

  It was in me to just jerk back on the leash with all I had, and I wouldn’t think twice about the consequence of doing do until tomorrow. But tomorrow was only a day away, as the song goes, so I foregoed the breaking-of-my-puppy’s-neck and instead continued to scream at him like a true adult and mother.

  Wouldn’t you know my immense luck when the inevitable, “You gonna make that dog behave, Hollywood?” comment was made.

  I whirled around like I was surprised to see him—I kind of was—and replied wittily, yet a little unsurely with, “I was doing just fine ‘till he saw you.” True to his traitorous nature, my dog did, in fact, run straight to Leander.