November 7th, 2007
“He’s so cute!” Lexi gushed, clutching onto my arm tightly as Bruce walked by. She made sure to be quiet enough so he couldn’t hear her, but I didn’t think it really mattered. It was pretty obvious that Lexi had a huge crush on Bruce. “Don’t you think he’s just the cutest boy ever?”
I wouldn’t exactly agree with her. There was someone that I had my eye on that I thought was the cutest boy ever, but Lexi already knew all about him.
“He’s alright,” I had to admit, because ugly was definitely the last thing Bruce Wilkins was. Stupid was definitely one of his characteristics, but not ugly. “But I think Dallas is cuter than him.”
“Of course you think Dallas is cuter than him,” Chelsea teased as she slipped into the chair next to us while AJ and Aimee slid into chairs across from Lexi and me. “You’ve always thought that Dallas was cuter than everybody you’ve ever met.”
I rolled my eyes, but I knew my blush was obvious. Was it a bad idea to have a crush on your best friend? Especially when it was a best friend who was four years older than you and you had known since you were born? Yeah, it seemed like it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help but fall head over heels for him…
It didn’t help that he was a senior and I was a freshman. He had so many other friends, and I was surprised he even acknowledged me anymore… But he still treated me like I was his best friend. And not to mention he had a girlfriend named Trinity. Man, did I hate her.
“Lexi was just talking about Bruce,” I informed them quickly, trying my best to get off of the subject of Dallas and me. “You know, that stupid football player Bruce.”
“He isn’t stupid!” Lexi defended, but I knew she didn’t even believe it. We didn’t go to the same school as Bruce, since our school was an all-girls school, but he went to Dallas’s school so we went to his games. And for a freshman, he was a pretty amazing player. I knew that that was the only reason he was still on the team, since his grades should have kicked him off.
“He’s stupid, Lex,” AJ nodded in agreement with me, crossing her arms over her chest and looking over at Aimee, as if waiting for her to agree as well. “Isn’t he, Aimee?”
Aimee and AJ were almost like twins. They didn’t look alike, but they always did everything together. There was rarely ever a time that they were seen apart, and they were definitely best friends. Even though all of us were best friends, they were definitely the closest.
“I don’t see anything special about him,” Aimee shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest as she looked away from where he was sitting. “Sure, he looks okay, but I wouldn’t want to be with someone as stupid as him.”
“Do you think I have a chance with him?” Lexi now asked Aimee, since she was the one that knew about boys out of all of us. She had had a few boyfriends while the rest of us had had none, but she would always help us out when we needed it.
Aimee looked at Bruce and then back at Lexi. She repeated this a few times, her arms crossed over her chest as she looked at both of them intently. She finally stopped, looking Lexi dead in the eye as she shrugged, “Yeah, I guess you have a chance.”
Lexi started squealing, gaining the attention of some of the people that were in the coffee shop with us. She didn’t get Bruce’s attention though, since he was so busy shooting straw wrappers at one of his friends, and Lexi let out a sigh of relief when she saw that he didn’t turn around to stare like everyone else had.
When the front door opened and the bell jingled, I didn’t think anything of it. It just signaled that someone was coming in or out, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. But when arms were suddenly being wrapped around my waist and pulling me out of my chair, I couldn’t help but let out a squawk as I was being spun around in the air.
“Hi, Jordy!” the familiar voice called, causing my eyes to go wide until he finally set me down. “I knew I’d find you and your friends here!”
I smiled up at Dallas, nervously giggling as he straightened out my hair after his spin had messed it up. I was used to this, since it had been happening ever since before I could remember, but I still acted like a nervous idiot whenever he got close to me.
“Hah, yeah,” was all I said, rubbing the back of my head as he continued to grin down at me. He never noticed how I was always so squirrely around him, but I guessed that that was a good thing. I didn’t want him knowing that I liked him… “We always come here, don’t we?”
Dallas chuckled. “Yep, you do. But everyone from our schools hangs out here, so it isn’t that big of a surprise or anything!”
Dallas was always so bright and chipper, and sometimes I just didn’t understand how he could always be so happy. I guess it was because he was so popular and liked, and not to mention good looking. He was definitely my definition for perfection…
“Everyone does hang out here,” I agreed stupidly, still having no idea what I was supposed to say. My four best friends watched in amusement from behind us, and I wished that Dallas and I were somewhere private so we could talk. He might have not noticed how I was a complete idiot, but everyone else sure could…
“So, I was wondering if you wanted to go out tonight,” Dallas asked me suddenly, that bright smile still on his face. “We could go get ice cream, if you want. I know how much you love ice cream, and I heard this place is really good. It just opened, so I thought it’d be fun if we went together.”
I just stared at him for a moment, unable to say a word. Was he asking me out on a date? There was no way he was asking me out on a date! Dallas Berg, the most popular senior at his school, was actually asking me, a brainy little freshman, out on a date? Was that what was happening? Did he suddenly want to be more than friends? Because I would have loved that!
“Sure!” I smiled brightly, my eyes lighting up as stared into his brown ones. “That sounds like a lot of fun!”
Dallas grinned right back at me, and I felt like I was going to melt. Was this love? It sure felt like it was. I had known him my entire life, and I had always liked him. But now did he like me?
“Alright,” Dallas nodded, taking a step back toward his friends that were now calling him. “I’ll pick you up at seven. See you then, Jordy!”
I waved at him, feeling so overjoyed that I thought I was going to explode. I plopped back down in my seat next to Lexi, almost in a trance as I just stared off into space.
“Did you just get asked out on a date?” Chelsea asked, her piercing green eyes wide as she stared at me. “Did that Greek God really just ask you out on a date?”
“Did he?” I found myself asking Aimee, afraid of what her answer was going to be. What if she said no? What if Dallas didn’t want to go on a date with me? I mean, I was just a little freshman while he was a senior… Not to mention he had Trinity. What happened to Trinity?
The redhead shrugged, that bored and uncaring look evident on her face. I knew she was thinking, and I felt my foot tapping under the table impatiently as I waited for her to answer my question.
“I think he just asked you out on a date,” she nodded, still looking bored like she always did. “He did ask if you wanted to go out instead of hang out.”
I couldn’t help it anymore. I started squealing, and soon the rest of the girls joined me as well. And now, everyone in the coffee shop looked at us, including Bruce. But none of us cared anymore.
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“Blue or purple?” I asked, holding two shirts up in front of me as the girls and I continued to raid my closet.
“Blue,” Aimee nodded, looking at the shirt that I was holding out in front of me now. “It brings out your eyes.”
I blinked down at her in confusion. “But my eyes are brown.”
Aimee shrugged. “It still brings out your eyes.”
“And the blue one’s your favorite shirt,” AJ made sure to remind me.
“He’s going to be here soon!” Lexi cried out as she continued to watch the clock. I quickly wiggled into the blue shirt as quickly as I possibly could have. I still had to let the girls do my makeup! I was sure glad I let them do my hair earlier… “Hurry, Jordan! Hurry!”
I was hurrying, if she somehow didn’t notice. All four girls seemed to be even more excited about my date with Dallas than I was, and I was so excited that I was almost shaking. The guy of my dreams had asked me out on a date after I had known him for fourteen years, which was my entire life! This was too good to be true…
“Hey, Jordan,” my brother suddenly said as he popped his head into the room after the girls were finally done doing my makeup. “Dallas is here, so I suggest you better hurry it up.”
I looked back at Austin in excitement, smiling so much that my cheeks were starting to hurt. I was really going on a date with Dallas! I had to be dreaming! Or had my dreams finally come true?
Austin frowned when he saw how much makeup was on my face. He knew that I had a crush on Dallas, but he didn’t know that I was thinking that I was in love with him.
“I don’t like that you’re wearing so much makeup,” Austin sighed, shaking his head as he now fully opened my door and stepped inside. “It’s going to give Dallas the wrong idea. Plus, you look like a clown.”
I looked at myself in the mirror, worried by what Austin was telling me. I thought I looked amazing with all this makeup, but I was a girl. Austin was a boy, and though he was two years younger than Dallas, he was his best friend as well. What if they both thought the same thing?
“Quickly, we have to redo my makeup,” I said, walking into the bathroom and quickly grabbing a wet towel to scrub my face with. I made sure not to mess up my hair as I scrubbed the towel against my skin, letting out a content sigh when I saw that it had taken the makeup off without smearing it all over my face or making my skin red.
“Only a little bit of everything,” I now told the girls as we surrounded the mirror once again. I then turned toward Austin. “Stall Dallas for a little while, will you? Play video games or something. I’ll be down in ten minutes at the latest!”
Austin rolled his eyes, shoving his hands in his pockets and making his way out of my room and down the stairs, but I was able to hear him grumble before he left, “Girls are so weird…”
When the girls were finally done with my makeup once again, I was able to look at myself in the mirror. I let out a sigh when I saw that I really did look nice without as much makeup, and I quickly fixed my hair before bolting down the stairs. The girls were going to leave right after I did, so they started to gather their things as soon as I started for the stairs.
“Hi, Dallas,” I smiled, trying my best to keep my breathing under control. I wasn’t the most in-shape person ever… “Ready to go?”
Dallas tossed his controller to Austin, grinning as he jumped up from the couch before walking over to me. He stopped, examining my face for a moment, and I was terrified that he was going to find something wrong with me.
“You look cute, Jordan,” Dallas smiled, grabbing ahold of my cheek and pinching it. I pursed my lips, but didn’t make a sound as he did so. He thought I was cute, and that was all that mattered… “But you always look cute, so there really isn’t a difference!”
I smiled up at him, hoping that this was going to be the beginning of a great night together.
With one joking threat about bringing me home at eleven o’clock on the dot from Austin, Dallas and I finally got into his car and drove away from my house. We drove by my grandmother’s house, and I couldn’t help but smile as we did. My grandmother and I were very close, and I was probably going to have Dallas drop me off at her house afterwards so I could say hi to her before going back home. She only lived a few houses away, so I could have just walked home. I always did…
When we got to the street that the ice cream parlor was, it was surprisingly hard to find a parking lot. I had been in that part of town before, and I couldn’t remember a time when it had been as packed as this.
“This place sure is crowded,” Dallas told me as we entered the bright store. He was definitely right; the place was completely packed! If it was already getting dark outside, I knew that it was going to definitely be dark once we got out of there… “Do you still want to get ice cream?”
“Yeah!” I nodded, still smiling brightly up at him. I wasn’t going to let a crowded place ruin my date with him.
After waiting in line for at least a half hour, we were finally in the front. Looking down at the counter, I could see that they also sold little knickknacks, not just ice cream.
“Do you think Trinity would like one of those necklaces?” Dallas asked me as we headed toward the counter. I felt my heart suddenly sink, not believing what I was hearing. Trinity? He was thinking about buying something for Trinity? But… wasn’t he on a date with me?
“Trinity?” I squeaked, swallowing hard when I heard how stupid I had sounded.
“Yeah, she’s mad at me over something I did and I think that I should buy her something to make it up to her,” he informed me now, looking down at one of the necklaces with a little ice cream charm. “Do you think she’d like something like this?”
I had only met Trinity a few times, so I didn’t know her that well. She was a nice person, I guessed, but I didn’t like her. And the only reason I didn’t like her was because she was going out with Dallas.
I was upset that this wasn’t a date like I thought it was, but I was also happy that I could have gone out with Dallas at all. I was surprised that he asked me to come with him and not any of his friends… But I was still glad that I was able to hang out with him anyway.
“I’m sure she’d love it,” I nodded, swallowing to stop the tears that were threatening to fall.
I was happy. But… I couldn’t help but feel sad.
“Oreo?” Dallas now asked, but he knew that he didn’t even have to. That had been my favorite type of ice cream ever since before I could even remember. Dallas knew everything about me… When I nodded, he looked back at the cashier and said, “One medium Oreo, one medium chocolate, both in a cup, and then that necklace right there…”
The cashier smiled at me, as if he knew how I was feeling somehow. But right then, it didn’t seem like anyone could understand how I was feeling right then.
After he had paid, Dallas handed me my ice cream before grabbing his and stuffing the necklace for Trinity in his pocket. I really hoped that she liked the necklace a lot. I knew that I would have if it was coming from Dallas.
“Hey!” Dallas grinned into the crowd of people widely before we could pass through any of them to try to find a table. He then turned back toward me, still smiling. “Wait here for a minute, okay? I just have to say hi to someone really quick. Just stay here and I’ll be back soon!”
“Okay,” I nodded with a small smile, scooping up ice cream in my little pink spoon before sticking it in my mouth. Even if this wasn’t a date, that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to appreciate his time and the ice cream that he was buying for me.
“Hey, Hunt!” I heard him call as he ran off, and I looked over to only see the back of a boy with dark brown hair and broad shoulders. I thought nothing of it, shrugging it off as I looked away and continued to eat my ice cream while Dallas quickly spoke with whoever the broad-shouldered guy was.
True to his word, Dallas came bounding over at least a minute later, that wide smile of his still plastered on his face. There wasn’t a time when he wasn’t smiling… I really loved that smile.
“Sorry for making you wait,” he apologized, a sheepish smile now replacing his bright one. “I just didn’t expect him to be here.”
“Who was that?” I asked, looking toward the direction I had seen this guy go. When I didn’t see him, I assumed that he had just left.
“Just a friend of mine,” Dallas shrugged, turning toward the front door now. “He thought you were cute.”
“Really?” I blinked, my cheeks burning now. That guy thought I was cute? He definitely didn’t look like a freshman… And even though I only saw his back, I could tell that he was good looking. That was the first guy outside my family and Dallas who had called me cute…
“Hah, maybe you could go out with him someday!” Dallas suggested enthusiastically, heading toward the door now. Before I could ask him what this guy’s name was or what school he went to, Dallas cut me off by asking, “Do you want to go eat this in my car or something? It’s even more crowded in here now.”
“Sure,” I agreed, knowing that my questions about his friends could wait until later.
Just before I could reach for the handle of the front door, it suddenly burst open and almost took me out with it. If I had been half of an inch closer, it would have smacked right into me. Luckily I wasn’t that close…
Only a millisecond after the door had burst open, someone was suddenly ramming into me. I staggered back a little, letting out a cry when I felt the cold wetness of my ice cream as it squished into my shirt.
Luckily, I didn’t fall down, and neither did whoever had run into me. I looked down at my shirt before looking up at the person, and I couldn’t help but wrinkle my face in disgust. There went my favorite shirt!
Forgetting about my ruined shirt, I looked up at who had smashed into me. Dallas was by my side in seconds, but he was the last thing I was thinking about as I stared up at a pair of wide green eyes.
I hadn’t ever seen this boy before in my life, so I had no idea why he was looking at me the way he did. It seemed like he had been running because he was out of breath, but his eyes were wide, and his mouth was agape. What was with that look he was giving me?
I waited for him to apologize, but this boy didn’t say a word. When he finally stopped looking at me like I was some kind of rare creature, he quickly glanced over at Dallas and how close he was to me before looking back over at me again.
“Um…” was all I could say, since this totally wasn’t my fault. He was the one who ran into me! What was I supposed to say to him? I didn’t want to be mean and demand that he apologize! He definitely wouldn’t say that he was sorry then… “Excuse me?”
The boy suddenly smirked, catching me off guard completely. What was with that look now? This definitely didn’t look like it was going in the direction of apologizing!
“Yeah, excuse you.”
Was he kidding me? There was no way he had just said that! It was his fault that he had run into me! It was his fault that my favorite shirt was ruined! Was he seriously blaming me for what had just happened?
“Excuse me?” I found myself repeating, but this time it definitely sounded different than the first time I had said it.
“You already said that,” the boy informed me with another smirk, now shoving his hands into his pockets.
I couldn’t remember a time when I had met someone as rude as this guy! He was the one that threw the door open! He was the one that had slammed into me! And now he had the nerve to not even apologize for ruining my shirt or for running into me!
“Well, sorry,” I snapped, though apologetic was definitely the last thing I was right then as I took a step closer to him. “I didn’t run into you! I didn’t ruin your favorite shirt!”
The boy looked down at my ice cream stained shirt now and shrugged. “Eh, it looks better.”
I had only known him for a few minutes and I already wanted to punch him! How did he get off talking that way? It wasn’t like he was the Queen of England or anything! That stupid jerk…
“Hey,” Dallas finally butted in, holding a hand up in between this boy and me before our chests could touch from how close we were getting. “Just apologize to her, will you?”
This boy now smirked at Dallas, but something I couldn’t make out flashed through his eyes for a quick second as he looked at him. “What do I have to apologize for?” the boy now asked. “I just made her shirt look better.”
“You knocked into her,” Dallas told him, as if this boy somehow didn’t know. “And I don’t care if you think her shirt would look better that way or not. Just apologize to her.”
“I don’t have to apologize to your girlfriend,” the boy now sneered teasingly now, and I couldn’t help but grind my teeth together as he said this. That girlfriend thing definitely struck a nerve with me, but I highly doubted it did anything to Dallas… “It’s a free country, you know.”
I was getting fed up with this guy now. How could he be so rude and annoying to someone he had just met?
I took another step toward him now. “Look, buddy--”
“Jesse.”
“What?”
“My name is Jesse,” he informed me with a smug smile now as he stuck his hand out for me to shake. “What a pleasure it is to meet you.”
All I could do was glare at him, completely ignoring his hand. “I wish I could say the same.”
He smirked right back at me, just like I thought he would.
“Come on, Jordan,” Dallas sighed impatiently, obviously fed up with this Jesse guy as he clutched onto my hand as he started to lead me out of the still opened door. “I’ll take you home now.”
I sure hoped that after this, I would never see this Jesse guy again. If I was lucky, this would be the only time I would ever be in contact with him. I knew that if I ever saw him again, my life was definitely not going to be the same ever again.
We walked right passed Jesse, my arm brushing his as I passed by. I felt him freeze, and I couldn’t help but notice that I had chills going down my arm after I had touched him.
Huh. I wonder what that was about.
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Guess what today is. :D November 7th!
I didn't do this on purpose, I swear! :D
I'm sure most of you have already read this chapter, but whatever! Jesse! :)
It's also my crazy aunt's birthday today. -_- We're celebrating her birthday on the 12th since today's a Monday, so I'm sure all I'll be hearing NOVEMBER 7TH NOVEMBER 7TH NOVEMBER 7TH all day.
Please COMMENT, VOTE, and FAN! :D