Kissing in Cars (Kiss and Make Up #1)(11)

"Those are two of the dumbest looking boys I have ever seen," she says without looking up, and flips a page of the magazine. I flop down beside her. "You should ask one of them out."

I pretend to think about it before I say, "Okay."

"What?! Shut up you slut!" she shouts, coming off the bed in a huff, magazine falling to the carpet. "I was kidding!"

I grab my stomach and fall over laughing. She's too easy.

"So was I you moron," I say. "As if I would do that. Hockey players are like cavemen."

Jenna smirks. "I know one caveman I wouldn't mind dragging me around by the hair...."

"Honestly Jenna. Why don't you just become his official stalker for crying out loud? He's not a god. He's an athlete."

"Yeah - an athlete I'd let drag me around by the hair...."

I sit on the bed and bite down on my lower lip, debating; if I tell Jenna that I caught Weston watching me in the library, at the lake, and again in the hallway, she will freak. Not just freak. Like, literally lose her mind. I would never hear the end of it on account of the big a stalker crush she has on him.

On the other hand, if I don't tell her I'll feel like I'm keeping a secret from her, which I have never done.

I go from biting my lip to biting my thumb nail.

Catching the nervous habit, Jenna hones in on me. "Wait. Is there something you're not telling me? What's going on?" She studies me with her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You're biting your nail. That means you're stressing out about something. Come on, tell Jenna what's wrong." Jenna plops back onto the bed with a flounce, sitting up against the headboard. She takes a pillow, settling it on her lap. "Here, lay down."

She pats the pillow indicating I should lay my head on it.

I bite my lip, still debating.

"Just do it!" She hisses.

"God you're pushy." I try to sound affronted.

"That's because you're a pushover. I do battles for you."

"Yeah, you're a regular knight in shining armor..." I mutter, but move to lay my head down. Jenna starts braiding my hair and doesn't say anything.

She's waiting for me to say something.

I let out a long breath.

"Soooo... you know how I always make a big deal out of you mentally stalking Weston McGrath?"

Long pause. Then, "Duh...."

"Well...there's been a development." Yeah, yeah, I know I'm being vague here, but I'm so nervous and bracing myself for her reaction.

"Yeah...." I can feel Jenna holding her breath. She stops braiding my hair, and I wiggle my head around to encourage her to begin again. "Oh hell no. I'm not doing your hair unless you talk. So spill. And this had better be good."

"He. Um... Ugh." I can't get the words out. "A few days ago... He..."

"Spit it out Molly!"

"A few days ago in the library, I caught him straight up staring at me. Staring at me hard. Is that such a thing? Oh my god. Then I caught him doing it in the hallway today before I smashed into Rick the Dick. So yeah. That's it." I blurt it all out in a long run on sentence without taking a single breath.

The room is completely silent. Not even our cell phone's interrupt with a text alert.

Neither of us is moving.

"Holy. Shit." Jenna has my braid suspended above my head and she's staring down at me. Her eyes have gone huge. For a few minutes at least, she doesn't say anything else. It's taking all my focus not to fidget under her scrutiny. Finally, in a very low voice she says, "Do you remember in 8th grade when we were playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, and I got locked in with Kevin Dryer and I not only let him make out with me but I also let him stick his hand up my shirt? I thought that was the best moment of my life."

"Um......" Where is she going with this?

"This is so much better than that."

***

I come back from grabbing snacks in the kitchen (correction: I come back from sneaking snacks in the kitchen) and Jenna is perched on the end of my bed, ready to pounce. The girl wants details and really only agreed to let me leave the room because I had to go to the bathroom. Otherwise I would have been held hostage.

This behavior, quite honestly, goes all the way back to middle school.

Back to when Jenna used to write this little column for the school newspaper (I think it was called 'Seen and Heard in the Halls,' which was basically this little gossip column). But of course she acted more like a reporter for the New York Times than for the Raven M.S. Gazette - and even back then she took herself way too seriously.

"Okay, so. As you were saying you were in the library, and you could feel him stripping you naked with his eyes." She has her fingertips folded into steeples and they're pressing against her chin.

"No, that's not what I said. If you're going to twist everything around to make it sound tawdry, just forget it. I'm not telling you anything."

"All right! All right, I'll stop."

"Promise?"

"Yes, I pinky promise." She looks sincere, but with her it's so hard to tell. I take it one step further by screwing up my face and threatening her with a knuckle sandwich. It's too bad my fist looks so puny.