The First Love Anthology: A collection of novellas

by Amy Sparling

  My stomach tightens. Is he going to give it back? My parents would kill me if I came home with a pet without asking them.

  But worse than explaining a new dog to my parents, would be knowing Jaxon hates me so much he doesn’t want my gift, which is the one thing he’s been wanting more than anything.

  “Hi,” I say, stepping outside and closing the door behind me. “You don’t want her?”

  “What?” he says, brows pulling together. “No. Of course I want her.” He smiles and pets her little head.

  “Then why did you bring her to me?”

  “I wanted to see you, and I didn’t want to leave her alone.” He pets the dog again and then explains, “My family is out of town, helping my grandparents move to their new house. I’m only here because I have school.” He looks at the puppy. “I didn’t want to leave her alone.”

  “So… why are you here?”

  His gaze slowly looks at me while the puppy wriggles excitedly in his arms. “I wanted to say thanks.” He holds up the dog. “For this. I don’t know how you pulled it off.”

  I smile. “She was in a shelter three hours away.”

  His eyes widen. “You drove that far just to get me a puppy?”

  I shrug. “I owe you more than that for what I did.”

  He’s quiet for a minute. “You didn’t have to do all of this.”

  “Well, you like her, right? Your parents will let you keep her?”

  He nods. “They’re extremely excited and can’t wait to get back. I told them my friend found her for me.”

  I grin. “Are we friends now?”

  He stares at me for longer than I like. “Yes,” he says. “I forgive you. I would have forgiven you anyway, even without the puppy.”

  I reach over and pet her little furry head. “I really am sorry.”

  “I know. I wish I could have just shrugged it off, but I’ve been mocked and laughed at when I was younger. It made me shy around girls. So when I really liked you and found out about—well, you know—it just sucked.”

  I look down, unable to meet his eyes with all the guilt I feel. “Can we start over? But only if you want. If you never want to talk to me again, that’s fine.”

  He laughs. “Let’s be friends. I can always use a Taco Bell partner for lunch.”

  I smile, but it sucks hearing him say the word friends. That’s not exactly what I wanted, but it’s better than having him hate me.

  “Do you want to hold her?” he asks.

  I nod eagerly, and take the puppy, holding her up close to my face. She loves licking faces, so I close my eyes and let her go to town. Her little puppy breath is the cutest thing, next to her tiny wagging tail.

  “I love her,” I say, as she curls up in my lap and licks my hand.

  “She is pretty freaking cute. When my told my mom I got a Golden, she screamed on the phone, she was so excited.” He laughs. “I never even thought to check shelters that were that far away.”

  “Luckily, you have me,” I say, bumping into his shoulder. “When my friend wants something, I make sure it happens.”

  We sit out here until it’s nearly midnight, playing with the puppy and chatting about safe topics. We never go back to the subject of dating, or liking each other, and that sucks because it’s all I want to talk about. But for now, we’re friends. And that’s better than what we were yesterday.

  Chapter 10

  Two Weeks Later

  Jacie laughs at something Marcus says. What makes me look over at her is the way she laughs—all giggly and overexcited and not at all like her normal laugh. I haven’t asked her yet, but I’m pretty sure she’s crushing on Marcus, who is Jaxon’s best friend.

  I reach over and steal one of Jaxon’s fries. “I should buy two lunches since you eat half of mine,” he says with a grin as he takes a bite of his burger.

  “That’s a great idea,” I say, stealing another fry. Jaxon and Marcus have been sitting with us at lunch almost every day lately. It’s been fun sharing our table with the guys and having different things to talk about. I think Jacie is especially appreciative of the new company because she can’t keep her eyes off Marcus, who is tall and athletic but also a genius in all advanced classes.

  When Jaxon smiles at me from across the cafeteria table, my chest aches. He is so unbelievably cute. But ever since we agreed to be friends a couple weeks ago, that’s all we are. Friends.

  We text and hang out and hit up Taco Bell for lunch every few days, but that’s all it ever is. I am grateful for his friendship because he’s an awesome guy, but there’s always this part of me that wishes we had something more.

  I long for another date with him, where it’s just the two of us. Not like how he and Marcus joined me and Jacie at the movies last Friday. That was as friendly as it gets. No one held hands, no one flirted at all. We were just a group of friends.

  I wonder if this is all it’ll ever be for us. If someday I’ll meet a new guy to date and Jaxon will still just be my friend. I hate that idea. I wish I could go back in time and meet him before I ever made that stupid bet. I wish the anonymous car vandal had slashed my tire just a week or so before. That way I’d have a clean slate with Jaxon from the beginning.

  When lunch is over, Marcus and Jacie split their separate ways because they both have gym next period. Jaxon walks with me halfway to my next class before turning to his, and sometimes this is the only alone time we get each day. I love every second of it.

  “I’m thinking of taking Maxie to the park today,” Jaxon says. Maxie is what his little brother decided to name the dog. He’d originally wanted the name Max, but then changed it to Maxie upon learning that the dog was a girl.

  “I think she would love that,” I say.

  Jaxon grins. “Do you want to come with me?”

  He almost seems a little nervous, which is silly. We’re friends now.

  “Sounds fun.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥

  This is the first time we’re hanging out with just the two of us. After that night on my porch when Jaxon forgave me, he’d called me the next day to invite me to dinner with a couple of his friends. I’d brought Jacie, and we’ve all hung out as a group ever since. But this is different.

  He picks me up after school and I scoop Maxie off the floor of the front seat and cuddle her in my lap. He’s bought a bright pink leash for her, saying it’s more fitting than the old leash he uses on his neighbor’s dogs.

  We chat about random things on the short drive to the park, and then when we get there, it’s oddly empty. Usually there’s a ton of parents bringing their kids here after school, but today I only see one woman jogging around the perimeter of the park on the walking trail.

  “Looks like Maxie won’t make any friends today,” I say as I set her on the ground and attach her leash.

  “I think she’ll still have fun,” Jaxon says. He lets me hold her leash as we walk her around, but eventually we take it off because there’s no people here and she’s still so small she can’t run very fast. If she tries to take off, we’ll easily catch her.

  Jaxon brings a tennis ball and Maxie loves chasing after it. I haven’t laughed this much in so long.

  “Maxie is so amazing,” I say, sitting on a park bench to catch my breath. I’ve been chasing her around for half an hour.

  “Dogs are the best,” Jaxon agrees. He sits next to me and calls to Maxie, who rushes up to him, her tail wagging.

  “You want to fetch?” he says in the baby voice he uses with her. He lightly tosses the ball and Maxie takes off after it.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I say.

  “Honestly, I’ve been looking for an excuse to hang out with you…without our friends.”

  There’s a flutter in my chest, but I keep it lighthearted. “I’ll make sure not to tell our friends that,” I say with a laugh. “They’ll be offended.”

  Maxie returns with the ball and Jaxon throws it again, after wrestling it out of her mouth. He sits back and looks over at me, a softne
ss in his eyes. “Mae?” he asks, his voice low.

  “Yes?” The butterflies in my stomach are out in full force.

  His eyes meet mine. “Can I kiss you?”

  A wave of relief washes over me. I smile and reach for his hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  ♥ ♥ ♥♥ ♥ ♥♥ ♥ ♥

  The New Guy

  Chapter 1

  Asha

  There are three thousand students at Briggs High School, and I am just one of the many who will be trying to get into a good college on scholarship. I’m not in the top ten percent—not yet anyway—and I’m no star athlete that’s guaranteed a free ride. And despite what my mom likes to tell me, I am not all that special. Honestly, even my mom doesn’t seem like she believes it all that much anymore. I am just Asha Bronte, basic boring sophomore. One of the three thousand. I don’t stand out. I blend in.

  For some people, that’s fine. That’s all they care about, is blending in and never being an outlier who gets noticed. But that’s not good enough for me. Blending in doesn’t get scholarships. Sure, I’ll probably be accepted to the universities I apply to, because I’m not aiming for the ivy league or anything, but once I get accepted, there’s no affording it without a scholarship. I need a scholarship.

  My parents are the best. They’re supportive and fun, and still married despite how most of my friend’s parents have divorced or split up. But my parents never did well in the finances part of their life, and we all pay for it. Daddy is a mechanic at a shop owned by some jerk who never gives him a raise despite the fact that he does all the work. My dad desperately wants to own his own shop one day, but there’s just not money for that. Mom works at a waitress at local diner, and sometimes her tips are good, but mostly they’re not, and her feet hurt all the time and she keeps saying that working this job over the age of forty is the worst thing ever. When I get into a good college, I’ll get a good education, and then a good job, and I’ll pay for Daddy’s new mechanic shop and I’ll make sure Mom gets to retire early. Until then, I’ll keep working my ass off.

  It’s the first day of school, and I’m over the moon excited with my new position as Officer in dance class. I’m grinning like a crazy person as I lean forward in my vanity mirror and apply some mascara. It was the last week of school last year, when Mrs. Johnson pulled me aside and told me the good news. I’d been chosen as officer. Only seven girls get that honor—one for each dance class—and I am one of them. Being Officer means I lead the class in warm ups and cool downs and I help Mrs. Johnson teach new dance moves. I also coordinate our pep rally dances, fundraisers, and charity work that we do throughout the year. Being Officer means I’ll have one more stellar thing to add to my college applications.

  Scholarship, here I come.

  Because my parents are always broke, I get the fun joy of riding my bike to school each day. I mean, I could ride the bus, and sometimes I do when it’s raining outside, but I prefer the workout of my bike. (And the fact that I get to avoid Beau, my lame ex-boyfriend, who also rides my bus.) I take my time, pedaling leisurely so that I’m not drenched in un-ladylike sweat by the time I get to school. The ride home is different, and I’ll gladly take the sweat over getting home earlier. But at school, I need to be professional and put together always. I am an Officer now, and I have to lead by example.

  The first day of school is always fun because it’s a shortened schedule, that has the first two hours open for people to change their elective classes or rearrange their schedule. Then we go to all seven class periods but only for like thirty minutes each, so it’s not really school work. The teachers introduce themselves, pass out the syllabus, and then we move on to the next class. Tomorrow the homework will be handed out and notes will be taken and the drudgery of school life will become official. But for now, it’s fun.

  And it’s even better than fun for me, because I get to sit at the dance table in the main hallway, which is lined with tables for every class there is. Mrs. Johnson offers me some coffee from the Keurig she keeps in her office and I feel important now. I’m one of her trusted students, and I get more responsibilities and free coffee. Awesome.

  There are papers all over my table, and I try to keep them organized. Once the first bell rang, the main hallway became a frenzy of students rushing around trying to get the class they want. The rule at Briggs High School is that all classes are first come, first serve. If you miss out on the popular ones, they’ll be gone and you’ll be stuck with something stupid like health technology. Gag.

  Dance is popular, but not nearly as much as the other classes because it’s only girls that sign up for it. My classes fill up quickly, but there’s still some openings because some girls want to drop dance for something else. For the first hour, another officer named Melissa joins me to help out, but she’s a senior and it’s like she’s already checked out for the year because she spends the whole time on her phone, only putting it down to chat with her friends when they stop by.

  It’s a lot of work, keeping track of names and classes, but soon the two hours are almost over and the hallway is practically empty. Some teachers have packed up their tables and headed to their classes already. I check the time and see that the bell will ring in two minutes. Time to pack up, too. I gather my papers with the names of all the students that will now be in Mrs. Johnson’s dance classes and stack them neatly on top of each other. I’m vaguely aware that someone is walking toward me, but I figure they’ll keep going. And then I hear a sigh.

  “Dance?” a guy says. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  I look up, prepared to smack whoever just dissed my favorite class, but when I see him, I forget all about what I wanted to say. He’s definitely a new guy because even though there are three thousand students in my school, I’d have recognized him if he’d been here before. He is unbelievably attractive, like Instagram model hot here, and he should not be hanging out in my small town boring school.

  “Dance is awesome,” I say, finding my voice again.

  The guy snorts. His dark hair is buzzed along the sides and he shakes the top part out of his eyes in a way that makes me wonder if he knows how hot he is when he does that. Who am I kidding? Of course he knows. Guys this hot aren’t oblivious to it.

  Chapter 2

  Liam

  “Dance is not awesome,” I say, lifting an eyebrow in that way my ex used to say was too cocky for my own good. “Not if you’re a guy.”

  “Plenty of guys dance,” she says, getting all defensive. Maybe she’s right, but those guys are professionals. And they don’t go to school here, where I’m guessing there’s not a single guy enrolled in these dance classes.

  The bell rings. “We have to go to first period,” she says, holding the papers tightly to her chest. “Sorry you can’t complain about dance any longer but I have to go.”

  I heave another sigh. “Wait. I… I need to sign up.”

  Her pretty brown eyes nearly pop out of her head. “You want to sign up for dance?”

  “I don’t want to,” I say. I nod toward the administrator who’s standing a few tables down talking to a teacher. “I was just informed that there are no more elective classes open.”

  Screw my parents for doing this to me. They took forever to choose a place to live, settling on this town in the middle of nowhere when we could have gone anywhere else, and then they were too busy with everything else in the world to bother enrolling me into school. They waited until the last minute—aka: like fifteen minutes ago—and now I’m stuck signing up for some stupid ass elective when I could have had baseball or woodshop or anything else. I’d even take some dumb cooking class over this. I’d take just about any other class.

  “Well, you’re in luck,” she says, her pink lips tipping into a smile. She’s cute, even though she looks a little too tightly wound. I wonder if all the girls in this school are as cute as she is. Maybe small towns have some benefits to them after all. She puts a piece of paper down on the table in front of me, an
d holds out a pen. I take it, and my fingers brush against hers, and I didn’t mean to touch her but now that I have, my thoughts get a little fuzzy for a second. Her skin is smooth. I bet she smells as good as she looks.

  I clear my throat and try to make sense of the paper.

  “There’s one spot left in eighth period,” she says. “You’ll be in class with me, and I’m the Officer, so it’s nice to meet you. My name is Asha.”

  “That’s a cool name,” I say, shrugging the hair out of my eyes again. “I’m Liam.”

  “Like the One Direction guy?” she says.

  “I’m not nearly as rich as he is,” I say and she laughs. “But I am better looking.”

  Her cheeks turn a little pink. It’s a good look on her. I meet her eyes for a second and then she jumps when another bell rings. “Oh, that’s not good,” she says. “You need to hurry up or we’ll be late to our next class.”

  “Aren’t we already late?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “That’s the two-minute bell. It means we have two minutes to get to class or then we’ll be late.”

  I shrug and start writing my name on the paper. “It’s the first day. They won’t care.”

  “They totally will care,” she says, her voice a bit panicky. “Most teachers hate it when you’re late and you get detention for every tardy slip you get. We need to hurry.”

  I take out my paperwork from my pocket to find my student ID that I have to fill out on this form. She’s bouncing on her toes a little and I can tell it’s driving her crazy that she might be late on the first day of school. What a little goody two shoes. It’s just high school. It’s literally the last easy thing you get to do before you have to become an adult with jobs and responsibilities and taxes and crap. She should take it easy.