“I’m trying to think,” I said. “And I’m having a hard enough time doing that without you being all…” I gestured to his hot, sexy self, “You.”
He smirked. God, that smirk was hot.
“I think you might need to turn around,” I said. “I need a moment.”
His smirk grew to an all out grin that slayed me to my core. I was a goner. Stick a fork in me because I was done. This guy owned my soul with that smile.
Instead of turning around he took a step in my direction and then another. Moving slowly and with exaggerated long steps just like I’d done when I’d backed away. “What are you doing?” I asked. “You’re supposed to be giving me space. You’re supposed to turn around.”
He nodded but he did neither of those things. He moved so close I may have been able to name the flavor and brand of his gum. Peppermint Orbit, in case you were wondering.
“I want to see the look in your eyes when I tell you how I feel about you,” he said softly, simply, like it was the easiest thing in the world.
I kind of wished I had a redo for my own little speech. He made being forthright look so graceful and easy, not like my awkward, clumsy attempt. It was at this point that I realized just how accurate he was about our competitive compatibility.
I clasped my hands in front of me to keep from reaching out to him or touching him in some way. Now that I’d been so close to him and had permission to touch him again, withholding from that sort of intimacy felt stupidly hard.
I swallowed down a wave of nerves. “And how do you feel about me?”
He waited until my eyes locked with his before reaching out and brushing some hair away from my face. “I like you, Veronica Smith.” His mouth hitched up in a cute lopsided grin. “I more than like you, if I’m being honest. But I don’t want to scare you away by moving too fast.”
I nodded, trying to stay calm even as my heart tried to make a run for it. Not because I was scared. I wasn’t. I was excited, and overwhelmed, and…yeah, okay, maybe a little scared. “I’ve never…” I gestured toward him and then to me. “I’ve never…”
He arched a brow as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me back into his arms. Back where I belonged.
There I went again, psyching myself out. This time I felt a thrill of excitement, a surge of belonging I hadn’t known I’d been missing. I’d found someone who saw me. The real me. The me I wasn’t even sure I saw so clearly myself. But he did. When I looked into his eyes, I felt more sure of myself. Not because the hottie baseball star liked me, but because my mind stopped with the overanalyzing and the doubting when I was looking into his eyes.
I was just…me. Ronnie and Veronica. Good athlete and girly blushing idiot, at least when he was around. I was a work in progress, but so was he. I’d changed over the years and so had he. And I liked the person he’d become, and apparently he felt the same about me.
He was still waiting for me to finish what I’d started to say. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”
He leaned down and pressed a light kiss to my lips. “You’ve never made out in a parking lot in front of the entire student body before?”
I jerked my head back in surprise and turned to face the diner. Sure enough we were putting on a show for everyone inside. Through the glass windows I could see a million faces turned in our direction staring. My gasp turned into a laugh even as my cheeks burst into flames.
I buried my head in Drew’s chest to hide from the peering eyes and felt his laughter beneath my cheek. “This is so embarrassing,” I mumbled.
He laughed harder. “Why? Are you embarrassed to be seen with me?”
I smacked his chest and pulled back far enough to scowl at him. “You know what I mean.”
His grin was so self-satisfied I had to roll my eyes. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” He leaned down so his lips were close to my ear. “The hot new girl is my girlfriend, and now everyone knows it.”
I shivered at the words as much as his tone. I was his girlfriend. That was a new way of seeing myself that was definitely going to take some getting used to. It was new term for me, but I liked it already.
“What did you really mean before?” he asked. “You’ve never done what before? Had a boyfriend?”
I could feel that stupid heat in my cheeks and was suddenly grateful for the darkness. Our audience might have gotten quite a show but at least they wouldn’t see me blush. I hereby solemnly vow that Drew Remi would be the only person to ever see me blush.
I nodded. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before.” I swallowed down my embarrassment as I admitted the next part. “I’ve also never…”
He arched a brow and tightened his arms around me. “You’ve also never…what?”
I wrinkled my nose and forced out the rest. “I’ve also never been kissed before?” My voice went weirdly up at the end like it was a question. Ugh, this was humiliating.
When I finally summoned the courage to look at Drew, my heart melted in my chest. He looked shock, and rightfully so. I was probably the last girl in our class to have her first kiss, at Atwater or Briarwood.
But beyond the shock was something so unbearably tender, it made a gooey, sticky-sweet warmth spread throughout my whole body. Finally I shifted in his arms at his silence. “Say something.”
He leaned down and rested his forehead against mine. “I’m honored to be your first kiss, Ronnie.”
The use of my old nickname made me smile. I liked the fact that he remembered who I was—that he wasn’t just kissing the new and improved Veronica, but the tomboy he’d known forever as well.
The hot new girl. His earlier words came back to me and made me grin. Yeah, I guess he’d kissed her too.
Epilogue
Drew
Here’s the thing about my girlfriend—she’s competitive in the extreme. I led our baseball team to win the playoffs, so what did she do? She took her soccer team to state.
Half the school turned out to watch them win, but when she came out of the locker room afterward, she sought me out in the crowd, just like she’s the person I look for first anytime I walk into a room. It’s always been like that between us, ever since we made our relationship official back in the fall of our junior year. Now we’re seniors and graduation will be coming up before we know it.
I wave her down and she fights her way through a crowd of classmates who are vying for her attention outside the locker rooms. She’s nice about it, but she’s steadily making her way over to me, where I’m waiting with Trent and Margo. The four of us made plans to go out afterward to celebrate her win.
Or commiserate her loss, she’d been quick to add before tonight’s game. Apparently my superstitious nature has rubbed off on her.
But her team won so we’ll be celebrating along with the rest of the school. Funny that after all her efforts to be the kind of popular girl she thought people would like, Veronica was beloved at Briarwood thanks to her mad skills on the field.
When she reaches my side, she’s still sweaty from kicking ass out on the field. Her hair is pulled back out of her face and she’s beaming over her victory. Honest to God, she has never been more beautiful. I draw her in for a kiss that leaves us both out of breath and aching for more.
But she’s got friends to greet and a team to celebrate with, and we’ve got all the time in the world to be together. I guess it’s obvious that I’ve had a change of heart about high school relationships. Maybe they’re not all doomed to failure. Being with Veronica has made me optimistic like that.
She’s also turned me into quite the romantic. I love surprising her and coming up with new ways to make her blush. It drives her crazy, which makes it all the more rewarding.
I’ve got a big surprise planned for her later tonight, because I’ve got news of my own to celebrate. After what feels like the longest wait of my life, I got my acceptance letter to Boston University today. Veronica had gotten early acceptance to Boston College, w
here she received a soccer scholarship. We’d been hoping to stay near each other when we went off to college, and now we would.
Don’t get me wrong. If there was any relationship that could handle long distance, it was ours. But I didn’t want to be away from Veronica. Not now, and hopefully not ever. It’s a crazy feeling when you find your best friend and the love of your life in one person, and that’s what I have in Veronica.
We get a lot of flak from people who say that young love doesn’t last. You’ll change, they tell us. You’ll grow apart.
Here’s the thing that Veronica helped me realize. We’re always changing. We’re always growing. It didn’t mean that we had to be moving in different directions, not as long as we support one another and give each other room to grow.
But the thing people don’t always understand is that Veronica helps me to be the kind of man I want to be. She sees the best in me, just like I see that in her. When we’re together we’re the very best versions of ourselves.
She wraps one arm around my waist as Trent and Margo come over to congratulate her on the win. I wait patiently for her to accept the praise she’s so rightfully due, and when we’re alone once again, I seize my chance and steal another kiss.
“What was that for?” she asks with a grin.
“I’m so proud of you,” I say.
Her smile grows as she leans in for another quick kiss. “I wish we could celebrate by ourselves for a little while.”
I give her a squeeze. “Later,” I promise. “But right now you deserve to revel in your win. Besides, there’s a school full of people who want to tell you how amazing you are.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s still smiling. With a fake sigh, she says, “It’s so hard to be loved. How do you do it all the time?”
I laugh at her teasing, because I know as well as she does that she’s just as beloved as I am, if not more so. But the funniest part is, she doesn’t care about any of that anymore and neither do I. It feels so long ago that any of that was important, even though it was only last year. Since then she’s realized that she was never invisible, not in any way that mattered, just like I realized that being popular wasn’t the same as having good friends.
With an arm around her shoulders, I lead her toward the crowd who’s waiting to talk to her. She might not care about being popular anymore, but I’m glad for her sake that she’s finally being recognized for her talents and for her beautiful personality.
She squeezes my waist as one of her teammates beckons for her to join them. Looking up at me with those warm brown eyes, she asks, “We’ll celebrate together later?”
I drop a kiss on top of her head. “Of course.” Then with a grin I add, “You and I have all the time in the world.”
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed it, reviews are always welcome. For more YA romance by Maggie Dallen, check out her Summer Love series. Turn the page to read a sneak peek from her latest, full-length standalone novel in the series, Senior Week Crush.
Senior Week Crush
I’m the first to admit that I temporarily lost my mind. But really, when the guy you’ve been crushing on since forever turns your way in calculus class with that perfect smile and says, “What about you, Layla, are you going to Senior Week?”—you’re going to say yes.
Or at least, I did.
But try explaining that to Amy. My best friend was not having it. Backlit by the fluorescent glow of our high school cafeteria, she vaguely resembled a frizzy, red-headed interrogator as she peered at me across the aluminum table. I didn’t hold out on her. I described every minute detail as she ate her lunch of tuna on rye. I breathlessly told her everything, from the way his eyes met mine to the way he’d smiled in response to my answer.
At the end, her response was not what I’d hoped.
“You said yes? Why?” Her freckled nose was scrunched up in disgust like I’d just told her I’d said yes to weekly accordion lessons rather than a week of fun on the beach. I knew what she was getting at—up until that life-changing moment, I had not, in fact, planned on attending Senior Week with my peers. But he had asked. I couldn’t say no.
Before I could explain that, her face fell and she let out a little sigh of disappointment. “Oh no….”
Oh yes. She knew me too well. Sometimes it was annoying. It wasn’t like I expected her to jump for joy over this plan, but a little support would be nice. But Amy had never approved of my crush on Dylan Yates, my next door neighbor since kindergarten. And, in her defense, up until a week ago, it may have been a bit pathetic. But now the tides had turned. With just days remaining before graduation, the moment I’d been waiting for had finally arrived.
What was this cataclysmic event that shifted my fate forevermore?
Dylan and Stephanie had finally broken up.
When they first got together, way back in the fifth grade, I hadn’t been too alarmed. Even at eleven I knew that middle school relationships weren’t destined to last long. My older sister assured me that they had the lifespan of a gnat. Everyone knew that it wouldn’t last.
Well, apparently no one told Dylan and Steph because they stayed together—sickeningly, disgustingly, happily together—for the next seven years. Seven! Who did that? It was like they were out to set some kind of world record or something.
But then, last week, word had spread that the epic union of Stylan had come to an end. No one knew why exactly—and quite frankly, I didn’t care. I had almost given up hope. Almost. But now was my chance. I just needed him to see me as something more than the nice girl next door. And what better opportunity than Senior Week when there would be parties and concerts and bonfires on the beach?
If that didn’t scream romance, I don’t know what did.
The only problem was, I hadn’t exactly planned on going. Truth be told, I’d made a bit of a stink about how lame it would be and how it was just one more way for the popular crowd to reign supreme over the rest of us losers.
I imagine that was one of the reasons that Amy was scowling at me over her muffin.
She was on some weird all all-natural diet that seemed to consist of a daily consumption of bizarre grains that I’d never heard of before. The other day she’d eaten a protein bar made out of cricket flour.
I tried a bite and yes, it was just as disgusting as it sounds.
Hopefully some of her current anger was due to the diet and not my announcement.
“You are acting like an idiot.” Little crumbs flew out of her mouth when she spoke.
I leaned over the table, casting a quick glance around to make sure no one could hear us. “Please, Amy. I really, really want to go.”
It’s not like I needed her permission or anything, but I did need her car. And more importantly, her driver’s license. I was probably the only senior who didn’t drive but as far as I knew I was also the only one heading to New York City for college in the fall, and who needed to drive in the city? That’s what subways were for.
She set down the muffin with a little too much force and it promptly crumbled into a million pieces. “Look, even if I didn’t think this was a useless, ridiculous plan—”
Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.
“I still wouldn’t be able to drive you to the Jersey shore. I’m going to visit my cousins in Maryland that week, remember?”
I fell back into my seat. Crap. I’d completely forgotten about that.
Some of Amy’s irritation over my plan seemed to thaw in the face of my pathetic sigh.
After a moment of silence, she offered, “Maybe one of the others is going?”
‘The others’ were our friends in the theater crowd. But her expression looked doubtful as she spoke and I just rolled my eyes. Out of everyone in the theater department, Amy and I were probably the least… how shall I put it? Clicky? They weren’t mean bullies or anything, they just had a tendency to stick to themselves. They were definitely not joiners.
Not that Amy and I were social butterflies but we were slightly m
ore well-rounded in our social lives. We were known to go to the occasional non-drama party and took part in some other clubs. Like Amy and her art class and me on the school paper. So if we hadn’t even considered going to the uber-joiner, popular-kid-getaway that was Senior Week, odds were the others hadn’t either. As a rule, our school’s arts and drama crowd tended to look down on anything that had the slightest tinge of school spirit.
Normally, I turned my nose up at that kind of thing too, but this was different. This was my chance.
This was fate.
I made the mistake of using the F-word with Amy and I could see her biting her lip to keep from laughing. Taking my hands in hers, her bright red curls fell over her shoulder as she leaned in toward me. “No offense, Layla. I mean, you know I love you more than anyone in the world and I think you are the best but… if Dylan hasn’t noticed you by now, after you’ve been right in front of his face his entire life, what makes you think he’ll notice you now?”
I braced myself against a stab of pain at her words. She was right, of course, but sometimes I wished she would at least pretend to believe that I stood a chance. I didn’t need her to like Dylan or believe that he was perfect, I just needed her to believe in me and what I knew to be true.
That we were meant to be.
But she was still waiting for an answer and I knew she wouldn’t buy any more talk of fate or kismet. For an artist, Amy was terribly practical like that. So I found myself saying, “Because I’ll make him see me.”
She blinked a few times as if surprised by my answer. That was when I realized I sounded far more confident than I felt. Still, her sudden change in attitude was heartening. Amy even smiled a little. “Well, that’s more like it.” She let go of my hands and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
Uh, the plan?
“What are you going to say to him?” she asked. “If you go, I mean. Are you going to tell him once and for all how you feel?”
Out of His League Page 13
