by Shana Norris
Friday
“I heard something this morning,” Avery said.
It had been almost a week since Dave had dumped me. A week of New Molly with a new attitude. My natural blonde hair was now streaked with pink, which made me happy. Happy and free.
Avery’s mouth moved, but I didn’t catch the words.
“What?” I asked, tilting my head toward her to hear better.
“I said,” Avery shouted into my ear, “that Dave’s new girlfriend dumped him.”
I stumbled a bit in the hall. “He got dumped?”
“Funny, isn’t it? He dumped you, she dumped him. I told you, relationships never work.”
“Just because Dave and his new girl didn’t work out doesn’t prove anything.”
Avery rolled her eyes. “You know what happens when people fall in love? They get hurt, and then their friends are stuck trying to fix everything.”
“One day, you’re going to fall in love and then you’ll see how the rest of us feel.”
Avery snorted. “Don’t count on it.” She nodded at something behind me. “Dave is coming this way, so if you’re going to freak out and hide, now is the time.”
I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. “I’m not freaking out.”
Despite my words, my heart took a sudden nosedive into my stomach as I turned and came face-to-face with Dave Chumski.
“Hey.” His green eyes sparkled in the way I’d always liked.
“Hey,” I answered.
Dave opened his mouth, but the bell rang, interrupting him. I was hyper-aware of Avery’s presence just over my shoulder and the way she stood rigid, most likely glaring at Dave.
He pushed his dark hair out of his face and said, “Can we talk? After school, the Rose Castle?”
I nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”
When Dave turned to head off toward his class, Avery grabbed my elbow and pushed me down the hall in the opposite direction. “Are you insane?”
“No. Ow!”
She released her death grip on my arm. “Three days ago you were hiding under an elephant. Now you’re meeting him?”
I shrugged. “So?”
“So I’m not eating cartons of cheesecake ice cream with you if you go back to him and then he dumps you in another three weeks.”
“I didn’t say I was going back to him.”
“If Dave wants you back, you won’t be able to say no.”
I skidded a stop at the door to our calculus class and glared at my best friend. “If you think that, then you don’t know me at all.”
I stomped into the classroom before she had a chance to say anything.
After school, Dave was already waiting at the Rose Castle when I arrived. He smiled and gestured toward the glass on the table. “I ordered a double chocolate milkshake, just like you always get.”
I slid into the seat across from him and studied the glass for a moment. “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip from the straw.
All of my senses were on high alert. My gaze roamed around the room, feeling as if everyone was watching to see what would happen between us. Part of me wanted to remain wary, but the other part said that maybe I should accept his friendliness for what it was.
“So,” Dave said as he twirled the wrapper from his straw around his fingers, “I like your hair.”
I pushed a bunch of pink braids behind my shoulder. “Thanks.”
“It looks really good on you. I like it better than the black.”
I took a sip of my milkshake again, pausing for a moment to consider this. Then I said, “I do too. This feels more like me.”
Dave nodded. “You seem different now than you did when we were together. Not just the hair. You seem more real, you know?”
More real. That was exactly it. While I’d been dating Dave and all the guys before him, I hadn’t been who I really was. I’d made myself into the girl that fit them and done what they liked to do.
Dave was still talking and I hadn’t heard half of what he was saying. I blinked, trying to focus again.
“…It was stupid. I realize now it was a mistake.” He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “I think we should get back together.”
I stared down at Dave’s hand enveloping mine in the center of the table, like he’d always done before.
“I thought I was too condescending and sarcastic,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.
Dave cringed. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”
I pulled my hand out from under his. “What about your new girlfriend?”
“I’m not with her anymore.”
I took a long sip of milkshake, studying him. He had the wounded look of someone who had been dumped.
“We were really good together, weren’t we?” Dave asked. “We had a lot of fun hanging out at The Percolator and watching movies at my house.”
“Why didn’t you ever go to Peanut Gallery with me?” I asked.
Dave blinked. “What?”
“I saw you there with your new girlfriend. But you never once went there with me. Did you know I love laser tag?”
Dave opened his mouth, but I went on before he could speak.
“I play this game, GoblinQuest. I’m a level sixty-two elf warrior. Did you ever once ask me about the things I liked to do while we were dating?”
Dave opened and closed his mouth for a moment. Then he said, “We can go to Peanut Gallery and play laser tag.”
I sipped up the last of my milkshake. “I do want to play laser tag, but not with you.” I slid out of the booth and stood. “I’m not interested in helping you get over being dumped by the girl you dumped me for. Thanks for the milkshake.”
Then I turned and walked out of the diner, forcing myself not to look back.
I had done it. Dave had wanted to get back together and I had turned him down. A few days ago, I might have said yes. But I was a different person now. I wasn’t inferior to him and I wasn’t wallowing over being dumped.
So why didn’t I feel better about myself?
My feet led me to Diggity Dog House, where I spotted Bob the Giant Hot Dog mascot standing outside the diner, waving to everyone that passed by. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for talking, but at least I could tell Avery that she was wrong and I wasn’t as desperate as she thought.
I marched up to Bob and said, “I did it. Dave asked to get back together and I said no. So you were wrong.”
The giant hot dog turned around slowly to face me. Avery had told me once that moving around in the foam costume was almost impossible. A black mesh screen covered the hole where the person inside could look through, which was the only opening in the costume made up of a giant bun encasing a red hot dog, with two stripes of mustard and ketchup snaking up the belly area. Giant foam gloves and feet finished off the look.
I bit my lip as I slid one foot back and forth over the gravel of the parking lot. “Maybe not entirely wrong. For a moment, I considered saying yes. I felt ashamed that I would want to go back to him so easily. But then I realized something.”
I took a deep breath and lifted my head to stare back at the giant hot dog. “I shouldn’t be ashamed of enjoying relationships. Somewhere out there, there’s this one person who is meant for me. Maybe I won’t find him in high school, but getting to know all the wrong people will help me recognize the right person when he comes along. So Dave is the wrong guy, I know that now. But it’s not wrong for me to want to date. It is wrong for me to ignore what I like to do while I’m dating and I won’t do that anymore. The guys I date will have to either accept me for who I am or else they’re not the right ones.”
Bob the Giant Hot Dog gave me a puffy-handed thumbs up.
“I just might say yes to the next guy who asks me out, and I won’t be ashamed or desperate. Okay?”
The giant hot dog made some kind of motion that I assumed was meant as a nod.
I sighed. “I can’t take you seriously when you’re dressed as a hot dog.”
The door to Diggity Dog House opened and Mr. Throckmorton, Avery’s frazzled manager, stuck his head out.
“Reiser,” he barked when he spotted us. “You’re on break in five minutes. Don’t go over this time.”
The door swung shut as Mr. Throckmorton disappeared.
My stomach lurched. Reiser?
I reached up and snatched the mesh screen off the giant hot dog. The face of Elliott Reiser peered back at me.
“Why aren’t you Avery?” I snapped.
“Am I supposed to be Avery?”
I hit him with the mesh screen. “You let me ramble on like an idiot and you stood there saying nothing?”
Elliott tried to duck away from my swings, but he couldn’t move quickly enough inside the costume. “Bob is not supposed to talk!”
I shoved the screen back into his hands and groaned. “Why is it whenever I embarrass myself, you’re always right there?” I turned to leave.
“Molly, wait.”
I stopped and glanced back at him. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he gave me a half-smile and said, “Your hair looks awesome.”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not, so I ducked my head and hurried away.
Tuesday
I arrived at ValuMart at exactly 12:00am on the following Tuesday morning. I checked my cell phone as I stepped through the sliding doors. Perfect. Right on time to be the first to get the new GoblinQuest.
“Welcome to ValuMart!” a cashier called to me.
How were these people so peppy even in the middle of the night?
The store was mostly empty this late on a weeknight. I knew I’d be a zombie in my classes later that day, but I didn’t care. GoblinQuest was worth it.
The fluorescent lights cast a greenish glow over the floors as I walked, my shoes softly squeaking. There it was, the GoblinQuest display full of new game packs. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face and my feet moved faster as I drew close.
My hand closed around a game. And so did another hand belonging to someone else. Startled, I followed the arm upward.
Into the blue eyes of Elliott Reiser.
“What are you doing here?” we both asked at the same time.
I refused to let go. He didn’t pull his hand back. We were locked there, scowling at each other, our fingers clenched around the same copy of the game.
“Don’t tell me you play GoblinQuest,” I said, looking him up and down. He looked pressed and clean, even this late at night. I felt grungy next to him in my panda pajama pants and hot pink hoodie.
“Level sixty-five half-orc paladin,” he told me.
A gasp escaped my lips before I could hold it back. “I’m level sixty-two! How can you be above me?”
Elliott smirked. “Maybe I’m better than you.”
“Oh, no. I know you did not insult my gaming skills.”
Elliott tipped his head to the side. “I think I did. Now if you’ll let go, I’m going to home to play the new expansion pack and work on level sixty-six.”
I tightened my grip on the game. “This copy’s mine.”
“I saw it first.”
“I’ve been counting down the days until this release.”
“I’ve been counting down the seconds,” Elliott countered.
“I counted the nanoseconds!”
We stared at each other for a long moment.
The corner of Elliott’s mouth twitched. I couldn’t help it. The laugh bubbled out of me.
“Nanoseconds?” Elliott asked as he began to laugh too.
I sighed. “It’s been a long week.”
He released his grip on the game. “Tell you what. I’ll let you buy the first copy if you agree to go out with me on Friday.”
I blinked up at him. “Like, a date?”
“A date. Movies. Pizza. And if you’re lucky, I might even give you some tips on how to play GoblinQuest.”
I shook my head. “Oh, it is on. By Friday, my elf warrior will kick your butt.”
“So it’s a date then?” he asked.
I smiled as an excited tingle spread through me. “It’s a date.”
Thank you for reading One Week! If you enjoyed this story, you may enjoy these other titles by Shana Norris in the Stolen Kiss Collection:
The Secrets Between You and Me (Turn the page to read an excerpt!)
The Boyfriend Thief
The Truth About Boys
The Stolen Kiss Collection can be read in any order!
Read a special excerpt of The Secrets Between You and Me,
the companion novel to The Boyfriend Thief, and the second book in Shana Norris’ Stolen Kiss collection!
4 wheels on a rusty truck
2 gray eyes
1 secret that could ruin everything…
All Hannah wanted was a summer break from being “perfect Hannah Cohen” and a chance to forget about the devastating family secret that could ruin her seemingly perfect life. So when she takes off for her eccentric aunt’s house in the mountains of North Carolina and everyone makes one big (wrong) assumption about her past, Hannah figures that it’s easier to live a lie than have to face the truth.
She never expected to make any real friends, like the hilarious and spontaneous Kate and Ashton, who drag her to late night bonfires and ice cream marathons. And she especially never counted on meeting Jude Westmore, the brooding bad boy next door with gray eyes and permanent oil smudges on his fingers, or that he would ever take an interest in her.
Between moonlit movie nights in the bed of Jude’s truck and nearly romantic Ferris Wheel rides, Hannah’s old life seems further away then ever, but can she keep her secret, or is the truth worth the risk of losing everything, including Jude?
Chapter One
My mother was imagining things again.
“I swear, Hannah, this vacation will be just the thing we both need,” her voice trilled through the sleek black phone resting in its cradle on my dashboard. “A summer away from everything. Two months of relaxation and freedom!”
The sound of a car horn blared through the speakerphone. Knowing my mother, she was likely paying more attention to the radio or her makeup, anything other than the highway on which she was driving. I gritted my teeth as I glanced in the side mirror and then over my shoulder, searching for an opening in the lane next to me. Still no luck.
“I can’t wait to stretch out and do nothing this summer,” Mom went on.
I bit my tongue to keep from asking how that would be any different than our normal lives back in Willowbrook. Mom was on her way to the airport, where she would fly to New York and from there take a second flight across the Atlantic to Paris, where she would spend the summer away from home, away from me, away from . . . well, everything.
The original plan called for me to join my mom in France. She had made all the arrangements without even asking my opinion. But Mom and I could not exist within the same continent for an entire summer without one of us going insane.
Most likely, me.
So now Mom was going with her current best friend, a woman she knew from tennis lessons at the country club. Her name was Tandy or Missy or maybe something else entirely. I hadn’t really paid much attention.
I, on the other hand, was stuck on Interstate 40 West in the North Carolina mountains behind a big, rumbling truck. Which happened to be full of hogs.
Hogs that stunk. The smell had filled my car, making my eyes water. With my windows up, I turned the air conditioner off to keep from sucking in more of the stench from outside, but since it was late June in North Carolina, the sun shining through my windshield made the car feel like a roasting pan. Rolling down the windows only made the hog s
mell worse. Lush green mountains stretched out on each side of the road all around me, but the idyllic countryside did nothing to relax me, not with the smell hanging in the air and my mom’s piercing laughter crackling through the phone.
I searched for exit 53B, trying not to breathe too deeply, sweating in my own sauna on wheels while my mother prattled on.
“Tess and I are planning to gorge ourselves on crepes and pastries. Isn’t that right, Tess?”
Tess, right, that was her friend’s name. At least I was close.
“Oui!” I heard a shrill voice in the background proclaim. My mother’s overdone laughter filled my car.
Ahead of me, a hog stuck its nose through one of the little holes cut into the back of the trailer.
“Are you sure it’s exit 53B?” I asked, yelling to be heard over Mom’s laughter.
“Of course, dear,” Mom sighed. It was probably a huge inconvenience for her to make sure her only daughter actually made it to her sister’s house and not some random stranger’s front door. My friend Natalie Spinelli had told me before I left that she’d heard mountain people were always high on meth and drunk on moonshine. I glanced out the driver’s side window just in time to see a carload of men who looked like extras from the cast of Duck Dynasty speed by.
“I wrote all the directions down that Lydia gave me,” Mom said. “I remember precisely. Exit 53B onto I-240 West . . . ”
I tried to focus on Mom’s directions, but my mind kept wandering. I hadn’t seen my aunt Lydia in four years, not since she moved away from Willowbrook to the outskirts of Asheville, North Carolina. Aunt Lydia had sent us invitations to visit her every now and then, but Mom had always had an excuse for not going.
But with Mom going to Paris this summer, it seemed like a good opportunity for me to spend some time with my aunt. Besides, I needed to get out of Willowbrook for a while. A long while.
“Have you heard from Daddy today?” I asked, my voice breaking a little.
There was static on the phone and then I heard Mom clear her throat. I had taken her by surprise, and the one thing Marilyn Cohen did not like was to be caught off guard.
