I found the college guy in the living room kissing drunk Destiny way overly hot and heavy. “Let’s go upstairs,” I heard him murmur to her.
I grabbed him off Destiny. “You go upstairs. The drunk girl’s coming with me.”
Destiny did a little jump of happiness, but the guy looked mad. He narrowed his eyes. “Where did you even come from? Why do you care?”
“Why do I care? Because you just asked a very drunk girl to go upstairs.”
The guy looked sheepish. “I wasn’t going to make her go. I was just seeing if she wanted to.” His gaze cut to Destiny. “Do you want to?”
“No.” She snuggled into my arm. “I want Griffin.”
I raised my eyebrows at the guy. He gave me a dirty look, but darted away.
I took Destiny’s hand. “You want to hang out with me?—okay. Come on.” I led her back to the kitchen and plopped her in the chair beside me so I could baby-sit her and make sure no other awesome guy tried to take advantage of her … and also to make sure she didn’t drink anymore. I gave her a bowl of pretzels to keep her mouth busy.
“Deal me in,” I told Mason.
Destiny kept getting off her chair and sitting in my lap. She would run her fingers through my hair and sniff my neck. It was distracting. But I didn’t mind as much as you might think. (Or, well, like it as some of you others might think.) It was just a drunk girl, being drunk—only she was Ally’s friend, so I didn’t shoo her away. But I didn’t kiss her either. No matter how much she wanted me to. She kept saying, “Come on, please! Kiss me with those pillow lips.”
My friends would crack up laughing. It never got old to them.
When Hailey came back into the kitchen, she snorted a laugh when she saw Destiny in my lap, playing with my hair.
“Thanks for the help Hailey,” I said sarcastically. Well, as sarcastic as I get. I had to admit, Destiny’s infatuation with my hair and lips and neck (and okay, most of me) was pretty funny. But Hailey’s leaving her to fend for herself wasn’t. It sort of pissed me off. And things don’t really piss me off.
Hailey shrugged defensively—since like I said, I don’t normally get mad at stuff. Especially not my friends. “Hey, what? I tried. I splashed cold water on her face, but then someone needed to use the bathroom. Was I supposed to babysit her all night?”
“I can give her a ride home,” this guy that I never saw before offered.
Since I didn’t know him, I didn’t trust him. Of course I didn’t trust most of the guys at this party alone with a drunk girl. Especially not one that was so wanting to kiss.
“No, that’s okay. She belongs to a friend of mine,” I said. “I’m going to keep an eye on her.” Though I had no idea how I would get the chick home. I really had no clue who she was, except that she was a close friend of Ally’s. But apparently the girl knew who I was. In a big way.
“I have dreams about kissing you,” she told me for the hundredth time.
All of a sudden, Ally came storming into the kitchen. When I saw her I did a double-take. My heart pounded all happy and surprised.
“Heaven!” I grinned, moving my head away from Destiny’s roving hands.
I knew this looked kind of bad, her drunk friend in my lap. I supposed it looked really, really bad—since Heaven looked so incredibly shocked and appalled. Only … she had popcorn in her hair. It was cute.
So, though I knew things looked bad, and Ally looked mad, still the whole thing struck me as kind of funny (things often do). My grin grew as I dodged Destiny’s hands again. “I thought you don’t go to parties.”
“I don’t,” Ally said through gritted teeth. “I came to get her.” Then she added with her teeth still clinched, ‘cause she obviously thought I was a bad influence, and a bad person, “She doesn’t drink.”
It sucked that Ally was mad at me, I swear that sucked, but I arched my eyebrows with a slight grin. “I’m pretty sure she did tonight.”
My friends laughed at that. (Though most of them weren’t all that sober themselves.)
Ally glared at them—but mostly me. “My cousin texted me that Destiny was making out with random guys.”
The way she was glaring at us, she apparently thought we were the “guys.”
She stomped over to me and tried pulling Destiny off my lap. She coaxed, “Come on, Destiny!”
“No!” Destiny nuzzled her face back in my neck. “You smell good,” she mumbled, her lips licking my skin. Then she put her arms around me tight, trying to make me snuggle with her.
Ally groaned.
I laughed at that, not Destiny trying to get an embrace from me—but Ally’s adorable groan. “I don’t think she can walk,” I said. “I’ll carry her.”
Ally didn’t look like she really wanted that, but I got up before she could protest. I carried Destiny out of the kitchen over my shoulder, fireman style. On our way out of the house, Ally’s drunk cousin, Kendra, grabbed me by my shirt collar and gave me a big drunk kiss, slurring: “I love those lips—love them!”
Ally groaned again, looking like she was going to die of mortification. I just laughed and kept walking. Like I said, drunk girls love my lips. They (my lips) are used to getting attention.
I plunked Destiny into the backseat of Ally’s car, leaning over her to buckle her in.
“Stay away from her!” Ally growled. (Growled.)
I leaned my head back with an amused grunt.
Ally, of course, couldn’t see what I was doing from where she was standing outside of the car. She just saw me hovering over her drunk friend—and she probably thought I was drunk as well.
I raised my palms up to her and grinned, “I was just buckling her in.”
Ally reddened, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sorry,” she whispered. Then she added with her voice hitching slightly, “Look, can you just stay away from my friends?”
I knew she didn’t just mean Destiny—since Kendra had just kissed me too. Plus now Kendra was always flirting with me at school, and coming into the auto shop, mentioning how much she liked my lips.
I grinned. “Yeah, I can leave them alone.” I quirked my eyebrows. “But can they leave me alone?”
Ally sighed like I had a point. It made me softly laugh.
She bit her lip and accidently looked at me. And kept looking. So, we just gazed at each other. It gave me a little thrill—Ally’s eyes on me like that. But then she looked down at the ground, like she was too shy to keep looking at me.
Man, she was beautiful out here in the dark with the moon shining on her. Wish she wasn’t mad at me.
She gazed up and caught me watching her. The way her eyes looked, startled but warm—it did funny things to my heart. Got it all throbbing and wanting.
She swallowed, like she knew what I was feeling—or maybe she was feeling it too.
I smiled, backing her against the car. “I got your poem.”
I laughed huskily. “Well, I didn’t really get it.” Gently, I slid my fingers through her silky hair, raking out a piece of popcorn. “But I liked it.”
Actually, I loved it. I loved all of her poems. Way too much. I had them in my pocket right now. I’d pull them out and read them at various times. Like when things were going bad, I’d read her poems to feel better. Though sometimes I’d read them when things were going good too. They were just kind of like a drug to me—an Ally fix. A fix of Heaven when I was needing it.
I wished she could be with me right now like she was with her poems—all soft and romantic. But I guess it didn’t help that she thought I was drunk and might have possibly manhandled her close friend. Still, I leaned in close to her, since I didn’t get many opportunities. My lips brushed her ear, “I like you, Heaven.”
Her breath caught and she blushed and a huge smile spread on her beautiful face. For a moment (I swear!) she looked like she was the happiest girl in the world. It made my heart pound. Hard. Like explode.
But then she jerked away from me, like she was reminding herself I was the devil. The air whooshe
d out of me. Man, I could not catch a break.
She clicked on her cell phone, then shoved it in my face. I tilted my head. What she was showing me was a picture of Destiny mackin’ with that college guy from earlier tonight at the party.
“Is this you?” she asked bitterly.
I took the phone from her and glanced at the picture a second. Then I smirked. “Does it look like me?”
She obviously hadn’t studied the picture. At all. Probably seeing it had made her sick. Most likely she just glanced at it—and then she got in the car to save her friend. But wherever she had come from—it had been a way different place than this party. I mean, she had popcorn in her hair. And she’d probably eaten a bunch of candy apples and saved some kittens from trees.
I handed her phone back to her. She peeked at it, then winced and turned bright red. “I’m sorry. Kendra sent it to me and then—then I saw you with Destiny. Destiny in your lap.” She shuddered. Then without saying anything more she lunged for her car door.
“Thank you for helping me with Destiny,” she said super quick as she opened her passage to escape. It was like she wanted out of here as soon as possible and was going to leave without really saying goodbye.
I grabbed her shoulder and turned her back to face me—in a gentle way though. She stared up at me like her heart was pounding hard; both in fear, but in breathy excitement too.
She was holding her breath. She wanted me to kiss her. I could tell. But at the same time, she also wanted to leave. Really bad. She had her keys clenched in her hands and one foot inside her car.
Still, that wasn’t enough to stop me from kissing her—her wanting to leave. I was going to make her want to stay. I drew my mouth down to hers, ready to kiss her blind, like she wanted (as much as me), but just as my lips met hers she had a moment of clarity—or whatever. She yelped and tried to squirm away from me. I closed my eyes with a sigh. Man.
I wanted her to give me a chance. Just one chance.
I wanted to keep holding her anyway—even with her squirming. But that’s called assault. I winced and let her go.
But as she was about to get into her car, I gently turned her back to me again. She was wide-eyed and trembling. Since I was the devil and everything.
But I didn’t plan to kiss her this time, despite what she was anxiously thinking. Instead, I gently brushed another piece of popcorn out of her hair.
“Good night, Heaven,” I said.
She looked startled and relieved, both, that I didn’t kiss her—but, I swear, she looked disappointed too. It made me sigh.
“Good night,” she breathed out in a reverent whisper.
Then she escaped into the safety of her car and drove away, back to her popcorn, candy-apple life.
Man, what was that like?—to be in Ally’s world?
CHAPTER 33
The Monday after Jake’s party, Heaven left me a poem in my locker that I almost completely understood. It was saying that Destiny had told her that I’d “watched over her.” She thanked me for that in an Ally-poem like way that filled my insides with warmth. But I’ve got to tell you, at the same time it also filled my heart with a sad kind of ache and longing.
I mean, I’m not made of stone. I yearned for things. I yearned for Ally. And now I couldn’t even get drunk over it.
Still, I dug the poem.
A few days after getting it I was talking with Hailey at my locker when I saw Heaven walking towards us. Well, actually, apparently, she wasn’t walking towards us—me and Hailey. What I mean is, Heaven had a frosted delicious-looking cookie she was carrying that she was apparently planning to put into my locker. But when she saw me at it, she froze. Then she quickly turned around and started walking the other direction.
No. Way.
I went chasing after her. “Heaven!”
She stopped. Frozen in her tracks. But she didn’t turn around and face me. She just stayed glued to that spot. So cute. I exhaled with a laugh and trotted over to her. “Is the cookie for me?”
“Cookie?”
She said it like what are you talking about? But she smiled as she said it too, ’cause she was holding a cookie. Pretty hard to pretend it wasn’t there.
She let out a sigh of resignation. “Yes, the cookie’s for you.”
She handed it to me looking sort of brave. Then she acted sort of brave. She voluntarily opened her mouth and talked to me. “Is it totally dumb that I give you cookies?” Then, before I could answer, she added, “I just—I have a weird crush on you.”
My eyebrows shot up. And a jet of warmth shot straight to my heart. Werewolf, werewolf, werewolf.
I felt like kissing babies and puppies and kittens. I smiled. “So, the cookies do mean you like me.”
She nodded shyly, but didn’t actually say anything.
The feeling in my heart—it was like I was a kid flying to Candy World in an invisible jet-plane. This was like, the happiest day of my life.
I scratched my chin, still grinning. “You know, there’s other ways to show me you like me.”
She stepped away from me really quick as though I said something dirty.
I gave a soft laugh. “I mean, don’t run away from me.” My eyes lingered on hers, hopeful-like. “That would be a start.”
I wet my lips, trying to think fast. But I’m not so good at doing that when I look into her beautiful eyes, which you might get from my next words: “A bunch of us are going to hang out at Jake’s tonight,” I said. “His parents are gone. We’re going to have a party.” I raised my eyebrows. “You want to come?”
She shook her head. Oh my gosh, she looked like she was going to cry.
“I’m going to get back together with Aiden,” she said, slicing an axe through my heart.
Then she did her usual. She ran away from me.
I watched her go, then collapsed against the locker behind me. Okay, am I the biggest idiot in the world?—inviting her to a party—again?
The girl had told me she had a crush on me.
That was like a huge, gigantic step for her. Then what did I do? ‘I know you don’t like parties, but hey, that’s all I do.’
I did a face-palm. Then groaned. I sent her back to Poser.
CHAPTER 34
The next day, I heard Poser talking with his friends in the locker room after hockey practice. I was already kind of up on him and Fauna. The whole team was. Since she’s a hockey cheerleader, and he’s on our team—it’s not like we can get away from them.
Plus, they both have big mouths.
So I’ve known the score with them this whole time. Fauna wants Poser to make a commitment, but he’s been kind of holding out on her, hoping to patch things up with Heaven. He’s been doing that the whole time. Seeing Fauna, but aching for Ally. The thing was, until now, Heaven was being strong. Sticking to her common sense. Poser cheated on her. He didn’t deserve her.
But after hearing her yesterday, I was worried he wore her down, and I’d pushed her over the edge with my dopey myriad of party invitations.
So, I swallowed and eavesdropped on his conversation. I was a row back, so he didn’t know I was listening. Mason did though. I had to push the dork away because he was making fun of me and kept mouthing that I was a “Sucker for School Girl” which I was, but I needed him to shut up so I could stalk.
Poser was talking loud, obviously upset, so that was a good sign. I listened with my heart pounding.
“I don’t know what’s up with Ally,” he said. “The girl is driving me crazy. She wouldn’t answer a single text of mine for months. Months! Then—finally—she said she wanted to talk. So, I thought this was it—finally. I thought it was because of the school dance. She’s on the dance committee and she loves school dances. I figured it got her remembering us—how we used to be. So, I was planning to ask her to the dance. But then—the chick broke up with me, again!!”
He shook his head, sounding bitter. “She said she wanted to talk, but then once we started talking—she didn’t want to
talk. She just got mad about Fauna all over again. She has no idea what she wants. Seriously. She was totally leading that guy—Milo—around like a dog, too.” He growled, slamming his locker shut. “Fine. Whatever. Now she doesn’t have a date to the dance. I’m taking Fauna. Game over.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, happy for me. But sad for Heaven. What the punk said seemed kind of true. Ally didn’t seem to know what she wanted. Well, or maybe she did know, but she couldn’t find it. Either way, I knew she was sad right now. That bit.
CHAPTER 35
As I walked past the open doors to the school gym, I stopped. I scratched my chin a moment, then back-tracked. Yeah, that’s what I thought I saw. There was Heaven, up on a ladder.
I watched her a minute as she tried to get a streamer to stick to the ceiling, but she was too short for the task—by a wide margin. Still, I tilted my head and watched her trying for a while. ‘Cause it was cute.
“Do you need help?”
She jerked around in surprise by the sound of my voice. She almost fell off the ladder when she saw it was me.
“Um, yeah,” she choked out, turning red. “I could really use some help. Definitely.”
She watched me all my-hero-like as I grabbed the extra ladder across the gym. I brought it over next to hers, then put up the streamer for her.
“Got more?” I asked.
“Tons,” she said. “I had other people helping, but most of them went home already—all the tall ones.”
I grinned, knowing none of them were taller than me (or as short as her). I put up all the streamers for her, while she fixed up a couple tables making them look romantic and fancy for the dance.
We were about done when this cheerleader, Bianca bounced into the gym carrying an armload of streamers and a big sign that said, “Rock My World.”
She looked around, amazed at mine and Heaven’s work. “Wow, you got a lot done while I was gone,” she said to Heaven.
Her Kiss (Griffin) Page 11
