Dream Kiss (Sweet N' Sour Kisses

by Cindy M. Hogan

  Also by Cindy M. Hogan

  Audio, Print, and eBook

  Watched Trilogy

  Watched

  Protected

  Created

  Adrenaline Rush

  Hotwire

  Gravediggers

  Sweet N’ Sour Kisses*

  *Formerly called Confessions of a 16-Year-Old Virgin Lips

  First Kiss

  Stolen Kiss

  Rebound Kiss

  Rejected Kiss

  Dream Kiss

  See all Cindy’s books here

  Dream Kiss (Sweet N’ Sour Kisses, episode 5)

  Copyright ©2013 by Cindy M. Hogan

  First Edition

  Cover design by Novak Illustrations

  Cover photography by Still Memories by Tomi

  Edited by Charity West

  O’neal Publishing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, O’neal Publishing. This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

  Visit her at cindymhogan.com

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  Dream Kiss

  VL. Virgin Lips. Remember that girl? She was so certain that she was in control, that she was safe behind her rules. She was so determined to avoid heartbreak. She never stood a chance, did she?

  I’d been that girl—I’d started the year hopeful and naïve, thinking that if I kept kissing out of the question, I could guard myself against pain and drama. I could hold onto the idea of a perfect kiss in the future, if I only protected myself from anything messy in the meantime. That was my plan, anyway. But fate—and boys—had other things in mind for me.

  It had been a whirlwind of a year, and I’d learned the hard way that you can’t control everything when it comes to dating. The trouble with dating is that it involves other people, and those people have desires and agendas of their own. Drama is inherent in the equation.

  Everything I’d been through and everything I’d been, from victim to victor, had brought be me to this point. The point where I could admit that life wasn’t under my control, but that I was open to whatever surprise it might bring me. And there I was, on the precipice of summer, feeling like life was about to bring something big my way.

  Because despite everything that had happened, or maybe because of it, there was one thing I still was: a believer. I knew in my heart that that kiss was still possible. You know, the perfect, magical, life-changing one—the one where you ride off into the sunset, happily ever after. I knew my dream kiss was still waiting for me.

  Chapter 1

  “Oh my gosh, Brooklyn, you look awesome in that one! You’ve got to put that in the album!” Hannah leaned over me, wrenching the mouse from my hand and clicking cancel on the picture I had been about to delete.

  “Hannah!” I protested. “My eyes are all crazy in that one. I don’t want it in there.” I bumped her away and deleted the picture again. She stuck her tongue out at me.

  “You’re too critical. Seriously, you look great. Plus, Cal looks amazing in it.”

  “Ah, the truth comes out. Well, this is my album, so I’m picking the ones I like best. If you want to sign on and make your own album full of pictures of Cal, be my guest. Just make sure you change your status to ‘Drooling over Cal Neville.’”

  Hannah blushed and glared at me. I grinned to let her know I was teasing. It was Sunday night, the weekend after prom, and we were in the family office, uploading my prom pictures to Facebook. Looking at them again, all the excitement and fun of the previous weekend washed over me, and I couldn’t help feeling giddy. Moments from the night flitted across my mind, and an excited flutter landed in my belly. Reliving the night was the perfect antidote to my date with Ryker.

  “Yeah, you’re right, you did look crazy,” Hannah said with a smirk. But soon she sighed in resignation, rolling her eyes and giving me an indulgent smile. She moved closer to the screen to examine the pictures. “So tell me about it. You gave us all the report, but come on—I want details!”

  “It was the best, seriously. I don’t think any date will ever top it. Ever.”

  “So you did kiss him.” She shoved my shoulder.

  “Nope. No kissing or romantic stuff all night. Just pure fun.” My face went hot thinking about moving in for the kiss and having him reject me. It was right though.

  “Hmmm. I thought for sure he’d kiss you. It was prom after all.”

  “Not this guy. He’s the real deal. No kissing until he’s really ready.” I kept my eyes fixed on the computer screen, hoping to hide the red in my face. “I thought being a VL at sixteen was a feat.”

  We laughed. “And I hope he makes it. It couldn’t happen to a better person.”

  She pulled up a chair, and we went through all the pictures as I detailed the night for her. When I’d finished, she leaned back hard into her chair and sighed. “I hope my first prom is half as good as that. And no pressure. I love that.”

  After a while, Hannah got bored of my endless tagging and captioning of the pictures and she wandered off, probably to go watch some show on Netflix or read a book.

  Finally, certain I had everything just the way I wanted it, I published the pictures to my wall and watched all the comments pour in.

  I smiled, satisfied, and turned to dealing with friend requests. Ever since Cal asked me to prom, I’d been getting all kinds of friend requests. For the most part, if the requestor went to Layton or Davis High, I’d friend them—unless they had crazy stuff on their Timeline. Today, I had twenty requests to go through. Typically, I had a vague memory of most of the people who friended me. Not that I’d ever talked to them, but I’d seen them at school or something. Some I knew by reputation or had seen in my classes or in the halls at school, but there were always a few that I had no clue who they were.

  I went through fifteen of the twenty pretty quickly. They fit into the I-have-a-vague-recollection-of-you category, but five were people I had no clue about. I declined two of them for obscene pics on their Timeline, but approved the other three, who all went to Layton High.

  Within minutes of approving Logan Newbold, he messaged me. Thanks for friending me. Did you have a good time at prom?

  Who was this guy? I clicked over to his page. Good looking guy. Olive skin, dark, messy hair, brooding hazel eyes. I stared at his profile picture and then scanned through all his photos. I had no idea who this guy was. It was the best. You?

  Tons of fun. Looking at your pics. You look amazing. I’m uploading mine now.

  I look amazing? What? Was he some kind of stalker or something? I suddenly felt self-conscious. I tried to remember if I’d noticed anyone staring at me at the dance. I couldn’t think of anyone.

  I stared at his profile picture a second. He looked playful in most of his pictures, either laughing or wearing a half smile. His hazel eyes seemed to look right at me as if he were alive in the computer. I had a hard time looking away. His tousled dark brown hair had a just-out-of-bed look that made him appear relaxed and cool somehow. No, I definitely didn’t know this guy. He was too amazing for me to overlook. Right? Or had I? I moved the mouse over to the “unfriend” button and hovered over it for a second. I pursed my lips.

  Movement on the page caught my eye—he’d uploaded his prom album. I moved the mouse over to his pics and started clicking through them. I stared at every inch of all the pics and couldn’t place him. I didn’t even know the girl he took. He looked good in a tux, though. I sent a qui
ck message. Looks like you had fun.

  Thanks. Hey, I’ve got to go. See ya.

  He seemed nice enough—he probably wasn’t a stalker. I’d leave him in my friends, for now at least. I was pretty sure I’d never hear from him again, anyway.

  The next day at school, Ali and I walked into the commons and were met by a group of kids from my honors classes. I tried to pass them by, looking past them at all the people in the room.

  Mack and Conroy jumped into my path, stopping me in my tracks. Once Ali realized I’d stopped, she turned back and joined me. Mack rubbed his arm on mine while Conroy grabbed my hand and said, “Ah, Brooklyn, just the girl we’ve been looking for.”

  “Okay,” I said, turning my head to the side and looking at him from the corner of my eye. Why the sudden physical contact?

  “There’s a 5K next month that cross country is holding to pay for nationals.” Conroy stroked my hand sending an awkward feeling up my arm. “We each need to find at least ten people to sign up. You game?”

  Since running was my very least favorite activity in the world, it was easy to say, “Heck, no. I hate running. Sorry.” His hands dropped to his sides and he pouted. “Please? You don’t even need to run in it. Just sign up.”

  I shook my head, taking a step back and looking all around the room.

  “I told you, dude,” Mack said, half-laughing. “If she liked to run she’d be on the cross-country team.” It was nice not to feel alone at school, even if it made people think they could hit me up for fundraisers.

  Conroy turned to Ali. “What about you, beautiful red head. You a runner?”

  She just laughed and said, “I gotta get to English. See you at lunch, Brooke.”

  She’d abandoned me with these boys. I smiled, thinking about how I could make a graceful exit. It turned out I didn’t have to. Cal came just in time to save me. He barreled through the group, scattering everyone while grabbing onto me, spinning me around in a circle. He gave me a hug and then continued past.

  “I’ve got to turn in an assignment in Math,” he yelled out to me, running backwards. “I’ll see ya at lunch.”

  I waved bye to the honor’s group and took off to class, searching the room for something that I needed to find, only I didn’t know what. I bit my nails and discovered I was walking faster than I usually did. It was great not walking the halls of shame at school anymore. Why did I feel so strange? There were still a few who were mired in the past, but I didn’t let them get to me anymore. They should get over it. Whatever grudge they had against me was based on misinformation. I’d moved on, and even Luke had moved on. I bumped and jostled my way through the luge, a narrow hallway that got seriously crowded during class change. As I came shooting out, someone grabbed my arm. I whipped around, but it was only my friend Connor.

  “Hey, you dropped this,” he said.

  “Oh. It’s you,” I said, somewhat dazed.

  “Uh…yeah,” he gave me a weird look and held out my phone. It took me a minute to register what was going on. “Brooklyn? Your phone?”

  I shook my head, trying to dispel my confusion. “Oh my gosh, thank you! I would have died!”

  He gave me a baffled smile, then shrugged and walked past me toward his class. “Ok, well… see ya.”

  I stood still for a moment, holding the phone and trying to figure out what had made me so confused. Then I realized—I had been expecting someone else. In fact, ever since I’d walked into the Commons, I’d been looking around eagerly, trying to spot Logan’s face in the crowd—I just hadn’t admitted to myself what I was doing.

  I blushed and shook my head. That was ridiculous. I’d barely even talked to the guy for a minute last night—and I couldn’t remember ever talking to him in real life. With a jolt, I noticed that the halls were almost empty now—I was going to be late.

  English class was brutal. Mr. Chandler had assigned us ten-page papers due at the end of the year, which was only just a few weeks away. All any of us wanted to do was talk about summer and our plans, but Mr. Chandler had reserved the computer lab for the entire period. It was nose to the grindstone for me.

  I dutifully spent the first twenty minutes of class writing an outline for my paper, but when Mr. Chandler buried his head in a pile of paperwork, I couldn’t resist the temptation to do a little sleuthing. I jumped over to Logan’s page to stalk him a little bit. He’d acted like he knew me, at least a little bit. All I knew about him was that he went to Layton. I needed to go through his page and see what was up with him. As if he knew I was looking, a message from him popped up.

  Facebooking at school? Naughty, naughty.

  I quickly closed his page, ice gripping my heart. Was he here? I turned around slowly, feigning nonchalance I didn’t feel. I couldn’t tell, but it didn’t seem he could be anyone in the class. He definitely wasn’t on my row of computers, but maybe somewhere else in the room? The class was so big, I didn’t know everyone in it. He might have been in this class all along, and I just never knew. Was he watching me right now? I tried hard not to blush, but I could feel the heat creeping up my neck, anyway. I turned back to my screen.

  What about you? You’re at school. I wondered if I should add aren’t you? Would it be more suspicious for me to think he was there when he wasn’t, or to be clueless about him being there at all?

  Yeah, but I’m an office aide and when there’s nothing for me to do, I get time to myself.

  I bit my lip. Ok, so he wasn’t in my class—at least not this one. Well, how do you know I’m not TAing right now, too?

  You’re in English.

  Whoa. What the heck? This guy knew my schedule?

  I’m an office aide, remember?

  I smiled and then frowned. Was he stalking me or something? I wasn’t sure I liked the access to my records he had. Maybe he wasn’t in any of my classes after all. Maybe the only reason he knew me was from office records. Then again, he had singled me out of all those records. I liked how resourceful he was. I glanced up at the clock just in time to see Mr. Chandler start walking up my row. I closed Facebook and pretended to be reading an article online instead. Once he passed me, I was actually able to calm down enough to work on my paper.

  When the bell rang, I packed up my stuff and hurried to Spanish class, which was clear across the school and on the main level. I barely made it on time to class everyday. A lot of kids would hate having to sit in the front because all the other seats were taken by the time I got there, but I didn’t. The class was huge, and I didn’t know many of the kids in there. It was considered an easy A, so it tended to be full of slackers, and slackers that disrupted class bugged me. I preferred to be close to the teacher so that I knew what was going on and didn’t miss anything.

  Today, though, I took a quick look around before taking my seat. I didn’t see him. Mr. Juarez started class right after I sat down. We always started with ten minutes of practice conversation with questions he had put up on the board. Then we took a test. When I finished I found myself thinking of Logan, even though I had a book open to read. His flirtatious words echoed in the back of my head and heat rose in my cheeks. I kept my head down, hoping no one would notice.

  Cal plopped down next to me at lunch. He started chattering immediately about the assembly after lunch.

  “This girl is incredible. Seriously, she fell forty feet and not only lived to tell the tale, but goes around inspiring others to make the best of misfortune. I can’t wait.”

  “I hope she’s funny. Everyone likes speakers at assemblies to be funny.”

  “She may not be funny, but I bet she’ll be entertaining.”

  I found my mind drifting back to Logan. I tried to remember what his profile picture had looked like. Was his hair really that dark, or was it just the lighting? My eyes drifted from table to table, but I didn’t see anyone that looked remotely like Logan. Maybe his pictures were fake…

  “Brooke?” Cal’s voice cut into my thoughts.

  “Oh sorry—what?”

&
nbsp; “You ok? You seem a bit distracted.”

  I fought back the blush that was threatening. “Sorry. Just thinking about…my, um, research paper. What were you saying?”

  “I was just wondering if you’re as psyched as I am about rock climbing tomorrow?”

  Ugh. I’d completely forgotten. It was a teacher in-service day, so we had a random day off in the middle of the week. Cal had pounced on the opportunity and had somehow convinced me to go rock climbing. Distracted by the mystery of Logan, I’d forgotten all about it.

  I smiled at Cal, doing my best impression of a girl who was looking forward to plummeting to her death. “Oh yeah, totally psyched.”

  He grinned at me. The bell rang. “Well, wish me luck. I want to introduce her in a way that makes everyone want to listen.”

  “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

  “I wish I could sit with you, but you know.”

  “That’s okay. Ali and I, we’ve got each other’s backs.” We fist bumped each other before heading for the auditorium.

  The assembly was more than amazing. Cal had been right, the speaker was not only entertaining, but totally inspiring. When it was over, we headed off to fourth period, P.E. No Logan there, either. Just as well. I didn’t like the thought of him seeing me in my gym shorts.

  “Anything interesting at school today, Brooklyn?” my dad asked over dinner.

  I thought about Facebooking with Logan in the computer lab. That had certainly been interesting—but it wasn’t something I wanted to bring up at family dinner.

  “Oh, just same old, same old. Um, can I use the computer after dinner, Mom? I have a research paper to work on.” My mom liked to use the computer write in the evenings. I crossed my fingers under the table, trying my best not to look too eager.

  “Sure thing, hon. I have book club tonight.”