Be Mine (22 page)

Will had kissed her. But it hadn't been a real kiss. Or had it? Had he been trying to fool her? She didn't know!

“What if he doesn't tell you?” Jennifer asked. “Or show you?”

“Then it's up to you,” Natalie said. “If you really like the guy, you should tell him.
Especially
if you think he might like you. You know how guys can get sometimes. They're shy and they don't always tell us what they're feeling or thinking. We have to drag it out of them.”

“Would you tell him?” Jennifer asked.

Natalie thought about it for a second and then she nodded. Jennifer couldn't help but notice that she seemed . . . happier. Like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “I would. Definitely.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Jennifer said, wondering what she was going to do the next time she saw Will.

Eden was in the House of Fashion dressing room. Usually, she loved trying on new clothes and checking herself out from all angles in one of those fabulous three-way mirrors. But today her heart wasn't in it. She hadn't liked any of the dresses she had tried on. What did it matter what she was wearing? It wasn't like she was dressing for anyone. But Claudia had dragged her and Natalie to the mall with her, insisting that they all had to find new dresses for the Valentine's Day dance. Natalie was still outside searching through the racks, while Eden kept giving Claudia her opinion.

“What do you think of this one?” Claudia asked as she modeled in front of Eden. She was wearing a hot pink baby-doll dress.

“It's adorable,” Eden said.

“I hate it!” Claudia exclaimed, ripping the dress off and hurling it at Eden. She collected a bunch of hangers with dresses she had already tried on and shoved them into Eden's arms. “And I hate these! Go hang them back up while I try on something else!”

Eden smothered a sigh. She didn't know how many more of Claudia's temper tantrums she could take. All the dresses had looked stunning on her. What did she want?

As she walked out of the dressing room, she ran into Dexter's sister Angie, who was wearing one of the outfits she'd given her. She was in a purple and black, plaid-pleated mini-skirt, black striped turtleneck, black tights, and high-heeled Mary Janes. The look was very funky and fresh.

“That looks better on you then it did on me,” Eden complimented her.

“Hey, Eden! Buying a dress for the dance?”

“I'm trying to, but I can't find anything I like,” she said as she hung up the dresses Claudia had tried on.

“Who are you going with?” Angie asked as she followed her.

“No one.”

“You mean Dexter hasn't worked up his courage yet?”

“To do what?” Eden absently asked as she tried to hang a dress back on a crowded rack.

“Ask you to the dance!” Angie exclaimed.

Eden dropped the dresses she was holding and whirled around to face Angie. “What did you say?”

“Dexter wants to take you to the Valentine's Day dance.”

“He does?” Eden asked in disbelief.

“All he ever talks about is you,” Angie said.

Eden bent down to pick up the dresses she had dropped. “I thought
maybe
he might like me, but I wasn't sure. I thought I was imagining things.”

“Oh, he likes you. Trust me. He likes you a lot. He's just too shy to do anything about it!” One of Angie's friends called out to her. “Gotta go!” she told Eden.

After Angie left, Eden went back to the dress racks with renewed determination. This time she was going to find a dress. If she didn't find one here, then she'd go to every store in the mall.

She had to.

Because it looked like she might have a date for the Valentine's Day dance after all!

Everywhere Jennifer looked in DeVille's, people were shopping for Valentine's Day. The candy department was filled with shoppers waiting in line with cute stuffed animals and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. The jewelry department was a madhouse as salesclerks hurried to open glass-topped cases so they could take out shiny necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Other shoppers had bouquets of flowers tucked under their arms. Love was in the air!

Jennifer couldn't wait until the following day. She was finally going to have a valentine.

Okay, technically he wasn't a
real
valentine, but maybe . . .

Just maybe . . .

After leaving Natalie, Jennifer had thought about her advice. And she had made a decision. She was going to tell Will how she felt about him. She had to. Once the Valentine's Day dance was over, they would no longer be a couple and she didn't want that to happen. She wanted to keep being Will's girlfriend, but for real. She could only hope that once she told him how she felt, he would tell her that he had feelings for her, too.

But he had to! She was sensing
something
developing between them. It couldn't be her imagination.

At that moment, the doors to the elevator across from Jennifer's cash register opened and Will came walking out. His overcoat was open and she could see he was wearing the suit they'd bought earlier in the week. He looked
so
good in it! Like he'd stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine.

Jennifer's heart began beating nervously. Why was Will all dressed up and coming to see her? Was he planning to do something romantic? She walked out from behind her cash register. “Hi! This is a surprise.”

“I swung by your house and your mom told me you were working. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“I wanted to talk to you about something, too,” Jennifer said, taking Will by the hand and leading him to the storeroom in the back. “Let's go where we can have some privacy.” She was going to do it. She was going to tell him how she felt. If she didn't do it now, she might never do it.

“I can't stay away from my register very long,” she said, as they stepped into a room filled with wedding gowns hanging in plastic bags. “Like I said, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I also wanted to give you something.”

“What?”

“An early Valentine's Day present.”

Then Jennifer threw her arms around Will and gave him a kiss. She'd been wanting to do this since the moment he'd ended their last kiss. And now she was.

But as she pressed her lips against Will's, she realized something was wrong.

This kiss wasn't as special as the last one they'd shared.

Maybe that was because Will wasn't kissing her back.

Jennifer broke the kiss and stepped away from Will, totally confused. Should she not have made the first move? Was Will upset about that? Was that why he hadn't kissed her back? She had expected a completely different reaction than the one she was getting. He was staring at her with an uncomfortable look on his face. Her kiss couldn't have been that bad, could it?

“Is something wrong?” she asked him.

Will quickly shook his head. “No, that was nice,” he said. “Very nice.”

“I wanted to thank you for being so sweet,” she said, rushing to do damage control. After the way he'd responded to her kiss she wasn't about to confess her feelings. “You know, for helping me out.”

“I'm always there for my friends. You know that better than anyone else. Which is what I wanted to talk to you about.” Will paused and gazed down at the floor. It was almost like he was trying to work up his courage for what he had to say next. Then he gazed back at Jennifer. “That's why I dropped by last night,” he continued. “But Violet was there and the timing didn't seem right. And today we never really had a chance to be alone.”

He's breaking up with me,
Jennifer thought.
He's decided he can't go through with this anymore. Wait, wait, wait! He
can't
be breaking up with me because there's nothing to break up. We're not a couple.

Her frantic thoughts must have registered on her face because Will laughed. “Don't look so panicked,” he said. “It's not bad news.”

“Then why are you acting so strangely?” Jennifer asked.

“Because I'm not sure how you're going to react when I tell you.”

“Then just tell me,” she told him. “The suspense is killing me!”

“Do you know Kristy Jenkins?”

Jennifer shook her head. The name rang no bells with her.

“She's a girl I went out with a couple of times. We're still friends. She goes to St. Bernadette's. Anyway, I ran into her on Sunday afternoon and she asked if I'd do her a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“She has a party to go to tonight and she asked if I'd go with her. Her boyfriend broke up with her and she doesn't want to go alone. All her friends are coupled up.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said yes.”

Jennifer couldn't believe what she was hearing. “You said yes? But why?”

“Why not?”

“Because you're supposed to be
my
boyfriend.” She stared at Will in the suit she thought he had worn for her. But he hadn't. He was wearing it for another girl. And then she remembered helping him shop for it. She had asked him why he needed a suit and he hadn't told her. But he'd known that he needed the suit for tonight. Okay, he hadn't technically
lied
, but he'd withheld information from her! She'd thought she was dressing Will for herself, but she'd actually been dressing him for Kristy! “How is it going to look if people find out you're on a date with another girl? You know how everyone at North Ridge High gossips. All we need is for Mindy Yee to be at this party and we're sunk!”

“It will look like you trust me,” Will said. “And it's not a
real
date. It's like what I'm doing for you by pretending to be your boyfriend. A favor. I'm helping a friend. It's the same thing.”

Will's words rang through Jennifer's head:
Pretending to be your boyfriend . . . a favor . . . helping a friend.
She'd just gotten a cold dose of reality. Will
didn't
have feelings for her. If he did, he wouldn't be saying those words. He'd be saying something else.

Something she wasn't ever going to get to hear from him.

Like:
I love you
.

Okay, maybe it was a bit too early for Will to be declaring his love, but at some point maybe he would have.

“Why are you freaking out?” Will asked, breaking into her thoughts. “I thought you'd be cool with it.”

“Well, I'm not.”

“Why? What's the big deal?”

Do you even have to ask that question
? she wanted to scream.
Because I'm jealous!!! I don't want you spending time with another girl. I want you spending time with
me.
I know how great you are and Kristy Jenkins probably does, too. I wouldn't be surprised if she made a play for you!

It's a big deal because I'm falling for you and I don't want to lose you. I don't want you going out with some other girl. I want you going out with me. Only me.

And then Jennifer remembered something that made her feel like an idiot. The necklace she had seen Will buying. She'd thought he was buying it for her, but he wasn't. Why would he? It wasn't the kind of Valentine's Day gift a guy would give to a girl who was “just” a friend. A guy gave a gift like that to a girl whom he cared about. That wasn't her. Will had made that perfectly clear.

So whom had he bought the necklace for? Kristy Jenkins?

Or some other girl?

“I've got to get back to my register,” Jennifer said, needing to get away from Will before she said something she'd regret. Part of her wanted to ask him whom he had bought the necklace for while another part of her wanted to scream and shout at him and ask why he hadn't bought the necklace for her. “Do whatever you need to do.”

“Thanks,” Will said, his voice filled with relief. “I'll see you at school tomorrow.”

A feeling of sadness washed over Jennifer as she left the storeroom. She thought she had been special. She had thought she was the only girl who mattered to Will.

But she wasn't.

She never had been.

Violet had been right.

The Heartbreaker had succeeded in breaking her heart.