His Kiss (12 page)

Seeing Milo’s hopeful smile whenever he saw me broke my heart, and seeing him now, standing at my locker, made me turn around and walk the other direction. I didn’t really need my pre-calc book anyway, not enough to face Milo’s hopeful smile and wistful eyes.

Only, as I turned around, I ran smack into Griffin—plowed right into his rock-solid chest.

He grinned as I backed away from him, mumbling apologies and turning red.

Griffin’s lips twitched with another grin as his gaze flicked between Milo at my locker and me making a retreat. He raised his eyebrows. “Avoiding your locker, Heaven?”

 
“Um,” I hedged, not quite sure if he knew about the Milo situation or not—but wow, nothing got passed him. He obviously figured out why I’d turned around so abruptly.

I didn’t’ t want to get caught in another lie, but I also didn’t want to admit his kiss had made it clear I had absolutely no chance of sparks with Milo—or any other boy. I mean, to him the kiss was nothing—just something to tease me about.

While I tried to think of a clever reason that I turned around so abruptly when I saw Milo (besides needing to use the bathroom or something), Griffin pulled me out of the congested student traffic that was trying to get around us. He backed me up against the nearest wall of lockers and leaned in close. I’m not sure if it was to get out of people’s way or to get a rise out of me. Probably it was a little of both. And it worked.
On both counts.

Griffin spoke near my ear, close enough that I could feel his warm breath on my neck. “It seems like the cookies and the poems—they’re to tell me that you kind of like me, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. Probably because I hadn’t even answered his last question yet. Instead, he leaned in closer. “But I want you to
show
me, Heaven.”

I stepped away from him kind of horrified and ready to run, but he grabbed my arm, not forcefully, gently, and pulled me back to him. He gave a soft laugh. “I didn’t mean that the way it might have sounded.”
His lips quirked.
“I just meant—don’t run away from me.” He wet his kewpie-doll lips,
then
brought them closer to my ear. “Maybe we should hang out.”

He raised his eyebrows as I looked up at him, my heart racing. Was he asking me on a date?
An actual date?

I tried to calm my heart down and stay in control as his eyes studied my face, but it was hard. His warm, seductive eyes on me so intently made me want to jump up and down or do acrobats. I couldn’t stand still. Or breathe.

“There’s a party at Jake’s house tonight,” Griffin said. “Want to come?”

I let out my breath, finally able to breathe, and shook my head—his question totally bringing me back to reality. We were from two totally different worlds. He was a rough and tough party guy, and I was a girl that stayed away from that kind of boy.

As much as I yearned to have him, I knew I couldn’t.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I told you—I don’t go to those kind of parties.”

Then I ran away from his puzzled dark eyes.

***

I knew I was confusing everybody. Confusing Griffin by liking him but trying not to and confusing poor Milo by trying to like him when I didn’t. I was confusing
everyone
—mostly myself.

A week after running away from Griffin I wrote him a poem that tried to explain my feelings. Only, then I seemed too exposed. So, I changed words in it and made it kind of indecipherable, but beautiful—well, I thought it was beautiful, but then … I was weird.

In any case, I stuck it in Griffin’s locker with a tiny, yet perfect, chocolate lava cake.

Then later, that very night, I was sitting in my den with Jazz who was spending the night since it was Friday and she had just broken up with her sort-of boyfriend, Hunter, and she was sad and wanted company. Only we were both really whiny and had eaten too much pizza and ice cream, so it was a very depressing scene—two teenage girls on a Friday night trying to watch Buffy The Vampire reruns but remembering how the last time we watched Buffy we’d been snuggling with our boyfriends—not Ben and Jerry.

Sad, sad, sad.

“You know who I think is cute?” Jazz groaned, getting herself another handful of popcorn.

“Xander?” I tried keeping the sarcasm out of my voice but it was hard. She’d had a crush on the television character since junior high.

“Duh.” She rolled her eyes and threw popcorn at me. “But don’t you think Conner Watts, from pre-calc, looks like Xander?”

I shrugged, totally changing the subject, just because I was depressed and I wasn’t even really sure who Conner Watts from pre-calc was. “I think I need to get back together with Aiden.”

Then, because I’m a good friend, I added. “Yeah, Conner totally looks like Xander—way more than Hunter.”

I said this because: one, Hunter was her ex-boyfriend that had her all depressed tonight and two, Hunter looks nothing at all like Xander, so it was pretty safe to assume whoever Conner Watts was looked way more like Xander than Hunter who is stocky and has blond hair and blue eyes. Raggedy Andy looks more like Xander than Hunter.

Then, because Jazz is a good friend, she said, “Why do you think you should get back together with Aiden?”

So, I explained to her the whole, big thing about Griffin and Milo, and how I’d confused them both.

“Really? Griffin asked you out?” she sounded amazed. “On a date?”

“No,” I moaned. “Of course not a date—Griffin doesn’t ‘date’ girls. He invited me to ‘hang out’ with him at Jake’s party. He invited me to
hang out
.”

Jazz laughed. “That’s a date to The Griff.” She laughed even harder, like it was hilarious. “The Griff asked you on a date.”

Obviously, she was trying to picture us together. It made her laugh even harder. Griffin and I—we were so different. She was right; it was funny. Only depressing too.
Because I wanted him.
Wanted him bad.

I slunk down in my chair, ready to have a good mope; only just then I got a text. It was from Kendra, my cousin. She wrote:
Your friend Destiny is drunk off her butt.

Then Kendra sent me a picture of Destiny making-out with some guy at a party. Seeing it made me sort of sick.
Destiny doesn’t drink—well
,
she didn’t used to
.

I got the address for the party and told Jazz we needed to go get Destiny. But wouldn’t you know it—once we got to the party, there was Conner Watts from pre-calc. And you know what? He did look a lot like Xander. Especially compared to Hunter.

Conner smiled at Jazz from across the crowded, noisy room as soon as he saw us come through the front door. Jazz smiled back and that was it. He came over and they were all, “Wow, hi!” and “I was hoping you would be here!” and like that, Jazz seemed to forget Hunter ever existed.
Or that I did.

So, I went to find Destiny and I found her—in the kitchen …

With Griffin.

Griffin!

She was sitting on his
lap
at the kitchen table while he was playing poker with three guys from the hockey team.

She was sitting on Griffin’s
lap
.

Playing with his hair.

No one noticed that I had come into the kitchen—not Destiny, who had her back to me, or Griffin, or the guys, or anyone. And I just stood there, frozen in the kitchen doorway, my heart … hurting.

Finally, Griffin glanced up from his cards and over to me, then he did a double take.

“Heaven!” he said with a grin, moving his head away from Destiny’s roving hands.

(FYI, he’d started calling me “Heaven” lately. Short for “My Three Minutes in Heaven”—I assumed, which I had totally loved, until now. Now I totally
loathed
it and him and … everything. Was he the guy in the picture Kendra had sent me
?—
the guy macking with poor, drunk Destiny? I needed to look at the picture again—scrutinize it—but at the moment I was too busy glaring at Griffin to do anything but stand there—shocked and appalled and … hurt.)

Griffin’s grin grew as he dodged Destiny’s hands again. “I thought you don’t go to parties.”

“I don’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I came to get
her
.” Then I added with my teeth still clinched, ‘cause he was obviously a bad influence, and a bad person, “She doesn’t drink.”

Griffin arched his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure she did tonight.”

His friends all laughed, like she’d been doing embarrassing … drunk things.

Grrr!

I stomped over and tried pulling Destiny from Griffin. “Come on, Destiny!”

“No!” She nuzzled her face in Griffin’s neck. “You smell good,” she mumbled to him. Then she put her arms around him tight, trying to make him snuggle with her—kind of like she was always saying she would do if she ever got the chance.

I groaned.

Griffin laughed at that—my groan. “I don’t think she can walk,” he said. “I’ll carry her.”

I really didn’t want that, but I didn’t want any of this—my friend drunk and fawning on a guy—the hockey team watching and laughing. And sadly, I knew Destiny must have done something hugely embarrassing for Kendra to bother texting me. I mean
,
Kendra got drunk every weekend. To her it was just … life.

Griffin carried Destiny out to the car over his shoulder, fireman style. Then he plunked her in the backseat, leaning over her, doing—something. I couldn’t see what. It had me slightly alarmed. I mean, what was he doing? And was he the guy in the photo Kendra had sent me? The guy taking advantage of my
drunk
friend?

“Stay away from her!” I growled.

Griffin leaned back, showing me his upraised hands with an amused smirk. “I was just buckling her in.”

I reddened, feeling incredibly stupid. But well, I had no idea if he was drunk or totally sober or what. All I knew was, he’d had my
drunk
friend in his lap and then he was leaning over her in my car.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, then added, “Look, can you just stay away from my friends?”

I didn’t just mean Destiny. I meant Kendra too. Lately she’d been all flirty with him, and when we had passed her just now in the party she had given Griffin a big, drunk kiss, slurring, “I love those lips—love them!”

Ugh!

Griffin grinned, amused. “Yeah, I can leave them alone.”
He quirked his eyebrows.
“But can they leave
me
alone?”

He had a point.

I sighed, wishing he didn’t look so adorable when he said that, or so gorgeous out here in the dark with the moon shinning on him. My stupid heart was suddenly beating all
I want him I want him
.

I was glad when I suddenly got a distraction, something to make me take my eyes off his. It was a text from Jazz:
Conner’s going to give me a ride home.

That was all it said.

I squeezed my eyes shut, happy for her, of course, because she found her very own Xander and was already on her way to being over stupid Hunter (jerk!), but also I was kind of pissed because,
Hello!
Our friend was
drunk and macking random guys
!

But then Jazz texted:
You got Destiny
alright
, right? Or do you need my help?