Almost (20 page)

“You wish!”

I hear a small laugh as she whips the thing back over the boxes. It takes out one of my carefully stacked piles of frogs. “Easy there. It's called aim,” I tease again. “Are you starving like I'm starving?” I ask, wishing she could come to lunch with me.

I don't bring it up because I know she won't. Can't.

“Eat this, why don't you?” Before I can defend myself, Jess whacks me straight in the forehead with a tape-wrapped ball of bubble wrap.

Damn, but the girl has a good arm.

“Missed completely,” I say but know I've been busted when I see a flash of her blonde hair ducking around the far side of some yet to be addressed boxes.

The ladybugs. Our future hell project.

“Whatever you need to say in order to save your pride.” She's doing that irrepressible giggle that makes me unable not to smile. “

Do you want me to hit you with another? Or are you done at one, you wimp,” she challenges again.

I can hear her scrunching papers and stretching tape around another ball bomb. I imagine she's about to whack me with half a box.

“This one might hurt,” she adds, confirming my suspicions. She's full-on laughing now.

“Stop. Truce. If you knock over these piles this project will take longer. I'm sorry I started it, but I'm antsy. You've been quiet too long. Let's talk about where I'm going to take you for our first weekend date. It's in two days. Preferences?”

“I'd rather throw things at you.” And she does. Pelts me with the giant wad of tape and paper. I catch it, but she doesn't emerge. I can hear her pouring plastic frogs into the wire baskets she's been using. “I have no idea. You pick,” she says finally. All laughter has been erased from her voice. This makes me feel bad, sad…annoyed.

“Come on,” I plead. “I'm not that terrible. You've spent every night at the rink with me for almost a whole week. I think it's been fun for you.” I hook four more frogs onto their lily pads. I'm getting faster at this. “Hasn't it…been fun?”

“Fishing for compliments, as usual. You are the neediest guy I've ever paid to date me,” she says.

“Funny. You're the most evasive girl I've ever known. Come on, answer,” I insist.

“Yes. It's been fun. I already told you that.”

“Good.”

We work in silence for a long moment. “Did you decide?” she calls out. Her tone seems hopeful, but I detected a little anxiousness also.

“Hiking. A short trail. What works best for you? Saturday or Sunday?”

“Saturday please. Sunday is what my parents call ‘family day’. But mostly we do yard work, clean house or do laundry. Sometimes church. Sometimes movies. Does that work with your rink schedule?”

“I'm on at five. We'll make a day of it. The picnic lunch is on me. Your job is to locate some hiking gear. Bring a water bottle, sunscreen, all that. The trail is a bit rough but the view is worth it. What's your favorite food?” I ask and my stomach grumbles again at that thought.

“I like everything,” she says, but she sounds doubtful. “Don't forget,” she adds, “for official dates, you have to pick me up at my house and bring Michelle and Corey. But on pain of death, stay in the car. My parents are getting viciously curious about you,
Corey
.”

I hate that she now sounds resigned, as though we just discussed some mandatory chore like toilet cleaning.

“Fine,” I grumble, feeling slighted. “I'll have the car full of other people and distractions.” I'm getting sick of Corey and Michelle being part of our equation. Our contract. Our new friendship.

My crush.

Hell
. I just need to admit it. I've got it so bad for this girl that I'm jealous of any conversation, smile or time that Jess gives to my best friends. It's something that's making me feel crazy and it's gone way out of control. It's a crush I need to kill. But how?

Jess has turned out to be great on every level. Smart, perceptive, hard working and kind. And let's not leave out her soft skin, the hair she hides in those buns. The cinnamon-sunshine pie thing, and the way she lets me put my arms around her when Corey and Michelle are looking.

The girl has cast some sort of spell on me. One I've been vowing daily,
hourly
, to ignore. So far I'm having no success with that. Worse, the boring toy building makes it easy to daydream…about her!

Just now I'd been thinking about the way she fits so perfectly under my chin and next to my heart when I pull her into a hug. The way she eats my nachos every night so carefully, but still manages to wind up with cheese on the corners of her mouth and all over her chin.

Damn…that alone is beyond hot. How am I supposed to just shut that cuteness down?

I figure my stupid imagination has allowed this crush to go way out of bounds. I know she's completely off limits. All I can do to keep under control is to remind myself of the night she was almost raped. Remember my part in it—what a chicken shit loser I'd been that night.

I'd only wanted to be her hero; instead I'd been—crap! I'd been a complete failure. If I continue to entertain thoughts of
me
, being with Jess—as in—
for real
—then I'm a complete asshole on every level. Worse, I will have failed her all over again. And I refuse to do that.

Wanting more from Jess, is pure selfishness. This has to be about her. I need to be satisfied with just being what she wants—what she needs—what she's asked me to be. I'm going to figure out a way to stop my reckless imagination from coming up with impossible scenarios where Jess and I become a real couple.

Impossible.

Anything else would hurt her—would cause her to remember. She doesn't deserve that kind of pain no matter what. And not from me.

I pull another pile of frogs over and snap them together, reminding myself of the stuff that seems to be working for both of us.

As in,
I'm
working for her. We have a contract that makes us both happy, I'm getting paid a shit-load of money, and we're both going to college on our own terms.

I toss down the latest frog-lily-pad-combo and pull out my wallet to look at the $448.00 Geekstuff.com paycheck simmering in there. I haven't put it in savings yet, but I will.

And then I'll ramp up being the best damn pretend-boyfriend in the world. Whatever she wants. Jess deserves to get the guy she's hired on task and in focus. The girl had no paycheck handed to her today. And for the past two weeks she's worked as hard as me. Maybe harder. And all I've done is daydream about her and wish things were different. They aren't. So I'm going to deal with that and go with what's real. Period. Done with crush. And moving on.

“Hey, slacker. It's awfully quiet on frog island.” Another volleyball-sized cluster of paper and tape lands with a tape-sticking thwack near my feet and startles me out of my thoughts.

“Head back to trash planet. I need a basket trade out,” she commands.

“Coming boss-lady,” I say and empty the few frogs remaining in the large wire basket onto my worktable. I head around the wall of boxes that house Jess's unwrapping empire. For the tenth time that morning, I stop, frozen, and stare.

All of my latest vows, promises and new resolves melt away.

She's too cute. And I'm only human. Humans get crushes. It's how we're programmed.

Today, she's twisted the length of her hair into the most epic bun of all. This one's tennis ball sized and making her little curly wisps of hair twist out in every possible direction. The whole effect of the odd hairstyle, not to mention the smooth skin along the long line of her exposed neck all but does me in. I love that she has zero vanity checks like other girls do. She never looks at her reflection in mirrors or windows. Nor does she flip her hair around, blink her eyes all weird, and never blabs on and on about her clothes or shoes.

Somehow, her complete lack of attention seems to accent just how pretty and cool she is.

“What? You on a sugar low? Me too.” She stops to shoot me a grin while she twists one of the rubber bands tighter into that mad bun.

“Something like that,” I mutter, stifling a groan as I will my body to move toward her when in fact,
I know
I should be running the hell away from her open smile.

Those lips. Damn! Someone shoot me. Please.

“You do look somewhat off.” She shoots me a worried glance. “I've got an extra Red Bull in my car…though I'm not sure if your caffeine-free stomach will be able to hang with the big dogs.” She grins up at me wider.

I'm gone. Lost. Done for. Crush is back on. Times two to the tenth power. Hell, yes the girl has cast a spell on me!

All I want to do right now is fall on my knees, tell her the truth, tell her who I am, what I did and apologize for all of it—just to see if she'll forgive me. Find out if we can start this all over. Then…touch her, ask her questions like: does she like me at all? Will she take out that bun so I can see how long her hair really is again? And do we, as a real couple, even stand a chance?

I shiver. There's no way.

We'd have to unwind time. Start over three years ago. It's way too late for that.

“Well? Do you want the Red Bull or not?” She arches one graceful brow, waiting. Shit. I've been standing here blinking down at her like a total, zombied freak.

“No thanks. I can wait until lunch,” is all I can manage. I start forward and set down the empty basket at the edge of her crisscrossed knees. Christ, even her work-grubby knees are sexy as hell!

Help me, someone!

Unable to speak or meet her gaze after what I've just been thinking, I take up the full basket she loaded and turn to leave.

“How's it look out there?” she asks, not at all noticing my absolute shut-down. She leans back into one of the mini mountains of paper, boxes, bubble wrap, and cardboard she's created behind her. The move catches my eye and I can't help but stare all over again.

Hell. I'm caught in a living hell.

She's blinking up at me and I realize I'm supposed to answer.

“We're…starting to show real progress,” I choke out, working to ignore the surge of blood that's rushed into my head. It also surges into other places down lower. Places I do not want
her
to notice! It's like I'm back in seventh grade—meaning not able to control
anything.

“This is not half bad as far as comfort goes.” She leans back farther with a yawn and stretches her arms over her head. I can't squelch the image of me pushing her back into that pile of packing material and making out with her. For a long, long time.

I'm a sick, sick, stalking bastard with a crush on a girl I can never have, and there's nothing I can do about it.

“You should take a little break?” she says.

“Mmmhm.” My throat has gone completely dry. I can't even swallow.

“I'm taking a little break right here,” she adds, closing her eyes. This brings my attention back to her lips and, then of course, to the rest of her. “Mmm,” she sighs again.

Everything in my body surges to max capacity and I don't even care.

Does the girl have no mercy? Isn't some sort of devil supposed to show up right here and suck me underground? Make me sign away my soul? Or did that already happen when I put my name on her stupid boyfriend contract? That can't be right. When you sign away your soul you get what you want. And I'm not even close.

I shove the basket of plastic frogs in front of my pants and all but run back around the boxes to the safety of my waiting stack of lily pads.

Nothing like four thousand, hellish plastic frogs to calm a guy down.

Frog to lily pad.

Frog to lily pad.

Frog to horrible, boring, stupid freaking Geekstuff.com plastic, lame-ass, lily pad.

Frog to lily pad.

Frog. Lily pad.

I shove one of the piles to the side and attack the next.

Now I'm the one dreading our date.

Jess was right. It
is
going to be a chore. If Jess is making me this insane while lounging around in recyclables, I can only imagine how amazing the girl will look in dusty hiking gear! Unless she decides to wear a frog t-shirt and a lily pad hat for the rest of the summer, I'm doomed. I attach three more frogs to three more lily pads, but the pounding in my head and other areas will not relent.

I brace my hands flat against the stainless steel worktable and sigh. “I'm going to lunch. Are you good with me checking out for awhile?” I call over the boxes. “I'm seriously…dying.” I grimace almost laughing at myself. “Jess, you planning to eat something today? I can bring you a sandwich for later if you're going to nap in your car.”

She doesn't answer.