Her Kiss (Griffin) (8 page)

CHAPTER 17

Monday morning
Ally
and Poser looked as though they’d made up. Well, pretty much.
But not exactly.
They were walking down the school hallway
together. But they weren’t holding hands or being all cuddly like they usually
were.

As they passed my locker I smiled
at Ally. I couldn’t help it. She was staring at me, but it was like she was
trying her hardest not
to
. It was so cute. And it got
my heart all craving her.

“Hey, my Three Minutes in Heaven,”
I drawled near her ear as she and Poser walked by me.

Poser stiffened. Actually Ally did
too. She did a cute little gasp and turned all pink. My eyes washed over her,
drinking her in. I was craving, craving, craving. But she didn’t say a word to
me as she walked by. (No shock there.) She just kept walking—though now
kind of unsteady.

But I saw her peek back at me after
they’d passed by me a bit. I gave her my best smile and a wink. She quickly
darted her head back around as though we’d both been doing something naughty.
Maybe we had. My heart was sure drumming faster than normal. But that was
because, hey, she looked back at me. Didn’t act like I was invisible like she
usually did—well, like she usually
tried
to do.

My eyes lingered on her, until
Hailey nudged me with a growl. “She’s so not your
type!
” she hissed. “The girl goes to
church
.”

I shrugged. “I could go to church.”

Hailey howled a laugh. “Yeah,
right!”

I set my jaw, but couldn’t help
grinning. The building would probably burn up if I took a step in it. I knew
that as well as Hailey, but I liked messing with her. She was
so
belligerent, all over Ally who
practically went up in flames whenever I came near her. It wasn’t like Hailey
had anything to worry about. Ally wouldn’t even let me approach
her—except to give Poser a little taste of his own closet medicine. But
even
then
she called it a mistake.
And now she was back to not looking at me—well, pretty much.

I grinned. “No, seriously,” I told
Hailey, just to freak her out. “I’ve been thinking about going there—to
church—to pick up Church Girls. They’re so friggin’ cute with their
Bibles and kittens.”

Hailey laughed. “If you even
stepped foot in a church the preacher guy would throw his Bibles at you and
hide all the women and children.”

I smiled mildly, not really into
the conversation—but I can always talk. “Thanks Pop-fly, glad to hear you
think so highly of me. I mean, needing to
hide
the women—”

“—
and
children
,” she reminded.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I wasn’t really
paying attention to our conversation though. Ally and Poser were at Poser’s
locker. It was way further down the hall, but I could see them in deep
conversation, very much not smiling as they talked.

Ally’s eyes flickered my way then
stayed on me a second. She probably only looked because she could feel me
staring. But her eyes on me like that had my heart drumming a little faster. In
fact, it sent fireworks through my body.

When she quickly looked away, a
piece of me died. I mean, it was
full-on
painful.

Oh man. Not cool. I seriously had a
thing for Church Girl.

CHAPTER 18

Not many days after my Three
Minutes In Heaven with Ally Grange (aka, of course: My Heaven), Jake Edwards, a
guy from the hockey team, was clobbering Poser in the school hallway. I don’t
even know what the fight was about—but there were so many reasons to choose
from when it came to whiney, annoying Poser. Plus, Jake is not a tolerant guy.
If you make him mad, expect him to throw punches.

Anyway, I was in the midst of the
small crowd forming, enjoying the fight. But all of a sudden little Ally comes
pushing her way through the mob of students.

“Stop it!” she shrieked to Jake as
she fought to get close to their fighting. “Leave him alone!”

It was like she was planning to
pull Jake off Poser or something, which was insane. Yet, that seemed to be her
plan. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back a safe distance.
“Don’t go in there.”

I grunted as the feisty chick
fought to break free of my hold. “Grange, you’re going to get hurt.”

“No!
Aiden’s
getting hurt,” she cried. “
Griffin,
let me go! I have to stop it.”

I quirked an
eyebrow, still holding her by both wrists.
I eyed her up and down. “How
are you going to stop it?”

She swallowed, about to stutter
something out, but then she seemed to realize I was right. She would get
massacred if she got anywhere near the violent wild fist throwing.

She swallowed again, staring into
my eyes, like I was some kind of answer. Everything inside me wound tight.

Why was she looking at me like
that? My pulse ignited. I wasn’t breathing, and my heart skipped a couple
thousand beats.
What the—?

That’s what her stare did to
me—things I didn’t get.

Her eyes washed over me, pleading.
Man, I was on fire.

But then she said, “Will you stop
them? Please?”

I almost puked in my mouth.

I collapsed back, dying a little. I
choked. “Me
?!
—
stop
them?”

Didn’t she get it? Every time I saw
the guy I wanted my fist to meet his nose.

I would have rather she asked me to
bash my head through a brick wall than what she was asking.

“Griffin,
please
. He’s getting clobbered. Please!”

She had no idea how repulsed I was
by her request. I ran a hand over my face as I looked at her, into her
beautiful, pleading eyes, then up at the ceiling. The guy bugged me.
So bad.
And I winced every time I saw him with
Ally
. I didn’t want to help him. I wanted to bust his face
in right along with Jake.

“Griffin,
please!
”

I groaned and slugged the locker
next to me,
then
finally I reached for Jake. I pulled
his hand back behind him. “Fight’s over,” I growled. Because I’m a sucker and
would give Ally the world. Anything she wanted.
Even
this—me saving Poser.

Jake grunted. “What? No way. What’s
with you, man
?!
” He tried breaking free of my hold but
I pinned his arm behind his back.

“It’s over.”

 
Ally ran to her bloody, stupid boyfriend.

I winced, watching her gently kiss
his lips.

Seriously, every time I saw them
together my heart died.

I needed a funeral for my dreams of
her. I wanted to bury them. Deep. Forget they ever existed.

CHAPTER 19

 
“… And I told the guy, ‘Look, if you can’t control your
girlfriend, don’t expect me to. If she’s going to chase me, she’s probably
going to catch me—at least for a quick make-out.’” Mason was recapping
his usual type story as we left fourth period.

He was telling me about this guy he
got into a fight with the other night at a party. Mason gets into fights a lot.
Usually over girls.
I’m pretty sure it’s just because
he’s frustrated that he won’t make a move on
Summer
.
Sometimes I bother to tell him this, but not usually.
Unless
I want to duel jabs with him—which is sometimes fun.

Anyway, he was giving me the scoop
as we were walking towards my locker after fourth period—then boom! My
pulse thumped. Like exploded.
‘Cause I noticed Ally up in the
distance.
She was standing in front of my locker. And she was holding
cookies. A huge smile spread on my face. I’d just saved her boyfriend, so I was
pretty sure I knew what the cookies were about—her cute little silent
thank you.

Well, I was ready to tell her,
“You’re welcome.”

But she didn’t give me a chance.
When she saw me smiling at her, she ran away.

I watched her go, exhaling a long
drawn out breath.
My heart falling.
Bummer. I’d wanted
the cookies … and her to like, talk to me.

Mason watched Ally running away and
burst out a laugh. “There
goes your cookies
.”

He knew about the “Ally Situation.”
Sort of.
He knew she ran from me all of the
time—and he knew about the big cookie she had given me back in middle
school. Also, he knew I broke up Poser’s pounding from Jake this morning
because of her. So Mason’s teasing me about being “Soft for School Girl” was
more knowing than the rest of our teammates. I mean, he knew something was
actually up—more than me just trying to spin-up Poser.

“The chick’s pretty weird,” Mason
said.

“That she is,” I agreed with a grin
as we both watched her run through the crowd—away from me.

 
“They were fresh baked cookies, too,” Mason informed me,
rubbing it in that my cookies had just escaped me. The corner of his mouth
quirked in a way you could call a smile. “I know because the chick has third period
cooking class with
Summer
.”

Oh, that’s what the smile was
about.

I gave a laugh, thrilled to
redirect the subject. “Oh, so now you’ve memorized your ex-step-sister’s class
schedule?”

Mason shrugged, but he was
grinning. “Well, when it involves cookies—yeah.”

The guy and
Summer
were continually going after serial relationships that they knew were doomed,
instead of just admitting they were hot for each other. So, I just grinned.
“Poor guy, hiding behind baked goods.”

He inclined his head. “Well at
least I
got
my baked goods.”

Amused, I gave a faint grunt,
having to give him that. After all, mine had run off.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I mentioned
around a sheepish grin, “It’s the thought that counts.”

Kidding aside though, I actually
really felt that way, ‘cause I was actually touched that Ally had at least
thought
about giving me the
cookies.…
Actually, that she thought about me at all. It
ignited a nice, longing feeling through me. Like:
Aw, she cares!

“Yeah, well, enjoy eating School
Girl’s
thoughts
,” Mason said with a
sardonic smile. “Meanwhile,
Summer
’s cookies were
delicious.”

I quirked a grin.
“Spoken like a true brother.”

Mason groaned, ducking his head
with a sheepish laugh. “Shut up.”

I sauntered over to my sad,
cookie-less locker, “Hey, it’s all relative.”

Mason flashed a grin. “No it’s
not,” he said, refusing to acknowledge my pun out loud. “I got
cookies—you didn’t.”

CHAPTER 20

Boom! My heart thumped after fifth
period, ‘cause taped to my locker was a plastic baggie with a huge, fat,
delicious looking, double-chocolate cookie inside—score!

I was all smiles over the cookie,
then
I opened my locker and went perfectly still. My heart
stopped. There was a note inside. It had been folded and slipped through the
slots at the front of my locker. Reading the note, I collapsed against the wall
beside me.

A piece of me died of happiness.
Cute little Ally had written me a poem.

She didn’t sign it or anything. I
guess it was supposed to be “anonymous.” I knew she intended it to be that way.
But I recognized her writing from her journal/song notebook (which she never
knew I had). Plus, she’d written it on this silver guitar shaped post-it paper.
And I knew she had a guitar-shaped post-it pad lately, because, well, I noticed
stuff about her. Like, she played the piano … but carried around a guitar
shaped notebook. I found that interesting because she didn’t play the guitar.
Neither did her boyfriend. But
I
did.

The poem got my heart stirred up
kind of wild. Her words were purposefully cryptic, I could tell. Since she was
trying to be anonymous. (I guess she thought I had a bunch of fans writing me
“thank you” poems all the time, but I didn’t. What I got were phone numbers and
dirty messages and the occasional shocking picture.
But
poems?
Not so much … unless they had to do with naughty suggestive
stuff, which stirred up other parts of me—but not my heart.)

To me, her poem was extremely
romantic. I don’t know if that’s how she meant it to be. But that’s how I took
it. I loved it as much as her songs about me … and as much as her mind-blowing
kisses. (And that was a
lot
, my friend.)

I carried around her poem with me
the rest of the day, reading it and re-reading it, feeling like a werewolf.
A really happy one.

CHAPTER 21

Before school started one morning I
was in my auto shop class. I was working on a motor, and not really paying
attention to stuff around me. But then I heard a car pull into the service area
of the garage.

“We’re not working today,” I told
the girl that hopped out of the car. “Tuesday’s a study-hall. Plus, we’re booked
for the week.”

“Is Zack here?” the girl asked. “I
really need this car fixed—today.”

I grinned, tilting my head. “Not
going to happen. And no, Zack’s not here.”

Zack was a guy in my advanced auto
class. He misses a lot of school. But yeah, if he were here he probably would
have worked on the girl’s car for her.
‘Cause now I placed
the chick.
She was his ex-girlfriend. And he still had it for her bad.
Unfortunately, he had it bad for a lot of girls. Thus the “ex” in the word
“girlfriend.”

“Sorry,” I told her. I was swamped
or I would have helped her out. But as it was, I didn’t have good news for her.
“You’d have better luck at an actual auto-garage if you want it before next
week.”

“I need it fixed now—today.”

I looked away from her because I
really hate telling a girl no.
To anything.
“Sorry,” I
went back to working on my motor. “I can’t help you out.”

I didn’t bother going into my long
list of reasons why—but the list was long. I was way behind on my work.
As usual.
I had a real job in a real garage, on the side.
Plus I had hockey practices twice a day—early morning, then at night. I
had way more stuff to do than I actually had time for. The thing I let slide
was school—but I hear that’s not so good.

“Here,” I handed her the business
card for an auto shop in town. “They can probably fit you in tomorrow.”

The girl moaned. “But I need it
fixed now.
Ally’s going to kill me.”

My hands froze.
My
heart too.
“Ally … Grange?”

I squinted my eyes, giving the car
another look. “This is Ally’s car?”

“Her mom’s,” the girl said. “That’s
why we have to get it fixed today—before school gets out and her mom sees
it.” She seemed to realize I was into Ally—probably because I turned into
putty when she mentioned Ally’s name. So she played the card, “Ally will get in
huge trouble if we don’t get it fixed.”

“Who are you again?”

She smiled. “Kendra … Ally’s
cousin.”

The girl looked nothing like
Ally
. She looked kind of like Hailey—dressed in black
from head to toe.

“Ally would be
really
appreciative,” Kendra said.

I squeezed my eyes shut, not
knowing why I was even bothering to think it over. I knew I’d do it for Ally.
And it had nothing to do with Kendra’s taunting promise—that Ally would
be “appreciative.” Since the girl had asked for Zack. I mean
,
I hadn’t even been in the picture.

I looked over the car. It was going
to be a lot of work. And there was no way I’d be able to get done my stuff that
I really, really needed to.
Funny though, it didn’t even
occur to me to care.
“Okay, tell Ally I’ll do it,” I muttered. Then I
added with a grin, “… for a kiss.” My smile grew. “Tell her that—she has
to kiss me.”

Kendra blinked. “Um … ”

She blinked again
,
then snorted a laugh like this was bizarre—even for me,
The Grief-Master
. Because it was about
shy little Ally, not some juicy fan-girl. If it
was
she probably wouldn’t have been so taken aback. Or amused.

She drawled out, “Oh-kay, I’m sure
Ally would be willing to do that. I mean, probably. I guess.”

She tried to hold back another
laugh, like this was hilarious and majorly unexpected, but she was incredibly
relieved at the same time. She asked, “So how much is this going to cost her …
besides the kiss?”

I ran a hand over my face. I would
have loved to tell her it was for free. But the parts weren’t cheap even though
I could get them used and some as trade-offs. Adding it up in my head, I
figured it would probably be at least sixty bucks. I had twenty bucks in my
pocket, so I said, “Forty dollars,” then to make sure we had the deal (that I
wasn’t
really
planning on
going through with), I added, “And the kiss.”

The thing I have to tell you
is
, Ally broke up with Poser a while ago. It wasn’t this
glorious, happy thing for me though—
their
break-up.
Because now Ally looked sad.
All of the time.
I mean
,
it’s not
like she
wanted
to break-up with him.
Poser’s being seduced by Fauna just made her have
to
do it.

But like I said, now she was sad.
So my kiss-deal thing was just a joke. And my fixing her car for her was just
my way of trying to make her feel better.

I glanced back to Kendra. “Why didn’t
Ally come in here herself?”

She smirked. “Ally’s too shy to be
around a bunch of skeezy mechanics.” She drew close to me and purred in my ear,
“But I’m not.”

“’Kay, well, I’ve got to get busy,”
I said, and yeah, it was to blow her off. After all, Zack was my friend. Not
only that, she was Ally’s cousin. But also, I really did need to get busy if I
was going to have the car done in time. Besides, I don’t particularly like
being called “skeezy.” If she were a guy I might have slugged her for it. But
then again, that’s just because I like to fight.

***

After school, Kendra and Ally
showed up
right
as I was finishing with the car.

Ally squealed with happiness when
she saw it was as good as new. Her squeal made everything worth it—I
mean, me going to be in big trouble and everything.
Totally
worth it.

“Wow!” she gushed again. “How much
do I owe you?”

I eyed her a moment, then gazed
back at the car. “Twenty bucks.”

She blinked. “Whoa! Really? Just
twenty dollars?”

I grinned. “And the matter I spoke
to Kendra about.”

She blushed. “…
the
kiss.”

I raised my eyebrows in acquiesce.
“The kiss.”

“About that.” She cleared her
throat. “I was wondering if I didn’t really have to. I mean, I guess Kendra
said I thought you were a skeezy mechanic or something. I
don’t
think that. I mean
,
I can see
how that would make you want to prove a point or something. But,” she drew out
a long breath, “I don’t think that.”

A smile spread on my lips. “I’m
glad.”

I gave a soft laugh, my smile still
growing. “But I didn’t require it to prove a point.”

“Oh.”

She bit her lip, and put her hand
over her heart in a distracted,
my-heart-is-going-to-explode
kind of way. “Um.”

My gaze kept darting between her
heart and her big, blue eyes. Then it stalled on her lips.

She cleared her throat again. She
seemed to be
wanting
to say something, but was having
trouble concentrating.
Maybe because my eyes couldn’t leave
hers.
Finally, she just spat it out, “Aiden and I broke up.”

My smile grew even bigger. “I
know.”

She breathed out “Oh” in a tiny
whisper. She seemed to have been thinking I’d only asked for the kiss to mess
with Aiden again.

Now we were looking at each starry
eyed.
Neither of us speaking—or remembering that there
are words and they come out of your mouth.
That’s definitely not what
I
was thinking about doing with my
mouth.

Kendra rolled her eyes. “Get a
room, guys! You two look as though you’re going to jump on each other any
second.”

That made Ally snap out of the
heart-seducing daze we were under. Bummer.

She swallowed and turned bright red,
her eyes darting to her cousin. She gave Kendra a look that seemed to say,
‘Help me.’

I scratched my chin with a grin. I
figured this seemed like a good time to tell her I was just messing around
about the kiss. Only this was a little bit too entertaining.

“
I’ll
kiss you,” Kendra blurted out. She batted her eyelashes
at me, seeming half-playful, half-not.

I tilted my head. What had she and
Ally cooked up?

Kendra gave me a smug, sly smile.
“I mean
,
it would totally piss off,
Zack—totally.”

She said it like that explained
everything, but it didn’t. I was clueless. I quirked an eyebrow, trying to
figure out what she was getting at. “Why would I want to piss off Zack?” I
grinned, totally lost. “Zack’s my friend.”

Kendra reddened. “Oh. I know
but—” She gestured at Heaven. “Ally said you only wanted to kiss her to
piss off Aiden, and since they already broke up, and she’s not going to tell
Aiden anything about it …”

She trailed off since I wasn’t
looking at her anymore. My eyes were trained on Ally. I took a step towards
her. It made her take a shy step back, which made me take another step towards
her. I grinned as she took yet another step back, our gazes locked on each
other the whole time.

I eyed the space she put between
us,
then
took another and another step towards her
until I had her backed into a corner.

“I didn’t do this to prove a point
or piss anyone off,” I said, my voice coming out husky and low. I brushed her
soft hair behind her shoulders and whispered near her ear, “I just wanted three
more minutes in Heaven.”

I heard her sharp intake of breath,
and felt glorious, exquisite heat radiating from her like she was burning up
(for me).

My eyes lingered on her lips
,
then I looked back at Kendra. She was watching us from
across the room like we were Romeo and Juliet.

“Can you give us a minute?” I said.
“Alone?”

Kendra’s eyes cut to Ally. From the
way she looked at her, it was pretty obvious Ally had instructed her not to let
us be alone together. Kendra seemed to be weighing the situation, negotiating it
all in her head. Finally, she let out a sigh.

“You know, I really can’t,” she
said. “Ally’s my cousin. She’s like, totally innocent. She doesn’t kiss guys
like you.”

My lips quirked a
grin.
“She doesn’t kiss guys like me?”

I gave a soft laugh at that, because
she
had
kissed a guy like
me—me. And she liked it. A lot. I was pretty sure.

It was kind of hilarious that
Ally’s own cousin had no clue we had kissed—not just once, but twice. I
didn’t rat her out, though.
Of course.
‘Cause it was just funny.
Instead, I cocked an eyebrow at
Ally, “I thought we had a deal.”

I said it really low and close to
her ear. But Kendra seemed to have heard me. And she was the one that had told
me we had a deal—that Ally would kiss me if I fixed her car. And well, I
held up my end of the deal. I fixed the car.

So Kendra sighed. “Look, I know
you’ve been working on the car all day and planning something sleazy. So, okay,
you have three minutes—exactly three. I’m going to be waiting outside the
door—right here, right out the door. I’ll hear my cousin if she
yells—seriously.” She gave me a look like,
So
you better not try anything
.

But then she gave Ally a look that
said,
Of course he’s going to try
something, but hey he’s cute—and I’d have fun kissing the sceezy guy if
it was me.
Just enjoy it
.

Then Kendra stopped talking with
her eyes and said aloud, “So, it’s like the game, ‘Three minutes in
Heaven’—”

She was going to go on talking, but
I interrupted her, cocking an eyebrow. I grinned, “Three minutes in heaven?”

I said it like a question. Like I’d
never heard of the game. Only, I was watching Ally as I said it—watching
her turn bright pink. I enjoyed saying the name, ’cause that’s what I’d been
calling her lately—“My Three Minutes in Heaven.”

Kendra tilted her head, like she realized
she was missing the joke, but then she went on anyway, “Yeah, Three Minutes in
Heaven.”

Then she told us how to play the
game—that we had exactly three minutes alone and then she was going to
open the door. “But if I hear my cousin yelp, yell or scream,” she said, “the
game’s over—right that minute—got it?”

I gave a soft
laugh,
my eyes still on Ally, watching her face turn pink. “Got it,” I said.

Kendra left the shop with one last
warning, “I’m going to be right outside the door.”

Then she was gone and we were
alone—just
me and my Heaven
.

My
hands slid down the sides of her shivering arms, totally forgetting my
amusement.
Or the rest of the world.
My lips brushed
her ear. “You okay?”

She swallowed and nodded, though
being this close to me made her shivery and tremble and seem to be about to
pass out.

“You don’t have to do this,” I
said. “I was just messing around.”

“I know,” she murmured.

She looked up at me, being brave,
and gave me a teasing smile. “But you earned it.”

My eyebrows shot up. For a minute
my heart stopped. Then I grinned huge, my pulse going wild. Without a word
;
immediately, I crashed my mouth on hers … ecstatic to get
another three minutes in heaven.