Maybe Me

by Rachel Kiss

  Trying to hide his smile, he slowly nods, trying to act as though he’s being sincere and forthright. “That and other stuff—yeah.”

  “Well, I’m only fourteen,” I tell him.

  “Me too,” he says.

  “I’m having trouble believing a word you say.”

  “Well, I wasn’t sure how old you were. But I don’t want to scare you off with my scary ex-girlfriend tale. I shouldn’t have told you—only, it just fit with your novel, so I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. But here’s the truth—I’ve only had the two girlfriends, and really, I’m using the term very, very loosely.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, they used the word in the past—in reference to what they thought they were to me—and I didn’t correct them. But until they used the term “girlfriend” I hadn’t especially thought of them as that.” He shrugs, “I have a lot of friends. I thought that was all they were—until I heard them say otherwise. And, you know, Liza put my key down her shirt.”

  He seems to be saying this as though to assure me he’s had less experience with girls than his story had indicated. As though to sound less “player” I guess.

  Whatever.

  I shudder my eyelids, “Well, I’ve never even kissed a boy.”

  His eyes spark. Before I even realize what’s happening, he backs me closer to the wall and places his warm hands on my burning cheeks. Then his mouth is on mine, tentative and sweet, then growing bolder, hungrier. Whoa! Holy smokes! My knees go wobbly and the world is tilting, spinning, full of fireworks—then he suddenly pulls away.

  “Sorry,” he says with a breathless laugh. “It was just supposed to be a joke.”

  He touches his lips and grins. “That was my first real kiss.”

  “Mine too.” I didn’t know what else to say—my brain was swimming … but not with words.

  He grins, “Yeah. You said that.”

  Heat swamps my cheeks. “Oh. Right.”

  I seriously can’t think straight.

  I tilt my head at him. “That was really your first kiss?”

  He still has two fingers pressing his lips, like he can’t believe what he just did with them.

  But slowly he nods. “I was waiting,” he says softly. “I wanted my first kiss to be special.”

  He looks into my eyes. “… and it was.”

  CHAPTER 12

  There was a knock on Hunter’s bedroom door as soon as it was over—the awe-inspiring, swoon-inducing kiss, I mean. I was still in a dreamy fog, enraptured from it and couldn’t think straight. Or at all. But Hunter looked panicked at the knock and quickly gestured for me to hide in his closet, which I did, with his gentle assistance, his warm hand pressed to the small of my back. Mmmm. Then into the closet I went. (Though it smelled like boy in there.)

  Hunter’s mom came into his room, and I could hear them talking—gasp!—about me.

  His mom kept telling him he had to do as he promised if I was going to stay—he had to take violin lessons all summer—and actually go to them. And he had to stay out of trouble, and he was in no way to get ‘romantically’ involved with me.

  Through the slates in his closet door, I saw him turn white at that.

  He didn’t actually promise that he would do that though. Instead, he said, “I will take violin lessons all summer—I promise.” Then he quickly, expertly changed the subject, “Tia and Tommy seem to like Jane a lot better than your nurse.”

  Mrs. Gilly smiled sardonically, “You seem to like her better than the nurse as well. Violin lessons, Hunter—you said you abhor them.”

  “I do—yes, I like her, okay?”

  His mother nodded, looking suddenly sympathetic, yet grim. “She’s a very pretty girl. And seems kind. But Hunter, I can’t have a girl living in the house if you’re going to be trying your charm on her. She’s here to work and get away from that dreadful aunt—not become your conquest.”

  “I know,” he said under his breath.

  “As long as we’re clear,” she said as she opened the door. “Are we?”

  “Chrystal,” he muttered.

  When she left, he immediately opened the closet door for me, his eyes looking defeated. “You heard our conversation?” he asked.

  I nodded, then swallowed, “So, we need a new contract.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “Not just no marriage?”

  “Right. No more kissing either.”

  He winced. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  CHAPTER 13

  Ugh! So, yes. The very first day I met Hunter, I kissed him.

  Talk about a smooth player—that was Hunter. Obviously.

  And wow! His kiss—oh man! It had me swooning. For days. Weeks!!

  But having gotten his first kiss out of the way, Hunter no doubt started kissing other girls. Maybe not his crazy ex-girlfriend that could drive and had a tendency to put things in inappropriate places, but still. He obviously had girlfriends.

  I know because he would talk about them at the dinner table—whenever he chose to grace us with his presence, that is. Which wasn’t often. (Sadly.)

  He would talk about this girl and that girl, then wink at me across the table if I ever dared look at him—which I tried not to do. Due to wanting to strangle him and everything. (My first kiss—WASTED!!!) (On a total playboy player.) (Ugh!!!!)

  “You’re all white, Jade. You look like you’re going to be sick,” Hunter texted me once at the dinner table, right as he was in the middle of telling his mom about this girl he met at his violin lesson. He had said the girl suggested dirty stuff to him, and invited him to come over to her house for a “private recital.”

  After he watched me read his text, he smiled quite amusedly as I quickly texted him back, “I am sick. I’m going to puke.”

  He laughed softly. Almost immediately I got another text from him: “I’m only saying this junk to rile up my mom. It’s making her nervous about sending me off to violin lessons every day, and making her wish I could find a nice girl like you. Two birds with one stone. Maybe even three birds—hopefully—since I’m secretly hoping it might make you get rid of your contract. Not the promise-not- to-marry-each-other one, but the other one—the no-kissing one … though I have to admit, I wouldn’t mind marrying you.”

  Irritatingly, butterflies fluttered in my stomach. I ignored them and quickly wrote back: “And going BLIND?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I told you—the guys on my hockey team wouldn’t like that.”

  Then he added, “—they’d be mad.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at his dry wit. (I’m a sap.) I wrote back: “Sigh. So I guess no marriage.”

  “But we could kiss.” He added a bunch of smiley emojis after that.

  “No, I think that would lead to Mr. Rochester’s blindness.”

  Hunter wrote back immediately: “I’m willing to take that chance.”

  “Well, I’m not. I need this job.” Then I added, “And I guess your teammates need you to be able to see.”

  He laid his head on the table, giving me puppy dog eyes. But then he immediately got a text.

  “Oh, it’s from Violin Girl,” Hunter informed his mom. “She wants me to come over for that private recital. She said no shirt required, so I guess that means I don’t need a tie, right?”

  His mom didn’t even look up from her soup, and didn’t seem to be buying her son’s “private recital” story. She said dryly, “Hey, as long as you actually play the violin—I don’t care what you wear.”

  “Then I suggest your clown costume,” Tommy said. “Girls love clowns.”

  “When they’re six, Tommy,” Hunter said, mussing up his brother’s hair. “But when they’re sixteen, they go for muscles.”

  Hunter struck a dramatic pose—a very funny one that made Tia and Tommy crack up laughing. Well, his mom and me too—but not as loud. (Though he was hilarious.) (Sigh.)

  His mother drew out an exasperated breath. “Did I hear you say the girl is sixteen
?”

  Hunter caressed his chin as though he had a beard, a grin spreading on his gorgeous lips. “You also heard she wants to see me without a shirt and she wants to seduce me at a private recital, where clothes are optional—but yes, she’s sixteen. An older woman. And she just got off her braces. She’s very excited to kiss without having to worry about slashing a guy’s tongue with her metal spikes—or so she says.”

  His mother drew out another breath. “I’m going to have to meet her parents Hunter before you dash off to her house.”

  Hunter’s eyes grew wide in mock confusion. “Her parents? I don’t think she has those. She has a driver. Will that do?—he’s on his way to fetch me as we speak.”

  Mrs. Gilly sighed. “Give me her parent’s phone number Hunter—or you can stay home tonight.”

  He covertly glanced at me and winked again.

  Quickly Hunter looked back to his mom. “Are you suggesting I give Jane a private recital instead?” He scrubbed his chin in mock-thought, though he knew nobody was buying his dramatics. “I guess I would be safer here. I mean, in the safety of my own home … though really, I don’t know if Jane can take seeing me without a shirt.”

  He did another pose as he said this, making Tommy and Tia crack up laughing again. His mother smiled, rolling her eyes.

  I believe I might have possibly smiled too, perhaps, and definitely rolled my eyes as I informed him, “I assure you, I don’t want to see you without your shirt.”

  “—and you don’t want to hear him play the violin either,” Tommy said. After a moment, he added, “Unless he’s wearing the clown costume—because it is pretty funny.”

  Just then there was a knock at the door. Hunter raised his eyebrows at his mom, “That’s the driver. Should I send him away?”

  “No, no, by all means—go,” his mother said. “I just got a text from the girl’s parents. They’re members of the tennis club I just joined. Lovely people! And they are looking forward to you and their daughter playing a violin duet.”

  Hunter rolled his eyes, then said with a sly smile, “I’m willing to stay home.”

  “No, I wouldn’t dream of it!” his mother said wryly. “But I do suggest you wear a tie.”

  “I’m still going with the clown costume!” Tommy said to Hunter as Hunter headed to the front door. But Hunter turned back to them and said, “No way—I’m going with the no shirt.”

  He quickly threw it off and did another pose—then left the house without a shirt.

  CHAPTER 14

  As soon as Hunter was out the door, his mother told Tia to pick up Hunter’s shirt and race it out to her brother.

  Tia rolled her eyes. “Can’t I give him his clown costume instead?”

  “You could if you could get it to him fast enough, but I believe he is going to have the driver speed away with him shirtless as quickly as possible, so grab the shirt and go—now.”

  With a sigh, Tia grabbed the shirt. She did do it quickly though, as her mother hadn’t been fooling around. However, Tia came back into the house only moments later—with the shirt still in her hands. “They got away,” she told her mom.

  “I see that,” her mother said, then went back to her soup as though she didn’t really expect anything other than her oldest son going to her fancy tennis acquaintance’s house without a shirt on—and without his violin.

  Meanwhile, I got a text from Hunter. “How did you like that?”

  “What? Your failed plan?”

  “No. Me, without a shirt on?”

  Oh … that.

  It had been nice actually. Very, very nice.

  Heat swamped my cheeks. “I’ve seen better,” I lied.

  “In your dreams—right? Dreams of me?” He did a wink emoji.

  But alas, it was true. Ever since the dude kissed me, I’d dreamed of him. Steamy, mushy dreams. (Though he’d always been in a shirt.) (He probably wouldn’t now though.)

  He quickly texted, “Jane, I have to be truthful with you—okay? I mean, I know we’re both worried about me going blind, and you don’t want to lose your job and have my mom throw you out on the streets—or worse, send you back to your evil aunt’s, but Jane, I’m tired of trying to make you jealous. Please just tell me that you’re jealous of all these lucky girls that get to hang out with me—and that you want me to only hang out with you, and that you dream about our kiss as much as I do. Please, Jane—man, just tell me this stuff, okay? Even if it’s just partly true. Because my heart can’t take anymore of this. I mean, I’m going to have to fight off this girl and her newly no-braces mouth—and now I’m going to have to do it without a shirt on—since you skillfully, master-mindedly got me to take off my shirt for you—but now I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get her to resist me and all this hot manliness that are going to be flaunting her lust-crazed eyes.”

  I quickly wrote back: “Hmmm. Were you shirtless when you left? I thought you put on your clown outfit. I’m pretty sure that’s what ‘flaunted’ my eyes when you left. After all, I recall laughing hysterically.”

  “Knife. In. Heart.”

  “I think you’re safe, Rochester.”

  “I didn’t even bring my violin to fight her off with.”

  “Try using your singing. I heard it while you were in the shower this morning.”

  “Yeah. That was for your entertainment.”

  Oh.

  … It had been entertaining.

  And all the stories about girls he had been telling over the dinner table these past few weeks—they were for me too? Really?

  Was the dude really being sincere? It was hard to tell with him. I wasn’t used to boys. Only creepy Stephen—Gia’s creepy boyfriend. And he was, you know … creepy. But Hunter was entertaining. So it left me unsure when he was just being whimsical, or when he actually added sincerity in with it. I couldn’t be sure. So I quickly told Mrs. Gilly, “I need to be excused.”

  Then I ran upstairs to talk to my friend Ally about it.

  I’d only gotten to my worries about what Hunter’s mother said—about me being a “conquest” to him, and that I would have to leave if he got “romantic” with me. I was just in the middle of that stuff—then I got another call. I clicked on the button to check who the call was from, then instantly gasped to Ally, “I’m not going to answer it—it’s Hunter, the boy I was telling you about. I just don’t know what to say to him. I mean, he’s mega rich and gorgeous with a mansion. Why did he even have me come here?—a girl he doesn’t even know? And why does he act the way he does? I mean, he kissed me, and flirts with me, and he sort of, somewhat, seems sincere. Maybe. I swear, he doesn’t act anything like you’d expect from a boy that lives in a house like this, and is incredibly, gorgeously hot.”

  “Um, Jane—this is me.”

  Face-palm.

  I go up in flames.

  “Who-o?” I ask, though of course I already know. And it has me wanting to crawl into a hole and die.

  “The gorgeously hot guy with a mansion.”

  “I’m here too,” Ally says really fast, and I can tell she wants to die for me too. “You must have accidently hit the button for a three-way call,” she says. “I’m going to, um, go—and let you two talk. ‘Bye Jane.”

  I hear the sympathy in her voice as she hangs up.

  Did I mention I want to die?

  “I used to be fat,” Hunter says.

  “Huh?”

  “Maybe that’s why—even though I’m so amazingly hot—maybe that’s why I don’t act like it: because I used to be fat and bald and pathetically, terminally not-hot.”

  It was like he was talking a completely different language. I had no idea what he was talking about. My brain was having seizures still trying to get over the devastating, heart-stomping knowledge he had heard every word I’d blathered to Ally.

  I stammered out, “What?”

  There was a pause. “I’m coming over.”

  “Over?”

  “Back home—to my house.”


  ‘Shirtless?!’ I didn’t say it out loud, but I screamed it in my head. No, I couldn’t have him come back here. Not after what he heard me say about him. And definitely not while he was shirtless.

  “Look, I want to talk to you,” he said.

  “Not unless you wear your clown outfit,” I whisper.

  He laughs softly. “Okay. It’s a deal. Besides, according to Tommy, girls love clowns—and my bare chest made you laugh hysterically. What will me in a clown outfit do to you?”

  “Um, your chest didn’t make me laugh.”

  “I know. I saw your face—plus, I’ve now heard you think I’m incredibly hot. That’s why I’m coming back.”

  “… oh.”

  There’s a long pause. Awkward, awkward, AWKWARD!! “Jane, you like me as much as I like you, right? Right? Okay, well, we’ll talk about it when I safely have a clown outfit on—it will be my protection from you … the thing that helps me from going blind.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’m going to need it. Since now—after hearing what you told your friend, I want to marry you.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Once I finished my mortifying phone call with Hunter, I quickly re-called Ally and proceeded to gush to her for the next ten minutes about everything that had transpired with Hunter since I arrived at his mansion.

  As I was blathering on and on, suddenly I practically had a heart attack, because I heard a noise at my window. (Eeek!)

  With a shriek, I turned and then about had another heart attack, because the noise at my window—it was Hunter!

  My heart exploded. (He still didn’t have a shirt on!)

  I quickly opened the window for him. “W—what are you doing?”

  My face was on fire since he probably heard through the window everything I was gushing to Ally—also, you know, he didn’t have a shirt on. (Yum!)

  He grinned. “I’m an adorable flirt?”

  “No,” I grumbled, since—ugh!—I’d just said that to Ally. Grrr! “What you are is a deplorable eavesdropper.”