by Amanda Abram
I didn’t even have to think about it. With an enthusiastic smile, I nodded my head so forcefully I was lucky I didn’t give myself a concussion.
“Yes! I would love to be your date and your Valentine.”
“Great,” Dylan said, beaming. “I’ll plan something special. I want to make this the best Valentine’s Day date you’ve ever had.”
I snorted. “That shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve never been on a Valentine’s Day date before, so this one will automatically be the best.”
He considered that for a moment before shrugging. “I’ll take it.”
I chuckled but stopped when I suddenly spotted Nick over Dylan’s shoulder, heading in our direction.
I gave Dylan’s hand a tug. “Hey, Nick’s coming this way. Maybe we should talk to him. Get some firsthand information on how Elijah is doing.”
Dylan glanced over his shoulder at his approaching friend. “That’s not a bad idea. At least that way we’ll have an idea of what we’re up against if we run into Elijah today.”
As Nick neared, his gaze flickered over to us, but then he quickly stared down at the floor as he sped up and began to pass us.
“Hey,” Dylan said to him, but Nick just kept on walking, not reacting at all to Dylan’s greeting.
My eyes narrowed. Nick had seen us. He had heard Dylan speak to him. And he had purposely ignored him.
“That was weird,” I mumbled.
Dylan said nothing as he watched Nick disappear around the corner.
An uneasy feeling began to form in the pit of my stomach. “What do you think that was all about?”
Dylan inhaled sharply and shrugged. “Who knows?” He turned back around to face me and smiled. “And who cares? I’m currently holding the hand of the prettiest girl in school—the same girl who just agreed to be my Valentine next Friday. Right now, that’s all that matters to me.”
I returned his smile, although it didn’t feel as sincere as it should have.
Leaning forward, he gave me a light kiss on my forehead. “I’m gonna go to my locker and then head to homeroom.” He paused and then added, “I’ll see you at lunch. I think I’ll take you up on your offer to sit with you.”
“Great.” I gave his hand a squeeze before letting it go. “I’ll see you later.”
My smile faded as soon as he turned to leave.
Something was wrong. And whatever that something was, it had Elijah’s name written all over it.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Are you going to eat those?” Lauren asked, pointing to the baby carrots on my lunch tray.
“Yes,” I replied, glancing around the cafeteria.
Grabbing one anyway, she popped it into her mouth. “I’m sure he’ll show up.”
She was referring to Dylan, who had told me he would meet me at my table at lunchtime. But lunch had started nearly ten minutes ago, and he was nowhere in sight.
“I’m sure Elijah didn’t murder him and bury his body under the bleachers,” she added with a smirk.
Tiana, who was sitting next to her, almost snorted water out of her nose before dissolving into a fit of giggles.
I shot them both a glare as I sat back and crossed my arms over my chest. “Real nice, Laur.”
“Sorry,” she said apologetically, but then perked up as she glanced over my shoulder and pointed. “Look, there he is. Now you can stop worrying.”
I turned back around to see Dylan entering the cafeteria. When he spotted me, he smiled as he made his way over to our table.
“Next time you know you’re going to be late, you might want to let Cassie know,” Lauren said to Dylan as soon as he sat down beside me. “She was worried sick that Elijah had murdered you.”
I grabbed a baby carrot from my tray and threw it at her. Unfortunately, she caught it and grinned as she took a bite out of it.
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I assured Dylan, who had a look of amusement on his face.
“Okay, good.” He leaned in closer. “I’m late because I just managed to corner Nick in the hallway and get some information from him.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, yeah? And?”
“And…” His voice trailed off as he glanced across the table at Lauren and Tiana, who were both intently listening to our conversation and waiting for it to continue. “I’ll tell you later.”
“Okay,” I said with a frown. It was a bad sign that he didn’t want to talk about it in front of anyone else. That had to mean the information he found out wasn’t good.
“So, are you two, like, officially together now?” Tiana asked, motioning between me and Dylan.
He and I exchanged a look and smiled. “Yeah, I guess we are,” I replied.
With a dreamy sigh, Tiana propped her elbows on the table and rested her chin on the palms of her hands. “I totally ‘ship this.”
Dylan stared blankly at her. “Huh?”
“She means she supports us as a couple,” I explained to him.
“I do. I mean, you two look gorgeous together.”
“Obviously,” Dylan said. “How else do you think our daughter became a supermodel?”
It was Tiana’s turn to look confused. “What are you talking about?”
Lauren rolled her eyes. “These two are so disgustingly in love with each other that they’ve taken their Life Economics project to a whole new level. They created a backstory for their pretend daughter, Madeline. She’s a famous supermodel making millions of dollars.”
“She’s also coming out with her own line of clothing soon,” I said.
Dylan nodded. “There’s nothing our little girl can’t do.”
Tiana glanced between us as we shared proud-pretend-parent smiles with each other. “Okay, you two are relationship goals.”
“Please don’t encourage them,” Lauren groaned.
I laughed as I grabbed another baby carrot from my tray and took a bite out of it. I turned to Dylan and realized he hadn’t brought any food with him.
“Where’s your lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
The chewed-up pieces of baby carrot went down hard as I swallowed them. That was another sign that his conversation with Nick had been a bad one; it wasn’t like Dylan to not be hungry.
When Tiana proceeded to distract Lauren with Winter Formal dress talk, I leaned in close to Dylan and whispered, “What did Nick say?”
His shoulders sagged slightly as he sighed. “Not a whole lot; nothing we didn’t already assume, anyway. Elijah is angry and most likely will be for a while. In the meantime, Nick and all of our other friends have been informed to give me the cold shoulder.”
“Are you kidding me?” Despite the fact he was only stating what I had been suspecting earlier, it still sucked to have it confirmed.
I’d been hoping all morning that I was wrong.
“I’m not kidding you. Oh yeah, and my invitation for the ski trip has been formally revoked.”
With everything that had happened over the last few weeks, I had forgotten all about the ski trip. Dylan, Elijah and their friends had been planning that trip for months now, and they were going the week after next, during winter break. Of course, things would be awkward if Dylan went before he and Elijah made up, but to have his invitation taken away like that was not okay.
Gritting my teeth, I glared over my shoulder at Elijah’s table. “That’s not fair.” I turned back to Dylan. “That whole trip was basically your idea.”
“It’s not a big deal; I’ll survive. Besides, I’m choosing to look at the bright side of all this.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s the bright side?”
He took my hand in his. “Well, I was thinking, if you don’t have any plans, maybe you and I could spend some time together during break.”
I smiled and gave his hand a light squeeze. “I would love that.”
“Great,” he said, returning my smile.
“Great.”
“Um, you guys might want to consider toning down the lustful loo
ks over there,” Lauren said suddenly, and I blinked over at her in confusion.
“Huh?”
“You two were just staring at each other like a couple of star-crossed lovers, and not everyone thinks it’s as sweet as Tiana does.” She subtly pointed at Elijah’s table.
Sure enough, when I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw that Elijah was watching us with a look of disgust on his face. When his gaze met mine, his expression softened slightly—so slightly, I might have just imagined it—and he quickly looked away before grabbing his lunch tray, pushing his chair back, and standing up. He said something to his friends before taking off in the direction of the trash can and then exiting the cafeteria.
“I should go talk to him,” I said.
Dylan shook his head. “We already tried that last night. Remember? It didn’t go so well.” He motioned to his bruised jaw as proof.
“That was when we were both trying to talk to him. Maybe he’ll respond better if it’s just me.”
“I doubt it. Talking to you is probably the last thing Elijah wants to do right now.”
Lauren nodded. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Dylan is right. Elijah doesn’t want to talk to either one of you right now. I think you should just let him cool off for a while.”
“I don’t disagree. I just think that if I had a chance to explain everything to him, that—”
“That what?” Dylan interrupted. “That he would suddenly be okay with the idea of you and me being together? C’mon, Cass, you know that’s not going to be the case.”
He was right, and so was Lauren. Talking to Elijah wasn’t going to accomplish anything. In fact, it would probably just make everything worse.
“I know,” I said with a frown. “I’m just worried that things are never going to be the same between you two again.”
“Hey,” he said, brushing his hand lightly against the side of my face. “Don’t worry about that. It’s my problem, not yours. Besides, I’m not worried. And if I’m not worried, you shouldn’t be either, okay?”
“Okay.” I just smiled and nodded, pretending to agree.
Maybe he wasn’t worried, but I was.
I guess I would just have to be worried enough for the both of us.
◆◆◆
“Cassie? Are you okay?”
I blinked at the sound of Jade’s voice and turned to see her watching me from behind the counter.
“Yeah. Why?”
“Well, because you’ve been wiping down the same table for about five minutes now while staring off into space.”
“Have I?” I glanced down at the rag and the spray bottle in my hands and blushed. “Sorry.”
Jade chuckled. “Don’t be sorry. That’s the cleanest that table has ever been.” Leaving the counter, she joined me at the table and pulled out a chair. Motioning to it, she said, “Why don’t you take a little break?”
“Take a break?” I pointed to the clock on the wall. “But my shift is almost over.”
“Who cares? You’ve obviously got something on your mind.” She pulled out her own chair and sat down. “Want to talk about it?”
“It’s nothing,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand.
Jade studied me for a moment. “It sure doesn’t look like nothing.”
I dropped down into the chair next to me. “Actually, I was wondering if maybe I could get your opinion on something?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
A whole lot was “up” but I didn’t feel like getting into it all. I didn’t even feel like telling Jade about me and Dylan because things still didn’t feel official between us yet. And I had a feeling they weren’t going to until we could receive Elijah’s blessing. Which was probably never going to happen.
I’d been hoping to run into him at some point during the afternoon, so I could spark up a conversation with him, but the only time I saw him again was at our Life Economics class. And that went about as well as I expected. He arrived to class two seconds before the bell rang, completely ignoring Dylan as he walked past him, and then he was the first to leave the room after class was over. I kept sneaking glances over at him and every time I looked, he was just staring straight ahead, scowling at the whiteboard.
My hands began playing tug-of-war with the cleaning rag as I struggled to think about what to tell her. Finally, I decided to be as vague as possible. “So, there’s this girl I know, and she likes a boy.”
Jade nodded as I paused. “Okay. And?”
“And this boy she likes is great,” I continued. “Like, practically perfect in every way. He’s nice, he’s funny, he’s smart, he’s hot, and he’s so sweet. And this girl has fallen for him. Hard. But there’s one major problem.”
“Oh, wait, let me guess,” Jade interjected. “The problem is that he doesn’t feel the same way about the girl?”
“No, that’s not the case at all. In fact, he has fallen just as hard for her.” A small smile tugged at my lips as I glanced down at the table. “And he treats her so well. He treats her like she’s the only girl in the world.”
A wave of heat rushed to my face as I felt Jade watching me.
“So, what’s the problem?” she asked.
I sat back in my chair and sighed. “The problem is that they really want to be together. But by being together, it might hurt some people.”
Jade furrowed her brow. “Are we talking physical hurt or emotional hurt?”
“Emotional. Mostly, anyway.”
“Okay, well…” She thought about it for a moment. “Why would those two being together hurt anyone?”
“It’s a long story. Let’s just say the two of them getting together could quite possibly destroy another relationship for one of them. And the person who will most likely get hurt the most in the end is the boy the girl is in love with. And trust me when I say that’s the last thing I—she—wants.”
Jade was silent as she let it all sink in. “So, you want my opinion on whether those two should go for it or not, even though someone might get hurt?”
“Basically, yeah.”
“Hmm.” She mulled it over for a moment, drumming her fingers against the surface of the table. When she finally opened her mouth to presumably give me her response, her gaze shot to the door and she smirked. “What is Hunky McLumberjack doing here?”
I turned around in my chair to see Dylan had just entered the coffee shop. Smiling and waving him over, I replied, “He’s my ride home.”
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as Dylan approached our table.
“Hey,” he said to us, returning my smile.
“Hey there, Phone Thief,” Jade greeted him.
Dylan rolled his eyes. “We’re still going with that nickname, huh? I stole Cass’s phone one time, and only for a second.”
“That’s all it takes,” I said. I was just glad he wasn’t aware of her other nickname for him.
“Hey, what happened to your face?” Jade asked him, pointing.
Dylan brought a hand up to the bruise on his jaw. “Oh, this? I joined an underground fight club.”
Jade snorted and turned to me with a small, sneaky smile. “You’re right, Cassie, the boy is funny.”
“Huh?” Dylan asked, giving us each a confused look.
“Nothing.” I pushed my chair back and stood from the table. “I still have a few minutes left until the end of my shift. Can I get you anything while you wait?”
Dylan was about to reply when Jade said, “Go ahead and clock out early.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. You don’t want to keep this boy waiting, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Thank you,” I said with a grin, taking off my hat and apron.
“No problem.”
“I’ll be back in a second,” I told Dylan before heading to the break room to grab my stuff and punch out.
When I returned out front, I waved goodbye to Jade. “I’ll see you Thursday.”
“Have a good night,” she said, wavin
g back.
“Thanks. You too!” I turned to Dylan. “Ready?”
“Yep,” Dylan said with a nod. We began heading toward the door but stopped when Jade called out to me.
“Oh, wait, Cassie,” she said from behind the counter. “I never got to give you my opinion.”
“That’s okay,” I said quickly. As much as I still wanted her opinion, I didn’t want to get it in front of Dylan. I didn’t want him to know I’d been talking about us to her. “You can just tell me on Thursday.”
She looked at Dylan and then back at me and smiled. “Okay. Have fun, you two.”
As soon as we were outside, Dylan threw me a curious glance. “What were you asking her opinion on?”
“Just girl stuff,” I replied, figuring that would be enough to prevent him from asking any further questions.
I was right.
“Oh,” was all he said as we made our way to his car. As soon as we were inside and buckled up, he said, “So, I was wondering if maybe you’d like to have dinner with me tonight?”
I blinked over at him in surprise. “Dinner? You mean, like a date?”
“Of sorts, yeah.” He gave me a lopsided grin. “My mom isn’t going to be home until late tonight, so I thought maybe you could come to my place and have the dinner I still owe you from last time. We could make it a practice date.”
“A practice date?”
“Yeah. Practice for our real one next week.”
“I don’t think I need to practice going on a date,” I said with a chuckle, “but I would love to join you for dinner anyway. I mean, as long as my mom says it’s okay.”
“She said it was okay.”
I arched a brow at him. “What do you mean she said it was okay?”
“I mean I stopped by your house before coming to pick you up and asked her if it would be okay if you had dinner with me tonight.”
“You asked my mom for permission to have dinner with me?”
“I did,” he said proudly. “And she was so excited that I did. You would have thought I’d asked permission for your hand in marriage or something.”
I could only imagine what that excitement looked like, and I was mortified. “You have to be careful with my mom. She’s a hopeless romantic. She would live in a Hallmark movie if she could. A boy asking for her permission to go on a date—even a practice one—with her daughter is probably like a dream come true for her. She already thinks you’re perfect, and you’re just going to make her think you’re more perfect. And unless you want her to start planning our wedding, you might want to dial it back a bit.”