by Jillian Dodd
“Why not?”
“Because I think this stuff is private. Like it’s between you and me. No one else needs to know. Do you agree?”
“Maybe.”
“Look, people are always going to believe the worst, regardless of what you tell them.
You tell someone we hung out, they will assume we made out, or had sex. Tell them me, you, and Dallas hung out, they’ll assume we had a threesome, despite our protests.
“Less is more. The less you say, the more they will think.”
He ponders this for a second, says, “You’re right, and you seriously need to be wearing less.”
But I don’t let him pull off my tank top just yet. But I’m seriously considering it.
“So do we have a deal?”
“Yeah we do, so what’s it gonna be?” he asks, digging around in the muffin bag. “Blueberry muffin or cinnamon pound cake?”
“Pound cake, please.”
He puts little bites of poundcake in my mouth. I’m opening my mouth, letting him feed me. Letting him stop feeding me to kiss me.
Pretty soon the cake is gone.
And he’s kissing me and running his hands all over me. Still on top of my clothes though. And I don’t know why, but part of me is thinking, what the heck? Why not? I seriously consider undoing his shorts, I sort of graze the top of his shorts, like by the button, with my hand. But just as I am going to pull my hand away because I have decided not to do something like that, he grabs my hand, pushes it up against his stomach.
I think he thought I was going to do that. (Riley + Keatyn? Naw. Riley + Jillian. Hell yeah.)
“I thought about it, I wasn’t going to,” I tell him.
“Oh, you were going to, but we’re not having sex. Yet.”
“I didn’t really want to, but I think you do.”
“Naw, I decided I’m gonna make you wait.”
And I’m both sad and glad he does.
And really, it just makes me want him more.
Why couldn’t the hottie do this?
Shake my pompoms, shake my ass.
3pm.
Standing at the football scrimmage in a teeny red skirt with yellow and gold glitter stripes down the side. The waist of the skirt looks like football pants, complete with yellow drawstrings. The top of my dance uniform is half a top, going down to barely cover my boobs. It is V-neck, also looks like a modified, sexified football jersey. And the “briefs” we wear under the skirt, are gold glitter thongs, okay they are bigger than thongs but still, they do not cover much up. As in when I dance, you can see my ass cheeks, well part of them anyways. And I practically lived in a bikini, but when you are in a bikini and everyone else is in pads and a full uniform, you feel nakedish. (I had so much fun designing their dance costumes!)
No wonder all the boys are gaga over the dance team. I’m out here practically naked!
Peyton comes to stand next to me. “So I heard you kissed Dawes at the party last night. And my brother.”
“Dawson kissed me, and it was only for a second. I mean I stopped it very quick, but it was awful. Messy, like my Worst Kiss Ever. I heard you dated him. Did he always kiss bad?”
She sighs. “No. He was super drunk. Probably why he’s playing so bad today. He’s very hungover.” She points out at the field, where Dawson is struggling at quarterback. “He’s a good kisser. Amazing at everything. And we did date the past couple of years, but he cheated on me last year, and then lied about it.” (What? No way. Dawson is not a cheater! Which I figured out once he and Keatie were so cute together.)
“I heard he was drunk. Didn’t really know what he was doing.”
“Yeah, and we’d just had a huge fight on top of it. I know I like pushed him over the edge, so it’s partly my fault. I don’t know. Part of me will always love him, but I can’t be with him. I don’t trust him anymore. How do you know all this?”
“Stuff gets around really fast here. Like gossip, rumors. Plus, quiet, cute little Dallas hears EVERYTHING!” (What is with the capital letters? Don’t shout at us, Keatyn.)
“It does. My brother kinda has a thing for you, you know?”
“No. He doesn’t. He kinda did, maybe, like on the ferris wheel and like with the clover, but last night he decided that I’m not it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He told me that’s why he had so many girlfriends last year. When he knew they weren’t right, he’d break up with them. He doesn’t want me. Maybe we’ll be friends though. He’s really nice. And he’s like the most beautiful boy I have ever met, and that’s saying a lot since I grew up around Hollywood.”
“You like him.” She says in a singsong voice, teasing me.
“He doesn’t like me, so I can’t really like him.”
Aiden comes running down the field past me, leaps up and catches a pass thrown from Logan, one of the JV quarterbacks. He was wide open and runs the ball in a few yards for a touchdown. Then he runs right back by me, and says, “Boots, how bout I get a dance for every point I score?” (Points for Dances, Round 1.)
“Uh, sure.” I say and then nervously shake my pompoms.
“We’re supposed to be cheering for the Varsity, Keatyn,” Peyton laughs.
“But they’re all our guys, shouldn’t we cheer for both sides? And you have to cheer for your brother!”
“You know, he’s gonna score a lot of points. I told you, he likes you. And now you owe him six dances. Oh wait.” She watches him drill an extra point through the uprights and says, “Make that seven.” (You can see here why I had to change things to make Whitney be Dawson’s ex and the ultimate Queen Bee. Peyton is too nice.)
I scream, shake my pompoms, shake my ass. It’s a really fun scrimmage.
Because of Dawson’s major hangover, he plays poorly. At one point, he walked behind the bench and threw up on the turf. Coach finally took him out. Peyton assures me he is usually a really good quarterback.
Tyrese plays well, he’s a running back and has this little stutter step before he cuts in a certain direction, that no one can seem to guard. Plus he’s pretty big and hard to knock down. Katelyn has been cheering her heart out. She’s a bit hungover herself. She didn’t take my advice on the only have two drinks thing. Dallas plays defense, linebacker for JV. He has some great tackles and sacked Dawson like four times. And I was a little shocked when Riley came in as the Varsity quarterback, taking over for his brother. Dallas seemed to take it a little easier on him.
And then there’s Aiden. I don’t know how it happened, but Logan and Aiden got into a stride. Aiden caught twelve passes and scored on three of them. He kicked five extra points and two field goals.
Meaning I owe him 29 freaking dances. (You don’t hear much about Logan in this original version, but he became important as Aiden’s best friend. And Maggie and Logan’s backstory added a lot to why Logan didn’t like Keatyn and why he didn’t think Aiden should pursue Keatyn further. He was down on love.)
After the game, I’m standing in a group of dancers, when Aiden comes strolling up, helmet off, hair sexily messed. He even looks beautiful when he’s all sweaty and gross. (Can you so picture this?)
He grins at me.
“So, you scored quite a few points out there. You don’t have to dance with me twenty-nine times. I know you said your dance card was already full.”
He stands really close to me, “No, you said my dance card was full. And now it is. With you. Twenty-nine dances. That pretty much makes you my date.”
“I promised I’d dance with a couple other people.”
“Fine. Dance with them at the start of the dance. I want all twenty-nine in a row. And then I’m going to walk you home, kiss you again.”
Pledge my undying love.
Ask you to marry me.
Have my babies.
Oh, wait. Sorry. There my imagination goes again!
He looks down my barely there dance uniform and says, “I saw you cheering for me. You were excited I scored, weren’t you? Y
ou can’t wait to dance with me all night.”
“I was standing next to your sister, I HAD to cheer for you.” I tease.
“See you tonight, Boots.”
I wanna knock his socks off.
6pm
In the dance locker room, eating pizza with the girls. Laughing, getting ready for the dance. The dresses I wore the last two days were cute, sweet, fun dresses. I looked a little sexy, but like a good girl. I wore my hair straight the first day, in a pouf last night. Tonight, my dress is different. Tonight Kym, my mom’s stylist, told me I should knock their socks off. So I am wearing a Herve Leger black bandage dress. My mom wore this dress to a premiere in London last year. Kym said it looked killer on me, which is good, and suggested I vamp it up even more with some tough girl shoes. So the dress is sleeveless, has a deep v neckline and a body hugging design that leaves nothing hidden. Every curve of my body is amplified in this dress. And it’s very, ass skimmingly, short. But actually much longer than the dance team skirt I just took off. The shoes are black platform peep-toe Louboutins covered with studs. No jewelry. (We know that Keatyn loves fashion and shopping, but one way I showed her growth in the series was through her clothing. In early books, she tells you about what she is wearing in great detail. In the later books, not so much. Because it wasn’t as important as getting her life back. She also said like a whole lot in the early books. I’m not sure if it was growth or being at Eastbrooke, that was another big change in writing her.)
I’m curling my hair into a riot of big sexy, just got out of bed, but my hair looks amazing, super model curls.
I do my make up simply, with pretty pink lips and blush, but then add dark, smokey eyes.
I think I look pretty damn good.
At least I’m feeling pretty sexy.
Tonight I look like the bad girl.
And that’s good because somehow I have to get through twenty-nice dances with the God of all Hotties.
And I really want to knock his socks off, and maybe a few other articles of clothing as well. (Tee-hee.)
Twenty Nine Songs.
8:30pm
Show up to the 8pm start dance at 8:30 with the dance team. We make a pretty good looking entrance. I’m getting quite a few admiring glances. I’m standing there, looking for Aiden, when Dallas walks right past me, gives me a complete look over, but doesn’t say a word to me.
“Dallas!”
He turns to face me. Looks at me confused for a second and says, “Holy shit, Kiki! Look at you!! I didn’t even recognize you. My gosh, you look so freaking hot!”
“I think you owe me a dance.”
“Hell yeah, I do.”
He leads me out to the dance floor. Grinds with me. Jumps around crazily. Shoulda known he’d be fun to dance with. I dance a long DJ remix of songs with him. Then another. Finally he says, “I need something to drink.”
We walk back over to a table and grab a couple bottles of water. “Hey, you wanna go to the cave later. Probably you should change first.”
“Maybe. Did you hear I owe Aiden like thirty dances.”
“I heard it was twenty-nine, one for every point he scored.”
“You hear WAY too much.”
“Well, I’m more worried about what I didn’t hear.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t hear what happened with you and Riley this morning. Other than he brought you coffee in bed and planned on not letting you out of bed.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Kiki.....seriously. We talked about this. No fibbing.”
“Okay, so some stuff happened, but nothing serious. Okay look, I told Riley he couldn’t talk about what we do because I don’t want it getting around. So if I tell you and it gets around, I will know you told. And if I can’t lie to you, then you have to know when to keep a secret.”
“I can keep secrets. What happened?”
“We made out, a little. He made me beg for food and for him. It was hot. Then he turned me down.”
“Are you shitting me? HE turned YOU down?”
“Yep. Said I have to wait Although I was NOT going to do anything with him. He just thought I wanted to. I’m pretty sure he thinks every girl wants him.
“Good, I think you should wait.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you should do that with me instead, I mean, I PROMISE, I will NOT turn you down.” He laughs. “Seriously. The cave tonight. We’ll chill, have some fun.”
“We’ll see.”
Riley stalks up behind me, grabs me around the waist, turns me to face him. Takes in my outfit. “God damn, baby, you look, um, tough, hot. Fuck me in the bathroom, hot. Speaking of that.” He grins at me. (Love his potty mouth, even though it’s not YA appropriate, technically.)
“I am not going in the bathroom. You had your chance this morning.” Ha. I think that will become our running joke. Him pretending I wanted him, him pretending he turned my down. “Well, sorta. Now you have to just dance with me. Because you can be very certain, someday when you do decide you want me, I’m gonna turn you down flat.”
“Bitch,” he laughs and pulls me out on the dance floor. His dancing is naughty. Plain and simple. Seriously. I think we could get expelled for this. One hand is cupping my ass, he’s grinding into my hips, the other hand is running down my arms, in my hair. Thank goodness, the dance floor is packed by now. And we are in the middle of the pack, surrounded by people doing their own version of the bump and grind. He teases me and pretends like he’s going to kiss me, but then doesn’t. “When did you become such a tease?”
“When I met you.”
“I have to pee.”
“You’re just trying to get me in the bathroom, right?”
“No!”
I walk off the dance floor, Riley stays out there and starts dancing with a group of girls, already has one grinding her butt against him. And he has his hands all over her.
Jeeze. Isn’t he sorta, kinda supposed to be mine? (Keatyn is just simply overwhelmed with all the hotness at Eastbrooke. And who can blame her?)
And then I think about the boy who IS supposed to be mine tonight. Aiden.
Where is he?
I go pee, make sure my makeup looks okay and head out the door.
As I come out of the bathroom, Dawson grabs my arm, pulls me off to the side. I’m afraid for a moment that he’s gonna try and kiss me. “Peyton knows we kissed.” (Seems so weird to see her name and not Whitney’s.)
“Uh, EVERYONE knows we kissed.”
“I’m sorry, okay. I was pretty drunk. I’m still hungover.”
“You should come with a warning label. Do Not Kiss When Drunk. It was horrible.”
“Sorry. I.... I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“So I saw you out there grinding on my brother. What’s up with you two anyways?”
“I want in his pants, and he won’t let me, basically.” And I walk away from Dawson, who is still standing there with his mouth open.
Tee hee.
I look around for the god, don’t see him. Grab my purse and see that it is almost ten. So much for my dances. I decide to go find Dallas. Maybe it’s time to get out of this dress, into some sweats and go out to the cave.
I stand there for a minute, looking around, trying to see where he is, when someone comes up from behind me and puts their hands over my eyes. I can tell by the dreamy smell, that it is the God of all Hotties himself.
I turn to face him. And once again, he takes my breath away. He’s wearing a black designer suit that drapes perfectly over every muscle. Underneath is a soft black cotton tee and on his feet, gorgeous black and silver snakeskin cowboy boots. Boots!! (Don’t you love that he was wearing boots?!)
“So you get all your dances you had to do finished?”
“Well, all except the ones with you.”
“Awesome. Come with me.” He takes my hand and leads me out the door.
Outside.
“I thought you w
anted to dance with me?”
“Oh, I do.”
“Then where are we going?”
“I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
I see that he is leading me to his dorm. So last night, I was irritated that he didn’t do anything more than kiss me. Tonight, I’m irritated because I’m pretty sure he wants to do way more than kiss me.
And that kinda pisses me off.
I can’t figure this guy out. At all.
Maybe that’s his rouse. He acts like a nice guy. Like he’s not a player, then a girl thinks, Well yeah, I know he’s a player, but he was soooo sweet to me, I must be different than all those other girls, and then she falls in love with him and then he plays her.
He’s sneaky.
So I try to make conversation. Safe conversation.
“So, you always score so many points?”
“No. Never. Those were for you. I’m trying to impress you. Remember, I asked you to be my date and you said no, so I had to come up with a new way to monopolize you.”
“So you’re gonna monopolize me in your dorm room?”
“Kinda.” He flashes me another blinding, powerful grin, and I just do as he says. He may also have the power of mind control. I’m not sure yet.
We are standing outside his dorm room. “Close your eyes.”
Okay, is it just me, or is this getting just a little freaky? And what the hell does he have in here?
What’s that line, Does this rag smell like chloroform to you?
I close my eyes, hear him open the door. He gently guides me in, shuts the door.
“Okay, open your eyes.”
And I do.
And what I see is not what I expected.
At all.
OMG!!!!
The lights are off in his room and on the ceiling he has strung a bunch of little white twinkling lights. He has a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket of ice, and there are rose petals all over the floor. (I want to cry. I love this.)