by Amity Hope
“I don’t want to end up like you,” she muttered.
Her words stung. Not because she was tossing them at me as an insult. No, they hurt because I could tell they were true.
“Mom and Dad are entirely unfair. It’s like they’re punishing us for Maddie’s bad judgment in boys.” She frowned. “And you just go along with it. I was hoping you would…” She hesitated, as if struggling for the right words.
“Rebel a little?” I guessed.
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s exactly it. I want you to be on my side. I want you to help me show them how silly their strict rules are. Instead, you go along with everything they say. You’re so tediously boring. You never do anything fun or exciting—”
“Allie,” I grated out, “enough with the insults.” Tearing me apart because I’d never had a boyfriend was bad enough. Hearing that she thought my life was tedious and boring hit me harder than it should have.
Maybe because I now knew just how much she’d looked up to one of her other sisters.
“You don’t even have a diary,” she said, as if the revelation was such a travesty.
“Maybe I never wanted one.”
“Maybe because, like I said, you couldn’t even fill a page.”
“I could fill a page.” I plastered my fists on my hips.
“With something meaningful?” She scoffed. “Not likely. But here.” She flipped to the back of her book and tore out a sheet of lined pink paper. “If you think you can, go for it.”
“I will.” I grabbed the page from her hand, then stormed out of her room and stomped to my bedroom, my head already spinning with possibilities. Since our parents were both gone, I indulged myself with slamming the door.
There wasn’t much I could do about not having a boyfriend, but I could spice up my senior year regardless.
I was going to fill out that page all right. But probably not in the way she expected.
Chapter Two
Leo
“I think I love you,” Colton told Kylie from the other side of the lunch table. “Will you marry me?” He reached for another truffle, stuffing the whole thing in his mouth.
I sliced my gaze Kylie’s way, immediately wondering what she’d think of his offer. Yeah, I knew he was only flirting. That was the problem. Colton was one of the biggest players at Laurel High. That didn’t stop girls from tripping over themselves fighting for his attention.
I was relieved that she either didn’t hear his offer or chose to ignore it. Her eyebrows scrunched together as she studied his face.
“Well,” she demanded of him, “what is it?”
“Don’t know,” Colton said around a mouthful. He had melted white chocolate plastered on his lips. Mixed with his spit, it had become a gooey paste. Disgusting. Yet I’m sure a dozen girls would line up to lick it off.
Kylie, it appeared, had no such interest. She tapped her fingers impatiently. Her short lavender nails click-click-clicked across the tabletop.
“I need another taste to be sure,” Colton said.
He reached for the container, causing her to frown. I slapped my hand over the tin and pulled it toward me. “You’ve had enough,” I said.
“What are you, her self-appointed guard dog?” he grumbled.
“Sure. Why not?”
Last fall Kylie’s friend Meg had started dating my friend Luke. Shortly after that, Kylie decided to use Luke and his friends—me included—as test subjects.
As far as being part of an experiment went, we kind of won the lottery. Kylie’s candy-making skills had us all begging to try her creations. In return, we had to give her our honest opinions.
The problem? She wasn’t capable of a bad recipe.
“You know better,” Meg scolded Colton from her seat next to Kylie. “Two apiece, max. Don’t be greedy.”
Colton laughed. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He hoisted himself from his chair, slapped the table in what was apparently his farewell, but before he sauntered off, Kylie called out to him. He turned to her with raised eyebrows.
“You’re forgetting something,” she said.
“Right.” He winked. “Perfect ten. Like always.” With that, he cruised away from our table.
She clearly wasn’t at all impressed with his answer. She sighed and jotted it down in the glittery purple notebook she recorded everything in.
“That doesn’t help much at all,” she said.
“It’s not like he’s lying,” her friend Francesca said. “Everything you make is divine.”
The irritated frown line between Kylie’s eyebrows deepened. “That doesn’t help me decide which recipes to keep.”
“Keep them all,” Julia suggested. “Then one day, when you open your store, you can just rotate them in and out.”
Kylie nodded absently. She’d heard this argument before. We all knew it was her dream to open a candy shop on the coast someday. Our small town of Laurel was about an hour inland. We weren’t a tourist hotspot, unlike the Northern California coastal region.
Her gaze drifted to me and our eyes locked momentarily.
She arched an eyebrow. “Leo?”
I still had my hand protectively placed over the last two truffles.
“Tell me what you think,” she said.
As if I’d tell her no. Kylie had no idea, but there wasn’t a whole lot I wouldn’t do for her. I had it bad for her. Had for years.
Standing behind her in line at Common Grounds yesterday was no accident. I always pumped myself up, convinced today would be the day I’d strike up a conversation when our friends weren’t around. Maybe I’d even gather up the courage to ask her out.
Yeah.
Well.
Hadn’t happened yet.
Yesterday, obviously, was no exception. Between Kylie’s attention clearly being riveted on James, Allie’s insistence on dominating the conversation, and Kylie making it clear she had no interest in dating me…I wasn’t sure I was ever going to get around to it.
What would be the point?
Her words when Luke suggested giving me a shot…No way…slammed around in my brain.
“Leo?”
Kylie’s voice crashed into my momentary pity fest, snapping me back to reality.
“Sure. I’ll try one.” I pushed a smile onto my face. Knowing Kylie was studying me, I took a careful—possibly even prissy—bite of the truffle. I wanted to prove I had better manners than Colton.
Her gaze dropped to my lips as she waited in anticipation. Even though I knew she was simply waiting for me to say something, all sorts of feelings that were inappropriate for the cafeteria began shooting through me. When Kylie was looking at me that way, those gorgeous light-green eyes of hers sparkling and her dimples flashing, it was hard to concentrate on the explosion of flavor I was experiencing.
I forced myself to pay attention to the creamsicle truffle she was so excited about.
Finally I said, “It’s awesome. But maybe a little more vanilla next time, because right now, the orange flavor kind of dominates.”
She nodded eagerly. “That’s what I thought.” She scowled at Colton, now across the room. “I knew it wasn’t a perfect ten.” Her gaze swung back to me. “What would you rate it?”
“Eight,” I said quickly. The rating was probably a bit on the low side. The truffle was amazing. Truly. Amazing. But I’d learned Kylie craved a meaningful critique over thought-free praise. And while it was amazing, she had made better.
Both Luke and Adam, my two best friends, laughed as they began the ribbing I always got.
“Look at you, Leo,” Adam said. “Before we know it, you’re going to be one of those stuffy old guys—like my dad—who pays to go to a fancy restaurant to swirl and spit wine.”
“Hey,” Kylie said, coming to my defense and making my heart bang out a happy beat, “I appreciate his help. The rest of you”—her gaze swung around, silently scolding everyone else at the table—“give critiques that are pretty much worthless.”
; “That’s not true,” Luke said. “I told you I didn’t care for your almond clusters.”
“Having a mild allergy to almonds doesn’t make for a valid critique,” Kylie said. She turned her attention away from them and began scribbling in her notebook again.
Smiling because I knew she was jotting down my suggestion, I popped the rest of the truffle into my mouth.
Her pen flew across the page. Eventually she slapped the notebook shut, causing a piece of pink paper to peek out from the back cover.
“Okay, girls,” she said to Meg and Francesca, “my work here is done.” She pushed away from the table. “I’ve got a test next hour. I’m heading to class early so I can go over my notes.”
She left amid a chorus of goodbyes. Like always, I was bummed to see her go.
…
“Ask her out already,” Luke ordered. At least he’d had the decency to glance around the hallway to be sure no one was listening. And no one was, because everyone was rushing toward the door, ready to get out of this place.
“I don’t think so. You heard her yesterday.” I frowned. “She said dating me was a terrible idea.”
“You know that had nothing to do with you and everything to do with her sister.”
I hoped that was the case. I didn’t know it was.
“Leo. What’s the holdup?”
“Fear that she’ll say no, for one thing,” I admitted. “Unlike you, girls don’t fall at my feet.”
Luke was our star pitcher, got great grades, had dimples girls seemed to go crazy over, and was a pretty nice guy.
To my surprise, he laughed. “Not all girls fall at my feet. You have no idea how hard I had to work to win Meg over.”
“Really? Because it seems to me you two hit it off overnight.”
Kylie and Meg had been friends for years. But our separate friend groups had never overlapped. Not until the day Luke and Meg hooked up. That was a match I’d never seen coming. Meg was pretty, but she’d also given off a tough-girl vibe and—as far as I knew—had not so much as glanced Luke’s way before.
“There’s more to that story than you know. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime, but probably not.” He shot me a cocky smile but pushed ahead with the conversation before I could press the matter. “I don’t get what you’re waiting for,” he said. “Especially now that I’m dating Meg. You have a perfect in. You know my offer still stands—I can talk to Meg, see if she’ll bring it up with Kylie for you. I’m sure she would.”
“That’s too middle school,” I said.
“Ironic,” Luke pointed out, “since that’s about how long you’ve had a crush on this girl.”
It had been longer than that. Fifth grade, to be exact. But pointing that out would not help my case.
“I’ll talk to her when I’m ready.”
“You’re running out of time.” Luke pushed. “Senior year, remember?”
As if I could forget. “I know.”
“I thought my being with Meg would give you an advantage,” Luke said. “No offense, but you weren’t really on her radar before. Since Meg and I are together, though, Kylie’s gotten to know you a lot better.”
“I know,” I repeated. There was one downside to Luke and Meg dating. “What happens if you and Meg break up?”
He frowned. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Hypothetically,” I said. “Because if Kylie and I were dating it would be awkward for all of us.”
His frown deepened. “Hypothesize about something else.”
“Fine. What if I ask Kylie out and she says no?” This was my biggest fear. “That would be awkward, too. What if she starts avoiding our lunch table?” What I really meant was what if she started avoiding me altogether. Even though I knew my reasoning was a little lopsided, this way at least I got to spend time with Kylie when I hadn’t been able to before.
“You do know you’re making excuses, right?” he said. “You don’t know that she’ll say no.”
“I don’t know that she’ll say yes, either.” I slammed my locker door shut. “What I do know is that she has it bad for some other guy.” Luke winced, knowing I was right. Kylie was crushing hard on James. She probably thought she was discreet about it, but her gaze trailed after him the way mine trailed after her. And if that had left any room for doubt, a few weeks ago Luke had admitted he overheard Francesca trying to convince Kylie to invite James on a double date with her and her boyfriend, Nate.
So far, that hadn’t happened. At least not that I was aware of.
“I forgot about James,” he admitted. “But maybe you can help her get over him.”
I scowled. As much as I wanted to be with Kylie… “I don’t want to help her get over him. I really like her, but would you want to be with someone when you knew she was completely into someone else?”
“No,” he said. The girl he’d dated before Meg had cheated on him—relentlessly, from what I’d heard—and I knew that he’d understand why I wouldn’t want to open myself up to that sort of situation.
Except the problem was, I did want to date Kylie. Even though I knew she didn’t think of me as boyfriend material. If anything, she was probably starting to view me as a buddy. A pal. I worried that by becoming her favorite taste-tester, I had somehow managed to permanently friend-zone myself.
“I mean, yeah,” I said bluntly, “I like her. I like her a lot. More than I’ve ever liked any other girl. I want to ask her out but it’s not that easy. Not when I know she’d rather be dating James. She obviously only thinks of me as a friend, and I have no idea how to change that. It totally sucks. That’s probably hard for you to wrap your head around. Most of the time, girls ask you out. Consider yourself lucky. Not everyone is like you. Some of us completely choke up at the thought of even—”
“Uh, Leo.” Luke nodded, indicating I should look over my shoulder.
I glanced back and felt a moment of scorching panic when I saw Kylie was standing a few feet away.
“Kylie, h-hi,” I stammered.
She scrunched her nose in apology. “Sorry. I wanted to talk to you for a second, but I can come back.”
I shot a look at Luke, silently asking him how long she’d been there. He gave an almost imperceptible shrug before saying to Kylie, “I’ve got to find Meg. Leo’s all yours.”
I returned my attention to her, studying her face, looking for any sign that she’d overheard my ramble.
“Sorry,” she repeated. Her grimace was a pretty good indicator that she had caught at least part of what I’d said. I just didn’t know how much. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to catch you before you left for the day.”
I stuffed my hands into my pockets and leaned against my locker, hoping if I looked relaxed, I’d feel relaxed. It didn’t work, but I pushed ahead anyway. “What’s up?” I asked.
“I wanted to give you something.” She rummaged around in her school bag for a second before pulling out a small, white box. She handed it to me.
After giving her a questioning look, I peeked inside. “Is this what I think it is?”
She nodded, her shiny golden waves bouncing with the motion. “Mint fudge is still your favorite?”
“So far, yeah.” I clutched the coveted box of candy in my fist. She had gone through a fudge-making streak before Christmas. Of the half dozen or so flavors she’d made, the mint had topped my list.
“I know it might seem silly,” she said, “but it means a lot to me that you take me seriously.”
“You’ve got a lot of talent in the kitchen, and you’re only going to get better,” I assured her.
Her dimples dipped into place, her smile so bright it about knocked me senseless. She bounced a bit on her tiptoes, and for one hopeful second, I thought she’d maybe hug me. Unfortunately, she reined in her enthusiasm.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said. “I’ve got to run. My sister is probably pacing in front of my car by now. See you later.”
She scurried off
, and I was disappointed the conversation had ended so quickly. I didn’t mind watching her walk away, though. I loved how the girl filled out a pair of jeans. She had more bounce in her step than most of the cheerleaders. Kylie was just plain…perky. She always seemed to be happy and smiling. I’d suspected Kylie was one of those rare people who was always fun to be around. Spending time with her these past few months had proven I wasn’t wrong.
She finally rounded the corner, slipping from my view. As I twisted back around, something crinkled beneath my foot. On the floor, where we’d been talking, was a pink slip of paper. It looked suspiciously similar to the one that had been sticking out of Kylie’s notebook earlier today.
I swiped it off the floor as I cast another glance down the hallway. It was too late to call after her. I’d have to give it back to her later. I reflexively glanced at the page, assuming it was a recipe, but wanting to be sure it wasn’t something important. Something she might need immediately.
Senior Checklist.
I glanced down the hallway again, confirming that she was out of sight and that she hadn’t noticed she dropped the paper and was coming back. The hallway was clearing out, most of us anxious to get out of here at the end of the day.
With no sign of Kylie, I leaned against my locker and glanced at the sheet in my hand again. I was expecting to see items like Choose date and time for graduation party. Or Tour college campus.
I did not expect to see the items that were actually listed.
Senior Checklist
1. Skinny-dip (sort of)
2. Sneak out (but don’t get caught)
3. Prank someone (nothing destructive)
4. Go to a party (no drinking)
5. Kiss a boy (finally!)
6. Watch a sunset (so romantic)
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?
10. ?
11. ?
12. ?
13. ?
14. ?
15. ?
If I’d had any idea her list was going to be so private, I wouldn’t have read it. But once I’d seen it, I couldn’t exactly un-see it.
So I read it again.
It was numbered through fifteen, the rest of the lines blank, just waiting to be filled.