"I'm not gonna get a tainted one am I?" Nathan picked a brownie with a blue ribbon and eyed it.
"No, of course not. Those are hidden."
At my answer, Nathan opened the wrapping and stuck the entire thing into his mouth.
Just then, Ronny entered through the cafeteria's swinging doors. My heart leaped into my throat before racing as if I'd started a fifty-meter dash. Whirling on my heel and giving an excited hop, I ran to the table and opened the basket.
"He's here," I whispered to Gracella as I got out the two yellow ribbon brownies and put them on my tray. "This is it. Keep Nathan busy so he doesn't interfere."
She nodded, and I turned back only to see the target had passed us and was on his way toward the lunch line.
"Ronny," I called in a panic. "Fundraiser for the lacrosse team?"
He glanced over his shoulder. Tossing his blond hair back and out of his eyes with one motion, his brows converged in confusion. "Fundraiser?"
"We're selling brownies."
"Brownies?" He smiled and crossed to me as he inspected the contents of the tray. Then he examined my face. "Do I know you?"
"Yeah."
"You aren't on the girls' team are you?"
"Team?"
"Lacrosse."
"No. I'm in the science club."
He frowned.
Stupid, Tina. He can't understand why you're doing this.
I hastened to add, "But I love to go to the games and it's a real shame about all the funding that was cut."
"Yeah." Nodding, Ronny thrust a hand in each of his pockets. After digging around, he shrugged. "Sorry. I don't have any money today."
He started to walk away. Damn, damn, damn.
"That's okay," I said before he could take more than two steps. "Brownie's on me."
He turned back. "Really?"
"It's for a good cause."
"Hey," he said, taking one brownie and appearing to toast me with it. "Thanks."
"You're more than welcome." Relieved, I smiled and placed the tray on the table.
He pulled off the yellow ribbon, opened the plastic and took a bite. After making a yummy sound, he swallowed. "I love brownies."
"I know."
"What?"
"I mean that's good."
After he finished off the brownie, he gave me a half smile.
Woohooo. The love potion was already working.
"I know where I've seen you before," Ronny said. "Math class. You're the girl who always knows the answers."
Better to be known as the beautiful one, but at least he'd noticed me. No need to be choosey.
"I've been wanting to talk to you about something," he continued.
"What?"
"Well." He glanced around him. "It's kind of a long story. Can we meet somewhere later?"
Omigod, that brownie was a miracle. He'd already asked me out.
"A date?" I said, trying to keep my excitement hidden but failing completely. Be cool, Tina.
"Ummm." He glanced around again before turning back to me. "Okay. A date. But I'm not sure where we should..."
"How about the Science Fair Fiesta Dance?" Way to be cool.
He blinked. "Why not?" He grinned. "How about if I meet you out in front of the school about seven?"
He's not going to pick me up? was my first thought. Don't look a gift jock in the mouth. At least he's going to the dance with you, was my second thought.
"Yeah, sure," I said.
"See you there," he tossed over his shoulder as he walked away.
With an excited wiggle, I ran over to Gracella who was selling a brownie a few feet away. I clutched her arm mid sale, and her tray of brownies spilled.
"Hey—"
"Never mind those," I said as the customer gave a disgusted huff and stalked off. "Ronny asked me to the dance."
"You're kidding." She jumped up and down, giving a little clap. "That's great. Wow that was fast. Now we can rub it into Nathan that we told him so."
In concert, we turned to the bake sale table and saw Nathan stuffing another brownie into his face. Three wrappers lay abandoned on the tabletop: three pieces of plastic, a blue ribbon, a red ribbon and... a yellow ribbon. The yellow ribbon.
"Oh my God. Nathan what have you done?" I exclaimed.
He gawped at us as he swallowed the last of it. "What?"
* * * * *
Pushing open the door to the boys' restroom, I yelled, "Make yourself throw it up."
A freshman washing his hands at the sink, reeled back as if I'd struck him. Staring at me goggle-eyed, he quickly fumbled with the faucet handles to shut off the running water. He checked his fly. Was he concerned he hadn't hidden the equipment?
"You said that already and it isn't helping. I can't just barf on cue." Nathan's tortured voice bounced off the tile walls and echoed out to me.
"Stick your finger down your throat," I shouted.
"It isn't working. I'm trying."
"Try harder."
"Tossing my brownies wouldn't be necessary if you hadn't poisoned me."
The freshman flinched then swayed, close to fainting. Trembling, he made for the door without drying his hands. When he passed by me, the kid leaned away as if he was playing limbo and I was the pole.
"What are you looking at?" I demanded.
At that his eyes widened further, and after clearing the door, he began to run down the hall.
Gracella, who'd gone to get her cell phone from her locker, rounded the corner and came in to view. She almost collided with the freshman going the opposite way.
When she reached me, she shook her head. "It's no use. I can't reach Aunt Vandi. I left a message but that's the best I can do right now."
"Great."
"How's it going here?" she asked. "Is Nathan—"
The flush of a toilet interrupted her question. Nathan staggered out of the stall and lurched to the sinks. Turning on the water, he first washed his hands and then cupped some water into his mouth. After sloshing it around and spitting it out, he splashed some water on his face.
I backed out of the door with a grimace and a shrug. "It might be okay. He didn't seem any different. In fact, the way he's been yelling at me, I'd say he's not in love."
"Good. Maybe we won't need my aunt."
Nathan came out of the boys' room.
"How do you feel?" Gracella asked.
He nodded. "Fine. Great, in fact."
"I'm so sorry, Nathan." Shaking my head, I grasped his arm. "I don't know how to make it up to you."
"I do," he replied, grabbing and then pulling me toward him.
Gracella gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
Before I could react, Nathan planted a kiss on my lips. But what began as a quick peck soon turned into a long smooch. The worst part—or the best part—was that Nathan used his lips like a kissing god. Who would have thought he had it in him? I tried not to be affected, but I couldn't help moving my lips beneath his. Almost as if I had no control over them, my arms wound around his neck and I clung to him as sparklers ignited in my brain. I could have lost half the gray cells controlling math prowess, and I wouldn't have cared.
Me. Clinging. Incredible.
I wanted my best friend's kisses.
Surreal.
Reality intruded. Nathan doesn't care about you. He's not attracted to you. It's that darn brown sprinkle that caused this. How could I take advantage of him like this? I didn't want him to kiss me just because he was under the influence of a love potion.
I pulled away from him.
"Oh no," I murmured.
"Oh yes." He grinned. "You're my girl now and you're going to the dance with me, not that jerky jock."
* * * * *
Standing in front of the school that night waiting for Ronny to show, I resisted the urge to put my head in my hands and tear my hair out. First, it would do no good to break down and go crazy. Second, if I was going to go crazy, I might as well do it with hair and make-up intact.
<
br /> After the kissing debacle, we'd bundled Nathan into Gracella's car with the idea she would drive him out to her aunt's house in search of a cure. He'd protested.
"Cure?" he'd said. "I don't need a cure. I feel free. I'm free to finally show what I've felt since freshman year."
"It's worse than I thought," Gracella had responded.
"Please do it for me," I pleaded with Nathan. "Go to see Aunt Vandi."
Giving a reluctant nod, he'd stopped struggling and subsided into the passenger seat.
When I suggested going with them, Gracella shook her head. "No. You'll only make things worse. We should minimize the effects of this potion thing."
"What does that have to do with it?" I demanded.
"Having you around only accentuates its effects."
"I guess you're right," I said.
"Besides," Gracella leaned in to whisper as Nathan strained to listen from the car. "You can't stand Ronny up."
"I suppose." Suddenly, going to the dance with Ronny was the last thing I wanted to do.
Five hours had passed since Nathan and Gracella left, and I hadn't heard a thing from either of them. Neither of them answered their phones or responded to my texts. Was no news good news or just no news?
Fear clenched at my stomach. I should go after them, but how? With no car and parents who weren't going to loan me one, I had no options. Ride around on the bus? Hardly an effective vehicle for a widespread search.
After taking my cell phone from my purse, I examined the face. Still nothing.
"Ring you stupid thing," I shouted at it.
A footstep sounded behind me, and I heard Ronny laugh. "Is that the factory installed voice activation command or did you specialize it?"
"Ha. No," I tried to joke. "I'm just expecting a call."
As if on command, the face lighted and my ring tone played. A name displayed on the screen: Gracella.
"This is it!" Turning my back to Ronny, my fingers shook as I punched at the accept call button. "What's happening?"
"I lost him."
"What! When?"
"Two hours ago."
Issuing a noise I classified between a groan and a whine, I pounded the cell phone against my forehead. Nathan was out there wandering around in a drugged state. Anything could happen to him. Fear made me lightheaded...or maybe it was the blows from the cell phone.
Gracella was still talking, and I put the phone back to my ear. "I thought I'd find him again."
"Come get me and we'll look for him together," I said.
"No. Stay put. Before he jumped out of the car, Nathan said he had to get ready to take you to the Science Fair Fiesta. More than likely he'll come to you at the dance."
"If something hasn't happened to him," I choked, blinking back tears.
"Nothing's happened to him," Gracella replied.
"Have you at least located your aunt?"
"Not yet."
"Fantastic."
"I'll be there as soon as I can," Gracella said. "But I don't know if Aunt Vandi can do anything."
"We have to try. I don't want Nathan to love me because he's drugged."
"But you want him to love you."
"No. Yes. I don't know." Holding my head, I groaned. "What a mess. Just hurry."
I punched the end call button and turned back to Ronny.
"Is something wrong?" Ronny asked, concern shadowing his eyes. "Do you want me to take you home?"
"No." Gracella had been right. Nathan would come here. "No. It's no big thing. Let's go in."
"You look really great by the way," Ronny said. "Is that an Angelo Arguella dress?"
Blinking, I glanced down at the purple silk mid-thigh length dress I'd thrown on. "Is it? I'm not sure. I don't really know designers."
"I don't either. But my sister has one of his and makes a big deal of it."
His hand went to my waist, and he led me into the school and to the gym where the dance was already well under way. The place was packed. Who would have thought there'd be such a turnout for a science related event? Any excuse for a party, I guess.
Bruno Mars' It Will Rain played over the speakers as couples hung on each other on the dance floor.
We stood in awkward silence at the entrance until a couple of kids came up behind us. The guy stepped on my foot and hit my shoulder as he pushed past.
"Excuse you," the boy said in a nasty tone. He glared at us, before he walked away pulling his laughing girlfriend behind him.
"We should get out of the way," I murmured.
Ronny nodded, staring off across the room. "You wanna..." He cleared his throat before finishing. "Dance?"
"Sure. I guess."
He didn't even wait for my reply and was already heading in the direction of the swaying couples. I trudged after him.
Worry about Nathan ruined any enjoyment I might have had in the moment. And Ronny wasn't nearly as fun to be with as I thought he'd be. He didn't have that acerbic sense of humor I loved. By this time, Nathan would have made insightfully amusing comments about half the people in the room.
When we reached the edge of the dance floor area, Ronny took hold and pulled me to him. His hands rested at my waist, and mine lay on his shoulders as we moved with a six-inch gap between us. Our dance steps consisted of shifting the weight from one foot to the other.
The brownie sure didn't seem to be working. Not that I wanted it to anymore. I was so over this whole thing and now bitterly regretted I'd ever started it. However, if the love potion had worn off Ronny, could it have worn off Nathan too?
I couldn't think of anything to say, and the silence stretched. Finally, I recalled something Ronny had said earlier.
"So ummm. What did you want to talk to me about?" I asked.
"Oh yeah," Ronny said with a smile. "You're really great at math."
"Thank you." He'd asked me on a date to say that?
"And I'm really trying to keep my athletic team eligibility," he continued.
"Okay? But what—"
"I'm really bad at math. So I thought you might agree to help me."
"You want a math tutor?" If he hadn't eaten the brownie, I would have thought he'd only asked me to the dance to get my help to pass math.
"I'd pay you," he offered.
"Yeah. I'll tutor you. I already have a lot of other kids I tutor. What's one more?"
"Really? Great," he said, a relieved sigh escaping him.
Another slow song started, and we danced with neither of us seeming to make the conscious decision to continue. As we moved, the tutoring thing bugged me more and more.
"Is that why you asked me to the dance?" I asked. "So I'd be your math tutor?"
"Well..." Ronny stared at his shoes, his head hanging. "Yeah."
When I didn't respond he hurried to add, "Don't get me wrong, you're kinda cute. And you're very sweet agreeing to be my math tutor but I..." His eyes strayed to a guy standing at the edge of the dance floor. I knew him as one of Ronny's teammates, but I couldn't remember his name. I didn't know much about the guy except that I'd seen him with Ronny. A lot. Then, I remembered I'd never seen Ronny with the same girl more than twice. Like tumblers of a lock falling into place, the truth occurred to me.
"You're gay," I said. Obviously, the love potion couldn't trump sexual preference. No wonder it hadn't really worked on him. "I should have seen it before when you mentioned the dress."
"What? No," he protested, fear filling his eyes. "I'm so not gay. You can't believe I..."
"It's okay," I reassured him. "I won't say anything. I'm totally not into outing anyone."
"No one would believe you anyway," he said almost to himself.
"You're right. But, you know, there's nothing wrong with being gay."
"Don't say that." He pushed me away. "I'm not...what you said. Just because I'm not attracted to you, you get all insulting."
"Okay, okay. You're not...what I said. Just don't get so upset."
"I'm not upset!"
Out of
the corner of my eye, I saw a movement as someone approached us: Nathan.
"Hey." Nathan grabbed Ronny's shoulder and whirled him around. "You better not be yelling at my girl."
"Your girl?" Ronny shook his head as if to clear it.
"Yeah she's mine, and you better keep your jocky hands off her," Nathan shouted.
"Whatever, man." Ronny held his hands up in surrender and stepped back. "You can have her."
"Just what do you mean by that?" Nathan demanded, taking two steps forward, his fists clenching. "Are you insulting her now?"
"No, dude. Chill."
"Let it go, Nathan," I pleaded, putting my hands on his shoulders and holding him back.
My best friend twisted around and smiled down at me. "For you, I will."
Taking me by the waist, he swung me further onto the dance floor. I fell against Nathan's chest, and my arms went around his neck, clinging. As we moved, I couldn't help noticing how different dancing with Nathan was. No awkward distance spanned between us. We were plastered together as we moved in rhythm with my head on his chest. And I wasn't bored. Even though the dance was slow, my heart pounded and my breath chugged in and out as if I was doing a tap routine.
Suddenly, I lifted my head so I could examine Nathan. Something I'd vaguely noticed during the altercation now became more important. "Hey," I said. "You look different."
Nathan was dressed in a blue sport coat over dress shirt paired with khaki pants. His famous mop of hair had been dyed back to its normal color and styled into a tamer version of itself. Instead of a nest of tight curls, his inch-long hair was a shiny mahogany wave decorating his head.
"You cut your hair," I observed. "And you aren't wearing glasses. Can you see without those things?"
His lips quirked into a wry smile. "Contacts. I had 'em at home but never bothered with them. But I wanted to look good tonight. For you."
He did look good. He looked great. This hottie version of Nathan overwhelmed me.
Oh Lord. Why couldn't he want to impress me because he wanted to and not because of some root doctor spell?
Flinching, I jerked out of his hold, pivoted and marched toward the exit.
"What's the matter?" he asked as he followed behind.
"What do you think? You ate the brownie. This isn't you."
Potionate Love Page 2