by Kelly Oram
“Progress?”
“In the Abstinence Challenge,” I said handing Robin a mock up of a flyer I’d created the night before when I couldn’t sleep.
I felt the need to explain myself as Robin read over the details of the challenge. “There’s more to life then just having sex, and there should be more to a relationship than that too. Sex is just so stressful. Should you have it? Should you not have it? Are you going to get pregnant? Are you going to get a disease? Are people going to make fun of you if you don’t do it? Are they going to call you dirty names if you do? It’s never ending.
“We’re in high school! We have way too many other things to be worrying about, so I’m proposing that people try giving up sex. Just for now. Just to see what happens when they don’t have to stress about it all the time. We get people to sign up for the challenge on the website, all anonymous of course, and then we let them describe their experience online. It’s sort of like an experiment. People may last two days, or two years, and it could turn out to be the best thing they ever did, or the worst. Either way it will make them stop and think about sex, and whether or not they’re really ready to be having it.”
“You think people would go for it?”
“Honestly?” I shrugged. “I doubt it. But they’re definitely not going to if we don’t give them the option. Plus, the website can be a place for people to talk about everything like they’re doing on YouTube. Look at what a big response that one stupid video got. Maybe this could be more than just school wide. Maybe we could encourage other people in other schools to do what we’re doing with the jewelry.”
I didn’t mean to get carried away in my speech, but the more I thought about this, the more excited I got. Sure, I’d done some cool things with the student council, but I’d never tried to do something that I felt was so important. It was making me determined in a way I’d never been before.
“So, do you think you could help me make a website?” I asked, and then held my breath for the answer.
Robin looked at the unfinished layout of the school newspaper on the computer behind her and then back at the paper I’d given her. She cracked a smile and said, “We’ll be up and running before the end of the week.”
“Fantastic!”
“Fantastic is right!” Cara groaned as she waltzed into the computer lab. I don’t think she could have sounded more sarcastic. Actually, I don’t think anyone could have sounded more sarcastic.
“All right.” I sighed. “Dish the drama.”
Over the years “dish the drama” has become a catch phrase for Cara and me. That’s because everything in Cara’s world somehow always ends up being drama. Of course, she likes it that way because then she always has an excuse to act as if the world is coming to an end. She’ll either win an Oscar one day or end up on a soap opera. It could go either way.
“Okay, so Nate Cooper asked if his band could play the Fall Festival, right? So I told him I had to hear them play first. Well, then Dustin Marshall found out that I was letting Nate ‘audition’ so he wanted to audition too.”
“Dustin Marshall is in a band?” Both Robin and I asked at the same time.”
“Hardly.” Cara scoffed. “My dog could play instruments better than any of them. You know that sound your nails make when you scratch them down a chalkboard?”
I shuddered at just the thought. Cara nodded at my reaction. “Yeah.”
“Ok,” I said. “So what about Nate Cooper’s band?”
“Well they’re better than Dustin’s band,” she admitted reluctantly. “But they aren’t anywhere near good enough to play the Fall Festival.”
“Bummer.”
“That’s not even the worst part. Word got out that I was holding auditions.”
“That should be a good thing, right?” Robin asked and I nodded because I was thinking the same thing.
“Yeah,” I said. “I mean you still need a band.”
“I have listened to fourteen wannabe garage bands this week and all of them suck. I swear Kyle Hamilton must have been the only talent ever to come from our otherwise musically incompetent school. At this rate I’m going to have to book the freaking glee club. It’s hopeless!”
“It’s not hopeless.” I laughed. Laughing was not insensitive on my part either, because everything is hopeless to Cara at one point or another. “Who’s the biggest music freak in Southern California?”
Cara sniffed but said, “Me.”
“That’s right. You’ll find a great band. I know you will.”
A deep voice interrupted our conversation saying, “Are you guys still talking about that little charity gig thing?”
I turned around, and I could see him standing there, but it was just so mind-boggling that I didn’t believe it until Robin said, “Hey, I know you! You’re that guy in that band. You guys sang that song!”
“Ha!” Cara laughed. “That guy in that band who sang that song. Now that’s fame for you. Yeah, you guys are big-time.”
Kyle smirked Cara’s direction. “I seem to remember something about you being our biggest fan.”
Oh, no. Did he have to egg her on? Before Cara could get into an insult war—which she could do all day so long as Kyle kept giving her attention—I stepped in between them and asked Kyle, “What are you doing here?”
Kyle seemed more than happy to have earned my attention. He grinned a smirk the size of Texas and said, “You didn’t stick around for the show last week.”
“You don’t say?” I asked dryly.
“And you didn’t come back for this weekend’s show at the Key Club either. I know. I looked for those legs.”
“Your point?”
“You didn’t come to me, so I had to come to you.”
“Why? Did you and the guys have a change of heart?”
“Sort of.” Kyle laughed.
I was so not buying whatever it was he was trying to sell, but Cara, desperate to find a band, and in denial about being over her Shane obsession, gasped. “You mean you’ll do the show?”
“Sure.” Kyle sidled up next to me and threw his arm over my shoulder. “If Legs here goes out with me.”
I laughed such a boisterous, light-hearted laugh that I nearly reconsidered taking Mrs. Feeney up on her offer to join the drama club. “That’s great,” I said. “Very funny. But we’re looking for a band, not a comedian.”
Cara interrupted my good mood when she agreed to his terms. “She’ll do it.”
“Cara!” Once I picked my jaw up off the floor I shook my head. “No, I won’t.”
“Val,” Cara whined. “It’s one lousy date.”
“Who said anything about lousy?” Kyle asked, offended.
“The guy calls me Legs,” I said to Cara.
“That is totally a step up from Virgin Val and you know it.”
“You would sell me up the river like that? Me? You’re best friend?”
“Well, why not? It could be good for you. Zach is history. You need to rebound already.”
“And you suggest I do it with him?”
“Remember what we said about you guys having chemistry?”
Kyle gaped at me, pleasantly surprised. “You said we have chemistry?”
I pointed at Cara. “She said we have chemistry. I denied it. Emphatically.”
“So you’re saying you’re in denial about us?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, I—what? No! I’m not in denial about us!”
Kyle grinned. “Then you admit we have chemistry.”
“No!” He had me so flustered I felt my cheeks get pink. “I meant that I can’t be in denial about us, because there is no us! Stop twisting my words around! I’m not going out with you.”
Kyle’s eyes sparkled with amusement in the most infuriating way. “Then I’m not playing a show for you,” he said to Cara.
“Come on, V,” Cara pleaded.
“Yeah, Come on V,” Kyle echoed. He leaned down so that his lips were against my ear. “You afraid that I’d rock your world and make a liar out of
you on the whole waiting for marriage issue?”
I ignored the shivers that ran down my spine and gave Cara a dry look, but she was dead-set on getting her way. “We need this,” she said.
“We’ll find someone else.”
“But they’re a real band. They’ll draw a huge crowd. Think of how much money we could earn off their ticket sales alone. Probably more than we made from the entire festival last year.”
Okay, I love Cara, and I felt for her with the whole not having a band thing, I did, but I was beginning to lose my temper. “I can’t believe you are trying to pimp me out right now.”
“And I can’t believe you won’t do this for me. It’s just a date!”
“You do realize that if I go out with him so that we can make more money at the festival, that makes me a whore. An actual prostitute.”
Kyle laughed at that, and since he still had his arm draped over my shoulder, it was really easy for me to elbow his ribs.
“It’s not happening,” I said to both of them, and then shrugged away from Kyle.
Cara clenched her hands into fists and stomped her foot on the ground. Then she turned all her fury on Kyle. “Can’t you just do it anyway?”
“Nnnnnnnnnope.” Kyle was enjoying this way too much.
“Please?”
“It’s give and take, babe. You want something. I want something.”
“But it’d be good publicity for you,” Cara said. “KTLA News always sends a crew to cover the festival. You doing a show for charity at your old high school? That story would make prime time.”
“Been there, done that,” Kyle said, and then leered at me again as if he’d like to come here and do me next.
I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “We’re done here. You can leave now.”
“So that’s a ‘no’ then?” Kyle asked, barely able to hold back his laughter.
“Get OUT!”
That’s the point where Olivia walked into the room going, “What is with all the noise in here?”
Olivia Lewis was the very last thing I needed right then, but she forgot all about getting in my face the minute she recognized who was standing there. “Kyle Hamilton?” she gasped in that shrill little Barbie voice of hers. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Apparently I’m done here.”
“You’re leaving so soon?” Olivia asked.
Oh she was just laying it on so thick. It was pathetic. Kyle looked her up and down, and since Olivia is nothing to scoff at looks wise, he gave her a slight nod and said, “Walk me out?”
“Oh, sure!” Olivia cried. “I was just about to leave myself.”
Kyle laughed at her and then glanced back at me. “Your loss, Legs.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ll get over it.”
Kyle slipped his arm around Olivia’s waist and asked her name as he walked past me toward the exit.
“I’m Olivia, and I am your biggest fan. I seriously love you so much! I know all the words to every single one of your songs!”
I swear I saw Kyle cringe. He got two more steps then stopped and let out a huff of frustration. He whirled back around and glared at Cara. “All right! You have yourself a band.”
I don’t know who was more stunned, but Cara managed to compose herself long before me. “Really?” she squeaked.
Kyle sounded disgusted with himself when he grumbled, “Yes, really.”
Cara squealed and threw herself at Kyle, who was forced to let go of Olivia in order to catch her. Cara jumped into his arms, wrapped her legs around his waist and planted a big, wet kiss on his mouth. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!”
Kyle appeared to have the same weakness for Cara as me, because he had to stop glaring and laugh at her. The look on his face when he lost his composure was absolutely adorable. “You’re welcome,” he said, laughing. He shifted his gaze over Cara’s shoulder to me. “Now will you go out with me? Please?”
I almost said yes. After what he just did for Cara I sort of wanted to, but something stopped me. “You’d really play an entire concert for free just to go on a date with me?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Why?” I asked.
Kyle’s eyes dropped briefly to the V hanging from my neck and his frown melted into a cocky smile. “I can’t resist a good challenge.”
That’s what I thought. “Well, I’m afraid you have a problem then, Kyle.”
“What’s that?”
“I never back down from a challenge either.” I pointed to the jeans I was wearing. “This is one pair of pants you’ll never get into.”
“Ah, but you still have a whole closet full of others, and at least one very sexy skirt, don’t you?”
“None of which you’ll ever get your hands on either.”
Kyle crossed his arms over his chest, studying me with a gleam in his eyes. “So that’s how this is going to go?”
I matched his posture and then threw his own words back at him. “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Kyle stared me down a minute longer and then stalked toward me with a predatory smile. Watching him slowly come at me was like being trapped in one of those nature shows on the Discovery Channel. My pulse pounded in my chest with every step he took, and I felt myself backing up until I hit the wall.
Suddenly we were standing toe to toe. His body took up so much space around me it was hard to breathe. I could feel his heat and we weren’t even touching. What had just happened?
Kyle saw the overwhelmed look in my eyes and smirked. He brought his mouth down to mine and brushed my lips with a touch so feather-light that I gasped.
My body reacted before my head could. I drifted into him as if he was somehow my new center of gravity. My eyes fluttered shut, and I waited for a kiss that never came. His lips were there, brushing back and forth over mine, teasing me cruelly until I ached with a desire so intense I started to shake.
Kyle chuckled darkly. “You’re in over your head with me, Virgin Val.”
He was so right. It was like he’d put me under a spell. It scared me how much he affected me, and I don’t even think he was trying all that hard.
I couldn’t lose this battle, though, no matter how much my body wanted to at the moment. Using every ounce of determination I had, I pushed him off me saying, “So you know how to get a girl flustered. That’s not surprising when you’re with a different one every weekend.” I tried to sound angry in order to cover up how much he’d rattled me. “But for all your experience, there is still one thing I can and will teach you.”
My threat amused him. “And that would be?”
“Rejection.”
Kyle laughed, so completely sure of himself. “In case you missed it, that, right there, was not you rejecting me.”
“Won’t happen again,” I promised. Possibly more for my own benefit than his. “You’ve tipped your hand, Kyle. Now that I know what I’m up against, you’ll never be able to catch me off guard again.”
“We’ll see.” Kyle puckered his lips into a kiss at me and strode to the door. Just before he disappeared he turned back and gave me one last crooked smile. “Wear something sexy to the festival for me.”
For a moment we all just stood there gaping at the empty door. Then Olivia glared at me and went scrambling away, hoping to catch Kyle before he left the building.
“For the love of all things sinful!” Cara yelled after they were both gone. “That was off-the-charts HOT!” She blew out a long breath. “Girl, you are in so much trouble.”
“I can handle him.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes,” I said, annoyed. “I can.”
Cara shook her head. “Tell her Robin.”
Robin, who hadn’t said a word since Kyle arrived, grimaced. “That was…um…” She fanned herself. “Yeah, good luck with him.”
“We have to come up with a game plan,” Cara said.
“I have a game plan. ‘Just Say No.’ It’s a classic.”
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br /> “That’s not going to be good enough. You’re going to have to beat him at his own game. We have work to do. We need to at least start shopping for your outfit for the festival.”
“Starting with a chastity belt,” Robin muttered.
“So I worked out all the details with Kyle’s manager,” I said, slipping down into the chair next to Cara’s at council meeting the next day. “Turns out he was serious. They’re going to do the show.”
“You know, Val, you should throw the guy a bone and go out with him after this. It was almost pathetic, him giving in like that even though he didn’t want to. It was like he couldn’t help it.”
“It was sweet,” I admitted. “Until afterward when he threw down the gauntlet for getting me into bed. You saw what happened! I can’t go out with him. But you guys looked adorable yesterday when you jumped him. Maybe you should go out with him.”
Cara waved me off like I was being ridiculous. “Please. You know how I am when I’m excited. I’ll kiss anyone.”
“And you think I’m the skank?” Olivia scoffed as she took the seat next to mine. I was kind of surprised when she greeted me with an enormous smile. I waited for some kind of backhanded insult but it turned out she was genuinely happy to see me. “How are you, Val?”
I didn’t know quite how to respond. “Um, I’m good. You?”
“Fantastic.” She sighed, a little lovesick, and then I understood.
“So you caught up with Kyle yesterday?”
I didn’t care for Olivia’s sake, but I was curious. Maybe if Kyle got distracted with Olivia, he wouldn’t be so intent on taking my virginity.
Olivia’s smile brightened. “We went for coffee and talked.”
“Talked?” Cara snorted. “Sure.”
“We just talked,” Olivia sneered. “You’re the one who will kiss anybody, remember?”
“Really?” I asked. I didn’t mean to insult Olivia with my disbelief, but I couldn’t swallow it. “You just talked? You and Kyle?”
“He wasn’t in the mood to go out yesterday. He was way annoyed with you Val.” Olivia pulled out a compact and re-applied her lip-gloss before telling us the rest of her news. With one final smack of her lips, she put down the mirror and said, “But he made plans with me for after the festival this weekend.”