Love at First Fight: Geeks Gone Wild #1

by Dallen, Maggie

  I nodded. “Big. Romantic.” I felt a small smile forming for what felt like the first time in a long time. “Got it.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Margo

  It’s almost over. It’s almost over. The week from hell is almost over.

  It wasn’t the catchiest mantra of all time, but it had helped me make it through Hell Week…er, I mean Spirit Week with my sanity somewhat intact.

  Luke came to stand in front of me on our float. “You ready for your shining moment in the sun, my fair queen?”

  I smiled grudgingly. “I haven’t won yet.” And I probably wouldn’t win at all, not that I cared.

  “You will,” Luke said, his gaze moving over the band crowd that was in front of us, several of whom were waving in my direction and flashing me a thumbs up. We were all waiting for the parade to begin and truth be told, I would have much preferred to have been standing up front with my bandmates than hovering up here on this float alongside Luke. He’d been growing on me this week since we’d been forced to partner up for so many spirit week events, but I still wouldn’t call him my friend. Mainly because I was loyal to Suzie and she’d hate me forever if I declared myself friends with the guy who drove her nuts whenever he got the chance.

  “You know,” Luke said, slinging an arm over my shoulder as we looked out at the crowd from our perch. “Considering all the love you’ve got out there, and out there…” He waved his free hand toward the crowd who was sitting and waiting to watch the spectacle. “You might just be the most popular of us all.”

  I grinned despite myself. I’d meant it when I’d said I didn’t care about popularity but it was still nice to feel loved. And the fellow nerds and outcasts and basically anyone who didn’t one hundred percent fit in to societal standards of what was cool and trendy had come out to support me with a vengeance.

  So yeah, I was definitely feeling the love.

  Even though all that love didn’t do much to ease the heartache that wouldn’t seem to heal. It was my own fault. All of it. I should have known better than to get close. I should’ve realized that I’d get burnt.

  I was an idiot and now I was paying the price.

  “Speaking of your fan club…” Luke said.

  I followed his gaze and saw Suzie and Matt waving wildly from the steps where they’d perched for a better view of the preparations.

  “Hey, Suzie Q!” Luke shouted beside me as I waved back. “Love the hair.”

  Suzie’s giant grin faltered only slightly as she determinedly ignored his shouts. She’d loosened her typical ponytail and her red curls were flying in the breeze.

  “She looks beautiful,” I said.

  He grinned down at me. “Did I say she didn’t?”

  I frowned because no, he hadn’t. It wasn’t like he ever said anything truly mean to her, but he still tormented her by making her the center of attention. “Why are you so determined to call attention to Suzie?”

  His smirk grew as he leaned down. “Maybe I think she deserves to be seen.”

  I pursed my lips as I considered him and his response. “She hates it.”

  His smirk turned to an actual smile. “That’s half the fun.”

  I rolled my eyes. Boys. I’d never understand them.

  I had to take a stab at reasoning with him, even though reason and Luke were clearly not friends. “Leave her alone, Luke.”

  He wasn’t paying attention, he was looking at something over my shoulder. “Love to chat but I’ve got to run,” he said just before he leapt off our float.

  “What? What do you—” I called after him. “But you’re my floatie!”

  And yes, that sounded even more ridiculous than I could have ever imagined coming out of my mouth. It was a silly inside joke between me and Luke that now seemed to echo in the air around me.

  “Floatie, huh?” Jason’s voice behind me had me straightening. His low, sexy voice had a mix of heat and tension flaring to life inside me making it impossible to move, to breathe, to do anything but stand here and wish that I was anywhere else.

  With anyone else.

  But of course, wishing had never done anyone any good. I turned slowly to face him. Then I wished I hadn’t. Again, wishing equaled useless. Because I was facing him now and there was no ignoring how handsome he looked in his suit, how perfectly he filled it out and how it made him look so much older. His firm, square jaw was clean-shaven and even his normally mussed hair was slicked down neatly.

  “You look great,” I said. I breathed it, really. My airy tone was embarrassing and uncharacteristic, but at this point I had little dignity to lose. Once again I’d mistaken Jason’s kindness for caring, his attention for interest…his fake kiss for something real.

  I was such an idiot.

  He studied me as well, his eyes roaming over my dress—a bright blue silk dress in a retro 50s style that made me feel like I should be twirling at all times just to make the skirt billow.

  “You’re so beautiful.” His voice was so low I almost didn’t hear him. Almost. But I did catch it and my entire body flushed with delight. Stupid, stupid body.

  I gave my head a little shake, hoping that might restore sanity. “What are you doing here?”

  He arched his brows. “It’s homecoming, remember? I’m the quarterback, we won the game last night, and now you, me, and a handful of our peers are parading around in front of the school like a bunch of morons.” He gave me that lopsided grin that took my breath away. “Is any of this ringing a bell?”

  I let out a huff of laughter at his unexpected humor. After the way I’d ranted at him in the parking lot, and then the way I’d been ignoring him all week, I hadn’t exactly expected jokes. “I meant, what are you doing here?” I said, pointing to the tissue-paper covered platform on which we now stood. “What are you doing on my float?”

  “I asked Luke to trade spots with me.”

  I blinked at him as my stomach did a backflip with nervous anticipation. “But…why?”

  “Well, he’s taking Julia to homecoming so it seemed appropriate that they parade together,” he said.

  Something inside of me died a little death at that logic. He’d done it for Julia. “Oh. Well that’s…nice of you.” But then his words hit me and my gaze shot up to meet his. He was watching me closely and that nervous hope was back.

  No, not hope. Why on earth was I letting myself hope again?

  I was not only an idiot, I was a masochist.

  I licked my lips. “You’re, uh…you’re not taking Julia?”

  He shook his head. “She’s going with Luke. As friends,” he added quickly. “For the first time ever Luke seems to be flying solo these days.”

  I nodded. What did I care about Luke and his dating life? My heart was threatening to beat its way out of my ribcage.

  He slipped his hands into his pocket and his eyes grew dark. Serious. “There’s another reason, though.”

  I blinked rapidly as my brain tried to keep up despite the fact that Jason was stealing all the oxygen from the air around us. “Another reason Julia’s going with Luke to homecoming?”

  A small smile flickered. “Another reason I asked Luke to trade spots.”

  “Oh.” I held my breath as I waited for him to speak and that did nothing to help this feeling of oxygen-deprived dizziness that was making me unsteady on my feet. The whole world seemed to be moving around me.

  Actually, it was. Literally. We were moving. It took a beat but my brain belatedly noted that our float was moving at an epically slow pace toward the center of the field as the band started to play.

  He took a step closer, seemingly oblivious to the fact that we were on a moving platform, on full display before God, principal, and the entire student body.

  “I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

  I looked around pointedly and he gave me a small smile that made my heart ache.

  “I wanted to talk to you somewhere where you couldn’t run away.”

  I opened my mouth to pro
test. I didn’t run away. I never ran away.

  But I had last week in the parking lot, and I would again right now given half a chance. Even as I waited anxiously for him to continue, a little part of me wanted to flee, terrified that he would say something to crush that stupid, undefeatable flame of hope that seemed intent on torturing me.

  He took a deep breath. “Somewhere that I couldn’t run away.”

  I frowned. “You?”

  He licked his lips. “I’ve been a coward, Margo. I’ve been afraid.”

  I stared up at him with wide eyes. I wasn’t sure anyone had ever been so candid with me. “H-How so?” I managed.

  He edged even closer and I was torn between throwing my arms around him and throwing myself overboard.

  “I wanted to kiss you,” he said. “For real. Because I care about you…as more than a friend.”

  It was official. I was in a coma and this was a super vivid dream. But did one’s heart race in vivid dreams? Did butterflies burst into flight in one’s bellies or did lungs lose the ability to function?

  Also, did saxophonists play the wrong note in beautiful, vivid coma dreams? I didn’t think so. But Kenny Harmon always messed up that section and right now his off-key note was the best sound I’d ever heard because it meant this was real.

  Don’t be an idiot, don’t be an idiot, don’t be an idiot…

  Too late. My heart was in my throat, my chest expanding with a joy I’d never known.

  “You care about me,” I repeated. That was it. That was all I was capable of. “You care about me? But—”

  “This isn’t about me being nice and needing you to like me,” he said, frustration lacing his voice. “This has nothing to do with me helping you win a crown. I don’t care about that.”

  He looked away for the first time since he’d started talking to take in the stadium full of students before us. Our slow progress had brought us out on the field, we were officially on display—and I couldn’t care less.

  I reached up and put my hands on his cheeks, forcing his eyes back to me. I was nearly knocked off my feet by the intensity I saw there. Warmth, too, and kindness, as always. Because that was who Jason was. But there was a heat, a fire, that I’d never seen before.

  “I don’t even care about them,” he said, gesturing toward the crowd.

  I started to smile because I knew what he was referring to. That stupid hashtag that was tearing our school apart. “You don’t want to make sure everyone is getting along?”

  His lips twitched up a bit to match mine at my teasing. “It would be great if they did, but it’s not my responsibility.”

  I gave a little nod because I believed him. I knew he meant it. But there was still an old hurt—a scab that had been torn open too many times to ignore. “Your friends,” I said. “I’d never fit in with them, and you’d always choose them. You’ve always chosen them over me.”

  He let out a weary sigh as he pulled me into his arms. If the people in the stands were talking about us, I didn’t notice. The principal was saying something over a loudspeaker but I didn’t hear that either.

  All I could hear was my heartbeat and Jason’s sexy-as-sin voice. “I’m sorry for all the times I’ve made you feel like I didn’t choose you,” he said. With a little shake of his head, he added, “I still don’t know how I should have handled the whole slideshow thing, and I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you like you needed me to be.”

  I gave him a little nod to say I understood but that was all I could manage.

  “I don’t know what I would do differently if I could go back in time because I was stuck between a friend I cared for and my teammates, who deserve my loyalty as well.”

  “Your friends suck,” I said, but it came out with little heat.

  He arched his brows ever so slightly. “Not all of them, and the ones who’ve been mean to you, they’re not my friends. I might have a loyalty to them—to my team, but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything they do.”

  I wanted to nod and say all was forgiven. I wanted to go up on tiptoes and kiss him with everything I had because that was what my heart wanted. That was what my entire body was crying out for me to do.

  But I couldn’t ignore all the hurt of the past. Not if we ever stood any chance of moving forward. “I don’t belong with them.” I nodded toward the other floats—the popular crowd, his friends, his teammates. His world. “How do I know that you wouldn’t choose them over me?”

  “Why would I have to choose?” he said.

  I stared at him. Was he really that naïve or did he truly just not care that they wouldn’t accept me? I thought to Luke and the way he’d been helping me this past week, in his own uniquely odd way. Well, not all of them would reject me but it wasn’t like I was about to change, not for Jason and not for anyone else. I wouldn’t tone down my personality or my style of clothes or give up my beloved band… Sure, some of his friends might accept me, but we couldn’t avoid the Joels of the world, especially not now when there was so much animosity between our two worlds.

  “What if you had to choose between me and them?” I said. “That slideshow debacle made it clear whose side you’d be on.” I wanted him to argue with me. I wanted him to tell me I was wrong, that he’d been wrong, that everything was different now.

  I wanted him to tell me that I could trust him.

  He studied me but he didn’t try to defend himself. Instead he gave me a smile that was small and sad. “Honestly, Margo, I’m not sure you’re one to judge.”

  I jerked back a bit. “What does that mean?”

  “Does GeekBook ring a bell?”

  I stared at him for a second and then understanding dawned. Still, he spelled it out for me. “I didn’t exactly see you rushing forward to get one of your friends in trouble or coming to my defense or any of my friends.”

  I opened my mouth. I shut it again. Even now I didn’t want to talk about that stupid site because I didn’t want to rat out Matt. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “I get it. You have a point.”

  Jason was too nice to gloat. I loved that about him.

  “You’re right, too,” he said. “At some point along the way, I chose my friends—”

  “Just like I chose mine,” I said, saying what he was too kind to point out.

  His eyes met mine and he smiled. “Exactly. I’m just sorry we didn’t choose each other.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Maybe it was for the best.” My mind back to that terrible time of braces and cliques and changing bodies and raging hormones. When every insult felt like life or death and every snub, every slight was the end of the world. “Maybe we needed to grow on our own, you know? We found people who shared the same interests, who had the same hobbies. And they helped us become who we are now, right?”

  He nodded, his gaze serious and probing. I saw a flicker of uncertainty and realized that this was it. He’d lain his heart on the line and now it was my turn to be brave.

  I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.

  “Mr. Connolly. Miss Caruso.” The principal’s voice over the loudspeaker cut into my moment.

  We both looked over. “Yes?” Jason said. He looked completely unembarrassed by the fact that we were currently thwarting this entire bizarre, outdated tradition by paying attention to one another rather than the ceremony going on around us. This was the part where he was to name the winners and see who would be crowned king and queen at the dance tonight.

  Jason not only didn’t look embarrassed, he looked put out that the principal had the gall to interrupt us.

  I didn’t think I’d ever loved him any more than I did in that moment.

  “Are we interrupting something?” the principal said, sarcasm lacing his voice and making the teachers on their podium titter with laughter, but all eyes in the crowd were on us.

  “Actually…” I said slowly.

  Jason gestured between us. “We’re kind of having a moment here.”

  Now that made the students laugh and Princ
ipal Kramer looked…not pleased. But before he could protest, I cut him off. “We’ll be quick,” I said, turning back to Jason as the principal’s stunned silence echoed around us. I clutched Jason’s lapels and said it all in one breath. “What I was going to say was, maybe it was for the best that we each went our own way because I like the person you’ve become, Jason. I like him a lot.”

  “Yeah?” Jason teased, leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. “A lot, huh?”

  “He’s the kindest guy I know, and the most thoughtful. He makes me laugh, and he makes me think, and he…” I came to a breathless stop because I could no longer think of words. I could only think of one thing. “He makes me want to kiss him.”

  And then I did just that.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jason

  It was the best kiss of my life, and I knew without a doubt it was a kiss I would remember until the day I died.

  Margo kissed me like she did everything in her life—with passion and enthusiasm, and she gave it everything she had. Her hands clutched my jacket, and after a moment of shock, I groaned and pulled her against me, holding her tight and wishing I never had to let go.

  She wrapped her arms around my neck and I deepened the kiss, loving the way she melted into my arms, a physical sign of trust that meant so much more than any words she could say.

  Despite everything we’d been through over the years, and over the past few weeks—she was trusting me with her heart.

  I didn’t even know how long she’d had my heart in her hands because I may have been falling in love with my geeky neighbor for years, if not the whole past decade. She’d always been in my life and in my heart.

  But now…well, now she was mine, just like I was hers.

  All I was aware of was the way her lips clung to mine, of the way she smelled—so fresh, so sweet—of the way her curves pressed against me. I tilted my head to deepen the kiss. I needed to taste more, to feel more, to—