“Dang,” Mike says.
“Shot down,” Chase adds.
“You can’t say I’m shot down when I didn’t even ask.” Kole’s comment is sharper than the fresh blade that nicked my shin while I shaved this morning. I stand there like a zombie who just had a rod thrust right through her chest. Stinging heat seeps into the crevices around my ribs. I want to groan in response but wait in tortured silence instead.
Eyes shift, but no one speaks another word. They just stand there looking as pain-ridden as I feel.
“I better get to class,” I say, and dart down the hall. I rub my nose, willing the tears not to surface. It’s stupid to be upset. It’s not like Kole and I are going out. We’re just friends. But I’m positive – even as the thought runs through my mind – that they all know I want more from Kole. Mike knows. Chase knows. Even Clueless Cal – their on-again-off-again friend –– knows; a guy who still doesn’t know Shannon Shuester has been in love with him since the third grade. Which only means one thing: Kole knows too.
My heart kicks into an anxious, clanking beat. My palms break out in a sweat. Kole knows that I like him. He totally knows.
But why is that so wrong? Can’t that piece of information possibly work for me in some way? Is it insane to think Kole might be a little curious about me too? About whether or not he and I could be a thing? I think back on Chase’s question. He asked about the Christmas festivities, not the dance in particular, but we all know what he meant. I hear my reply echoing in my mind, “definitely not” and cringe, giving myself a mental palm slap to the head. What is wrong with me?
That question plagues me all through biology. Something that does not escape Cassie. “Just tell me what’s bothering you,” she pleads while squeezing sanitizer into her palm. “Maybe I can help.”
I feel bad for not confiding in Cassie. The truth is, Cassie and I are a duo that used to be a trio. And when Meg (our third member) moved to Chicago, things kind of fell flat. Cassie was closer to Meg; I was closer to Meg; without the common factor there isn’t much there. So we just go on day-to-day and sort of … fake it. What else can we do?
“Tiff got asked to the Christmas dance last night,” I venture, doubting she’ll even get why I care.
Cassie stops rubbing her hands together and looks at me. She pulls a face that looks just like Meg, only it’s framed with red hair instead of black. “I totally get it. I would hate it if I had sisters who were always getting asked out all the time.”
“Right?” I say, encouraged. “It’s annoying.”
“Was it Evan?”
I nod. “Of course. And she acted all surprised even though she’d just been saying she thought he was going to ask her – seriously like, two minutes before the doorbell rang.”
“Ah-noying.”
“Very.” I smile inside. Maybe Cassie and I are more alike than I think.
“You know what,” I say as we near the lockers. I try to ignore the fact that she’s putting on her third application of sanitizer and look her in the eye because what I’m about to say could possibly rescue me from weeks of depression. “If neither of us have dates for the Christmas dance, we should totally do something together that night. Like, go on a fast food shopping spree and stuff our faces while watching horror movies.”
I’m getting into the idea already. Forget about wishing and hoping and praying that Kole will ask me to the dance. I’ll have plans of my own. Plans that will put that baseball-playing, sarcasm-saying, dimple-wearing, Dorito-sharing Kole out of my…
“I got asked last night.”
Sometimes on TV shows a party is happening and when the fun comes to an abrupt halt, the loud screech of a record sounds. My own mental party has just come to an end, and I swear I can hear that very sound echoing in my head.
There should be a word that encompasses both jealousy and anger because I am feeling them both in equal amounts. Janger!
I force my janger aside and hide behind the growing curiosity within my short, jangerous frame. “By who?”
“Chase.”
Whoa. “Chase? Chase Daniels? Kole’s friend?”
“Yeah.”
I can feel my eyes bulging right out of my skull. I know I look nuts but I can’t help it. I feel nuts. This can’t be real. Slacking, slouching, moping, mumbling Chase Daniels has managed to get off his pant-sagging butt and ask someone to the Christmas dance? I’m stunned. How did this happen?
It comes to my attention that Cassie is looking very uncomfortable. Did I do that?
“Oh,” I blurt. “This is so exciting. Come here.” I squeal like the girl I am supposed to be in this moment. The super-excited, ultra-supportive, happy-for-my-friend girl.
“Right?” Cassie says with a laugh. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to notice the forced nature of my efforts. Someone in the crowded hall sneezes as they walk by and Cassie covers her mouth in horror, her eyes wide as she looks at me. I know she wants to avoid sneeze-boy’s germs, so I tap my foot until she thinks the appropriate amount of time has gone by.
“Want to help me answer him tonight?” she finally asks through cupped hands.
“Tonight?” Is it possible for my eyes to get any wider? I force myself to spit out the exact opposite of what I’m feeling. “I’d love to! Oh, and I’m such a jerk – I forgot to ask: how did he ask you?”
Cassie looks over her shoulder before dropping her hands. She’s all smiles as she relays the details. A bag of take-out with a note pinned to the front. ‘This may sound cheesy, but I’ll die if you don’t come to the Christmas dance with me.’ Inside was – you guessed it – a cheeseburger. Oh, and an order of fries because without those, what would Chase write his name on? And he didn’t take an actual Sharpie to just one french fry. He wrote the letters on separate fries, which means at least five of the bunch were too tainted to eat.
“So… do you have anything in mind? Of how you want to answer him back, I mean.”
Cassie shoves her hand sanitizer back into her jacket pocket. “I should probably stick with the fast food theme… I thought maybe I could get him a shake and say like, ‘I can’t wait to shake the night away with you.’”
“You could,” I say, “but I think you’re supposed to like, make him look for the answer, like he had you look for the name, you know? At least that’s how my sisters do it.” I hate to put a damper on things, but I kind of know how this works by now. “Don’t worry,” I say, spotting Kole down the hall. His eyes are doing that thing they do when he knows something I don’t. “We’ll think of something. I better run.”
I try not to be too obvious as I dart across the hall. “Hey,” I holler, catching up with him as he moves. Thayne Hinders bumps my shoulder with one of his beefy gorilla arms, knocking me back a foot.
Kole spins around. “You okay?”
A rush of heat pools into my face as he holds my gaze. “Yeah.”
“That guy’s such a d-bag.”
“Yeah.” I say again.
Kole motions for us to walk, so I do. “Did you hear the news?” he asks.
“You mean that Chase asked Cassie to the dance?”
He grins. “Is she going to say yes?”
I like that smile on him. It isn’t his greeting smile or the one he flashes after a good laugh. It’s not his teasing smile either, which is definitely one of my favorites. It’s his famous I’m-going-to-get-my-way-and-I-know-it smile. Because let’s face it – Kole could probably pry anything out of me.
“You’ll just have to wait and find out,” I say.
“I don’t know…” Kole decreases his pace in the crowded hall. “Hearing about all the excitement of Chase asking Cassie, I’m starting to feel a little left out.”
I stop walking and grab his arm, making him stop too. It feels like the entire world has ceased to move at the sound of his words. “What do you mean?” My palms start to sweat – just like that my palms are reacting to his words and I don’t even know what he means by them.
“Just that,
hearing about Chase asking her. Evan asking your sister.” He shrugs. “I’m starting to think we might be missing out on something. You know?”
Yes yes yes. Do pigs squeal? Do ostriches hide their tiny heads in the sand? Will Thayne look like the hunch back of Notre Dame by the time he’s twenty? “Kind of,” I say with a shrug.
“Ooh, ho, ho! Looks like someone’s standing beneath the mistletoe,” Mike yells from clear down the hall. I glance up and see a small cluster of red and green hovering right over our heads. That must mean we’re next to the – I look to my left for confirmation; yes – the trophy case. My heart bursts into an uncontrollable spasm. My legs feel weak and jelly-like.
Several of the students have already filtered out to their busses or cars in the wet, miserable slush. But I am here, warm and dry, standing beneath a dangling sprig of mistletoe with none other than Kole Kingston before me.
I have mentally cursed the neighbor kid who keeps hanging the mistletoe next to the trophy case. I have shot daggers out of my eyes at him for having to witness all the couples who’ve stopped to make-out between classes. But in this moment I take it all back. Tony Anchorman, I love you, your awkward cousin, and your ugly cat too.
I tell myself to not mess this up. I cannot mess it up. I have waited my entire life for this very moment. I’ve tried to stage scenarios like this time and time again and failed miserably. And here this one has fallen right into my lap. Principal Jessop herself could not stop this from happening.
Kole holds my gaze, giving me that I-guess-there’s-no-getting-out-of-this look.
Oh, how right you are.
I shrug in return with just one shoulder and shuffle closer to him. The smell of his spicy cologne hovers like cupid dust in the space between us. I lick my lips, grateful I can still taste mint from the candy I swiped in class.
His hand finds my hip. Holy moly, his hand is on my hip! Warm and solid and pulling me closer. My face feels hot. Chaos erupts in my heart. I look down, willing myself not to hyperventilate.
The standard oohs and ahhs are sounding in the hallway, and I secretly relish being the recipient of those for once in my life. I force myself to look up at his face. Hints of gold are reflected in the warm brown of his eyes, but that’s not what makes them so captivating. It’s the smoldering heat I see there.
Kole looks down at my lips.
Oh, yes please.
He lowers his head, tilting slightly to one side.
Mm hmm.
I press up on my toes the tiniest bit.
Ready.
He moves in, closing the gap until our lips touch. The slightest, softest, most exquisite pleasure I’ve ever felt. I sigh, part my lips just a tiny bit and –
“Guys!” It’s Cassie’s voice that shatters the spell. “You guys are not going to believe it.”
Kole pulls away, searches my face with an expression I recognize but can’t for-the-life-of-me place in the dreaded moment.
“Meg is coming into town and…” She dies off there. I look down at my hands and twist my fingers and focus on the feel of Kole’s hand on my waist, the one thing that lets me know this moment is real. I just kissed Kole Kingston.
It was more of a tease, with as lightly as our lips touched. We barely even began and then it was gone. But I’m still counting it. Kole kissed me. Our lips touched; the moment has already been etched into that secret corner in my heart – Kole’s corner – where it will stay forever and ever.
“What did I miss?” Cassie’s question seems to make it official. The spectators groan and scatter. Kole’s hand drops like my skin has suddenly burst into flames. I turn around to see his friends hovered around a very frightened-looking Cassie.
I’m sorry, she mouths. I didn’t see you guys.
Kole leans toward me, bringing his mouth to my ear.
“To be continued,” he says in a gruff, low whisper.
My skin may not have burst into flames earlier, but at Kole’s uttered words, my insides do. And as he walks away, glancing over one shoulder before stepping out onto the snow-covered ground, I’m left with one very important question: Which part will be continued – the conversation, or the kiss?
“Chase asked Cassie to the dance.” I’m not sure why I want to announce this during dinner – for all of my sisters to hear – but I do. Maybe I don’t want them thinking they’re the only special ones on the planet. Maybe I think it will make them believe it could happen to me too.
“I just got a text from Jacob’s little sister,” Melanie says. “She asked if I was going to be home tonight.”
My dad chuckles.
My mom lets out a one of those little aw… noises. “Sounds like we better get the camera ready.”
“Did you guys hear me?” I ask. “And Meg’s family is coming into town for the holiday and Mike is probably going to ask her.”
“How about that?” my dad says.
“That’s nice,” Mom adds.
Of course, to them it doesn’t sound like much, but to me it’s breaking news. Front-page worthy. Something I haven’t stopped obsessing over since Cassie told me. She didn’t need to interrupt our kiss over it, but that’s something I’ll think about when depressing songs play on the radio. For now I have to stay focused.
Couples always go to the dance in groups. And Chase and Cassie, Meg and Mike, and Kole and I would be the most perfect group there was.
I blow on a spoonful of Connie’s Christmas Stew before taking a bite. I’m starting to think that maybe I haven’t been so delusional after all. What if Kole is really entertaining the idea of asking me out?
For dessert, we have snowflakes. Not the actual kind but the cut-tortillas-like-a-snowflake, fry them up, and coat them in powdered sugar kind. Another one of my mom’s experiments. Only this one is a keeper. I’m in such a good mood that I hang around to make them with everyone. Trina seems to be sulking more than usual tonight. And since I’m feeling generous I take the bait.
“Is anything wrong, Trina?”
She looks at me, blinking over surprised eyes. “I don’t know. I mean, Lance was totally ignoring me all day and I’m worried that he’s going to ask Lacy to the dance instead of me.”
I seriously doubt that, but I give her a sympathetic look anyway.
“He’s just messing with her,” Tiff says dismissively. “Guys always back off before they ask you out. They want to throw you off their trail.”
“They do?” Melanie asks. By the tone of her voice you’d think she struck gold. “I hope that’s true because Jacob was acting weird all day.”
Trina isn’t helping with the snowflakes. She’s sketching a face onto the back of an envelope. A round head with round eyes and a straight line for a mouth. No smile. No frown. Just precisely in between.
A loud chime fills the space, reminding me that the doorbell sounds have been switched for the holidays. The first line of Santa Claus is Coming to Town blasts out in synthetic tones.
The kitchen clears in seconds flat. Half-finished snowflakes lay on the counter. Plates of powdered sugar rest nearby. I rush to the stove and shut off the burner, leaving a pan of oil on the stovetop.
Kole’s words float through my mind for the millionth time: To be continued. I haven’t heard from him since, which has me thinking about what Tiff just said. What if he really plans to surprise me and ask tonight?
Sounds of appreciation pour from the front room. I hurry to join them, imagining what might be there. If Kole was actually going to ask me, how would he do it?
By the time I get into the front room my entire family is hovered around a bowl of fruit.
“Wait,” my mom hollers, racing down the hall. “Let me get my camera.” Tiff is already filming, but Mom always insists cell phones aren’t enough. I glance at the bowl once more. Small notes are stabbed right into each piece of fruit, each showing a big number on the front.
I stare at the display, asking myself that ever important question: Would Kole ask me out like this? The whole idea of f
ruit in a bowl seems lame unless I think of him doing it. Then it’s all kind of sweet.
Melanie drops to her knees by the coffee table and reaches for the fruit labeled ‘one’.
“Wait,” Trina hollers. “What if it’s for me? There’s no name on it.”
Secretly I’m thinking the exact same thing. My palms must be thinking it too because they’re sweating again.
“It will probably say who it’s for in the first note,” Melanie says.
Trina’s face looks like the one she drew on the envelope. “Yeah, but if it’s for me, I don’t want you opening it.”
“Well I don’t want you opening it if it’s for me either,” Melanie snaps back. “And I’m the one who got asked if she was going to be home tonight. Not you.”
My dad releases a thoughtful hmm. “He really should have put a name on it.”
He – meaning whoever dropped the thing on our porch: Jacob. Lance. Or Kole. Please, please, I don’t care how cheesy it is, just ask me, Kole!
At once everyone’s focus shifts to me. I glance around, wondering just what I’m missing. “Kylie should open the first one so we can see who it’s from. Then she can give it to whichever one of us it’s for.”
My jaw drops. I look to my mom, and then my dad, and finally resort to looking over at Tiff, but not one of them gets how offensive this is. It’s bad enough being someone who knows she’ll never get asked to a dance. Worse when everyone in your family knows it too. I want to prove them wrong more than anything.
“Okay,” I say with a shrug. My eyes are drawn to the number one scrawled onto that white, lined page in blue ink. My stomach drops. What if? What if it is really from Kole?
I pull the tack from the peach, licking my lips before folding back the flap. My eyes skim over the words quickly, from one to the next. Kylie, say Kylie.
Only it doesn’t.
Melanie’s name is printed right on top. My heart drops, getting the message before the rest of me. My hands shake from the intensity of it all.
“Melanie,” I manage, “it would be so peachy if you went to the dance with me.” I choke back a gag. Thank heavens this isn’t from Kole. It’s an outright travesty.
Getting Kole for Christmas Page 2