Her Kiss (Griffin) (12 page)

She clicked on her cell phone,
then
shoved it in my face. I tilted my head. What she was
showing me was a picture of Destiny mackin’ with that college guy from earlier
tonight at the party.

“Is this you?” she asked bitterly.

I took the phone from her and
glanced at the picture a second. Then I smirked. “Does it look like me?”

She obviously hadn’t studied the
picture.
At all.
Probably seeing it had made her sick.
Most likely she just glanced at it—and then she got in the car to save
her friend. But wherever she had come from—it had been a way different
place than this party. I mean
,
she had
popcorn
in her hair. And she’d
probably eaten a bunch of candy apples and saved some kittens from trees.

I handed her phone back to her. She
peeked at it, then winced and turned bright red. “I’m sorry. Kendra sent it to
me and then—then I saw you with Destiny. Destiny in your
lap
.” She shuddered. Then without
saying anything more she lunged for her car door.

“Thank you for helping me with
Destiny,” she said super quick as she opened her passage to escape. It was like
she wanted out of here as soon as possible and was going to leave without
really saying goodbye.

I grabbed her shoulder and turned
her back to face me—in a gentle way though. She stared up at me like her
heart was pounding hard; both in fear, but in breathy excitement too.

She was holding her breath. She wanted
me to kiss her. I could tell. But at the same time, she also wanted to leave.
Really bad.
She had her keys clenched in her hands and one
foot inside her car.

Still, that wasn’t enough to stop
me from kissing her—her wanting to leave. I was going to make her want to
stay. I drew my mouth down to hers, ready to kiss her blind, like she wanted
(as much as me), but just as my lips met hers she had a moment of
clarity—or whatever. She yelped and tried to squirm away from me. I
closed my eyes with a sigh. Man.

I wanted her to give me a chance.
Just one chance.

I wanted to keep holding her
anyway—even with her squirming. But that’s called assault. I winced and
let her go.

But as she was about to get into
her car, I gently turned her back to me again. She was wide-eyed and trembling.
Since I was the devil and everything.

 
But I didn’t plan to kiss her this time, despite what she was
anxiously thinking. Instead, I gently brushed another piece of popcorn out of
her hair.

“Good night, Heaven,” I said.

She looked startled and relieved,
both, that I didn’t kiss her—
but,
I swear, she
looked disappointed too. It made me sigh.

“Good night,” she breathed out in a
reverent whisper.

Then she escaped into the safety of
her car and drove away, back to her popcorn, candy-apple life.

Man, what was that like
?—
to be in Ally’s world?

CHAPTER 33

The Monday after Jake’s party,
Heaven left me a poem in my locker that I almost completely understood. It was
saying that Destiny had told her that I’d “watched over her.” She thanked me
for that in an Ally-poem like way that filled my insides with warmth. But I’ve
got to tell
you,
at the same time it also filled my
heart with a sad kind of ache and longing.

I mean
,
I’m not made of stone. I yearned for things. I yearned for Ally. And now I
couldn’t even get drunk over it.

Still, I dug the poem.

A few days after getting it I was
talking with Hailey at my locker when I saw Heaven walking towards us. Well,
actually, apparently, she wasn’t walking towards
us
—
me and Hailey
. What I mean
is, Heaven had a frosted delicious-looking cookie she was carrying that she was
apparently planning to put into my locker. But when she saw me at it, she
froze. Then she quickly turned around and started walking the other direction.

No. Way.

I went chasing after her. “Heaven!”

She stopped. Frozen in her tracks.
But she didn’t turn around and face me. She just stayed glued to that spot.
So cute.
I exhaled with a laugh and trotted over to her. “Is
the cookie for me?”

“Cookie?”

She said it like
what
are
you talking
about?
But she smiled as she said it too, ’cause she was holding a cookie.
Pretty hard to pretend it wasn’t there.

She let out a sigh of resignation.
“Yes, the cookie’s for you.”

She handed it to me looking sort of
brave. Then she
acted
sort of
brave. She voluntarily opened her mouth and talked to me. “Is it totally dumb
that I give you cookies?” Then, before I could answer, she added, “I
just—I have a weird crush on you.”

My eyebrows shot up. And a jet of
warmth shot straight to my heart.
Werewolf, werewolf, werewolf
.

I felt like kissing babies and puppies
and kittens. I smiled. “So, the cookies
do
mean you like me.”

She nodded shyly, but didn’t
actually say anything.

The feeling in my heart—it
was like I was a kid flying to Candy World in an invisible jet-plane. This was
like, the happiest day of my life.

I scratched my chin, still
grinning. “You know, there’s other ways to show me you like me.”

She stepped away from me really
quick as though I said something dirty.

I gave a soft laugh. “I mean, don’t
run away from me.” My eyes lingered on hers, hopeful-like. “That would be a
start.”

I wet my lips, trying to think
fast. But I’m not so good at doing that when I look into her beautiful eyes,
which you might get from my next words: “A bunch of us are going to hang out at
Jake’s tonight,” I said. “His parents are gone. We’re going to have a party.” I
raised my eyebrows. “You want to come?”

She shook her head. Oh
my gosh
, she looked like she was going to cry.

“I’m going to get back together
with Aiden,” she said, slicing an axe through my heart.

Then she did her usual. She ran
away from me.

I watched her go,
then
collapsed against the locker behind me.
Okay, am I the biggest idiot in the world
?—
inviting her to a party—
again
?

The girl had told me she had a
crush on me.

That was like a huge, gigantic step
for her. Then what did I do?
‘I know you
don’t like parties, but hey, that’s all I do.’

I did a face-palm. Then groaned. I
sent her back to Poser.

CHAPTER 34

The next day, I heard Poser talking
with his friends in the locker room after hockey practice. I was already kind
of up on him and Fauna. The whole team was. Since she’s a hockey cheerleader,
and he’s on our team—it’s not like we can get away from them.

Plus, they both have big mouths.

So I’ve known the score with them
this whole time. Fauna wants Poser to make a commitment, but he’s been kind of
holding out on her, hoping to patch things up with Heaven. He’s been doing that
the
whole
time.
Seeing
Fauna, but aching for Ally.
The thing was, until now, Heaven was being
strong. Sticking to her common sense. Poser cheated on her. He didn’t deserve
her.

But after hearing her yesterday, I
was worried he wore her down, and I’d pushed her over the edge with my dopey
myriad of party invitations.

So, I swallowed and eavesdropped on
his conversation. I was a row back, so he didn’t know I was listening. Mason
did though. I had to push the dork away because he was making fun of me and
kept mouthing that I was a “Sucker for School Girl” which I was, but I needed
him to shut up so I could stalk.

Poser was talking loud, obviously
upset, so that was a good sign. I listened with my heart pounding.

“I don’t know what’s up with Ally,”
he said. “The girl is driving me crazy. She wouldn’t answer a single text of
mine for months. Months! Then—
finally
—she
said she wanted to talk. So, I thought this was it—finally. I thought it
was because of the school dance. She’s on the dance committee and she loves
school dances. I figured it got her remembering us—how we used to be. So,
I was planning to ask her to the dance. But then—the chick broke up with
me,
again!!”

He shook his head, sounding bitter.
“She said she wanted to talk, but then once we started talking—she
didn’t
want to talk. She just got
mad about Fauna all over again. She has no idea what she wants. Seriously. She
was totally leading that guy—Milo—around like a dog, too.” He
growled, slamming his locker shut. “Fine. Whatever. Now she doesn’t have a date
to the dance. I’m taking Fauna. Game over.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, happy for
me.
But sad for Heaven.
What the punk said seemed kind
of true. Ally didn’t seem to know what she wanted. Well, or maybe she did know,
but she couldn’t find it. Either way, I knew she was sad right now. That bit.

CHAPTER 35

As I walked past the open doors to
the school gym, I stopped. I scratched my chin a moment,
then
back-tracked. Yeah, that’s what I thought I saw. There was Heaven, up on a
ladder.

I watched her a minute as she tried
to get a streamer to stick to the ceiling, but she was too short for the
task—by a wide margin. Still, I tilted my head and watched her trying for
a while.
‘Cause it was cute.

“
Do you need help?”

She jerked around in surprise by the sound
of my voice. She almost fell off the ladder when she saw it was
me
.

“Um, yeah,” she choked out, turning red.
“I could really use some help. Definitely.”

She watched me all
my-hero
-like as I grabbed the extra ladder across the gym. I
brought it over next to hers,
then
put up the streamer
for her.

“Got more?” I asked.

“Tons,” she said. “I had other people
helping, but most of them went home already—all the tall ones.”

I grinned, knowing none of them were
taller than me (or as short as her). I put up all the streamers for her, while
she fixed up a couple tables making them look romantic and fancy for the dance.

We were about done when this cheerleader,
Bianca bounced into the gym carrying an armload of streamers and a big sign
that said, “Rock My World.”

She looked around, amazed at
mine and Heaven’s work
. “Wow, you got a lot done while I was
gone,” she said to Heaven.

“Griffin helped,” Ally said, giving me
this look like I was awesome.

My pulse
jack-hammered
.
I shot another peek at her. The girl brought me to my knees—and all she
did was look at me.

Bianca
plunked her armload of streamers down on
the refreshment table, eyeing me like most girls do—like she was curious
to walk on the
wild-side
.

Her eyes drank me in as she purred, “It
all looks really great, Griffin.” She batted her eyelashes (not even kidding)
and leaned in close.
“
Could you put up this sign for me?”

I tensed my jaw muscles slightly.
“No, sorry. I’ve
got to go.”

Her flirting gaze turned into a glare. She
waved me off, like
Whatever
dude
. But we both knew I’d shot her
down and she was pissed.

The girl’s a witch. I didn’t like her. In
case that wasn’t obvious.

She turned to Heaven, being her
bossy self.
“So,
finish with the streamers and then hang this sign right over that door and I
think we’re set.”

Ally grimaced, so immediately I knew
Bianca had been giving her orders all afternoon. ‘Cause Ally’s not one of those
girls that grimaces. She’s the kind that smiles and says, “What do you need?”
And then she stays until the work is done—even when she’s too short to
reach the ceiling.

Bianca immediately left, saying she needed
to check on something.

Once she was gone, I shot Ally a look.
“Want me to put up that sign?”

She blinked, tilting her head. “I thought
you had to go.”

I grinned. “I just didn’t want to help
Bianca. I don’t like her.”

Ally got a huge grin on her pretty
face. Oh man. I was pretty sure she had no clue what her smile could do to a
guy. What it was doing to me. My heart was purring like a kitten.

She said all soft,
“But you’ll help
me?”

I climbed the ladder, holding the sign.
“Sure.”

“Because … you like me?”

My hands stilled.

Was she really wanting to do this
?—
have this conversation?

Slowly, I turned to her and cocked
my head. “Well, I don’t hate you.” Then I glanced up at the ceiling before
looking back at her and grinned. “Of course I like you, Heaven. That’s why I
keep asking you to the river and parties, but you keep shooting me down.”

“You ask me to the river because
you like me?” Her voice sounded skeptical—probably because that’s where
people get drunk and hook up.

On reflex, I looked back at her a
moment and then back to the sign, centering it. I didn’t answer her because
what could I say? Those were the places I was used to. The only places I knew.
She was probably right to always run from me. I was no church girl’s dream. I
was a nightmare if you really thought about it.

She whispered, “Ask me somewhere
else.” Only I don’t think I was supposed to hear. She said it
so
quiet. I think it was more like a
wish. A prayer.

My insides twisted.

When I was done with the sign I
came over towards her. She backed away shyly, but I kept coming towards her
anyway. I kept coming until I playfully had her backed against the wall.

I played with a tendril of her soft
hair, staring into her gorgeous eyes, my heart doing weird, pleasant things.
Unrecognizable things that it only did around her; this
cookie-baking, church-going, piano-playing, heaven-making girl.
She had
my heart all stirred up, begging for her to pet it. “I have a crush on you,
Heaven.”

I felt her intake of breath and saw
her eyes turn all starry. I was so in love with that reaction, I practically
choked.

Her frosted lips parted slightly.
“I have one on you too,” she whispered.

“I know.” I tugged playfully on her
lock of hair. “You told me.”

She gave a soft laugh, sounding
like she was in a dreamy fog-filled daze. (Sort of like me … well,
exactly
like me.) “Oh yeah,” she smiled,
making my eyes stall on her pretty lips. Crave them.

Heat skittered over my body. I drew
in a long breath,
then
said with amused resign, “Okay,
Heaven,” I shifted slightly to get a firm hold on her shy gaze, “you won’t go
with me to a party. Will you go with me to the dance?”

I felt (and heard) her gasp.

She blinked, like she couldn’t
believe what she thought she just heard. “You’ll … come to the dance?”

She sounded incredulous.

I raised my eyebrows. “If you’ll
come with me.”

A huge smile spread on her
beautiful face.

My heart pounded, loving that I
made her do that. Smile like that. “So will you go with me
?—
to
the dance?”

She nodded, like she was too amazed
to speak.

I sort of was too.
‘Cause the girl finally said yes to me.

… Not only that, she got me,
Griff-The-Grief-Master
, to go to a
school dance.

Wild.