Just Jelly Beans and Jealousy (2 page)

I shrug. Logan is famous for his shrugs. He
should accept mine. But he doesn’t. Instead, he punches me in the
shoulder.

Shit, that hurt. “What the fuck?” I ask.

“What happened?” he asks. He looks straight
into my eyes.

“Nothing,” I say. I shake my head. “Not a
fucking thing.”

“Dude, you had a pillow shoved in your lap,
and you were getting off her bed when we walked in. Something
happened.” He shoves my shoulder, almost knocking me over. Logan’s
a big boy. A little bigger than me, and I’m a big guy. “Not to
mention that she looked like she’d just been fucked.”

I stop and turn to face him. I lay both lands
flat on his chest and shove him as hard as I can. “Don’t ever
fucking talk about her like that again,” I warn.

Logan takes a few steps back. Then he grins.
“It’s about fucking time,” he says. He holds up a hand to high five
me.

“Fuck you,” I say instead, and I keep walking
toward my dorm. I can’t get there fast enough.

“Did you kiss her?” he asks. He grins at me
again, and I feel a smile tugging at my own lips. But it doesn’t
last for more than a minute. His joviality isn’t contagious.

“I was about to…. Then you guys busted in,” I
admit.

“She wants you, man. She’s got it as bad as
you do. Trust me.”

I shake my head. “She doesn’t.”

“She does.” He claps a hand on my shoulder.
“She told Emily. Emily told me.” He pauses and then says, “You’re
welcome.”

“What did she say?” I ask. I probably don’t
want to know.

“She said she wants to have your babies.” He
jumps back when I go to punch him, and he laughs.

“Shut up,” I say. “This is serious.”

“Why’s it so serious all of a sudden?” Logan
asks. “This shit’s been going on between you two for a long time.
Why does it suddenly matter so much?”

“The contest is today. They’re raffling off a
kiss from her.” I heave a sigh. “One lucky winner is going to get
to kiss the woman I love. In front of everybody.”

“Oh, fuck,” Logan breathes. “That’s
shit.”

“I asked her not to go,” I confess.

“So, go buy all the tickets,” he says with a
shrug, as though he just solved world poverty or AIDS.

“It doesn’t work like that. You have to guess
the number of jelly beans in her jar. If you get the wrong number,
you don’t get anything. If you get the right number, you get to
kiss her.”

“So, we need to figure out how many jelly
beans are in her jar,” he says simply. He looks at me. “Did you see
the jar?”

I nod. “It’s a pickle jar.” I hold out my
hands to show him the size. “The big kind.”

“So we need a jar that size, and we need to
fill it with jelly beans and then count them. At least then you can
get close, right?”

I scrub a hand down my face. “This is stupid.
I’ll never get it. Every guess costs a dollar.” I reach into my
pocket and pull out my wallet. It’s nearly empty.

“You’re just going to let somebody else kiss
her?”

“If I’m not there, I won’t see it.” I shrug
my shoulders, trying to hide the fact that I feel as if I’m being
gutted.

He stares at me. He doesn’t say anything. “If
it were Emily, I’d buy every fucking pickle and every damn jelly
bean in the state of New York. There’s no way my girl would kiss
some asshole.”

“You’re right,” I say. “We need to go to the
store.” Hope swells inside me. Do I have a chance? I won’t know
until I try, I guess.

Logan and I go shopping, and after we get all
our supplies, he looks at me and says, “I hope you like pickles,
dude, because we’re going to have to eat this whole jar so we can
fill it with jelly beans.”

I look at the jar. “I don’t like pickles that
much. You?”

Logan pops the top while we walk back to the
dorm and starts eating. This is what friendship is all about. He
crunches each bite over and over until he swallows, and then he
reaches for a second one and passes it to me, taking another for
himself. He stops a stranger on the street. “You want a pickle?” he
asks. The stranger sidesteps him. “What?” he asks. “You act like
it’s every day somebody offers you a free pickle.”

The man keeps going. “Dude, I think he
thought you mean a pickle.” I make air quotes when I say the word
pickle.

“How could I mean a pickle when I’m standing
here holding a jar of pickles?” he asks.

I shrug. “You didn’t look like his type
anyway.”

“I’m too pretty for him, right?” he asks.
Logan’s all tatted up, on top of being huge.

“That has to be it.”

By the time we get to the dorm, all but two
pickles are gone, and we’ve left a trail of people eating pickles
in our wake.

I burp into my closed fist. “I’ll never eat
another pickle again.”

Logan dumps the last two in the bushes
outside the dorm. “I can’t eat another one, man,” he says,
belching.

He washes out the jar and dries it, and then
we start dumping jelly beans into the empty container. Bag after
bag goes in. When it’s full, I look at Logan and say, “How many is
that?”

“You weren’t counting?” he asks.

“Was I supposed to?”

“Shit,” he says. Then he dumps them onto the
bed, and we start to count.

I’m going to win this contest if it’s the
last thing I ever do. “If I buy twenty numbers, ten before and
after our count, do you think I’ll be safe? I only have twenty
dollars left after the pickles.”

He points to my phone. “You have FaceTime on
that thing?” he asks.

I nod and pass it to him. He opens it up and
props it on the desk in front of him. It rings, and finally,
Logan’s oldest brother, Paul, answers. He stares at the screen
until he recognizes Logan.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asks. “And
whose phone are you calling from?” He’s signing while he talks out
loud.

Logan laughs and pulls me into the frame.
“It’s Sean’s.”

“What up, Sean?” Paul asks.

I wave.

“You got any cash?” Logan asks.

Paul’s eyes narrow. “Why?”

“Sean needs to buy a kiss from his girl.”

Paul’s brow rises. “You paying for sex now,
dude?” he asks. He holds up his hands when I start to protest. “Not
that I think that’s a bad idea or anything. Man’s got to do what a
man’s got to do.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “I can’t ask you
for money, man. Don’t worry about it. Logan shouldn’t have called
you.”

But Logan rushes on. “So, you got any money?”
he asks.

Paul heaves a sigh and empties his pockets. I
see a few dollars float around. He yells toward the back of his
apartment. “Sam! Matt!” Both brothers walk into the room.

“
You bellowed?” Matt
says.

“Asswipe there needs some cash so he can buy
a hooker.” He points toward me.

“She’s not a hooker,” I protest.

But Logan’s laughing like hell by now. And
Matt and Sam look amused, too.

“Cash?” Logan asks.

“Some,” Paul says.

“Can you bring it?”

“Where?”

“To school. To the kissing booth. In the
quad.”

Paul heaves a sigh. “I’ll be there.” The
phone goes dead.

“Do you think we’ll have enough?” I’m getting
anxious now.

“You’ll have more than you thought you did.”
Logan claps a hand onto my shoulder and squeezes.

God, I hope this works.

Lacey

I groan loudly as soon as the door closes
behind Sean and Logan. “Aghh!” I want to hit something. I want to
scream. I want to…kiss Sean. I want to kiss him so bad.

“Spill it,” Friday says as she sits down
beside Emily and props her head in her hand. She doesn’t say
anything more. She just waits.

“I don’t even know where to start.” My voice
cracks, and I hate that it does.

“Start at the ending,” Emily says. “What was
happening when we barged in?”

“Nothing,” I grunt. “Not a thing. Just like
always.”

“There was something going on. Something more
than the usual sexual tension between you two. Did he finally make
a move?”

I shake my head. He didn’t. Not really. “He
hinted that he might make a move. So, I gave him an opening. That’s
all.”

“He was taking it,” Friday says. “The opening
that is.”

Emily grins. “He wanted to take her opening,
all right.” She snorts.

I throw a pillow at her, but she just catches
it.

“I thought this kissing thing would make him
step up. But I guess he just doesn’t care as much as I thought he
did.”

“He cares,” Emily says.

I shake my head. “He doesn’t.”

“He does. He told Logan. Logan told me.”

My belly flutters. “Logan must be hearing
things.”

Emily snorts again.

“I mean…”

“I know what you meant,” Emily says, smiling.
“Logan can be pretty intuitive about some things. And he feels
certain that Sean wants you. Bad. And Sean said as much.”

Friday bites her lip, then adds, “I probably
shouldn’t tell you this, but…”

“What?” I ask.

“You know how he got a new tattoo last week?”
she asks.

I didn’t know so I don’t answer. “What did he
get?” I ask instead.

She inhales, weighing her decision to tell
me. Then she blurts out, “It’s a honeybee.”

“Oh shit,” I say.

“What?” Emily asks. “What did I miss?”

“He calls me honey when he’s being all
sweet.”

Friday nods.

“I blew it when I told him I just want to be
friends.”

“Logan says boyfriends are friends that get
to make girls come.” Emily snickers. She gets this dreamy look on
her face and sighs. “Over and over and over.”

“What if I blew my chance forever?” I ask.
Tears sting my eyes.

“Oh, don’t cry,” Friday says. “You’ll mess up
your makeup.”

“You look hot, by the way,” Emily says.

“Thanks,” I murmur.

I adjust the top of my dress. I never show
this much cleavage. “I better get down to the booth. The sale will
only last an hour, and then the kiss happens.”

Emily frowns. “What happens when you have to
kiss some strange guy?” she asks.

“Then I guess I get to kiss some strange
guy.” I shrug. I can’t get out of it now. “I’d hoped that Sean
would, you know… But he didn’t.”

“You’ve got yourself in quite a predicament,”
Emily says.

I flop down in a chair. “Tell me about
it.”

“Why did you want to be just friends?” Friday
asks. “I don’t think you ever told me. It’s pretty damn obvious you
have feelings for him.”

“I was afraid,” I admit. “I can’t live
without him. He’s my best friend. What if we start dating and then
it all falls apart? I will lose him forever.” I shake my head. “I
just can’t let that happen.” I wince. “I may have made a mistake
giving him that piece of paper, but I’m going to chance it. If I
don’t, I’ll never know. I love him. I just need for him to love me
back.”

“What mistake?” Emily asks.

“What piece of paper?” Friday asks right
after.

I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter. He’ll
either show up or he won’t.”

I slide on my sandals and pick up my jar of
jelly beans. It’s big and heavy, but I don’t have to walk too far.
“You guys want to come?” I ask.

Friday snorts this time. “I wouldn’t miss
this for the world.”

We walk up to the booth, and I set up my
display. Emily and Friday help me take pledges for a solid hour.
People write their names and guesses on a piece of paper, and
Friday sorts through them as they turn them in, tossing out the
ones that aren’t even close. We keep the two closest to the actual
number, both over and under. There will only be one winner, but
it’s whoever comes the closest that will get to kiss me.

I see Sean in the crowd. He’s walking with
Logan and three of his brothers. There’s a wide path around them.
They are some fearsome-looking boys, that’s for sure. They’re also
head-turners in every sense of the word. But none of the Reed boys
are as handsome as Sean. His brown eyes meet mine, and he looks
away. He pulls his baseball cap down low, shielding his eyes in
shadow so I can’t even see them.

Logan hands me a ten-dollar bill and ten
guesses.

“Oh, I don’t think so,” Emily breathes.

He winks at her, and she crosses her arms
under her breasts. He crooks a finger at her, and she shakes her
head. She signs something to him really quickly. He laughs out loud
and signs back. All the tension leaves her body, and she
deflates.

“I’m not going to kiss you,” I tell Logan.
“Give him his money back.” I motion toward Emily.

But she just sorts through his entries and
keeps one out to the side. I take it from her. It’s close. It’s
really close.

“Emily,” I warn.

She smiles at me. I have no idea what’s going
on.

Logan’s brothers all have guesses, too, and
each of them hands me a stack of tickets. Emily and Friday sort
through them and pull another one out, discarding the one that
belonged to Logan. Thank God. Emily would kill me if I kissed her
boyfriend. I wouldn’t be able to do it. I just wouldn’t.

So far, Logan’s brother Matt is the closest,
but I can’t tell him that.

Friday and Emily keep taking the money as I
talk with the men who stop to buy tickets. When the hour is up, my
heart is racing and my pits are sweating. Logan hands me a tissue
and points to my brow. I blot it dry.

On the hour, the bell rings and the announcer
calls me to the stage. “And now for the results of the kissing
contest,” the announcer says. He looks at Friday who has the
winning ticket in her hand. “Do we have a winner?”

She nods and walks across the stage. She
stops and takes a bow when she gets catcalls and whistles. She’s
very Katy Perry-pretty with her tattoos, vintage dress, and
old-fashioned hairstyle. She puts the winning ticket in the
announcer’s extended hand.

“And the winner is,” he sings. He waits,
opening the folded piece of paper slowly, drawing out the suspense.
I can barely hear him over my own heartbeat, which is thumping like
crazy. Is it too late to back out? Shit. I don’t want to do this.
“The winner is the person who guessed twelve hundred and
forty-eight!”