Be Mine (20 page)

You could kiss me
, Jennifer thought.
I wouldn't have a problem with that!

To make sure she
didn't
say that, Jennifer stuck a spoon into the cookie batter and then into her mouth. “So, come on, confess,” she said as she licked off the batter. “Where did you learn to bake?”

“I really didn't learn. My mom and grandmother have always been bakers. When I was little, I was always in the kitchen with them. A lot of it is just watching. You pick it up. And I watch a lot of Food Network.”

“Do you want to be a chef someday?” Violet asked.

“Maybe,” Will said. “Who knows? It's fun taking a whole bunch of different ingredients and tossing them all together to see what you can come up with.”

“Why'd you stop by?” Jennifer asked as she started cleaning up.

Will wiped his hands on a dish towel. “No reason. I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see if you had any thoughts about our next step.”

“I say we keep doing what we've been doing. It seems to be working.”

Will nodded. “Okay.” He pointed to the bowls of cookie batter that he'd made. “All you have to do is keep popping these into the oven when you take out the other batches. Let them cool for at least an hour before frosting them.” He slipped his motorcycle jacket back on and headed for the back door. “Think you can handle that?”

Jennifer wanted to play dumb and say she wasn't sure. That maybe he should stick around until all the cookies were made. But before she could say anything, Violet exclaimed, “Of course we can! Right, Jen?”

“Right,” Jennifer reluctantly said as she watched Will say good night and walk out the back door.

Will's cookies were perfect. Jennifer and Violet were frosting the first batch when Violet asked, “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong,” Jennifer said as she added a dab of frosting to a cookie and spread it out.

“Don't lie to me. I can tell. What is it?”

Jennifer finished frosting the cookie and started on another one. “Well,” she admitted, “I was wondering about something.”

“What?”

“Why didn't he kiss me again?”

“That's easy,” Violet explained. “No audience.”

“Oh yeah, right.” That confirmed what she had originally thought. The kiss he'd given her at lunch didn't mean anything. “But I was getting the sense that he wanted to kiss me again and held himself back. Unless I was just imagining it.”

“Why would you have imagined it?” Violet asked, confused. “Something's not making sense. You sound almost
bummed
that he didn't kiss you again.” Violet dropped the knife she was using to frost with and a look of horror washed over her face. “The only reason you'd sound bummed is if you
wanted
him to kiss you. You're not falling for him, are you?”

“Of course not!” Jennifer quickly answered.

But am I
? she silently wondered.

“Jennifer!” Violet wailed. “How could you fall for the Heartbreaker? Didn't I tell you to be careful?”

“I haven't fallen for him,” Jennifer snapped. “Maybe, just maybe, I have a teensy tiny crush on him. That's all.”

Violet picked up her frosting knife. “Get over it! Will is your fake boyfriend. Fake! Fake! Fake! Repeat after me! Fake! Once Valentine's Day is over, this is all going to end.”

“I know that,” Jennifer said. “You don't have to remind me.”

“I think I do,” Violet said. “If I don't, you stand the risk of becoming the Heartbreaker's next victim!”

“Ready to go jogging?” Natalie asked when a sleepy-eyed Leo opened his front door at 7
A.M.
on Wednesday morning.

Leo yawned as he walked outside and locked the front door behind him. “I'm never up this early. Usually, I'm curled under my sheets for at least another hour. Where it's toasty warm!” Leo shivered. “It's freezing out here!”

“You'll warm up once you start moving,” Natalie said. She was wearing a pink jogging suit with a pink and white striped scarf around her neck and white earmuffs covering her ears. At her waist was her iPod. Usually she listened to music while she jogged, but this morning she planned on talking to Leo so she could build up his confidence.

“Please don't tell me you do this
every
day.”

“Only three days a week,” Natalie said as they started walking toward the park. The streetlights were turning off as the morning sun started to peek out from behind clouds, chasing away the last shadows of the night. “I wouldn't do it unless I enjoyed it. It helps me clear my head. And it's good exercise.”

Leo shuddered. “The dreaded E word.”

“Keep an open mind,” Natalie urged. “Jogging is one of the cheapest forms of exercise. All you need is a pair of sneakers and you're ready to go.”

“The only place I want to go is back to bed!” Leo exclaimed.

When they reached the park, Natalie stretched her legs and encouraged Leo to do the same. When she finished, she headed for the jogging path, making sure Leo was following.

“Ready?” she asked while jogging in place.

Leo shook his head. He had a look of panic on his face. “I can't.”

“Why not?”

He pointed to the early morning joggers already on the path. “They're going to look at me. They're going to wonder what I'm doing here.”

“No, they're not. They're too busy focusing on themselves. And what if they do look at you? So what? Ignore them.”

“I can't.”

“Yes, you can,” Natalie insisted, taking Leo by the hand. She could see the fear in his eyes and she recognized it because she used to feel the same way when she was heavier. “Come on,” she softly encouraged. “You can do this, Leo. I know you can.”

Natalie started jogging but slowed her pace down considerably so Leo could keep up with her. They made it around the path once without stopping before Leo collapsed on a park bench, breathing heavily. “Continue without me,” he wheezed, waving a hand in the air. “I'm wiped out.”

“But you made it around the path once!” Natalie excitedly told him as she sat down next to him. “That's good, Leo. Very good!”

“If it's good, why do I feel so awful?” he gasped.

“Because you're out of shape. Your body isn't used to it. But little by little, it
will
get used to it. You'll be able to go around the path more often, as well as faster!”

“I'll never be as fast as them,” Leo said as joggers zipped by.

“Not for awhile,” Natalie agreed. “But you can do other things. Why not try power walking? You could get some hand weights and walk around the path with them. And when the weather gets warmer, we could go bicycling. Or even hiking.” Natalie waited until Leo had caught his breath. Then she got to her feet and pulled him by the hand. “Let's go around one more time.”

“I'm done,” Leo said. “We had a deal, remember? You told me I could try it once, and if I didn't like it, you'd never ask me again.”

“So that's it? You're just going to give up? You haven't even tried! I never would have thought of you as a quitter, Leo Barnes.”

Leo got off the bench and faced Natalie. “Why do you care so much?”

The words were on the tip of her tongue.
Because I know what you're going through. I want to help you! I know you can do it because I did it!

But the words wouldn't come out. She couldn't say them because she never liked thinking about the old Natalie. All she wanted to do was forget her.

“Look, I don't mean to sound like a public service announcement, but carrying around all that weight isn't healthy. You need to do something about it.”

Leo started walking out of the park. “That's my problem, not yours.”

“Why are you being stubborn?” Natalie called after him.

Leo walked back to her, throwing his hands up in the air. “Because I don't want to get too close to you! I don't want to get hurt.”

“Why would you get hurt?”

“Because none of this makes any sense. You're you. And I'm me! We shouldn't even be talking to each other.”

“Says who?”

Leo pointed in the direction of North Ridge High. “That pile of bricks we go to every day! Do I have to remind you what happened on Saturday night?”

“I thought that was ancient history. That we put it behind us.”

“History has a habit of repeating itself,” Leo said. “I bet if someone caught me jogging out here, they'd come back with a video camera and by the end of the day I'd be up on YouTube in some sort of embarrassing clip. Imagine what your friends would say then.”

“I don't care what anyone says,” Natalie told Leo. “You're my friend. That's all that matters. Don't you want to be friends with me?”

Leo squirmed, rubbing a hand behind his neck. “We can be friends, but . . .”

“But what?”

“But I want to be more than just friends,” Leo confessed.

And then, before Natalie could say or do anything, Leo pulled her into his arms and gave her a kiss.

Natalie didn't resist the kiss. She didn't push Leo away and ask what he was doing. Instead, she surrendered to his kiss, even though she knew it was wrong. She wasn't supposed to be kissing another guy! After all, she already had a boyfriend and they were competing to be North Ridge High's Most Romantic Couple!

Leo broke the kiss and pulled away from Natalie. “I shouldn't have done that,” he said in a rush. “I'm sorry. But I wanted to. I had to.” Leo stared down at himself. “I've never had any willpower. Obviously.”

“You don't have to apologize,” Natalie said. “The kiss was nice.”

“You don't have to say that.”

“I'm not. You're a very good kisser.”

Leo seemed surprised. “I am?”

“Hasn't anyone ever told you that?”

“You're the first girl I've ever kissed,” Leo confessed.

“I never would have known.”

“I'm sorry,” Leo said again. “I've messed up everything between us, haven't I?”

“No, you haven't,” Natalie said as they walked out of the park. “We're still friends. We'll just pretend that the kiss never happened, okay?”

“Okay,” Leo agreed, relief washing over his face. “It never happened.”

But the kiss
did
happen, Natalie reminded herself as she walked home to get ready for school.

And she couldn't forget it.

Because Leo's kiss was
nothing
like Tom's kisses.

It was better!

When Natalie got to school, she hurried to her locker. She was running late and needed to get to her class before the bell rang. She had English first period today and Mrs. Ambrosia expected everyone in their seats the second the bell rang. If you weren't, she marked you as late and gave you a detention slip.

As she raced down the hall, she could see students pointing at her and whispering. What were they talking about? Natalie stopped in her tracks as a thought occurred to her. Panic overwhelmed her. Could someone have seen Leo kiss her? Was that what they were all whispering about?

She started walking slowly, casually turning her head to the left and right, trying to hear what they were saying, but couldn't hear anything. There was too much noise and too many conversations going on.

But she noticed something else.

A lot of the students, after staring at her, were pointing to the floor.

She looked down and was surprised to see a trail of pink paper hearts. She'd been in such a rush to get to her locker, she hadn't even noticed them.

As she followed the hearts, she saw they were leading all the way to her locker. When she got there, she found a surprise waiting.

Hanging from the handle of her locker in a tiny pink bag was a stuffed beagle holding a little sign that said BE MINE.

Her first thought was Leo. Only he would do something this sweet. A card was attached to the bag and she opened it, expecting to find Leo's signature.

But she didn't.

The puppy was from Tom.

The guilt Natalie had been struggling with since Leo kissed her returned. She had tried to ignore it, but now it was back. She should have been thrilled that Tom had done something so romantic. It must have taken him forever to paste all those hearts up the stairs and down the hallway. But he had never done anything like this before. Why now? Because tomorrow was Valentine's Day? Or was it because they were competing as Most Romantic Couple and he wanted to get votes?

She took the puppy out of the bag and stared into his droopy eyes. Why had she thought Leo was the one who had left her the puppy and not Tom?

More importantly, why did she
want
the puppy to have been from Leo?

When Natalie walked into the cafeteria at lunch, Mindy Yee grabbed her by the hand.

“You're just in time!”