One Week (Stolen Kiss #0.5) (2 page)

“I have no idea,” I said. “And neither do you. Let’s just go play laser tag before you say something stupid.”

“B
ack again?” My usual hairdresser, Brayden, eyed me as I slid into the lime green vinyl chair.

“I’m back.” I brushed back the wispy black bangs that had fallen into my face and studied myself in the mirror.

“What’s it going to be this time?” Brayden played with the strands of my long hair, which he had died black only three weeks ago to match Dave’s hipster style. I liked fitting in with the guys I dated, like I belonged in their crowd.

As Brayden fastened the cloak over me, I looked hard at my reflection in the mirror. Before Hipster Molly, there had been Chess Chic Molly. Baseball Molly didn’t even last four days. Skater Girl Molly almost resulted in a broken arm.

I had been so many other Mollys in the past year that I wasn’t sure which one was real. New Molly deserved a look all her own.

A smile spread across my face. “I’m thinking pink.”

“I
heard something this morning,” Avery said.

It had been almost a week since Dave had dumped me. A week of New Molly with a new attitude. My natural blonde hair was now streaked with pink, which made me happy. Happy and free.

Avery’s mouth moved, but I didn’t catch the words.

“What?” I asked, tilting my head toward her to hear better.

“I said,” Avery shouted into my ear, “that Dave’s new girlfriend dumped him.”

I stumbled a bit in the hall. “He got dumped?”

“Funny, isn’t it? He dumped you, she dumped him. I told you, relationships never work.”

“Just because Dave and his new girl didn’t work out doesn’t prove anything.”

Avery rolled her eyes. “You know what happens when people fall in love? They get hurt, and then their friends are stuck trying to fix everything.”

“One day, you’re going to fall in love and then you’ll see how the rest of us feel.”

Avery snorted. “Don’t count on it.” She nodded at something behind me. “Dave is coming this way, so if you’re going to freak out and hide, now is the time.”

I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder. “I’m not freaking out.”

Despite my words, my heart took a sudden nosedive into my stomach as I turned and came face-to-face with Dave Chumski.

“Hey.” His green eyes sparkled in the way I’d always liked.

“Hey,” I answered.

Dave opened his mouth, but the bell rang, interrupting him. I was hyper-aware of Avery’s presence just over my shoulder and the way she stood rigid, most likely glaring at Dave.

He pushed his dark hair out of his face and said, “Can we talk? After school, the Rose Castle?”

I nodded. “I’ll meet you there.”

When Dave turned to head off toward his class, Avery grabbed my elbow and pushed me down the hall in the opposite direction. “Are you insane?”

“No. Ow!”

She released her death grip on my arm. “Three days ago you were hiding under an elephant. Now you’re meeting him?”

I shrugged. “So?”

“So I’m not eating cartons of cheesecake ice cream with you if you go back to him and then he dumps you in another three weeks.”

“I didn’t say I was going back to him.”

“If Dave wants you back, you won’t be able to say no.”

I skidded a stop at the door to our calculus class and glared at my best friend. “If you think that, then you don’t know me at all.”

I stomped into the classroom before she had a chance to say anything.

After school, Dave was already waiting at the Rose Castle when I arrived. He smiled and gestured toward the glass on the table. “I ordered a double chocolate milkshake, just like you always get.”

I slid into the seat across from him and studied the glass for a moment. “Thanks,” I said, taking a sip from the straw.

All of my senses were on high alert. My gaze roamed around the room, feeling as if everyone was watching to see what would happen between us. Part of me wanted to remain wary, but the other part said that maybe I should accept his friendliness for what it was.

“So,” Dave said as he twirled the wrapper from his straw around his fingers, “I like your hair.”

I pushed a bunch of pink braids behind my shoulder. “Thanks.”

“It looks really good on you. I like it better than the black.”

I took a sip of my milkshake again, pausing for a moment to consider this. Then I said, “I do too. This feels more like me.”

Dave nodded. “You seem different now than you did when we were together. Not just the hair. You seem more real, you know?”

More real. That was exactly it. While I’d been dating Dave and all the guys before him, I hadn’t been who I really was. I’d made myself into the girl that fit them and done what they liked to do.

Dave was still talking and I hadn’t heard half of what he was saying. I blinked, trying to focus again.

“…It was stupid. I realize now it was a mistake.” He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “I think we should get back together.”

I stared down at Dave’s hand enveloping mine in the center of the table, like he’d always done before.

“I thought I was too condescending and sarcastic,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Dave cringed. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”

I pulled my hand out from under his. “What about your new girlfriend?”

“I’m not with her anymore.”

I took a long sip of milkshake, studying him. He had the wounded look of someone who had been dumped.

“We were really good together, weren’t we?” Dave asked. “We had a lot of fun hanging out at The Percolator and watching movies at my house.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to Peanut Gallery with me?” I asked.

Dave blinked. “What?”

“I saw you there with your new girlfriend. But you never once went there with me. Did you know I love laser tag?”

Dave opened his mouth, but I went on before he could speak.

“I play this game,
GoblinQuest
. I’m a level sixty-two elf warrior. Did you ever once ask me about the things I liked to do while we were dating?”

Dave opened and closed his mouth for a moment. Then he said, “We can go to Peanut Gallery and play laser tag.”

I sipped up the last of my milkshake. “I do want to play laser tag, but not with you.” I slid out of the booth and stood. “I’m not interested in helping you get over being dumped by the girl you dumped me for. Thanks for the milkshake.”

Then I turned and walked out of the diner, forcing myself not to look back.

I had done it. Dave had wanted to get back together and I had turned him down. A few days ago, I might have said yes. But I was a different person now. I wasn’t inferior to him and I wasn’t wallowing over being dumped.

So why didn’t I feel better about myself?

My feet led me to Diggity Dog House, where I spotted Bob the Giant Hot Dog mascot standing outside the diner, waving to everyone that passed by. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for talking, but at least I could tell Avery that she was wrong and I wasn’t as desperate as she thought.

I marched up to Bob and said, “I did it. Dave asked to get back together and I said no. So you were wrong.”

The giant hot dog turned around slowly to face me. Avery had told me once that moving around in the foam costume was almost impossible. A black mesh screen covered the hole where the person inside could look through, which was the only opening in the costume made up of a giant bun encasing a red hot dog, with two stripes of mustard and ketchup snaking up the belly area. Giant foam gloves and feet finished off the look.

I bit my lip as I slid one foot back and forth over the gravel of the parking lot. “Maybe not entirely wrong. For a moment, I considered saying yes. I felt ashamed that I would want to go back to him so easily. But then I realized something.”

I took a deep breath and lifted my head to stare back at the giant hot dog. “I shouldn’t be ashamed of enjoying relationships. Somewhere out there, there’s this one person who is meant for me. Maybe I won’t find him in high school, but getting to know all the wrong people will help me recognize the right person when he comes along. So Dave is the wrong guy, I know that now. But it’s not wrong for me to want to date. It is wrong for me to ignore what I like to do while I’m dating and I won’t do that anymore. The guys I date will have to either accept me for who I am or else they’re not the right ones.”

Bob the Giant Hot Dog gave me a puffy-handed thumbs up.

“I just might say yes to the next guy who asks me out, and I won’t be ashamed or desperate. Okay?”

The giant hot dog made some kind of motion that I assumed was meant as a nod.

I sighed. “I can’t take you seriously when you’re dressed as a hot dog.”

The door to Diggity Dog House opened and Mr. Throckmorton, Avery’s frazzled manager, stuck his head out.

“Reiser,” he barked when he spotted us. “You’re on break in five minutes. Don’t go over this time.”

The door swung shut as Mr. Throckmorton disappeared.

My stomach lurched.
Reiser?

I reached up and snatched the mesh screen off the giant hot dog. The face of Elliott Reiser peered back at me.

“Why aren’t you Avery?” I snapped.

“Am I supposed to be Avery?”

I hit him with the mesh screen. “You let me ramble on like an idiot and you stood there saying nothing?”

Elliott tried to duck away from my swings, but he couldn’t move quickly enough inside the costume. “Bob is not supposed to talk!”

I shoved the screen back into his hands and groaned. “Why is it whenever I embarrass myself, you’re always right there?” I turned to leave.

“Molly, wait.”

I stopped and glanced back at him. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he gave me a half-smile and said, “Your hair looks awesome.”

I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me or not, so I ducked my head and hurried away.

I
arrived at ValuMart at exactly 12:00am on the following Tuesday morning. I checked my cell phone as I stepped through the sliding doors. Perfect. Right on time to be the first to get the new
GoblinQuest
.

“Welcome to ValuMart!” a cashier called to me.

How were these people so peppy even in the middle of the night?

The store was mostly empty this late on a weeknight. I knew I’d be a zombie in my classes later that day, but I didn’t care.
GoblinQuest
was worth it.

The fluorescent lights cast a greenish glow over the floors as I walked, my shoes softly squeaking. There it was, the
GoblinQuest
display full of new game packs. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face and my feet moved faster as I drew close.

My hand closed around a game. And so did another hand belonging to someone else. Startled, I followed the arm upward.

Into the blue eyes of Elliott Reiser.

“What are you doing here?” we both asked at the same time.

I refused to let go. He didn’t pull his hand back. We were locked there, scowling at each other, our fingers clenched around the same copy of the game.

“Don’t tell me you play
GoblinQuest
,” I said, looking him up and down. He looked pressed and clean, even this late at night. I felt grungy next to him in my panda pajama pants and hot pink hoodie.

“Level sixty-five half-orc paladin,” he told me.

A gasp escaped my lips before I could hold it back. “I’m level sixty-two! How can you be above me?”

Elliott smirked. “Maybe I’m better than you.”

“Oh, no. I know you did not insult my gaming skills.”

Elliott tipped his head to the side. “I think I did. Now if you’ll let go, I’m going to home to play the new expansion pack and work on level sixty-six.”

I tightened my grip on the game. “This copy’s mine.”

“I saw it first.”

“I’ve been counting down the days until this release.”

“I’ve been counting down the seconds,” Elliott countered.

“I counted the nanoseconds!”

We stared at each other for a long moment.

The corner of Elliott’s mouth twitched. I couldn’t help it. The laugh bubbled out of me.

“Nanoseconds?” Elliott asked as he began to laugh too.

I sighed. “It’s been a long week.”

He released his grip on the game. “Tell you what. I’ll let you buy the first copy if you agree to go out with me on Friday.”

I blinked up at him. “Like, a date?”

“A date. Movies. Pizza. And if you’re lucky, I might even give you some tips on how to play
GoblinQuest
.”

I shook my head. “Oh, it is on. By Friday, my elf warrior will kick your butt.”

“So it’s a date then?” he asked.

I smiled as an excited tingle spread through me. “It’s a date.”

Thank you for reading
One Week
! If you enjoyed this story, you may enjoy these other titles by Shana Norris in the Stolen Kiss Collection:

The Secrets Between You and Me
(Turn the page to read an excerpt!)

The Boyfriend Thief

The Truth About Boys

The Stolen Kiss Collection can be read in any order!

Read a special excerpt of
The Secrets Between You and Me
,
the companion novel to
The Boyfriend Thief
, and the second book in Shana Norris’ Stolen Kiss collection!