Are You In The House Alone? (plus: Love Me) (8 page)

“Look,” he said, for once sounding
serious, “I have to. The punk talked trash about me in front of the whole team.
It’s not like I can ignore it.”

“Yes you can!” I said, following at
his heels as he started to walk away.

I said it again, all squeaky and
desperate this time since he was ignoring me. “Yes you can!”

Griffin kept walking, so I kept
following, like a puppy dog begging for attention, yipping at his ankles.

“Please, can’t you? Please?”

I grabbed on to his arm out of
desperation. That was all, just to get his attention since he had apparently
ditched listening to me. But when I grabbed onto his arm he abruptly stopped
walking. I mean, he froze.

Yikes! My chest went tight. What
had I done?

Griffin turned back to me and
stared at my hand on his arm. I snatched it away lightening fast, terrified he
was going to hit me for touching him or being annoying or something. But when
he didn’t push me down or pound me to the ground or do anything but stare at me
with his swoon-inducing long-lashed eyes, I swallowed finally going on with my
plea while I had his attention—only now I was shaking and unnerved on
even more levels. I mean, The Griff was … hot. He was. I wasn’t really paying
attention to that before, since I was pleading for my boyfriend’s life, but now
that Griffin was looking at me like that—well, I noticed. And it
distracted me, even now while I was petrified.

Still, even though my mind reeled
from that, I managed to squeak out, “I have some money—not much, but …”

Griffin smirked, then shook his
head. “I don’t want your money.”

For some reason that made my
stomach feel funny. I guess because of the way he said it. And the way he
looked at me when he said it. It pushed my pulse into over-drive and got my
heart pounding.

“Then what?” My voice hitched.
“What can I do?”

A sardonic grin played on Griffin’s
lips as he eyed me. Then he lifted his chin and challenged. “Kiss me.”

My stomach fluttered.
“Wh—what?”

Griffin’s eyes twinkled. “You heard
me.”

I stared at him. He had to be
kidding. Had to be. Only he didn’t look like he was kidding or sound like he
was kidding. He looked and sounded amused, teasing, but still, serious. Like it
was all funny to him—getting Aiden Hank’s girlfriend all worked up and
sweating—but he’d let Aiden off the hook if I did what he said. Those
were his terms. He had offered me a deal. Only … it was weird.

“You,” I swallowed, feeling
slightly dizzy, like maybe this moment wasn’t really real. Like maybe I had
fainted from fright when I first started talking to The Griff and now I was
hallucinating or daydreaming or something. “You—you want me to kiss you?”

He set his jaw, but he was still
smiling. “Yeah. Kiss me and I won’t kill your boyfriend.”

A strange feeling washed over
me—a tingling combination of excitement and horror. I backed away and
leaned against the lockers behind me for support. I was all wobbly and sweaty
and shaking as I tried to get my brain to actually work—to think. “Um…”

Really? That was all I had to do?
Kiss him and Aiden was off the hook? It didn’t seem possible. Or right. There
had to be more to it than that. After all, I wasn’t exactly Miss Sexy; far from
it. Boys didn’t even usually notice me. Not that I was ugly, I guess. Aiden
said I was “beautiful.” But then, Aiden was my boyfriend. And sweet. The Griff
wasn’t either of those.

“I don’t understand.”

Griffin shot me this adorable
lopsided grin. It got my heart all confused and fluttery. “Yes you do.”

Mmmmm.

My pulse convulsed into a wild
frenzy, my mind too. I bit my lip, trying to figure out the catch. There had to
be one. Had to. Though Griffin was known as a troublemaker at our school, he
was cute; adorable even. There was a certain “type” of girls that were always
hanging on him—a type that was not at all like me. They were loud and
forward and experienced with boys. I wasn’t like that. At all. And I wasn’t the
type of girl that boys pined after. I was “nice” and “caring” and sure, maybe
on a good hair-day, “pretty.” But that was about it. No way were boys lining up
to kiss me. I doubted they even thought about me. So no, I didn’t get it. What
was going on?

It had to be something slimy.

“That’s all I have to do?” I said
skeptically. “Kiss you—nothing more?”

Griffin raised his eyebrows, his
lips curling into a grin. “You can do more if you want.”

Jerk! Humiliated, I started to
slink away.

But Griffin grabbed my arm, gently
pulling me back to him. “Geez, I was just messing with you, Grange.”

Grange? He knew my last name?

His eyes danced as he leaned in
close, close enough his warm breath tickled my neck as he asked, “So, we have a
deal?”

I backed away from him, trying to
think. It would get Aiden out of trouble and it was just one little kiss. But …
it was with a delinquent.

Then again, my best friend, Jazz,
was always saying I needed to loosen up and walk on the wild side. Of course,
Griffin Piper was way more wild than what Jazz had meant. Jazz had meant wear
bright purple rather than pastels. She didn’t mean date the school’s bad boy.

But …

But nothing! Aiden would get his
sweet little face smashed to bits by The Griff if I didn’t do this. I couldn’t
let that happen.

I took a deep breath, terrified.
What would The Grief Master’s kiss be like? I was a little bit curious, but
mostly scared. I’d only kissed two boys in my entire life. I wasn’t experienced
by a long shot and I was still slightly nervous that I couldn’t trust The
Griff—that it wasn’t really just a kiss he wanted, though it did seem he
had only made the deal to make me squirm. I mean, he just seemed
entertained—like it would be fun either way: to bash Aiden’s face in or
make his girlfriend freak out.

I nodded that we had a deal, then I
gulped—big.

Griffin noticed and grinned. “Don’t
look so scared, Grange. I’m a good kisser.”

That in no way calmed my nerves. It
only made my face burn and my cheeks turn a million shades of red, but somehow
I was pretty sure that’s what he wanted.

His eyes twinkled as he watched me
prepare for the kiss, eyeing me wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans and pump my
fists a couple times, trying to psyche myself up. Finally, I puckered my lips
and leaned in for the kiss.

Griffin watched me with quirked
eyebrows, looking amused. Finally, he gave a soft laugh. “Not here.”

His eyes danced as I blinked up at
him in confusion. What was he talking about? Not here? Where? Panic rushed
through me. What exactly had I agreed to?

Griffin gave another soft laugh.
“In room 204. At three.” He leaned in close again, playing with a tendril of my
hair. “You’ll survive. I promise.”

***

When I got to room 204 Griffin was
already there. He was sitting on a desk, bouncing a rubber ball.

“About time,” he muttered, hopping
off the desk.

What? I glanced at the clock on the
wall directly over his head. It was only 3:02.
Two
minutes late.

 
Griffin eyed me as I gawked at the clock.

Oh,
got it
. My face turned red. I could tell by his smirk he was only kidding.

“Come here,” he said.

His words and the way he said them,
all husky and quiet, made me start to sweat, but also feel butterflies bat
around in my stomach. I stood in the open doorway, unable to move.

Griffin sighed with a slight grin
and came over to me. Gently, gently he took my hand, pulling me out of the
threshold and silently closed the door. Then he gently backed me up against the
door he just closed, pinning me there, but in a half-playful, half-seductive
way that had my knees weak and my heart fluttering.

“Take it easy,” Griffin murmured
softly, like I was a wild colt that needed soothing so I didn’t bolt away. His
fingers lightly stroked my hair. “I’m not going to hurt you, Grange. I
promise.”

His hands—just touching
me—was like electricity shooting through my body. My breath caught and I
made this slight moaning sound. It was embarrassing and yet I couldn’t really
focus on it or anything that was happening. All I could think about was his
lips. They looked so soft and pink and shiny.

I’d thought about them before
actually, lots of times, dreamed of them. Every night for a while. Back in
junior high I’d had this mad, monster crush on him. It was embarrassing and
stupid and crazy since he didn’t even know I was alive. And, yeah, he was a
thug.

Still, it made this moment …
surreal.

My head was swimming. I had all
these wild, scattered thoughts dashing around in my brain, but they all came
back to this:
I’m going to kiss The
Griff, The Grief Master!
It had my heart pumping frantic and my pulse
zooming wild.

Gripping the door behind me for
support, I wondered if I was going to faint. It seemed like maybe I was. Or
have a heart attack. Something dramatic and embarrassing like that.

I squeezed my eyes shut wondering
what it would be like kissing The Griff for real. Would he be like out on the
hockey rink—rough and tough? Would he give me whiplash? Somehow, I didn’t
think so. If his kiss was anything like his touch just now, or like in my
junior high macking dreams, I was going to explode and die from delight.

Full of curiosity I leaned in for
the kiss.

But there was nothing. No mouth
crashing against mine, no
I love you,
Ally
confessed in my ear. No nothing. I leaned in further and waited.

And waited.

Still … nothing.

Finally, cautiously, I peeked my
eyes open just a squint wondering what was up but afraid that my face was right
next to his.

It wasn’t.

Griffin was just watching me, his
seductive brown eyes glistening like he knew exactly what had been going on in
my brain. He gave a husky little laugh and then (oh!) he drew his soft, pink
lips against mine, just brushing them—lightly, tenderly.

Though it felt oh-so-good—or
maybe
because
it did—I tensed
and jerked a bit. Just a tiny bit, but still, I jerked.

“Relax.” Griffin’s sexy, pink lips
hovered over mine, just barely—teasing me, making me yearn. Then his hot
mouth pressed against mine for real.

Only for a second though, because
just then Mrs. Finkle barged into the room from the side-door, which connects
to Mr. Johnson’s class. The large woman plopped down her armload of books on
the nearest desk but we didn’t really notice. We didn’t notice anything except
our tongues and heat and passion. Well anyway, that was all
I
noticed— until her loud, booming
voice made me jump a mile in the air.

 
“I’m going to give you two exactly one second to clear out of
my classroom,” Mrs. Finkle huffed impatiently. “Then I’m handing out detention
slips.”

***

So, that was the first time I
kissed “Griff the Grief-Master
.
” And
I—at the time—wasn’t even sure it counted. I mean, it counted for
me
because it was amazing. I’d felt
tingles all the way down to my toes. Seriously. Tingles. It had me in a dreamy,
hormone-induced daze for hours.

But I wasn’t sure if The Griff
would count it as a real kiss since we’d only barely touched lips—well,
tongue—when Mrs. Finkle barged in and interrupted. Dang her! … Or, uh,
lucky me. Depended on how you looked at.

Anyway, I wasn’t sure Griffin would
count it as a real kiss.

So, as my best friend, Jazz, and I
waited to meet up with Aiden after his hockey practice I was incredibly
anxious. Jazz and I sat huddled over our trig books in the school library
pretending to be doing equations, but really worrying and discussing whether
The Griff had punched in my boyfriend’s face or not.

I hadn’t told Jazz about the kiss
or what Griffin had said—that if I kissed him he wouldn’t kill Aiden. I’m
not sure why I kept it from her. I basically tell her everything. But I didn’t
tell her that. I guess I was kind of embarrassed about it … and felt slightly
guilty. I guess. My feelings were all tangled and confused. Anyway, I just couldn’t
bring it up.

I gave a literal sigh of relief
when Aiden finally came into the library—his adorable face still intact.
I sighed again as he slid into the seat beside me and grinned, showing off his
little cute dimples.
Love!

“I saw Griffin at practice,” Aiden
said, leaning in close and talking confidential-like as we were in the library
where you aren’t supposed to talk, and so that anyone that didn’t already know
The Griff had a beef with Aiden didn’t find out now—add fuel to the drama
flame.

Another smile crept on Aiden’s
adorable lips as he went on whispering to me animatedly, obviously still on a
high from his escape from near death. “When Griffin showed up at
practice—late—I was ready to have it out—totally ready to die—right
there, at practice. And The Griff made a move toward me, like ‘
I’m going to kill you, punk
.’ But then
he laughed and said, “Nah, just kidding. We’re square.”

Aiden chuckled, like it was
hilarious, but I knew it was just relief. He’d been scared, even more scared
than he was letting on. Aiden had wanted to fit in with “the guys” on the
hockey team. But he wasn’t like them. He was sweet. When he tried to be “tough”
it just pissed everyone off. The guys on the team called him a “poser.” It hurt
his feelings, and definitely if he got his face smashed in by The Griff that
wouldn’t have helped.

So, deep inside me things were
gushy and excited. My heart was doing acrobats. Griffin had let Aiden off the
hook—because of me. Because of my kiss. How cool! My kiss had saved my
boyfriend’s pretty face. Awesome,
awesome!