She’d never be able to guess just how much. I shrugged my shoulders like I didn’t know or care, but it was a total cover. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, my ass. I can see that you really like this girl. You have to call her and ask her to spend the day with you before she makes other plans.”
Ooh. I didn’t know about that. What if she turned me down again? “I don’t know, Dallas.”
“Well, I do. Call her. She’d be crazy to turn you down.”
I wish I had Dallas’ confidence. “Well, she must be crazy then because she’s turned be down twice already.”
“She didn’t turn you down last night.”
Things with Payton were so back and forth, I didn’t know where I stood with her, but I guess there was only one way to find out. “Okay, I’ll call her but this is all your fault if she tells me ‘no’.”
“Trust me. She won’t.”
11 The Green Eyed Monster
Payton
I woke up to Claire thumping the end of my nose the way she did when we were little kids. “What the hell, Claire? Cut it out. You wouldn’t want to be woken up by me trying to thump boogers out of your nose.”
“Wake up. I want you to tell me what happened between you and Nick before Jessie gets up. I know you were holding out when you were telling us about it last night, so spill. I need details.”
Ugh! I rolled over and shoved my face into my pillow. I spent most of the night thinking about our perfect kiss and the other half of the night reminding myself how he had gotten so good at it. Practice made perfect and he had no idea how many girls he had practiced on. The thought made my stomach feel jittery and nervous at the same time.
“Something happened that shouldn’t have.”
Claire reached out and shoved me so hard I nearly fell off her bed. “Shut the front door! You did not play the V-card to The Sex Tricks Jedi?”
I reared my pillow back and bopped Claire in the head. “Is that a question or an accusation?”
“Which does it need to be?”
I met this guy all of three days ago. She couldn’t possibly think I had practiced making babies with him. “I was talking about him kissing me, Pervert.”
She wanted details. “And?”
“I kissed him back, which was a mistake.”
She looked confused. “I don’t understand. Why shouldn’t it have happened and why was it a mistake?”
Hello? Lights are on, anybody home? “You were there. You heard what Jessie said about him. He’s a Playah. I asked him how many girls he had been with and he had no idea. Literally. He couldn’t even take a guess at a number.”
“Jessie doesn’t know either. I don’t like it, but I put it out of my mind because I love him.
What was that supposed to mean? Was she comparing him to Jessie? “Is that your way of defending The Sex Tricks Jedi?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She shrugged her shoulders and cocked her head to the side a little. “I think you should give him a chance.”
Where was this coming from? “He is not my type at all so why in the world would you think that?”
“Because you can’t see the way you look at him and you don’t see the way he looks at you when you’re not looking.”
“And I think you haven’t seen the way he looks at my legs.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t completely fair since I was the one that had called his attention to them.
“Like he’d be the first, Payton.”
My phone rang and Claire jumped over me to grab it from the nightstand before I could. “It’s him. I knew it would be,” she sang as she waved my phone in front of my face.
“He’s gonna wanna talk about our kiss last night and I’m not ready to go there so I’m not answering.”
“You don’t have to because I am.” I tried to reach out and grab my phone from her, but I missed and she slide the bar to answer his call. I’m going to choke her.
She put the phone up to her ear and gave me her best shit eating grin. “Hello, Nick.”
What was she up to? She didn’t answer my phone without motive.
“No, this is Claire. Payton is in the bathroom but she was just about to call you to see if you wanted to come swimming at her house today.”
Oh, no she didn’t. I reached out and slapped her across her leg. Everyone thought she was so innocent and perfect, but they were so wrong. I knew her well and she was a little devil.
“Perfect. You can bring someone with you if you’d like. We were thinking about one or one-thirty.”
I looked to see what time it was. Shiz, that was only a couple of hours from now.
“Great. We’ll text you the directions to her house and we’ll see you then.”
She tossed my phone on the bed in my direction. “You’re welcome.”
Was she serious? “I can’t believe you did that to me.”
“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun.”
I huffed to show her my grievance against her. “Thanks a lot, Claire. Now, I’ll be in a rush to get home and do my hair, shave everything and redo my toenails.” I realized too late how I sounded after the words were out there.
“My, my...someone’s planning to go to an awful lot of trouble to look good for someone they don’t like or want.”
I really didn't want to hear Claire’s gloating, mostly because somewhere deep down inside, I knew she was right. It didn’t matter that Nick was all wrong for me; I wanted to see him today.
≈ ≈ ≈
After I rushed home from Claire’s, I had about an hour and a half to do all the primping I had planned.
Yeah, I guessed it was silly to wash my hair only to dunk it in the pool, but I wanted to look great and dirty hair wasn’t sexy.
After I got out of the shower, I painted my toenails first so they could dry while I got ready. I decided I didn’t want to look too put together, so I pulled my hair into a ponytail and left off my usual make-up routine with the exception of my peachy lip gloss. It was a necessity I didn’t go without.
I didn’t even have to think about which swimsuit I wanted to wear. It was definitely my new white bikini because I had ulterior motive in mind; I wanted to see what Claire was talking about, how Nick looked at me when he thought I wasn’t looking. What better way to get him to look my way than a string bikini?
“Payton,” I heard Claire call out from downstairs to let me know she and Jessie were at my house.