Her Kiss (Griffin) (11 page)

CHAPTER 29

Breaking up with your teacher may
not be as easy as you think. They might like you more than you expect. At least
that was the case with me.

A few days after giving Ally my
locker combination, I saw Ms. Sharp sitting alone at her desk during lunch
hour. I drew out a breath, and paced around a while, then finally, I silently
went into her classroom and shut the door.

When she saw me, her eyes
immediately lit up. A slow delighted smile spread across her lips. “Griffin,”
she purred. “I was beginning to think you’d lost interest.”

Yeah well, then she was beginning
to think right. Finally. I rubbed the back of my neck, leaning against the
door. Maybe I didn’t even need to come in here. Maybe it would have been better
if I had just walked on by and pretended nothing had ever happened between us.
That’s what I’d normally do … only I was worried about Ally.

Plus, “Janice” kept texting me with
suggestive suggestions for the two of us.

I kept ignoring them, but she
wasn’t really getting the hint. Or she was ignoring it. But the thing was, she
didn’t really
need
my attention. I
mean, she had something going with some big moneymaking (married) lawyer dude,
so I’d thought it would be easy to just fade off her recreation list.
Apparently not.

Ms. Sharp got up from her seat and
perched seductively on her desk. She crooked her finger for me to come closer.

I shook my head, glancing up at the
ceiling, then back at her. “Look, I just wanted to make sure we were on the
same page,” I said, though I could tell we weren’t. Not even close.
“This—you and me—it was fun. It was. But … it was a mistake.”

She made
a
tsk-tsk sound. “I think you’re making one now.” She got off her desk, walking
seductively towards me as she said that, obviously planning to try and change
my mind.

Oh
man, no
.

I didn’t want her to come any
closer to me. I mean
,
I didn’t want to have to reject
her further or do anything to hurt her feelings any worse. I just wanted out of
this, and I wanted to make sure it would never come up and bite Ally. The girl
was as innocent as they came and I didn’t want my mistakes to somehow harm her.

Before Ms. Sharp could get to me, I
reached for the doorknob.

“I wish you the best, Janice,” I
said,
then
I left her classroom, wishing I never had
to come back … only she was my teacher.

CHAPTER 30

Okay, face it—I probably
didn’t have to do that. “Break up” with Ms. Sharp. After all, it’s not like
we’d been “dating.” Whatever it was, it wasn’t that. No promises were made. Or
expected.

I ran a hand over my face, leaning
against the wall outside of her classroom. I’d never had to do that
before—make sure a girl knew I wasn’t coming back, ever.

But the kooky thing was, I did it
for Ally. (
Ally!!!
)
Ally, who would never go for me, anyway.
So it was nuts that
I felt I needed to do that. The tiny girl was driving me nuts.

It’s just … I wanted to make sure
there was no misunderstanding. No way Ally could windup getting hurt.

But yeah, it was nuts. Although
Heaven kept leaving me gifts—now in my locker—she would spend all
of her time playing the piano in the auditorium. I’d walk past, hearing her
play furiously. And I’d know all that energy wasn’t on me. I mean
,
I had made it pretty clear I was into her. And she’d made
it pretty clear that though I was
something
to her, it wasn’t risk-taking worthy.

A lot of the time Milo would cozy
up to her at the piano. To tell you the truth, she still didn’t seem too into
the guy. She still seemed heartbroken over Poser. Yet she let Milo get close to
her—and she wouldn’t let me….
Although once, as I was
walking down the school hallway, she slammed into my chest.
That doesn’t
really count though.
Because it was an accident.
I
mean
,
it wasn’t like some girls that “accidently” run
into my chest. She definitely didn’t do it on purpose.

She’d been walking toward her
locker,
then
she spotted Milo at it. Instead of
running to him and giving him a big hug (which she would have done to Poser,
but she never did to Milo. Ever. I mean, the guy was obviously no Aiden in her
eyes) but when she saw Milo at her locker she stopped in her tracks. Froze.
Then she abruptly turned to walk the other direction, away from
Milo—only, well, yeah, she smacked into me.
Right into
my chest, hard.
I grabbed her to steady her. She broke out in goose
bumps from my touch, just as she usually did when my hands were on her.

I couldn’t help grinning as she
backed away from me. She murmured soft apologies, turning bright red.

Entertained, my gaze flicked
between her and waiting Milo at her locker. I raised my eyebrows. “Avoiding
your locker, Heaven?”

 
“Um,” she hedged.

I got why she avoided
me
. I mean, come on, I’d just
recently broke-up with my teacher. Not that anyone knew that, but I guess I
just seem like that kind of guy … I mean, since I
am
that kind of guy, apparently—since, you know, I just did
that. But I have to tell
you,
I didn’t feel like that
kind of guy. I liked Heaven. A lot. She got my heart all feeling things in a
soft kind of way that no other girl did. But, yeah, I got why she avoided me. I
did. What I didn’t get was why she was avoiding
Milo
. He seemed just like Poser and Baker—
exactly
like them as far as I could
tell. It intrigued me that she was giving Milo mixed signals too, right along
with me. But she was doing it the opposite way. She was letting Milo get near
her—well,
usually
—but I
bet she wasn’t writing him anonymous poems.

While Heaven seemed to be trying to
answer my question (I guess that’s what she was doing) I pulled her out of the
congested student traffic that was trying to get around us. I backed her
against the nearest wall of lockers and leaned in close to her, breathing in
her cinnamon cookie scent, enjoying the opportunity to be so near her (and
getting to blame it on student congestion).

Since we were so close, I was able
to feel her tempting warmth. It made me unable to resist calling her out a
little bit, ’cause man, I wanted her. I spoke softly in her ear, wanting to
trail my lips down the curve of her neck, but I didn’t want her to run away.
So, I was a good boy and just kept my mouth near her ear. “It seems like the
cookies and the poems—they’re to tell me that you kind of like me,
right?” I didn’t wait for her to answer since she hadn’t even answered my last
question yet. Instead, I edged even closer to her. “But I want you to
show
me, Heaven.”

She lurched away from me looking
horrified and ready to run. I breathed out a soft laugh and grasped her arm,
gently pulling her back to me. “I didn’t mean that the way it might have
sounded.”

I grinned, “I just
meant—don’t run away from me.” I brought my mouth back down to her ear.
“Maybe we should hang out.”

I raised my eyebrows as she looked
up at me. Her startled blue eyes seemed to flicker with astonishment. And
interest. It had my heart racing. She actually seemed to be considering it.

Oh-kay, calm down heart
.

 
“There’s a party at Jake’s house tonight,” I said. “Want to
come?”

Her smile fell. I swear, a second
ago her pretty face had looked radiant and happy and like angels were singing
and doves were flying around carrying magic wands. But now she looked like her
kitten just died. What was that about?

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I told
you—I don’t go to those kind of parties.”

Then—of course—she ran
away from me.

CHAPTER 31

Quirking my head, I watched Heaven
run away from me.

I leaned against the locker behind
me and groaned—tortured, but amused.

I’d never actually asked a girl to
do anything with me before—I mean besides let me mack on them a bit or
whatever. But that was usually—(well, okay, maybe
always
)—at a party. One where we
were
already at.
And that we had attended separately.

What I’m getting at is, that had
been new to me: making a date type thing—a commitment-ish move. But I
guess I should have known I’d get shot down. After all, she had already told
me—and I already
knew
—she
wasn’t a party girl.

But the thing was, I had no idea
what else to ask her to.

“What’s up with you?” Mason nudged
me, like to get me out of my Ally-daze. I hadn’t even noticed him walk up. “You
look like you need advice. Or—” he sardonically rubbed his chin,
“—to
‘explore your feelings.’
”

He said it with mock-seriousness,
enjoying using the term that was often shoved down our throats in
anger-management, which we were both sent to a lot. The whole hockey team was.
Well, except Poser.

“Yeah, well, see there’s this girl
…” I started. Then I cracked a grin. Like I’d really do that—“Explore my
feelings.” I mean, out loud.
To Mason.
Or a counselor.
Or … anyone. Man, I had trouble just trying
to explore them all by myself. So I normally avoided it.

“Yes, a girl, go on,” Mason said,
doing an impressive imitation of our counselor, Mr. Firth. “No, I mean it, go
on—I’m trying to write a novel and you boys are giving me
scads
of writing material. My, you
hot-heads!”

Summer walked by and Mason forgot
he was talking to me. His lips parted, and his eyes kind of glazed over as he
watched her from a distance. But then his eyes narrowed slightly as she started
talking to this guy, Justin.

I grinned. “Want to explore your
feelings?”

Without taking his eyes off
Summer
, his lips quirked up. “I don’t have any.”

He watched
Summer
a little longer, then latched on to this chick, Jade, who I don’t think he ever
even looked at before. But she was at her locker, which was conveniently
located right next to where we were standing. Also she was blond. That always
helped—since
Summer
was a blond. And she was
wearing her cheerleading uniform, just like
Summer
.

I rolled my eyes with a laugh. The
dude needed to ‘explore his feelings’ big time—obviously with a better
counselor than Mr. Firth.

CHAPTER 32

“You’re seriously
not going to drink tonight?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Seriously.”

Hailey looked mad, downing the cup
of beer she’d just brought me. “The whole night?”

“Yeah. The whole night.”

I have a problem with drinking. I
mean
,
I have a tendency to use it to drown stuff out.
What I mean is, I drink until I pass out. I hear that’s not good. Plus,
afterwards I’d always wake up feeling like crap and have no idea where I was,
and having tons of people I had to apologize to, having to say things like, “I
didn’t mean to tell her that.” And, “Sorry about your broken nose.” And,
“Where’s my car?” or sometimes, “Where’s my shirt?” I’ve lost a lot of shirts
at parties.

Hailey slumped in the seat next to
me. She couldn’t exactly
complain
that I wasn’t drinking. I mean
,
my dad’s an alcoholic.
She just seemed to be suspicious that I was doing it for Ally or something. And
I wasn’t. Well, I mean, not exactly. It’s not like she was coming to the party,
right? She shot me down. It’s just the drinking—it’s not good for me. And
Hailey knows it. So, she didn’t say anything else about it. But she also didn’t
seem pleased. Like I was betraying her somehow by staying sober at a party.

“Deal me in,” a guy I’d never seen
before said. He sat down next to Hailey looking interested in her. She growled
at him, and got up. I guess
she’d
seen him before—or she was just in a really bad mood. Either was
possible.

I didn’t go after her though,
‘cause I don’t do that. When Hailey’s in a bad mood, I let her be in a bad
mood. (Otherwise, I’d always be chasing her.)

Jake dealt the new guy in, though
the guy didn’t seem so interested in playing now that Hailey was gone. It would
have been just as well with me if the guy left. Me and Mason and a couple of
our friends were playing poker in Jake’s kitchen. At first it was just
us
, but more and more people from the party kept joining. I
don’t exactly love
drunk
people when I’m sober. And it
kind of depresses me to see what a waste I make of most of my life—acting
like them. It’s stupid. I’m going to try not to drink anymore. But it’s kind of
hard when all of my friends want me to drink—except Mason. He gets it.
Hailey does too. She just doesn’t want me to be influenced by Ally—in any
way. Plus, I think she doesn’t want me to judge her by being sober when she’s
not.

I was in the middle of a good hand
when this
drunk
girl brought a chair over near me. She
plopped down really close beside me, like practically in my lap. “I love your
lips, Griffin Piper,” she whispered in my ear.

Yeah, I get told that a
lot—that I have nice lips.
Mostly by drunk girls at
parties.

“Thanks,” I grinned, not really
bothering to look at her. She was drunk so, you know, you couldn’t in
good-conscious make a move on her. I kept my eyes on my cards. “Been drinking a
little?”

“A
lot
,” she said proudly. “I don’t usually drink. My friends don’t
come to parties like this—but I knew you would be here. I want to kiss
your pillow soft lips.”

My friends cracked up laughing at
that—the “pillow” thing. But I was busy trying to fight the girl off.
“You’re Ally’s friend, huh?”

“Yeah, you kissed her in the closet
at a party once. I wanted you to pick me, but you picked her.” She made a pouty
face, though she didn’t stop trying to lock lips with me. “You can kiss me in
the closet if you want,” she said, “—or right here. Mmm, you smell good.”
She went from trying to get her mouth on my lips, to pressing her face into my
neck.

Hailey came back into the kitchen
just then and rolled her eyes when she saw that—me with a girl in my
neck.

“Hey, Pop-fly, can you take this
girl to the bathroom and try to sober her up?”

Hailey shrugged, annoyed like. “Why
bother?”

“Because she’s Ally’s
friend—and I want you to.” I added that last part because I knew the
helping Ally out wasn’t going to give her motivation.

I would have taken the girl myself,
but it didn’t seem like a good idea to go into the bathroom alone with the
girl. She was pretty determined to have a make-out with me and I wasn’t sure
cold water splashed in her face would help sober her up … but I definitely knew
being alone with me would
heat
her
up—I mean since she was already roaring and everything.

Hailey huffed, but she grabbed the
girl around the shoulder. “Come on, Destiny,” she growled irritably. “Griffin
doesn’t kiss drunk girls … when he’s sober.”

“Have a drink!” Destiny yelled to
me as Hailey dragged her away.

My friends were practically rolling
on the ground laughing so hard.

I just smiled.
Drunk
girls are a trip.

I got absorbed in the game and kind
of forgot about Destiny until Jake came back to the table to play another hand.
He mentioned he had seen Destiny making out with some college guy. “They were
getting really heavy,” he said. “Right out in the living room.”

I got up, not happy.
And sort of worried.
I mean
,
the
girl didn’t usually drink. “I’ll be back,” I said.

I found the college guy in the
living room kissing
drunk
Destiny way overly hot and
heavy. “Let’s go upstairs,” I heard him murmur to her.

I grabbed him off Destiny. “
You
go upstairs. The drunk girl’s
coming with me.”

Destiny did a little jump of
happiness, but the guy looked mad. He narrowed his eyes. “Where did you even
come from? Why do you care?”

“Why do I
care
? Because you just asked a very drunk girl to go
upstairs.”

The guy looked sheepish. “I wasn’t
going to
make
her go. I was
just seeing if she wanted to.” His gaze cut to Destiny. “Do you want to?”

“No.” She snuggled into my arm. “I
want Griffin.”

I raised my eyebrows at the guy. He
gave me a dirty look, but darted away.

I took Destiny’s hand. “You want to
hang out with me
?—
okay. Come on.” I led her back
to the kitchen and plopped her in the chair beside me so I could baby-sit her
and make sure no other awesome guy tried to take advantage of her … and also to
make sure she didn’t drink anymore. I gave her a bowl of pretzels to keep her
mouth busy.

“Deal me in,” I told Mason.

Destiny kept getting off her chair
and sitting in my lap. She would run her fingers through my hair and sniff my
neck. It was distracting. But I didn’t mind as much as you might think. (Or,
well,
like
it as some of you others
might think.) It was just a drunk girl, being drunk—only she was Ally’s
friend, so I didn’t shoo her away. But I didn’t kiss her either. No matter how
much she wanted me to. She kept saying, “Come on, please! Kiss me with those
pillow lips.”

My friends would crack up laughing.
It never got old to them.

When Hailey came back into the
kitchen, she snorted a laugh when she saw Destiny in my lap, playing with my
hair.

“Thanks for the help Hailey,” I
said sarcastically. Well, as sarcastic as I get. I had to admit, Destiny’s
infatuation with my hair and lips and neck (and okay, most of me) was pretty
funny. But Hailey’s leaving her to fend for herself wasn’t. It sort of pissed
me off. And things don’t really piss me off.

Hailey shrugged defensively—since
like I said, I don’t normally get mad at stuff.
Especially
not my friends.
“Hey, what? I tried. I splashed cold water on her face,
but then someone needed to use the bathroom. Was I supposed to babysit her all
night?”

“I can give her a ride home,” this
guy that I never saw before offered.

Since I didn’t know him, I didn’t
trust him. Of course I didn’t trust most of the guys at this party alone with a
drunk
girl. Especially not one that
was
so wanting
to kiss.

“No, that’s okay. She belongs to a
friend of mine,” I said. “I’m going to keep an eye on her.” Though I had no
idea how I would get the chick home. I really had no clue
who
she was, except that she was a close friend of Ally’s. But apparently the girl
knew who
I
was.
In a big way.

“I have dreams about kissing you,”
she told me for the hundredth time.

All of a sudden, Ally came storming
into the kitchen. When I saw her I did a
double-take
.
My heart pounded all happy and surprised.

“Heaven!” I grinned, moving my head
away from Destiny’s roving hands.

I knew this looked kind of bad, her
drunk
friend in my lap. I supposed it looked really,
really bad—since Heaven looked so incredibly shocked and appalled. Only …
she had popcorn in her hair. It was cute.

So, though I knew things looked
bad, and Ally looked mad, still the whole thing struck me as kind of funny
(things often do). My grin grew as I dodged Destiny’s hands again. “I thought
you don’t go to parties.”

“I don’t,” Ally said through
gritted teeth. “I came to get
her
.”
Then she added with her teeth still clinched, ‘cause she obviously thought I
was a bad influence, and a bad person, “She doesn’t drink.”

It sucked that Ally was mad at me, I
swear that sucked, but I arched my eyebrows with a slight grin. “I’m pretty
sure she did tonight.”

My friends laughed at that. (Though
most of them weren’t all that sober themselves.)

Ally glared at them—but
mostly me. “My cousin texted me that Destiny was making out with random guys.”

The way she was glaring at us, she
apparently thought we were the “guys.”

She stomped over to me and tried
pulling Destiny off my lap. She coaxed, “Come on, Destiny!”

“No!” Destiny nuzzled her face back
in my neck. “You smell good,” she mumbled, her lips licking my skin. Then she
put her arms around me tight, trying to make me snuggle with her.

Ally groaned.

I laughed at that, not Destiny
trying to get an embrace from me—but Ally’s adorable groan. “I don’t
think she can walk,” I said. “I’ll carry her.”

Ally didn’t look like she really
wanted that, but I got up before she could protest. I carried Destiny out of
the kitchen over my shoulder, fireman style. On our way out of the house,
Ally’s drunk cousin, Kendra, grabbed me by my shirt collar and gave me a big
drunk kiss, slurring: “I love those lips—
love
them!”

Ally groaned again, looking like
she was going to die of mortification. I just laughed and kept walking. Like I
said,
drunk
girls love my lips. They (my lips) are
used to getting attention.

I plunked Destiny into the backseat
of Ally’s car, leaning over her to buckle her in.

“Stay away from her!” Ally growled.
(
Growled
.)

I leaned my head back with an
amused grunt.

Ally, of course, couldn’t see what
I was doing from where she was standing outside of the car. She just saw me
hovering over her drunk friend—and she probably thought I was drunk as
well.

I raised my palms up to her and
grinned, “I was just buckling her in.”

Ally reddened, squeezing her eyes
shut. “Sorry,” she whispered. Then she added with her voice hitching slightly,
“Look, can you just stay away from my friends?”

I knew she didn’t just mean
Destiny—since Kendra had just kissed me too. Plus now Kendra was always
flirting with me at school, and coming into the auto shop, mentioning how much
she liked my lips.

I grinned. “Yeah, I can leave them
alone.”
I quirked my eyebrows.
“But can they leave
me
alone?”

Ally sighed like I had a point. It
made me softly laugh.

She bit her lip and accidently
looked at me. And kept looking. So, we just gazed at each other. It gave me a
little thrill—Ally’s eyes on me like that. But then she looked down at
the ground, like she was too shy to keep looking at me.

Man, she was beautiful out here in
the dark with the moon shining on her. Wish she wasn’t
mad
at me.

She gazed up and caught me watching
her. The way her eyes looked, startled but warm—it did funny things to my
heart. Got it all throbbing and wanting.

She swallowed, like she knew what I
was feeling—or maybe she was feeling it too.

I smiled, backing her against the
car. “I got your poem.”

I laughed huskily. “Well, I didn’t
really
get
it.” Gently, I slid my
fingers through her silky hair, raking out a piece of popcorn. “But I liked
it.”

Actually, I loved it. I loved all
of her poems.
Way too much.
I had them in my pocket
right now. I’d pull them out and read them at various times. Like when things
were going bad, I’d read her poems to feel better. Though sometimes I’d read
them when things were going good too. They were just kind of like a drug to
me—an Ally fix. A fix of Heaven when I
was needing
it.

I wished she could be with me right
now like she was with her poems—all soft and romantic. But I guess it
didn’t help that she thought I was drunk and might have possibly manhandled her
close friend. Still, I leaned in close to her, since I didn’t get many
opportunities. My lips brushed her ear, “I like
you
, Heaven.”

Her breath caught and she blushed
and a huge smile spread on her beautiful face. For a moment (I swear!) she
looked like she was the happiest girl in the world. It made my heart pound.
Hard. Like explode.

But then she jerked away from
me,
like she was reminding herself I was the devil. The air
whooshed out of me. Man, I could not catch a break.