Kissing Jayden: a romantic teen thriller

I scowled as I walked out of class. Stupid test! Like there was any chance I could concentrate with Jayden Stone sitting less than a foot away from me. How in the world had I, Molly Adams, ended up sitting next to him?

I turned the corner and practically bumped into someone. When I looked up, my cheeks turned hot pink. Jayden Stone was right in front of me, smiling that half smile of his. But I was sure he wasn’t smiling at
me
. We had never even spoken since the semester had started.

Why? Number one: he was insanely popular. Number two: he was totally hot. And number three, and most important: he way out of my league, if I even had a league to begin with. Jayden was the guy who had hooked up with half the female population of the school. It didn’t matter how big a jerk girls said he was after they went out, because someone else was always lined up, ready to be his next victim.

Not that I was any different. Well, okay. Not true. I wasn’t about to even stand in line, because I wasn’t anywhere close to his type. His type was more along the lines of outgoing, confident,
experienced
. Me? More like quiet, shy, studious — nose in a book.

“Are you going to the dance on Friday?” Jayden asked.

I looked up and gawked into his ludicrously clear blue eyes. It wasn’t possible he was even speaking to me. It just wasn’t. In fact, I was pretty sure he didn’t even know my name, even though our government teacher, Mr. Franklin, had been calling it every day during roll call.

“Wh-what?” I gaped.

“The dance. On Friday,” he said again.

I bit my lip to keep the “
Huh?
” from escaping. Seriously. Why was Jayden Stone asking Molly “The Bookworm” Adams, about the Valentine’s Day dance? Jayden Stone was our school’s resident rock god. Him sitting on the stone steps of the quad with an acoustic guitar attracted girls like moths to a flame.

Of course, he did everything well, and also happened to be the starting pitcher for the varsity baseball team. The guys at our school all wanted to
be
him. The girls, well, they all
wanted
him. We had been sitting next to each other in Government since the semester had started, but never in a million years did I think he so much as noticed that I was alive. When he lifted his eyebrow, I realized that he was waiting for an actual answer from me.

“I never go to dances,” I managed to squeak, shaking my head and feeling my strawberry-blonde ponytail whip around like I was an enormous ditz.

I purposely didn’t mention the fact that nobody
ever
asked me to dances. I was the girl that guys turned to in English class when they didn’t know the vocab word or needed somebody to help them with an English paper.

“You do now,” he said, his blue eyes flashing in a way that made my cheeks flush all over again.

My mouth was suddenly dry as I waited for the punch line to his joke. This was a joke, right? A joke I
obviously
wasn’t getting. I pressed my lips together and then noticed that Jayden Stone was staring at my mouth. I swallowed, but before I could get myself to say something, he was already walking away.

“See you on Friday, Molly,” he called over his shoulder.

I did a double take when he turned and winked at me. Oh my God! What just happened? Jayden Stone knew my name—
and
he asked me if I was going the Valentine’s Day dance? Before today, I hadn’t even thought that I registered on his radar. We sat right next to each other, but still. I was probably the one girl in our class who hadn’t so much as gone out on one date during her whole high school career.

As I raced toward English, all I could think was: I need to tell Stacy about this. Like
now
. But by the time I got to English, I was sure the whole thing had been my imagination. What other explanation was there? The only ones I could come up with involved horror movies.

Our teacher, Mrs. Calendar, was busy talking about our upcoming paper, but my brain kept going back to Jayden Stone, his perfectly shaped lips curving up in a half-smile as he watched me squirm. I was seriously going to die if I didn’t tell someone.

The second I reached into my bag to get my phone, Mrs. Calendar looked up at me like she knew I was going to send an embarrassing text to Stace. I stared at the clock for the rest of English, somehow surviving until the nutrition bell before racing to Stace’s locker. When I got there, she already had her arms crossed with a look on her face like, “You’d better tell me what’s going on, or else!”

“Molly-freaking-Adams! What’s the deal? Jennifer Ives said you, like, talked to Jayden Stone. Like an actual conversation!”

I nodded and tried not to freak out.

“So? What’d he say?” she demanded.

“He asked me if I was going to the dance on Friday,” I said, feeling my cheeks turn pink.

“No way!” Stace shrieked, causing me to wince and regret telling her. “You know he’s, like, going out with Vicki Westfield, right? Well, not going out with, but hooking up with on a regular basis.”

I stared blankly. Then it hit me. He
was
going out with — or at least hooking up with — Vicki Westfield. Vicki Westfield, who was my complete opposite in every possible way. Loud, fast, bold. Now how come I hadn’t remembered he was going out with her?!

Oh, yeah. Probably because the conversation with Jayden had melted my brain, that’s how come. My eyebrows furrowed, and my stomach suddenly dropped as I replayed the conversation with Jayden Stone in my head, trying not to pay too much attention to the memory of his biceps and broad shoulders in that fitted gray shirt he was wearing.

“He just said, ‘
See you Friday
.’ I don’t think he meant anything by it,” I mumbled.

“But he still, like, talked to you!”

“Yeah, I guess. It was weird.”

Stacy Conrad, my best friend since second grade, was the best, but even she didn’t want to be a part of my lonely “Never Been Kissed” club. I didn’t count a silly game of spin the bottle in sixth grade. And Stace, unlike me,
had
a date to the dance on Friday. She was always begging me to come to these things, and every freaking time I told her, “
Yeah, when pigs fly
.”

Besides, she was going to the dance with Mark Milroy, who was my height, had bad breath, and liked making fart jokes all the time. It was like he was still in the sixth grade. I’d rather stay home.

With wavy chocolate-brown hair, Jayden Stone, on the other hand, easily stood six-foot-two and could make girls faint just by smiling in their direction. He wasn’t
cute
. He was
hot
. With those perfect lips curled up in a perfect, smirking smile, and his impossibly blue eyes,
he
was swoon worthy. And I was totally surprised that I hadn’t fainted while talking to him.

“You sure you don’t want to go with me and Mark on Friday?” Stace pleaded.

I shook my head.

“That’s okay.”

Stace tended to forget how I felt about dancing … and going to dances alone.

* * *

I was sitting in Mr. Kaplan’s doing my math homework, waiting for Stace to show, when the door thumped closed. Looking up, I saw Jayden Stone just standing there, leaning against the closed door looking like a god. Totally shocked to see him, I tried to smile, but I was too nervous.

“I don’t know where you live,” he said.

Well, duh, why would you?
I thought for a second. Then, when he started walking toward me, my brain finally caught up.

“You weren’t, like,
serious
about me going to the dance, right?” I gasped.

When he reached where I was sitting and looked down at me, I swallowed again. It was like I was developing a mental complex around him.

“I was totally serious about you coming
with
me to the dance. Now, are you gonna give me your address, little Molly?”

Little Molly
? Ohmygod.

“Um, I live at the end of Marigold, across from —”

“Marigold? Yeah, I know where it is.”

Of course he knew. Because my street is right by the development where Mike Jensen lives. Mike Jensen, the jerk who used to slam my locker shut in my face every day of middle school, just because I wouldn’t let him cheat off my tests. Jayden Stone was friends with him — still is. But I had never seen Jayden act like as big of a jerk as Mike Jensen. And Jensen wasn’t just a jerk. He scared me. There was something about him that was just … off.

“So, what made you think I wasn’t serious?” Jayden asked, a smile playing on his lips.

“Because you’re
you
,” I blurted.

His blue eyes darkened.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing!” I squeaked, looking down.

What was I supposed to say?
You’re popular and hot, and I’m just Molly “The Bookworm” Adams?
Yeah, right. Instead, I managed to come up with something even more embarrassing.

“I’ve never been to a dance, okay?”

He laughed, and I looked up, almost mad enough to tell him off. Almost. But the thought of me telling off someone like Jayden Stone was laughable.

“Come on,” he said.

Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. I totally stopped breathing and my heart slammed in my chest. I had never been this close to Jayden Stone — or any guy, really — in my life. He lifted my hands until they were on his shoulders, and then he put his arms around my waist. My breathing suddenly got choppy and fast, and my skin started burning up. We weren’t moving too much, so at least it wasn’t like I could step on his feet or anything.

“See, it’s easy,” he said, his blue eyes shining.

I couldn’t say anything. My hands and feet were tingling, and I was afraid he could feel the heat coming off my skin through my sweater. Totally embarrassing! I bit my lip, wanting to ask why he had asked me of all people to the dance. Then he lifted his hand from my back and reached up to tug gently on my ponytail.

“Why don’t you wear your hair down?” he asked.

“It gets in my face,” I whispered, still flushed.

He didn’t let go of my ponytail, which forced me to look up at him. Jayden Stone was really tall, maybe even taller than I thought. It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed he was taller than me, but I had never been
this
close to him. When his other hand dropped away from my waist, I thought that meant our little dance lesson was over. Instead, he reached up and brushed my lower lip with his thumb. The sensation was like a bolt of electricity, and I jerked back at the unfamiliar sensation it caused.

“Have you ever been kissed, little Molly Adams?”

His lips were curled up in that half smile of his, which made my pulse go into overdrive. Totally freaked out and confused, I pulled away, grabbed my Trig book and backpack off the table, and ran for the door without looking back. I could hear him laughing behind me. Then he called out.

“I’ll pick you up! Seven o’clock Friday at your house!”

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