Serial Hottie (21 page)

Seth’s eye-roll was over the top. “Please. You were in his lap.”

“I was pushed! And that was your fault anyway. It was your stupid jealousy in the diner that gave Angela the idea in the first place.”

“That was completely justified,” Seth argued. “You were sharing the guy’s fries when you were supposed to be out with me.”

Okay, that was true. And it was completely rude of me—that’s kind of why I’d done it. “Whatever,” I said, waving dismissively. “Why are we arguing about this anyway?”

Seth’s anger vanished and was replaced with a strange desperation. “Because you’re going to fall for him, Ellie. I’ve seen the two of you together and Angela’s right. If she’s really trying to hook you guys up, he won’t need much convincing and you won’t resist him.”

Seth looked so worried that Dave was going to steal me away from him that I almost laughed. It was kind of adorable. I dropped my attitude and teased, “I resist you just fine, don’t I?”

“For now. But you can’t keep it up forever.”

That sounded a bit like a threat, so in an attempt to keep the mood light I said, “Unless, like you said, Angela convinces Dave that he likes me and he sweeps me off my feet before you manage it.”

“Dave can’t have you!” Seth exploded, his temper finally getting the better of him. “I won’t let him!”

He was taking on that psycho-stalker trait again, so I scooted away from him as far as I could. “Okay, Seth? Maybe we should just keep the conversations short for now. Work our way up to being friends.”

“Ellie, wait!” Seth grabbed hold of my wrist before I could leave. “I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He was so frustrated he had a hard time finding words. “I… It’s just that Dave… You don’t… If he needs Angela to point out to him how special you are, then he doesn’t deserve you.”

I didn’t know what to say. It was probably the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. Definitely the most romantic. I was blushing and I didn’t even care.

Seth let go of my wrist and instead pulled one of my hands into both of his. “Ellie, I don’t think you understand how much—”

“Ellie!” Angela shouted, appearing out of thin air. “Are you trying to be the worst guest-of-honor ever?”

Dave was with my sister again. He let her do the talking and just settled for eying me curiously. His gaze slid to Seth and his look went from careful to suspicious.

I looked back at Seth just in time to see him slump back in defeat. He stared down at his empty hands and I realized I’d yanked mine free of them the second I’d heard my sister’s voice. Seth’s disappointment made me wish there was some way I could put it back. Not to mention, now I didn’t have any idea what he’d been about to say. And I wanted to know. I wanted to know bad.
Thanks a lot, Angela.

“Why are you hiding out here?” Angela asked.

“I’m not hiding from anyone. Do you see me hiding? Though, I probably
should
be hiding from Travis.”

“Well, stop doing it anyway. It’s cake time. You have to come blow out the candles.”

I groaned. “Ugh. Can’t you just do it without me? Everyone who even cares that I’m at this party is right here.”

Angela threw her hands up in the air. “Seriously. Why do I even bother?” She threw a desperate look at Dave. “A little help here?”

Dave laughed and stretched out his hand to me. “Suck it up, Westley. Fifteen more minutes. Blow out some candles, eat some cake, and then I’ll take you home.”

I let Dave pull me to my feet and Seth immediately followed suit. I gave him a “what can you do?” look and then headed back inside. I got about four feet before Dave tugged me to a stop. “Hold up a minute.”

Seth stopped at the sound of Dave’s voice, but before either of us could question what was going on, Angela linked her arm through Seth’s. “Come on, you can help me light the candles,” she told him. A little too enthusiastically.

Seth looked back at me as Angela dragged him inside. He was daring me to stop my sister, to save him and even claim him, but I couldn’t. I was too thrown by the fact that Dave was holding me back for some reason. Even weirder, he hadn’t grabbed me by the shoulder or ponytail or something—he’d grabbed my hand. And was still holding it.

“What’s the problem?” I asked, pulling my hand to safety.

“There’s no problem, exactly.”

Dave was totally up to something. He glanced back at the house where everyone was gathering just on the other side of the sliding glass door. I waited expectantly, and when he turned back to me he said, “Chill for like two minutes, Westley.”

“Dude. I really don’t think I can handle any more surprises tonight, so if they’re up to something in there, just take me home now.”

“Nah, it’s nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to you.” Dave shrugged awkwardly. “I was talking to Angela just now.”

“Yeah?” I snorted a laugh. “She make you stupider? Cause she has that effect on people.”

I didn’t understand the smirk Dave gave me for that, but he grinned and then said, “I guess we’re about to find out.”

And then, suddenly, Dave Holcomb was kissing me.

Dave Holcomb!

Kissing!

ME!

I wasn’t sure how it happened, or why, but his lips were most definitely on mine. At first I was so confused that I couldn’t move. But then Dave nudged my upper lip with his, urging my lips to part, and my body was in such a state of shock that it could do nothing but follow orders.

I may have been doing it badly, but I was kissing him back. Dave! My first kiss was with Dave Holcomb. It had my head reeling. But not in the way first kisses are supposed to make your head spin, I’m pretty sure. Otherwise kissing would be highly overrated.

I have no idea how long we stood there kissing, but after it was over it felt like an eternity before anybody said anything. Dave pulled back and watched me with a careful expression, waiting for some kind of response—any kind of response—from me. He didn’t get one. I could only stand there gaping at him.

Eventually he wrinkled his nose and said, “Weird, right?”

“You think?” I gasped. “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Congratulations. Angela did make you stupider.”

“Whatever. You’re the one who brought it up earlier. I blame you.” Dave laughed. “I’d never even thought about it before that.”

“I told you my sister was trying to hook us up and you thought it was a
good idea?
”

“Well, no. Not at first. But then I talked to Angela, and I don’t know. She made it make sense. I kind of like the idea of a girlfriend who can hold her own in a game of one-on-one and would happily watch a fight with me. I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot.”

Except it had hurt. Dave Holcomb had stolen my first kiss. Stolen it and ruined it—not that he seemed aware of the fact.

I never figured I’d be the kind of girl who would care about something like that, but I was surprisingly upset. I wasn’t about to let Dave see how I felt, though, so I shook my head, almost pityingly, and muttered, “Come on, moron. I need some cake.”

I walked into Rachel’s house hoping to go find Seth, but couldn’t get past the wall of people gaping at Dave and me. I gave Dave a this-is-your-fault-take-care-of-it look, but the dillweed loves to torture me, so all he did was throw an arm around me, smile at our audience, and say, “Someone said there was cake?”

I quickly blew out my candles, scarfed down a piece of cake, and then made Dave take me home. There was still twenty minutes until curfew, so I figured Angela would put up a fuss, but she actually didn’t. In fact, she was so willing to accommodate me that I couldn’t help being suspicious.

I found her sitting on the same stairs Seth had nearly kissed me on earlier. When she saw me she jumped to her feet and said “You ready to go?” before I even had to ask. Then she gave up shotgun automatically and didn’t say a word on the drive home except to thank Dave for his help. She pounced on me the minute I got in the house, though. She started to say something—I assume about Dave—but then my mom walked in the room excited to hear the details about the party.

“Why don’t you tell her, since my life is more your business than mine anyway,” I hissed at Angela. I surprised us all with how venomous I sounded—guess I was still more than a little pissed. “I’m going to bed.”

I don’t know why, but I half-expected I’d find Seth in my room when I got there and was disappointed when I didn’t. I slammed my door as a warning for Angela to stay away and then went to my window. Seth’s car wasn’t back yet.

I sighed. Seth had disappeared from the party before I got the chance to find him, and I knew he had to be mad. I waited up for a while, hoping he’d come home and I could explain. I wanted him to know that there wasn’t anything between Dave and me. More than that, I
needed
him to know the truth.

I don’t know why, because I’ve constantly been hurting his feelings since I met him—sometimes intentionally—but this time I couldn’t stand the thought that I’d hurt him. There’s no way he hadn’t seen what happened. And after what he’d said about Dave not deserving me, seeing that kiss had to hurt. Especially when he could have kissed me first and restrained himself.

I waited for over an hour, but Seth never came home and I fell into a restless sleep.

Joe Louis Arena, home of the Detroit Red Wings, is ice that I’ve never had the privilege of sailing across. That’s how I knew I was dreaming. So when a dark figure in a red and white jersey with a goalie mask appeared I hoped it was Chris Osgood or someone come to give me a few pointers.

As the figure got closer, I realized I wasn’t having a dream. This was a nightmare, and the man coming at me was the Saturday Night Slasher. I tried to escape, but suddenly I was tied to the crossbar of my net. The Slasher lifted his knife to my face and slid it down to my throat. He laughed a deep, menacing laugh when I started screaming, but instead of slicing through my skin he dropped his knife and started kissing me. When he pulled away the hockey mask was gone, and I was staring into the laughing eyes of Dave Holcomb. “Wow, Westley,” he said. “You really suck at kissing. Looks like you’re going to need a lot of practice.”

Behind Dave, a long line of Saturday Night Slashers formed, each waiting their turn to torture me with kisses. I started screaming and thrashing, but couldn’t escape and Slasher Dave kissed me over and over again.

The torture didn’t end until I’d thrashed so hard I woke up on the floor in a tangled heap of sheets. I barely had time to figure out where I was before my dad came bursting into my bedroom in his boxers, gripping a nine iron. Angela and my mom wandered in behind him, looking equally scared. “Sorry,” I said, picking myself up off the floor. “It was just a dream.”

“Pretty intense dream,” Angela grumbled.

My mom yawned, but smiled sympathetically. “You want to talk about it?”

Um, no.
I definitely didn’t want to talk about a dream where the primary form of torture was kissing. Especially not with my mother. “I’m good,” I said, praying I didn’t blush. “Go back to bed. I’m sorry for scaring everyone.”

Mom managed a “good night” through a heavy yawn, and my Dad double-checked the security of my bedroom window without saying a word. He didn’t know I’d been locking it ever since the day I realized Seth might come through it. “All serial killer proof?” I asked, but my joke fell flat when my dad couldn’t muster a smile.

The look on my Dad’s face told me he’d had plenty of his own nightmares about the Saturday Night Slasher. And I’m quite sure his didn’t end in kissing. “I’m all right,” I assured him when he looked ready to camp out the rest of the night at the foot of my bed. “Go back to sleep, Dad.”

“I love you, kiddo,” he whispered, kissing my forehead.

Declarations of love are definitely not my thing, but I choked out a “you too, Dad,” anyway.

As soon as my parents were gone I glared at Angela, wondering what she was still doing in my room. “What was your dream about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. No way did I want to get into that with Angela.