Krissa perked up. Pizza was the bane of her existence, but she couldn’t say no. “Yeah, that sounds good. I need some brain food,” Krissa agreed. Aria just nodded as she remained bent over her essay.
I picked up the phone and dialed Domino’s. A few minutes later, I hung up the phone. “Okay kids, thirty minutes or less,” I said, mimicking the commercials. Krissa decided to take a break and stretched out on my couch, turning on the TV.
“Hey, keep it down, I’m trying to concentrate,” Aria snapped.
Krissa turned the TV down, but not without an eye roll toward me. I suppressed a giggle and looked outside, waiting for the pizza to get there. Surprisingly, a familiar Jeep pulled up to the curb. I felt my heart bump up into my throat and had trouble swallowing. It was a pleasant surprise to see Jensen.
“Hey, be right back,” I said, sneaking behind Aria. She was as engrossed in her essay as Krissa was in a re-run of ER. Aria waved to show she heard me, but didn’t turn away from the TV. I snuck out the door quietly and met Jensen halfway down the stairs.
Smiling when he saw me, Jensen called out, “Hey!”
“Hi, I’m surprised to see you,” I told him. He raised his eyebrow at my comment. “Pleasantly,” I added. “Aria and Krissa are over. We’re doing homework.”
Jensen then smiled and picked me up by my waist. I wrapped my legs around his hips and kissed him softly for a moment before he set me down.
“Actually,” he said, “I just wanted to come by and say hello and give you something so that you’ll think about me the rest of the day.”
“And what’s that?” I dared to ask, not sure what he meant.
“I’ll give it to you in the Jeep,” he said. Then nodding toward the house he added, “just in case there are eyes watching.” He knew my friends too well.
Jensen took my hand and led me to the driveway where he was parked. He helped me inside to the driver’s seat while he stood outside. Putting his arms around my waist he pulled me close before nuzzling my neck and kissing me along my jawline.
“I missed you,” he whispered in my ear. I wholeheartedly agreed as butterflies began to swarm in my stomach.
“I should get back inside,” I said after a few minutes, “or wandering eyes will start to wander out to here.” Aria was sure to quiz me anyway.
Jensen put both of his hands on my face and pulled my lips down to his. His kiss was soft, but firm and I didn’t want it to ever end. Unfortunately, it had to.
“Wow,” he breathed as he pulled away. “You’d better go before …” He didn’t bother to finish, only breathed deeply and helped me out before getting behind the wheel himself.
“I’ll call you later,” he promised as he leaned outside of his window. I stood on my tip-toes and kissed him quickly, crossing my arms to keep warm.
Jensen drove off and I slowly walked up the steps. Just as I was opening the door, I heard a car in the driveway behind me. Half expecting it to be Jensen coming back for more, I turned around with a smile; it was the pizza. I went inside, grabbed my wallet and met the delivery girl down by her car.
As I was carrying the pizza up to the door, Krissa came out with a smirk on her face. “I saw you,” she whispered, “but I didn’t tell Aria.” She winked. Krissa knew I wanted to be a bit private about Jensen for now. “You two seem really happy. You probably don’t notice it, but he is always looking out for your safety—you can see it in his body language and how he walks with you. Did you notice he stayed between you and the road when he took you to the other side of his Jeep?”
“No, I guess I didn’t really give it much thought. To be honest, he has me in a daze most of the time. It’s intoxicating being around him.”
“Oh, I know that feeling.” She held the door open for me while I walked in. We went to the kitchen to set the pizza down.
“Pizza’s here,” I announced.
“About time; I’m starving!” Aria jumped up, looking for any excuse to be done with her essay.
The three of us took a break and ate pizza while watching TV and picking apart an episode of ER that was on TV.
“George Clooney is so hot,” Aria said while picking off the mushrooms on her pizza. I had ordered a deluxe, completely forgetting she didn’t like mushrooms.
“You gonna eat those?” Krissa asked, pointed to Aria’s discarded mushrooms. Aria held out her plate so Krissa could take the mushrooms.
“I don’t know, bald guys kind of turn me on,” I stated. “Anthony Edwards is a real hottie.” Aria just about spit her pizza out at what I said, and Krissa’s mouth hung open.
“Kidding! But you have to admit that he was a hottie when he had hair. Remember him in Top Gun? Ugh, I just about died when they killed off his character.” Aria and Krissa couldn’t argue with me there.
My friends departed around five o’clock, with Krissa catching a ride with Aria and her mom. Still full from the pizza, I decided dinner could wait. I was a bit bored and wondered if I should hang around waiting for Jensen’s call, but decided instead to kill some time by going on a walk. Being dark and a bit cool outside, I grabbed a flashlight and pulled my warmest coat on. The night air felt good as I snapped on the flashlight and walked carefully down the stairs.
At the edge of the driveway I stopped and tried to decide which way I wanted to go. I chose to walk the loop, which meant going down my street, turning to go up the main road into another housing development, and turning on the next street just north of mine that would curve around and bring me back down to my street. All-in-all, it was about a mile round-trip that would help to work off the bloat from the pizza. Shivering a little, I started out with the flashlight beam bouncing with each step I took. Only an occasional car passed, but that was typical for a quiet Sunday evening.
I made my way to the main street and was just about to turn, when I noticed a familiar truck parked across the street with Jon behind the wheel; Kyle was leaning outside the passenger door, smoking.
“Shit,” I said under my breath, trying to decide if I should continue on or turn around and walk back home. Either way, I figured he’d eventually see me because the street was lit up pretty well. I decided instead to ignore him and start up the street to finish the loop. A dozen or so feet down the sidewalk, I heard my name being called.
“Mia? Hey, Mia, is that you?” I debated whether or not to ignore him and pretend not to be me, but manners changed my mind and I slowly pivoted on my heels to face his direction. Kyle was jogging toward me with his cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth. I couldn’t help thinking that he was a more attractive than I remembered, and I felt guilty the moment the thought popped into my head. I immediately thought of Jensen and wished he could have been with me now instead of earlier.
Kyle ran up, a little out of breath. Seeing that I was on foot, he asked if I lived nearby. I thought about lying, but he’d probably see me go to my house eventually, so I settled on the truth.
“Yeah, I do. What are you up to? I thought Jon would be with Kylie.”
“Well, I was hanging out with Alyna, but she ditched me near here so I called Jon. He was a little pissed that he had to leave Kylie.” I nodded, turned around, and continued walking. For once I figured I’d pull the same trick he always pulled on me. To my surprise, he stayed by my side and asked if Jensen and I were going out.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah, we are,” I snapped, surprising myself with my brazen attitude. It felt terrific to be able to treat him this way.
Kyle instantly held his hands in the air. “Hey, just asking.” Feeling guilty, I