-18-

The next day, when a knock sounded on the door, I had a sneaking suspicion it was Elliot. I went ahead and opened it anyway, feeling a smidgen unlike myself.

Sure enough, there he was, hair gelled to the side, glasses reflecting ultraviolet rays into my eyes, burning holes in my retinas that would never be healed.

I blinked and moved to the side to avoid the glaring sunlight. "What do you want, Elliot?"

"Well, I-"

"If you're after Stacey, you can forget it."

"Who?" A stunned look crossed Elliot's face. "Are you cheating on... Crap, what's her name?"

I rolled my eyes. "You're so dense."

"Well you're chipper this morning." He stepped past me and into the house as if he owned the place.

"Listen, Elliot. I gotta tell you something."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. Come sit down; it might come as a shock."

He followed me to the living room where we sat down on the large sectional.

"Okay. Listen, my name is not Hubert."

He scoffed. "Right. I made that up, dipwad."

"You see, my name is Logan Evans, I come from Ohio, and I'll be leaving in a few days."

Elliot looked hurt. "But we were just getting to be friends!"

I could feel my temper flaring up inside of me, and I raised my voice. "All you've been after this whole time was Stacey, and I can't let you get away with that. For starters, she's way older than you, and also, I-"

I paused, shocked at how I was about to end that sentence.

Elliot furrowed his brow. "Gothweniel is Stacey, isn't she?"

I nodded.

"Listen, Hu-Logan. I was never hitting on her. That's how I act with everybody. In fact, the reason I came was to introduce you to-"

"Wait," I said. "You don't like Stacey?"

"Well, of course I like her, but not in the way you might imagine. I have enough sense to know when a woman is taken. Gosh."

"Taken? How-?"

"I don't know," he said sarcastically, throwing his hands in the air. "Maybe she's always hanging around with a dude who looks to be her age and they're holding hands together and gazing at each other with lovey eyes and stuff. Figure it out, chicken wing!"

I stopped to think. All this time I'd hated Elliot because he seemed to be attracted to Stacey. And why did that make me mad? Well, maybe I was jealous. Maybe I was crushing on Stacey long before I realized it. Was it possible that I hadn't been pranking Carla and her to be funny? Was I behaving like a typical boy without realizing it? Just to get their attention?

It seemed to be so.

"Alright, Logan," Elliot said, suddenly turning serious. (I didn't think he could do that.) "I may act like an idiot for the fun of it, but I'm not stupid, and right now, I can tell that something is wrong with you. You seem a little off. What's up?"

I searched his face for a grin that was sure to break through any second, but he looked dead serious. "Why should I tell you anything?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"We're not going to argue like little kids, dude. Either you tell me what's up or I go tell Stacey what I think is up."

"And what would that be?"

He raised his eyebrows.

I pursed my lips and looked at my hands.

"Just start from the day you met...and how you started liking her...and stuff," he said.

"I never said I liked her."

"Oh, but you do. Now, enough stalling; I'm not leaving until I have an explanation."

I stood up and headed to the door, but Elliot just snapped his fingers very loud and I slumped my shoulders and went back to sit with him again.

"Well...," I said, "our mothers had this clique in high school, and they still have this clique. Sure, they all moved away, but every two years they meet back here, since Martha's the only one who stayed in Kentucky." Before he could interrupt, I said, "Yes, Martha is the grown up lady who owns this house. So Stacey and I were both a year old when we met, I suppose.... But I almost never played with her as a child, because there was another girl our age. Her name was Carla. She had short black hair kinda like those three triplets who used to be here. I was about five years old when I first started pranking them. I'd do weird things like dumping frozen marbles on them in the morning and hiding Barbie dolls in their pillowcases.

"As I got older, it'd get more complex, but it was always something like putting stuff in their suitcases and hiding stuff. I wasn't a very creative guy. The stuff I found on the Internet was way too mean, like putting chicken bullion in the shower head.

"After the last reunion, when Carla's family was driving home, they got in a car accident. I still remember when we rushed over there to help before we got too far away. Evita and Pamela, their mother, were fine, but Utopia broke an arm and Xavier got whiplash. Jason, their dad, had a few scrapes and a broken nose from the airbag, but other than that, he was fine. I remember we got there just as they were getting everyone out of the car. It was pretty squished, so they were climbing out of windows and stuff. Pamela and Jason were pulling kids out, and they couldn't find Carla. When they did find her, she was just at the bottom of the wreckage. She looked like she was sleeping: no visible scratches, bruises, or anything. She was just dead.

"They almost didn't want to organize another reunion this year because of that, but it'd been two years and it wasn't as fresh, so they went ahead and had us come. I didn't talk to Stacey much at first, but Martha made me because Carla was dead and Stacey had no one to hang out with.

"I tried pranking her a few times, but I found that it wasn't very fun. Pranking her required me to go behind the scenes and kind of hide so she wouldn't figure me out. I don't think I realized it at first, but I guess I just wanted to talk to her."

I fell silent, pressing my lips together as I tried to think of what else to say.

"Well, man," Elliot said. "You're not getting anywhere by sitting here and talking to me."

I rolled my eyes. My head snapped to the side as I heard a sound from around the corner. It was the creaking of the wooden floor in the hallway.

Shoot.

Elliot and I both stared toward the hall, trying to see who was lurking. Whoever it was just heard me spilling my guts to Elliot.

Elliot. Why the heck was I spilling my guts out to Elliot?

Maybe because now I only have four days.

Anthony jumped out from the hall. "Sorry, but I heard you talking and you sounded serious and I didn't wanna, like, ruin the moment or anything. But Logan! You've found a friend to confide in!"

"Oh my word!" Elliot exclaimed. "Is he your twin brother?"

"No. He's like two years older than me," I said.

"The family resemblance is just...wow."

"Uh...thanks.... I guess?"

Anthony skipped-literally-and sat to my left, whereas Elliot was at my right.

"Alright, Loggie," Anthony said, putting his arm around me, "we've got business to get down to. We're leaving soon and you have yet to get anywhere with this Stacey."

"Why should I?" I said. "We're leaving in four days, and it's unlikely you or I or even Stacey will ever come back. She lives like seven hours away; I can't just have a long distance relationship."

"I'm sure Mom would let you borrow the van on the weekends."

"Do you really think I ought to drive the way to Illinois every weekend, Anthony?"

"If you're dedicated, yeah."

"Oh!" said Elliot. "On the way, you could stop by and see me!"

"I don't even pass Kentucky on the way to Illinois, Elliot."

"You could, if you-"

"Shh!" Anthony snapped. "Little boy, this is not about you. Let's address the issue at hand, here." He paused for a second before saying, "Thank you. Now, my poor little brother here has always been afraid to talk to most people, girls especially. Now he's gone and fallen in love-"

"I never fell in-"

Anthony pinched my lips shut with his fingers and continued his sentence. "-with a girl who lives two states away. What should he do?"

"He should kiss her," Elliot suggested.

"Ooh! I was thinking that too!" Anthony said.

I shook my head in annoyance. Anthony and Elliot could probably be best friends, sitting and agreeing on each other's view of the world.

"Guys," I said after I'd pulled my mouth out of Anthony's grip. "That's a bad idea. What if I ruin everything? And if I don't ruin everything, and I find out she likes me too, then what do I do? Just go back to Ohio and leave her with a broken heart?"

"No, no," Elliot said, "you're getting it all wrong. You're not ditching her and leaving her a broken heart; you're giving her hope. If she went home today, she'd be thinking, 'Guess I'll probably never see him again.' But if you kissed her, or at the very least, dear Logan, confessed your feelings, then she'd be thinking, 'He likes me. I need to find a way to see him again.' And then you guys can go to college together or something! It's not the end, man! You have to do something, or else nothing is going to happen, and that would be crummy. What do you say. Hmm?"

"Well said, pipsqueak!" Anthony held his hand out in front of me for Elliot to give him a high five. As they clapped hands, they introduced themselves to each other, which probably would've seemed less odd if they'd done it earlier.

"Easier said than done," I complained. "I don't want to have to do any of this."

"I get it, dude," Elliot said. "Girls are always complaining about how they have it so much harder than us guys. But we're the ones that have to talk to them and ask them out and stuff! All they do is sit and wait for us to do the dirty work!"

I didn't say anything. I could think of a few things that girls have to go through that I'd rather not have to deal with.

"Whether you like it or not," Anthony said, "it's gotta happen. Let's see; what's today? Tuesday? We're leaving Saturday evening? Okay, Logan. Let's set a date for...ah...Thursday? See, if we did Friday, then you'd chicken out and only have Saturday left to do it. But at least if you chicken out on Thursday, there's still Friday. Now, just so you don't purposely chicken out on Thursday, there needs to be a punishment if you haven't kissed her by then." I groaned, hoping no one else was in the house so they wouldn't hear what we were saying. "So," Anthony continued. "I get to punch you five times for each girl you've gone on a date with if it's not done by Thursday at midnight."

"Fifteen punches?" I said.

"Three girls?" Elliot said. "I've gone out with seven!"

"Dude," I said. "Aren't you like thirteen?"

Elliot looked offended. "No. I'm more like sixteen and a half."

"You're sixteen and a half...?"

"Yes," he said, sighing dramatically. "Not everyone's tall and gorgeous like you guys. Gosh."

I just blinked once, still processing the information. Elliot was at least two inches shorter than Stacey. So, he was about the average height of a woman.

The sound of the sliding glass door opening made me look up. Stacey was coming in.

Thank goodness, I thought. She wasn't in the house.

"What's he doing here?" Stacey asked when she saw Elliot.

I blinked again. What was he doing here?

"Um, yeah," I said. "What brought you here, Elliot?"

"Oh yeah! I was gonna introduce you to my girlfriend, Rachel. She's outside somewhere waiting for the signal."

"Well, you've sure left her waiting a while...."

"Okay," Elliot clapped his hands once and stood up. "Now, you guys need to be polite. Rachel is half Mexican, but she can speak English."

"Okay?" I said. It wasn't like I spoke much Spanish, anyway.

"I had to make sure," he said. "When I showed her to my buddy from school, he started speaking Latin. Know what he said? 'Latin is the closet thing to Spanish that I know of, and I can't speak Spanish.'

"And I was all, "Brad! She speaks English!' He got so embarrassed. Rachel just gets a little uncomfortable when people go out of their way to try to speak her native language, when she's perfectly fluent in English. Shall we go meet her?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I'll admit, I was a little curious to see what kind of girl would agree to date Elliot.

He led me, Anthony, and Stacey out of the house and when we were standing in the middle of the yard, he whistled as if calling a dog.

Then something really weird happened.

There was this short little wall separating Martha's house from the neighbor's. (That was the house of the old lady who swallowed my ice cube, but no matter.) Growing all along this wall was a thick, leafy bush. And I kid you not when I say this girl jumped out of the bushes and sprinted head on toward Elliot, who embraced her as soon as she jumped into his arms.

"I was getting a little itchy in there," she said, pulling away.

"Sorry," Elliot said. "Logan and I were sorting out some-"

I smacked him upside the head before he could finish that sentence. Stacey looked at me quizzically, but I turned my attention to Elliot's girlfriend.

Rachel was almost as tall as Elliot, with light brown skin and dark hair down to her shoulders. She was very thin and slender, kind of like Stacey was. Rachel laced her fingers with Elliot's, and it filled me with reassurance. Elliot was really in a relationship. He wasn't after Stacey after all.

But now I had a few days to kiss Stacey, lest I face a punishment of Anthony's punches. They weren't fun to go through; last time I was inflicted, I had bruises going all the way up my arm. Rather than worry about my wellbeing, my science teacher told the class to analyze my bruises and went into a detailed explanation about what exactly a bruise was. Everyone assumed I'd gotten beaten up-which in a way, I was-and that was one reason as to why I wasn't exactly a popular guy in school.

The thing was, I could do it whenever. I couldn't say I didn't have an opportunity when I could very well just grab her and kiss her anywhere. Even right then, if I just stopped thinking of what might happen afterward, and forced myself to man up enough to just kiss her, then I could have it over with. Anthony would be happy, Elliot would be happy, and maybe even Stacey and I would be happy.

But what if I offended her? I mean, it's not like I'd be stealing her first kiss or anything. She made it pretty clear that if you're seventeen years old and haven't kissed anyone yet, then you're unusual. (Me.)

I just couldn't see myself doing it. What the heck was I going to do?

"Logan?" Stacey put her hand on my shoulder.

I jumped about ten feet in the air (not literally, of course) and my gaze shot up to meet her eyes. "What?"

"You're whiter than the snowman I ruined with my garden hose."

I cringed. I couldn't think straight with her hand on my shoulder and her intense eyes looking at me.

"You okay?" she asked.

Ugh. No.

I just nodded.

Rachel reached out to shake my hand. "Hi." She sounded embarrassed.

"Haven't you seen Rachel in my vlogs before?" Elliot asked.

"Uh, no," I said. "I've only seen one."

"Seriously? Well, that explains why you thought I wanted to date-"

I smacked his head yet again, and while he was muttering complaints, I caught Stacey looking at me with an amused expression on her face.

I hoped for the good of cheesecake that she wasn't suspecting anything.

"Elliot!" Rachel whined. "You left me in the bush for too long! It's dinner time."

"Oh, crap!" Elliot pushed his glasses further up his nose. "How long do we have to get to your house?"

"About three minutes. Dad's gonna be so mad! He doesn't like his ziti cold!"

Elliot drew a sharp intake. "He made ziti?!"

"He knew you were coming!"

Elliot turned to face the rest of us. "Well, ah, I've gotta go. You know...dinner. ...Bye."

He and Rachel then took off down the street hand in hand, again filling me with reassurance that Elliot didn't want Stacey at all.

"That was weird," Anthony said, talking for the first time in a few minutes.

"Yeah," I agreed.

Anthony gave me a look. "You're the one that was being weird."

"I was?"

"Yeah! We had like a thirty second conversation about turtles and quesadillas and you were just staring at my foot."

"Sorry."

He smirked. "He'll be back Thursday to check on you; I'm sure of it."

"What?" Stacey looked back and forth between us. "What's even going on? You're both acting really weird."

"Oh," Anthony said as if he was reading a fantasy to a young child. "Absolutely nothing."

"That cleared nothing up."

"You'll know one day. Patience, young grasshopper."

Stacey looked at me with a pleading expression. "What the heck is going on?"

"Uh...." I mumbled several incoherent sentences and turned to walk back to the house, ignoring Stacey's jabbering for information.

I realized there were many components that made this happen. Carla died and Stacey and I were forced to talk to each other. The kids were mean to her and I had to be nice to her. Elliot came along and made me feel jealousy, which I honestly only felt when someone ate the last piece of cake at home.

So, it was pretty obvious I liked her. More than I realized. Now I had one day to prepare to kiss her, and she was suspecting that something was going on with Anthony and I.

And I had to meet her that night. Alone.

Oh, jeez.

__________________________

Hello! Did anyone else like the last sentence? "Oh, jeez."

So.... Estimating time. There's probably about 3-4 chapters left in this book. Please add to your reading list and remember to vote because I don't have much time left to gain readers quickly!

There's so much unresolved! Did anyone notice how Logan was acting really secretive in Chapter 17? ;) HAHAHAHA.

You'll know one day. Patience, young grasshopper.

Any predictions? Suggestions? No?

M'kay. Bye.