JENNIE

Be cool.

Lisa was moving over to sit next to me. I felt the bus seat shift under me as she sat down. She was moving closer and closer.

The dare was that she was to cuddle up to me for the rest of the trip home. It took us forty minutes to get there and we’d only been on the bus for about ten minutes now which meant there was a full half hour ahead of us.

Be cool. My mind was wandering.

Lisa looked over to me in the darkness. I knew every feature of her face. Every curve. I’d memorized it over the years. Over nights spent giggling over boys when what I wanted more than anything in the world was to feel her next to me.

Be cool Jennie. You’re losing it.

She scooted closer. So very close. Then she pressed against me. She’d pressed against me countless times before. We’d been up close and personal so many times. Heck, we’d slept in the same bed a couple of times and I’m sure she had no idea that it was pure delicious torture every time.

Be cool Jennie. Don’t lose control. Don’t let your feelings show. Don’t show the world you’re into your best friend.

Don’t let your best friend know because that would be the end of our friendship. Not for the first time I wondered if it was even a friendship that was worth maintaining if it was a friendship that was built on the huge lie that I was so into her and there wasn’t a chance she was into me in the same way.

“So, um, hi?” Lisa said.

“Hi yourself,” I replied.

Stupid. Idiot. “Hi yourself?” That was the best I could come up with? That was the super smooth line I was using on her now that one of my dreams was coming true?

I was such a doofus. Even if she was into girls, and I’d long ago made peace with the fact there wasn’t a chance of that happening thank you very much, she certainly wouldn’t be into a dorkasaurus like me who couldn’t think of anything better than “hi yourself” as an opener.

Even if she was the one who was always going on about how she was the band dork and I was the cheerleader. I sure felt like a supreme dorkasaurus right now, let me tell you.

“So… How is this going to work?” Lisa asked. “Do you want to, or should I?”

She seemed hesitant. Almost as though she didn’t want to do this. I think my heart broke a little as that realization hit me.

She didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to cuddle with me. The idea probably repulsed her. Made her want to puke or something, but she was doing it because she wasn’t going to back off on that stupid game.

Why had I even agreed to play the game in the first place? There’d never been a dare like this before. There’d been a couple of times when I’d been forced to act like I was having fun when I had to kiss one of our managers because that’s what all the other girls expected, but now that I was dealing with an avalanche of very real feelings the one thing I needed to do more than anything was hide those feelings from the world.

Lisa couldn’t find out. She could never know how I felt about her. That would be the end of our friendship. The end of our friendship would be the end of my world.

“It’s okay,” I whispered.

I hoped it was only loud enough that the two of us could hear it. I didn’t want any prying ears on the other side of the bus seat to listen in on us and hear what I was about to say.

I really didn’t want Joy to hear. Telling her something was as good as telling the whole school, and this was one rumor I didn’t want getting out.

“If you don’t want to do this you don’t have to. Just give the word.”

I held my breath. It would break my heart if she wasn’t interested. If we weren’t going to go through with this dare that thrilled me so much. But at the same time I wanted to give her an out. I wanted to make sure this wasn’t weird.

Lisa’s face changed. It seemed to fill with something new. Resolve? That was weird. Was it that difficult to get close to me? Was she steeling herself for cuddling with me?

It was tearing me to shreds thinking that she thought of me like that, but I’d have to be a big girl and wear my big girl pants.

“No, it’s not like that at all,” Lisa said. “You’re my best friend and…”

She took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. It seemed to go on forever and I tried not to get distracted by the way her chest stuck out as she took in that deep breath. These dresses we wore for tennis seemed to be precision-made for distracting and drawing attention in all the right places.

It amazed me that more guys hadn’t figured out what our two managers already had and tried to get in on this action.

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