“Okay, someone has to tell me what the deal is with her… please?” I plead.

Jake starts to talk, but I cover his mouth with my hand, he continues to mumble into it.

“She’s a crazy stalker bitch,” Lucy adds, taking a sip of water. I guess she’s DD tonight.

“Like, how crazy are we talking here? Like, writing Mrs. Casey Andrews all over her books, crazy? Or like, Mrs. Heidi Bieber, crazy?” I ask. They laugh and I see Dylan's jaw tense. Funny.

Cam takes a huge swig of beer. “Like, hiding in the back of his truck after a game… naked, crazy!”

My eyes widen and snap to Jake. He looks down and shakes his head with laughter in his eyes. He removes my hand that was covering his mouth, entwines our fingers, and gives my wrist a chaste kiss before Logan adds to the story. “That’s not all that happened, tell her the rest, Jake.”

I look at him. Oh my god. He slept with her. “Oh my god, you slept with her?” I gasp out.

“NO!” he yells, and everyone cracks up. “NO! What? God… No!” he says again, shivering and making a disgusted face.

“Then what?” I ask.

He presses his lips together as if refusing to speak. I make an exasperated sound and turn to the rest of them, eyes wide, pleading someone to finish the story.

Heidi starts to giggle and everyone joins in.

“What?” I say… “WHAT HAPPENED?” I need to know.

Heidi calms herself down, “Homegirl had an engagement ring on the dash board, a male engagement ring. She proposed to him!” She’s struggling to keep talking through her laughter, “she proposed to him, naked, in the back seat of his truck, with people all around!!”

“NO!” I gasp looking at Jake, bewilderment clear in my voice. He just nods his head slowly, his thumb stroking my stomach.

“What did you do?” I ask him, but he just shakes his head. “What did he do?” I ask the others.

“This is the best part…” Cam continues. “He gets so freaked out, he jumps out of the car and starts to run home. It was an away game! It took him 5 hours to walk home. He left everything in his truck. His phone, wallet, gear bag, everything. He couldn’t call anyone. He was so freaked to go back to the truck in case she was still there waiting for him, or if the ring was still there… We didn’t drive out to pick it up until a week later. He went a week without a car because he was so freaked out.”

“That’s just one of the stories,” Dylan adds. “There’s like, a hundred more just as crazy.”

I’m laughing so hard now my sides hurt.

I’d almost forgotten what we’re all doing here.

And then I remember, and stop myself from laughing.

Because today is not a laughing day.

Jake brings his hand up to my face and kisses my temple. “You can laugh and be happy, Kayla. They would want you to be.” I smile and kiss him on the cheek.

Logan takes a huge gulp of his beer and then belches, fingers pointing between me and Jake. Heidi and Lucy groan in disgust.

“Im going to ignore this epic ovary explosive sexual tension thing you guys have going on and ask a question…” I stifle a laugh into Jake's neck, while he rolls his eyes at Logan.

“Ask your question, asshole,” he says as he rubs his nose against my jaw. God, that accent, and that voice.

My eyes close for a second. I think my ovaries will explode.

“Why does he call get to call you Kayla, and everyone else calls you Micky?”

I shrug, “Because my family called me Kayla”.

Chapter 18

*Jake*

It’s been a week since the funeral and Kayla has improved heaps. I don’t think she is over what’s happened, but I think she is dealing with it. She’s worked a couple of days with Dad and kept busy around the house to distract herself. She hasn’t been back to her school, she does’t need to. Obviously, they’ll still let her graduate.

My graduation is today, and hers is tomorrow.

I go to school only when absolutely necessary, just enough to keep Mom off my back, I don’t like being away from her, especially now.

Apparently Dad saw some termites or some shit in the garage and has workmen here fixing it. They need to fumigate the garage and the storage room above it, so we have to stay away. I’ve seen how some of the workers eye Kayla when she leaves in the morning to take Julie to school. One guy gawks so much, it takes everything in me to not punch him in the face. Asshole.

I jog up the driveway after finishing my work out and see Dad talking to one the workers, the gawker. Dad sees me coming, shakes hands with him and then walks over to me. My eyes don’t leave Gawkers and he knows what I’m thinking, because the asshole has the decency to smirk at me.

We walk into the house together. Everyone has taken the day off because of graduation. I knock on my door but no one answers, so I jump in the shower. When I’m done I start to head downstairs, but stop when I hear music and laughter coming out of Julie's room. It’s strange she has a friend over during the week. Then I hear her squeal Kayla’s name in the middle of a laugh, I smile and walk to her door. I knock loudly but no one answers. The music must be too loud. I open the door slightly and peek in. All the furniture is pushed to the side and they’ve made a makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room. They have ‘Low’ by ‘Flo-rida’ playing so loud the walls are shaking.

Julie is showing Kayla some dance moves and Kayla’s taking it in, really listening to her. Their backs are to me so they can’t see that I’m watching. Julie goes to the stereo and plays the song from the beginning, then they start the routine from the start. Julie’s good at dancing for eight, but goddamn, Kayla is good. There’s a line in the song, ‘fold her, like a pornography poster’, which is totally inappropriate for an eight year old, but the move Kayla does… It’s almost too much to watch. My dick legit twitches.

It’s almost to the end of the song before they do some spinny dance move shit, and see me standing there. I smile and clap at their performance.

“JACAAARRB,” Julie yells as she goes to turn off the stereo. “You’re not supposed to see it, it’s not finished yet!”

I’m looking at Kayla, she has a sheen of sweat on her body and her breathing is heavy. She’s in yoga pants and a tight tank, her body on full display. She sees me checking her out, bites her bottom lip and shyly looks away. Hot as hell.

“JAKE!!” Julie yells again, snapping me out of perv mode.

“What’s up Ju-ju, that was really good!” I high five her and she beams back.

Mom and Dad come into the room, “What’s with all the yelling in here?” Mom asks concerned.

“Oh good,” Julie says. “You’re all here, watch our routine, Micky’s been practicing with me.”

“Oh, no.” Kayla says. She’s embarrassed in front of my parents. “Maybe… wait till it’s finished, Julie?” she asks, hopeful.

“No… c’mon Micky, please?”

Kayla looks to Julie, and then to me, a huge smirk slowly develops. “I’ll do it if Jacaaaarb does it too.”

“Okay then!” Julie yells, pulling me by my arm into the middle of the ‘dance floor’ and then moving my parents to sit on the bed to watch.

I stand next to Kayla and put my hand on the small of her back, placing my thumb just under the hem of her tank and rubbing gently. She feels it, goosebumps break through her skin. I bend down and whisper in her ear, “You are in so much trouble, Missy.” She closes her eyes and shivers slightly, but I notice.

I try to keep up with the dance routine but I’m a jock, not a dancer, I suck and end up falling in a tangle of my own arms and legs on the floor. Kayla stands above me, laughing so hard she has to hold her stomach. I grab her legs so they give out under her and she falls on top of me. Julie jumps on top of both of us, yelling that we’re not taking it seriously.