I woke up with a start. My back hurt and I straightened, rubbing my eyes. Then I realized where I had fallen asleep: the kitchen. And Mike Harding was out on the chair next to mine, his head buried in his arms upon the table.

I glanced around in confusion and saw plates in the sink and my homework spread out on the table. Outside, it was starting to get light.

I stared blearily at the clock and strained to remember why we were there.

I remembered doing my homework while Mike had systematically demolished all the leftovers in the refrigerator. Then we’d talked for a bit about random things and I realized that hanging out with Michael Harding wasn’t as unpleasant as I had expected it to be. Then, while I had been telling him a funny story about our Calc teacher, he had started nodding off.

I must have fallen asleep after that. Why hadn't I woken him up and kick him out?

I stared at him and sighed. If my parents found him here, they were so going to kill me.

I shook him awake.

“What?” he groaned, barely lifting his head.

“Mike, you have to leave. My family will come down soon and they’ll kill me if they see you.”

“Why? We still have all our clothes on,” he said sleepily.

Inexplicably, I found myself blushing. “Mike! Come on. This is no time for joking around. Open your eyes.”

He put his head back down on the table and turned it to the side. He peered up at me through thick eyelashes any girl would kill for. “What’s the problem?”

“My dad hates you.”

“That’s funny. We’ve never even met. Dads usually wait until they catch me in their daughters’ bedrooms before they start hating me.”

I ignored his attempt at humor. At least, I hoped he was trying to be funny. “You’re a Harding.”

“How would he know that?”

“You look like one,” I said exasperatedly.

He smiled faintly. “Wow. You’re really nervous, aren’t you? Is your dad that scary?”

“Not to me, he isn’t. You might find him moderately impressive once he gets into full voice, though.”

“Nah. I’m used to getting yelled at,” he said lazily, burying his face in his arms with a sigh, apparently fully intent on going back to sleep.

I yanked at his arm. “You have to go!”

“All right, all right. I’m going.”

I waited. “You’re not moving!”

“I am,” he said, and slouched in his seat.

“Do you have a death wish?”

He opened his eyes again. He looked thoroughly amused. “Why is it such a big deal that I’m here?”

“Because. You just slept over. My parents have a tendency to over-act their over-reacting.”

Michael yawned and stretched. “Your dad may not like me, but mothers always adore me,” he said confidently. It was then that I realized that he had no intention of leaving until someone in my family caught him here. Mike liked living on the edge, I guess. And he appeared to enjoy making things difficult for me.

I stood up, grabbing him by the back of his jacket, and hauled him to his feet like a spoiled child. He swayed a little unsteadily without his crutches so I put my hands on his shoulders to steady him.

He promptly slipped his hands around my waist and pulled me close before I realized what he was doing.

“Thanks for dinner,” he whispered, bending his head down.

His lips were mere centimeters from my own when the kitchen door opened and Aaron shuffled into the kitchen in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

I shoved Mike away hurriedly, and his lips landed on the side of my head before he crashed into the counter.

Aaron gaped at him. “Harding?”

Mike was too busy cursing because his injured foot had slammed into a stool.

Aaron stared at me. “What’s he doing here so early in the morning?”

“Shut up, Aaron!” I hissed. “If Mom and Dad hear you...”

“Yeah, shut up, Aaron. And you sleep in a teddy bear t-shirt? For heaven’s sake...” Mike rolled his eyes.

Aaron turned red. “Tonie gave it to me,” he said defensively.

I turned to Michael. “You. Go away. Now.”

“Can I have my crutches back first?”

I handed them to him, wishing his leg could miraculously heal and let him run out of the house.

“But what are you doing here?” Aaron pressed, though in a lower tone of voice.

“Me? Your cousin and I made mad— Do I have to paint you a picture?”

I kicked him hard in the shins.

“Ow! Jamie, do you want to maim me permanently?”

I pointed to the door, no longer able to speak. He grinned in response, still finding the entire situation remarkably funny.

“I get the point. I was just teasing you.”

He limped toward the exit then paused just beside me. “We should do it again some time,” he said thoughtfully. He kissed me kindly on the forehead and hurried away before I could hit him again.

“Jamie...” Aaron began in a menacing tone once Mike had gone.

“Oh, shut up,” I told him irritably, leaving the kitchen. I stomped up the stairs to my bedroom, still fuming.

Once I was alone in my room, the realization of what had almost happened hit me. Mike Harding had almost kissed me. On the lips. And by the look in his eyes before Aaron had come in, he had not been kidding around.

The question was, if Aaron hadn’t come in, would I have let him?

My heart thudded in my chest.

But why would he want to kiss me? Maybe, just maybe, he had been playing around. I could never tell when he was being serious or not.

I groaned and stamped my foot. Damn him!

One thing was for sure: I had to start avoiding Mike Harding. Those big blue eyes of his were far too dangerous.

I managed to avoid him for over week. It wasn’t too difficult. We only shared two classes, and he was always busy, presumably working on the gym wall or – if one chose to believe all the rumors – making out with various girls right up against the said wall. The latter only reinforced my most current opinion of him. Which was that he was a single-minded, incurable flirt who only thought about how to score with girls.

But all good things must come to an end, and my success in avoiding him came to an abrupt halt one sunny Tuesday afternoon.

I was in the east wing, enduring Amanda Altman’s anxious prattle.

“Are you sure you can get the band?” she asked me for the nth time.

I sighed. “Yes, Amanda. I will have the band and we will have the best prom ever. Now just shut up and call the decorations store like I told you to.”

She made a face and went down the corridor in a huff.

Really. The prom was stressing me out.

That was when the blow came.

“Ms. Jenkins,” a stern voice said behind me.

I froze for a fraction of a second then pasted on my best smile and turned around. “Hello, Mrs. Whitney.”

She was frowning. That was never a good thing. Of course, she was always frowning so seeing her was never a good thing in itself.

“Er...is something wrong?” I asked in a small voice.

“I’ve just met with Mr. Harding and spoke to him about the mural’s progress.”

“Oh.” And then I wondered, stupidly, what it had to do with me.

Her frown deepened. “The problem is that there’s hardly any. And he told me that it would go much faster if he had help.”

“He has help, hasn’t he? Some kids from the art club showed up last Saturday.”

“That was more than a week ago, Ms. Jenkins, and they apparently haven’t showed up since. I remember asking you to assist him.”

Damn it all. “I’m really not very artistic,” I laughed, looking around me frantically. “I can find some people—”

“Ms. Jenkins, you’re the student body president. You’re their leader. No one will listen to a leader who doesn’t practice what she preaches. Now, I expect to hear that you’re helping him out next time I ask. All right, Jamie?”

I wanted to cry. She even used my first name. She only did that when she was about to send people off to detention.

She raised her eyebrows high. “Ms. Jenkins?”

“Yes.” I forced a smile. “I’ll do my best.”

“You just had to come crying to Mrs. Whitney, didn’t you?”

Mike was startled by my voice and his brush veered from its path and a wide, orange streak appeared in the sky. He turned to stare down at me, high on his ladder. “Do you see how high up I am? You could have fucking killed me, Jenkins. Or was that what you were trying to accomplish?”

I frowned at him. He had a point, but I was too annoyed to concede that much. It was after school and everyone else had probably gone home. As much as I wanted to do the same, I couldn’t. “Look, you could have just told her it’s a tough job instead of telling. You know we’d help you if we could.”

He climbed down and walked toward me. He seemed just as tall on the ground as he had on the ladder. “By ‘we,’ you’re including yourself?” He laughed in my face. “Please.”

“Look, I only stopped coming because I can’t paint and you can’t stand me!”

“You’re the one with problems being around me,” he said exasperatedly.

“Only because you keep doing stupid things! On purpose, to annoy the hell out of me! Obviously, you and I can’t work together, but now she expects us to. Next time she asks, tell her we are, and everyone wins!”

“Are you asking me to lie?” he asked me coolly.

Oh great. “It’s not like you’ve never done it before,” I snapped.

“All right. Give me one good reason and I’ll let you off the hook.”

“I don’t like you!”

“You were liking me just fine a week ago. You let me into your house and gave me food.”

“That was a mistake. You only did it to cop a feel!”

“Did I?”

“You tried to kiss me!”

“Jamie,” he began heavily, as if speaking to an idiot, “if I had really wanted to kiss you, I would have kissed you, and you wouldn’t have complained.”

“You are unbelievable,” I gaped. “You are so completely full of yourself.”

“No, that reason just won’t cut it with Mrs. Whitney.”

I gave up. “I have heaps of homework and the student council. I also have a column in the newspaper. Some of us care more about school than others.”

Mike laughed coldly. “I have homework, too. And orchestra – which meets more often in a week than your council does, might I add. Plus I’m tutoring two freshmen in math and one sophomore who has no clue about what to do with a violin, I don’t know what he’s doing in orchestra at all. Got anything else?”

My brain had a meltdown. “You’re tutoring math?”

He threw his hands up and made a small snort of disgust, turning away from me.

“Why are you tutoring math?” I asked in a tiny voice.

“Because the school made me. Mrs. Whitney cornered me and talked me into signing up for the program.”

“Are you good in math?”

“God, Jamie. Are you stupid? No, they just want those kids to fail so they assigned them a big dumb jock as a tutor,’ he said sarcastically. “Go away. I’ll lie for you. You’ll just piss me off.”

“So, um, you play violin in orchestra?” I asked in what I hoped was a mollifying tone.

“Cello,” he snapped at me. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

I sighed. How could I leave? “What do you want me to do?”

“I want to die.”

“You just need more practice,” Mike said cheerfully from behind the trunk of his super flashy silver Mercedes where he was putting his brushes away.

I gave him a sour look. During our session, it had seemed that the more tired I felt, the more pleased he became. I sighed. “Do you do this everyday? I mean, if you do, you ought to be finished by now.”

“I can’t paint everyday. I told you. I’m busy. And I never paint for three hours straight.”

“Then why now—”

“Because. I wanted to make you suffer.” He slammed the trunk shut.

“I think I do hate you after all.”

His pocket started ringing and he quickly pulled out his cellphone. “Excuse me,” he muttered, and flipped it open.

I sighed again and scanned the empty school lot, his conversation in the background.

My stomach rumbled.

“Yeah, she’s with me,” I heard him say. “How do you know that?”

I turned to look at him. He had his phone to his ear and one foot was absently kicking his car’s rear right wheel.

“Tonie said what? Your girlfriend has a twisted mind. She only helped me paint.”

“Is that Aaron?” I asked him, startled.

He glanced at me. “Yeah, okay,” he said into the phone. “Here she is,” he added, and handed the phone to me.

I took it eagerly. “Aaron! You took my car! Now come pick me up, okay?”

There was a pause. “Um...yeah. Listen. I can’t.”

”What do you mean you can’t?” I demanded. “I’m starving and I’ve got a ton of homework. I want to go home!”

“About that. You can’t either.”

“What?”

“Well, your parents are out of town, anyway. And it’s the day before Tonie’s birthday. I kind of want the house to ourselves...It’s just for a few hours!”

Ew. “What? What about me? Where am I supposed to go?”

“You can come back around midnight.”

“Gee, thanks. And until then, I’ll just walk the streets, shall I?”

“Jamie, come on! This is important!” He sounded desperate.

“Aaron!”

“Look, you’re whining in my ear. Let me talk to Harding again.”

“No!”

“I’m hanging up, then—”

“Okay, okay!” I tapped Mike’s shoulder. He was moving stuff piled up on the front passenger seat to the back. “He wants to talk to you again.”

Mike took his phone back. “What?” There was a pause, during which he glanced at me. “Yeah...Yeah...” He glanced at me again and sighed. “Fine...I said fine already!” Another pause. “Okay, I don’t want to hear about that, for heaven’s sake. I’m hanging up now.” He threw the phone into the back. He raised an eyebrow at me. “Well? Are you going to get in or not?”

I blinked.

“Jamie, did you hear me? I’ll drive you over to Sam’s place.”

“You will?” I couldn’t help sounding incredulous.

His gaze turned flinty.

“Okay, okay! You’re not stupid, and you’re not heartless. I’m getting in!”