Prologue
Only three people knew Hayden Curnow and I were dating. Me, him, and his sister, Elizabeth, usually known as El. We wanted to keep it that way, until my best friend, Alyssa, stopped liking him. I thought it wasn't fair; Hayden crushed on her for two years before moving on, and as soon as he does, she started caring for him. We both knew each other liked him, but neither thought anything would ever happen. But I figured, when Alyssa stopped liking him, then I'd tell her, Nicky, who was Alyssa's sister and also my close friend, and my brother, Tony. No one could know we were dating. Neither of us are actually supposed to date, our parents don't like it, especially since he's only 14. I, at least, should be able to make my own decisions, right? I mean, I'm 17! I should at least be able to date, but I live under my parent’s roof, and have to do as they tell me. Except I don't. At the time, I thought I had considered of all the consequences when people found out about us. Alyssa would be upset and probably cry, but we'd still be friends. If I told her after she got over him, she'd just be a little hurt.
Nicky would be in shock but laugh at it, we'd have plenty of giggles later in the future.
But reality was, nothing could prepare me for what would happen that night, while I got ready to go to my friend’s house where a bunch of us would be hanging out. And nothing could prepare me for the emotional roller coaster I would go through for a whole month and a half.
Chapter 1
Tony and I arrived a little early, but hey, early was better than late. My naturally wavy brown hair was up in a pony tail, and I only had a little black eyeliner around my brown eyes. I looked up at my 5'9, 19 year old brother Tony and grinned. He looked down four inches at me like I was crazy.
"Your hair is a mess; did you wear a hat today or something?" I asked him.
He sighed and patted his extremely curly hair,
"I wore my hood" he explained, looking in the car window trying to fix it.
"The wind isn't helping, just go in their bathroom and fix it" I said as a blast of wind blew at us, and eager to get out of the windy winter weather and into the Curnow’s warm house.
"But El's there" he said, looking at me.
Another secret, that everybody knew, Tony and El were dating. I say everybody knew because, well, everybody knew. And yes, that made mine and Hayden's relationship very awkward.
"Throw your hood on?" I suggested,
"That'll make total sense when we're in a warm house with a fire and hot chocolate, won't it, Annie?" he said sarcastically. I grinned again. "No. But you're stupid enough to do it."
He laughed and then went back to fixing his hair.
He sighed. "Not good enough, but I guess it'll do. I'm freezing".
We walked up the drive way and opened the door. I took a deep breath. Their house always smelled like veggies, and I loved the smell of veggies. There was also a peculiar smell that I couldn't put my finger on. I looked around the small, empty, cream colored greeting room. Since no one was there, we moved to the living room which was just down the hall, where the rest of the house began.
5 year old Hailey shyly announced, with her finger in her mouth, to her busy mother Samantha, "They're here".
Samantha looked up, surprised, and looked at the clock, "Oh! I didn't know it was that late!" She exclaimed.
Tony and I smiled, "Is there anything we can do to help?" I asked.
She was obviously getting, or trying to get, the fire started. Tony walked over to the fireplace, rearranged the logs, and put the newspaper in. He offered a piece of crumbled newspaper to Samantha to light. Which she did, and in no time at all, a large fire was going, and the comforting crackling brought El and Hayden downstairs. As soon as the fire had become intense, Hayden and I moved to the kitchen for the making of hot chocolate with the excuse to, ‘let them be alone’. In the kitchen I kissed him ‘hello’.
In the middle of making a big pot of sweet hot chocolate for everyone, Abi, Alyssa, Nicky, Jaden, and about five others arrived, sniffing the delicious and conflicting aroma of the fire, veggies, and hot coco.
Abi is Jaden's ex- girlfriend, but she's still his friend.
Jaden was Tony’s best friend for three years straight; he and I had had a huge thing for two years, but he was a 'good boy’ and wouldn’t date me until our parents approved. I ended up unsure of my feelings for him and told him. We broke up. But I guess you can’t say we broke up when we were never together. He's still hurt, but we still talk; sometimes. Despite Jaden and my being awkward around each other, we all had a great time. We also got to meet five other people we didn’t know.
"Okay! We have a few games here" El said as she walked out with cards, "We can play Uno, Go Fish, Bluff, or Skippo"
"Skippo!" I exclaimed.
"Ew, no! Lets play Uno" Tony said, giving me a scrunched up 'ew' face.
"I'm with Tony" Jaden said with a grin.
"Go Fish" Abi said softly.
We all looked at her, "Well you can't go wrong with a classic" Nicky commented.
Everyone agreed with Nicky and we played Go Fish for ten minutes before El won.
"What do you guys wanna play next?" El asked.
"Winner chooses!" Jaden said before anyone could say anything.
"Then lets play Bluff" El said with a silly grin.
Everyone protested knowing she was the champion of Bluff, but we played, and El won. Just as she won there was a knock on the door.
"I'll get it" Hayden said, getting up.
We all looked at each other.
"I thought everyone was here" Alyssa commented.
"I invited some other friends from my school" El explained, "This is Kristina and Jacob" she introduced.
Tony, Jaden and I jumped up to meet them, "Hi! I'm Annie" I said, offering my hand to Kristina to shake.
"What're we playing?" Jacob asked after everyone had presented their self.
We all looked at each other, "We just finished a game of Bluff" El replied.
"Oh. Who won?" Kristina asked.
"El" almost everyone replied at the same time. We all looked at each other and laughed.
"Nice" Jacob said with a wink to El, which turned Tony red.
Me, Alyssa, Hayden, and Nicky looked at each other, trying not to laugh.
"Now what to play? Does winner still choose?" El asked.
"Lets play Truth or Dare!" Kristina commented.
'Yeah's' went all around excitedly.
"Okay! Kristina, you start" El said, looking at her.
"I dare you to cuddle with Jaden" Kristina dared me.
All the excited chatter stopped instantly and everyone looked at me, her, and Jaden.
I looked at her bewildered face and gave her a slight shake of my head.
"Oh! I meant Hayden, sorry I'm really bad with names" she said with a nervous laugh.
It was almost like a sigh of relief went through the room.
I laughed, "Ew! Who would want to cuddle with him?" I said with a slight laugh and a wink in his direction.
Everyone 'Psh'ed'. He was just to cute to not want to cuddle.
I poked Hayden's firm abs, “Want more coco?” I asked standing up after we all got bored of playing.
“I got it” he replied, standing.
We made our way to the kitchen.
"So, who would want to cuddle with me, huh?" He asked, looking at me through his teasing eyes.
"Yeah. Who would want to cuddle with you" I answered teasingly.
"Oh. Ok." He replied, turning around.
I smiled hugely and tickled him, forcing him to turn around. He grabbed me around the waist. My hand went to his light brown hair, my eyes to his evenly spaced, hazel and green specked eyes.
At this point, nothing mattered, and everything around me faded away until there was only him. We kissed. As we broke for air, I saw Alyssa, Tony, Abi, and Jaden, who had all come to say good-bye, standing in the kitchen doorway.
