My Butterfly

you can’t help him tonight, and we’ll search the whole school for your ball. The first forty-eight hours are the most critical.”
    She gave me a wary look. Then, she glanced at the phone and then back up at me. She was clearly agitated. But I couldn’t tell if it was because of me or because of the fact that she couldn’t find her ball. She had better not be upset that she couldn’t help Jeff. That little…
    She snatched the phone out of my hand.
    “Number four,” I said.
    “What?” she asked.
    “He’s number four on speed dial,” I said.
    She pressed a key and then brought the phone to her ear. After a couple of rings, I heard Jeff pick up. He loudly called her a toolbag, and I cringed.
    Julia glanced up at me and rolled her eyes.
    “Jeff,” she said. “This is Julia.”
    I heard Jeff verbally recoil and apologetically take back his greeting.
    “It’s fine,” she said, smiling. “Jeff, I’m calling because I can’t make it tonight. The test isn’t for a couple of weeks. Can we maybe get together sometime later this week?”
    I heard his voice through the phone’s speakers when she finished talking, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying.
    “No, I’m up at school,” she said. “I borrowed Will’s phone.”
    Her explanation made me smile. I quickly cleared my throat and wiped the smirk off my face.
    She ended the call a moment later and handed the phone back to me.
    “Thanks,” she said. “You’ll help me look for it?”
    Ugh, her eyes were doing this soft pleading thing, and it was taking everything in me not to pull her close.
    “Of course,” I managed to say without sounding too eager. “It would be my pleasure.”
    ...
    “It’s not back here,” I heard her say.
    I could hear the frustration in her voice.
    “No one would take it, right?” she asked.
    “No, no one would take it,” I said. “It’s here somewhere. Let’s go look down the hall. Maybe it rolled down there or something.”
    I watched her take a deep breath and then sigh.
    “Okay,” she eventually agreed.
    I smiled and waited until she was by my side to start toward the hallway and to ask her my question.
    She eventually caught up, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to ask.
    “So, what’s your answer?” I blurted out.
    My words had come out kind of sheepish. I cleared my throat and concentrated on producing something in a lower octave and a little less Bo Peep.
    “What answer?” she quipped back.
    “The note I gave you before history class,” I said, hoping it would jog her memory.
    “Aah,” she said, smiling. “That answer.”
    I watched her peek under a table near the office and then keep walking.
    “Well?” I asked again.
    She stopped and squared up to me. She looked as if she were really thinking hard about it.
    “No,” she finally said and then started walking again.
    I hesitated for a second but then caught back up to her.
    “Now, have you really thought this through?” I asked her. “You can take some time if you need it. Tell me tomorrow or the next day or the next day or any day when the answer is yes .”
    “I don’t need time,” she said.
    I stopped and smiled.
    “You do realize it’s only a date?” I asked. “If you said yes , you wouldn’t be locked into anything.”
    She turned her face up at me and smiled.
    “It’s not so easy hearing no, is it?” she asked.
    I paused and tried to hold back my grin.
    “Julia, Jules,” I said, as if I were a used-car salesman. “Jules, look, no rocks this time,” I said, showing her my open palms and then the inside of my jeans pockets. “No big, rubber balls. I’ll even let you drive my truck.”
    I held out my keys.
    She looked at me sideways and sympathetically smiled, as if I were the weird kid who was completely oblivious to his social status.
    My own smile grew, and I took her silent cue, as I watched her sympathetic grin fade into her new smile—the one that I already loved. I remembered it being that cute, girly kind of smile—that smile that made you wonder why you despised girls so much just the year before. But now, it was sexy too. It was girly and sexy, all at the same time. Damn it, she was too darn cute not to smile back at her, even when she was saying no. And maybe it wouldn’t be now, but I would eventually wear her down. Everyone has a breaking point. Retreat. Replenish. Conquer. I smiled wider.
    “So, Ben’s having a bonfire next weekend,” I said.
    “So I’ve heard,” she