Ryan Hunter

get us on a more personal level.
    And when this really small smile tugged on her lips for a millisecond, I knew I scored. But she stopped it immediately and made a whiny face instead. “I really don’t know—”
    “I do,” I said firmly, and since she’d always given in to my pushing in the past few days, I added, “And now stop arguing.” We stared at each other’s eyes for the length of a breath. It was hard not to reach up and stroke her rosy cheek and that silky soft hair.
    In the end she let out a deep sigh . “Can I shower first?”
    “Oh please, do that, ” I said. She really needed some pepping up before we went where I had planned to. I dropped onto her bed, all set for waiting until she was ready to leave. But then my gaze fell on a pile of photo albums.
    She noticed they were lying there exactly when I did and grabbed them before I could. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.”
    Aye sir! I lifted my hands, palms up to show my innocence. “Nothing,” I solemnly swore. But then I couldn’t resist mocking her. “Apart from your diary and maybe your lacy underwear.”
    I knew she wanted to smile at that, because a set of lovely dimples appeared on her cheeks, but she tried to look more shocked than infatuated.
    When she disappeared from the room, heading for the shower, I really intended to be nice and not touch anything. But after a couple of minutes I got bored and started to look around the room. At the end of her bed, a bit of plaid flannel peeked out from under the comforter, and I leaned forward to pull out whatever it was. It turned out to be the bottoms of her jammies, really cute boy shorts. A gray tank top was there too, and I had a very intense vision of her wearing it when I would press her against me for a hot goodnight kiss.
    Stuffing the things back under the quilt, I stood and walked over to her desk. There must have been a pile with a billion books, but nothing that I would be interested in. There wasn’t any Stephen King or Joe Hill. Just loads from someone called Kenyon, and there were pictures of half-naked guys on most of them. Hunky guys. Was that Liza’s preference? I looked down at myself, lifting my shirt, and decided if she went for the muscular built, then I was just her man.
    Lowering into her desk-chair, I spun around a few times, until I started to get dizzy. I did the same amount of spins into the opposite direction, then I stopped, grabbed the edge of the desk, and pulled myself toward it with the chair. It was a nice place to sit and do homework…if you were a girl. Because she had this really terrible poster of High School Musical hanging above her desk.
    The drawers to my right called to me, and I thought it would be okay to take a look inside, because Liza was only gone for five minutes and she wouldn’t be back too soon. There were all kinds of note pads in the first drawer, some pens, and a box of tissues. Probably for the moments when her books turned into real tear jerkers, I thought with a grim smile.
    As I moved to the second drawer, I immediately regretted opening it. Fuck me blind, there lay her diary. I slammed the drawer shut. But after a half-minute of chewing my lip, I opened it again and took out the little book with a heart drawn around the word diary on the front. There could be a page or two about me in it. I gulped, fighting a hopeless battle against my curiosity. Because, let’s face it, it wasn’t a question of wrong or right, it was simply a matter of never leave a guy alone in your room .
    With my heart thumping like that of a silly little girl, I opened the book and skimmed to the last entry.
    August 17 th . That was yesterday. I cut a glance to the closed door, making sure no sound came from outside, announcing Liza would come back. Then I started reading…

Chapter 9
     
    Dear Diary,
    I don’t know what’s happening. One moment I think the entire world is okay, and the next—BAM—I’m totally knocked out of my shoes. I’m a soccer player now. Well, I try to be, but we’ll see how much of a good idea that turns out to be. I did it for Tony, because he’s behaving really strange since he came back from camp. There’s this Barbie Clone, who doesn’t leave his side ever. I hate her.
     
    Yeah, that was totally Liza. Grinning at the name she’d picked for Summers, I skimmed over the next paragraph to where she pointed out exactly why Cloey was the wrong girl for Tony, and why she was the right one. I couldn’t contradict in any