Kiss Cam

Ch. 34 - Totes Hot

Winter break is over.

School is back.

Can I fall off the pier again?

Not only did I have to deal with preparing myself for school, but I had to live without my cell phone. It's at the bottom of the ocean right now, and all I can hope for is that Ariel found it and is as amused with it as a fork.

My mom refuses to buy me a new one as punishment for taking part in the lamp-breaking incident. Totally Wren's fault by the way. His punishment? No conditioner.

So, for the past four days, I've been using the house phone. Now, this could've been perfectly fine if I just had a normal family. That isn't the case.

I caught both of my parents several times in the act of listening in on my conversations. Even Wren got involved!

So, Asher and I really haven't had much time to talk about Tucker. Not that I'm complaining because I'd rather never bring him up ever again... ever.

My hopes and dreams are simply crushed when I get to my locker and find Tucker Philips leaning against it.

"Hey," he says nervously and moves from my locker.

I start putting in my combination, avoiding eye contact. "Hi."

"You didn't answer any of my calls."

"My phone is at the bottom of the ocean," I inform plainly.

"Oh." He pauses. "That sucks."

"Yeah."

You can just feel the awkwardness as it suffocates the hallway of students.

"Can we talk?"

"I don't know, can we?"

He laughs. "Seriously, Riley. I thought we were friends before-"

"Before you told me you were in love with my boyfriend?" I whisper-scream, slamming my locker and walking the opposite direction as him.

He runs to keep up with me. "Hey, that's not fair! I told you that to be honest with you because I consider you my friend! I'm never going to act on those feelings."

"Don't you consider Asher your friend?" I challenge his words. "Why didn't you tell him?"

"Why didn't you tell him?" he bites back.

I stop walking and lean against a wall near the staircase. "Maybe I did."

"I know you didn't," he says with an eye roll. "So, why didn't you?"

"I don't know," I answer honestly. "I-I just didn't feel like it was my place, okay? I don't know. I don't feel talking about this, Tucker."

He sighs. "Well, did you tell anyone else.. you know.. about me?"

I shrug.

"Riley, who did you tell? Wren? Sam? Zander? I mean, Sara already knew." He pauses. "Look, I'm not going to be mad at you.. I just want to know."

"I may have angrily vented about everything and told Sam and Zander," I mumble. "But they're the only two. And they promised not to tell anyone else."

He smirks.

"What?" I ask. "Why are you so smug? It's making me uncomfortable."

"You do care about my feelings!" he gasps. "Oh, I knew you weren't a colossal bitch!"

"Thanks?"

"No, thank you. If you really hated my guts, you would've outed me to the whole school, but instead you only told your two closest friends and made them promise not to tell anyone. Damn, Riley Green, you should be a saint."