"Hey Mike!" Ben called from the grill.
Danny and Felix ran over with big grins on their faces. "You bring sushi again?" Felix asked greedily as Danny grabbed Mike's grocery bag.
"What else do I ever bring?" Mike asked with a smirk.
Jocelyn looked away from the site as the others began to swarm around Mike and his sushi bag.
"What took you so long?"
"Why are you late?"
"Did you actually bring sushi?"
"Aw man, sushi again? You can't be serious!"
Jocelyn rolled her eyes. His arrival wasn't that great…
She looked over at him again. Not much had changed. His hair was still short and spiky, and he still wore his wire-framed glasses from the eighth grade. It seemed that both he and Felix had decided that they were much too cool for contacts. Jocelyn rolled her eyes before she continued to inspect him.
Mike was much taller now, and his arms seemed quite powerful, possibly from playing tennis all through high school. Both Jennifer and Jessica had said that they saw him at all of the Robinson versus Pacific View tennis matches. His large dark eyes still glinted with their usual shrewdness, and it seemed that his acne had completely gone away. His braces were gone now, too…As much as she hated to admit it, Jocelyn actually thought that he looked kind of cute now, and not like the nerd she had been with in the first place. Maybe it wouldn't be quite so hard to ignore him today, if he seemed so different than before. However, he was wearing his usual outfit of a white polo shirt and jeans, so that made it a bit better.
Jocelyn pretended to look busy as she searched through her CDs as a new song came on.
"Everytime I think of you, I always catch my breath…I'm still standing here, and you're miles away…And I wonder, why, you left me…And there's a storm that's raging, through my frozen heart, tonight..."
Gee, appropriate, Jocelyn thought sarcastically.
"I hear your name, in certain circles…And it always makes me smile…I spent my time, just thinkin about you, and it's almost, driving me wild…"
Thank you, Tyler Hilton…Jocelyn thought bitterly to herself. She would change the song, but then again, so many people within the family liked the song that she couldn't bring herself to do it. Why don't you go on singing about how you're lying to yourself about missing the girl?
"But its my heart that's beggin' down this long distance line tonight, and I ain't missin' you at all…Since you've been gone... Away, I ain't missin' you…No matter what I might say…"
And there it is, she thought sadly. She continued to listen to the song, and then looked over at Mike, who had now joined the other guys over at the grill, possibly drooling over the prospect of freshly barbequed food.
"And I am sendin' you, a signal tonight…You don't know…how desperate I've become…And It looks like, I'm loosin' this fight…"
'But it's my heart that's breakin…' Jocelyn thought softly along with the next line of the song, not daring to sing it out loud. She knew she was being stupid, but she didn't care. Singing a line like that out loud with him so close by was as good as admitting that she missed him…Missed his touch, his kiss, his warm and sweet and safe embrace…
Snap out of it, she commanded herself. She looked away from Mike and the guys, and searched for a new CD to put in, or at least another song on the track list to play…
