[Excerpt] No More Maybes (a No More Maybes novel)

Three

Agreeing to go to a dance with someone always seemed to create this weird kind of pseudo-dating situation that catapulted you back four or five years, where dating involved holding hands at school while you talked to your friends.

And, it was no different this time. Cassidy took things a little further, as per usual, and could be found attached to Declan's face more often than not. Jaime insisted on staying close to me, but I luckily only suffered the occasional unexpected kiss on the cheek.

It's not that I didn't like him or anything; we'd been friends for years, he was good-looking, he was nice and he seemed genuinely pleased we were going to the dance together. I'd just always been slightly weird about the whole pseudo-dating thing.

Actually, I've just always been slightly weird... About dating too.

With a little over five weeks to go until the dance, Rachel was going with Mike – having given up on Murray – and I was relatively sure something was happening with Beat and Becca, though they were keeping it on the down low.

Cole still smiled and nodded to me whenever we passed each other, but we hadn't spoken outside English class. He must have known something was up with Jaime since the guy rarely left my side at breaks now. Still, it wasn't like it should bother me. I didn't know Cole. He'd had an opportunity to ask and he'd openly said he wasn't interested.

Whatever, I was going to let it go.

Jaime slid his arm around me and kissed my cheek. "You ready for this afternoon?" he asked.

My mind was blank for a moment as I tried to pull it away from Cole's smile and remember what was happening this afternoon. Maybe I'd agreed to a date with Jaime that I'd forgotten?

"Our fearless leader is always ready to take on Kelly and those nit-wits." Beat smiled, her eyes implying she knew my mind had wandered and I owed her for coming to my rescue.

"What? Of course!" I laughed, finally remembering it was stupid Sports Afternoon and the senior teams had re-formed two teams for a match that afternoon. "We'll crush her."

"As long as the weather holds out," Declan said, momentarily not stuck to Cassidy's face.

I scoffed. "Weather, stop soccer? Oh, that's right! I forgot you guys don't know what it's like to run around in the dirt." They were all swimmers, so a) they were already wet when they trained and competed, and b) they usually did so inside where it wasn't freezing, muddy, or possibly hailing.

Declan made a face at me but he laughed.

"Speaking of, we should go get changed," Beat said.

I looked at the time; we had about twenty minutes until the game started. I looked up, locking amused eyes with Cole across the courtyard, and found I couldn't look away.

"That you should. We will be there cheering you on, ladies!" Mike said, enthusiastically.

"Yep, yep, we'll be the ones on the pitch," I said absent-mindedly as I stared at Cole.

"Come on, Rory, we need to go." Beat tugged on my arm.

"Yep, on my way."

I was about to lean down to pick my bag up, my eyes still locked with Cole's, when Jaime turned my head to look at him. He tucked a piece of hair behind my ear and smiled.

"I'll see you there." He seemed to look over my shoulder as he kissed my cheek.

"Um, sure... Bye guys!" I called as Beat pulled me out of there.

"You know, you really shouldn't be staring at other guys when you're with Jaime..." Beat said slowly as we hurried to the locker room.

"I'm not...with Jaime. Well, we're not dating."