"Don't make promises you can't keep."
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Noah Reed is lost. Fed up with his constant attitude and need for self-destruction, his mother sends him to live out the rest of the year with his father in hop...
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I'm nervous.
I can't remember the last time I was nervous in this sort of way. Sure, I'd been a little nervous to see Dad after all the time we've spent apart. But this is a different kind of nerves.
The nervous I'm feeling right now as I stand on the wide front porch of the Rhodes' house is the kind of nervous that is reserved specially for girls. I can't even explain why I'm feeling this way, as it's not like I've never been around a cute girl before. However, I normally don't care. But things are different with Blake.
"Go ahead and ring the doorbell," Caroline says to my father, which has me rolling my eyes. Whatever good mood I'd been in last night has long since worn off, and I'm back to my usual state.
I shove past my father on the porch, my shoulder ramming into his. I don't bother to apologize. Instead, I press my finger down on the doorbell, deciding to get this over with already. The nervousness I'd been feeling before has already passed, and I keep telling myself that Blake Rhodes is just a girl. She's nothing special. She's merely an underclassman that has been nice to me a few times. Who cares?
Despite what I keep telling myself, I find it slightly harder to breathe when the front door opens to reveal no other than Blake herself. My gaze zeroes in on her, the background fading to nothing. For whatever reason, she completely captivates me.
Blake's dirty blond hair cascades down her shoulders in soft waves, her warm chocolate-colored eyes gleaming brightly as they meet mine. She offers me that signature smile of hers, only this time it really seems to reach her eyes. It also has my heart doing this weird racing pattern that I don't quite understand, so I ignore it.
"Hey!" Blake exclaims brightly. "You made it!" She sounds shocked, as if she thought I wouldn't show up. Or maybe she's talking to my dad. I can't tell.
"Of course we did, sugar!" Caroline says, taking a step forward and wrapping Blake in a hug. "You know Matt can't go a day without seeing your daddy. I swear he loves him more than me."
"I love you both equally," my dad teases as he steps into the house and sets a hand on Blake's shoulder in greeting. "I'm gonna head out back, okay?"
"Sure," Blake says to my father, "Mama and Daddy are already outside, so you might as well join them."
My father doesn't say a word to me before taking off with Caroline in tow. I take it he's still mad at me for accidentally catching the toaster on fire this morning. He can believe what he wants, but it really was an accident this time.
I realize I'm still standing on the porch when Blake turns to face me. Oddly, those nerves have returned, and they only seem to worsen with Blake looking at me, a taunting smile on her pretty lips that I'm paying way too much attention to.
"You can come in, you know." Blake purses her lips, a pink tint to her cheeks. I wonder if she'd noticed me staring at her lips, and I don't know why I even care. I'm not supposed to care about anything, yet whenever I'm around this blonde I seem to care about everything.
