If Only

"Cupcakes"

My date with Carter was good. Okay, I mean. No, I liked it. It was great. I don't know. Normally, I would have been squealing in excitement and freaking out about it to all of my friends. He was everything I ever wanted, at least, everything I ever thought I wanted. He was charismatic and considerate and hot. Oh yeah, and actually my age. It was the kind of date that I dreamed of having since middle school. But my dreams were different now. And my head was full of a whole lot of Ian. I wished I could've distracted myself from him because then it probably would've been the night of my life. I hated that he consumed my thoughts. I hated that I let him. I hated that I loved thinking about him anyway. 

What I truly hated was that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. Ian was probably the most inconvenient person for me to have feelings for, other than a serial killer or something. Not only was there the dumb "ruin our friendship" thing, but also the boss thing and the age difference thing (which also happened to be an illegal thing).

"So," Carter had asked, "can I kiss you?"

As much as the sane teenager part of me wanted to, I couldn't say yes. 

"Maybe another time."

"I'll see you at work then." The disappointment in his voice was evident.

I had let my back fall against the door to my house, sinking down to the ground. This was definitely not how seventh grade me pictured the date ending. But hell, what's life without a little self-sabotage? 

Maybe I should give Carter another shot, I thought as I watched him fool around with some camera equipment right outside the production office.

"Hey," a voice spoke softly from above me.

I looked up to see Ian leaning on my desk with his left hand. Shocked, I let out, "hi."

He recognized my surprise and I could tell that the events of the night prior were on his mind. I didn't think that he would talk to me so soon after.. what did I call him?.. stupid?.

"We're doing a Smash Bros video for the games channel," he paused for a moment. "Do you want to join?"

"Um, yeah," I said gladly. "Yeah, I'll be there in a sec."

"Okay," a smile tugged at his lips. "I'll be there, too." After another moment of standing there, he left my desk.

I smiled to myself. Maybe things didn't have to be so weird.

I looked around the office. Other members of the cast were typing up scripts, talking to the producers, or off shooting other videos. I saved the document I had been working on on my laptop and shut the lid. After grabbing hold of my crutches to stand up, I headed down to the games set to meet Ian. 

When I got there, I saw him sitting on the couch, practicing with Robert. They were both trash talking each other as they focused on their moves. 

I missed that. It hadn't been long since we last played together, but I was tired of for real fighting with him. Not that I'd exactly call it fighting. It seemed like whenever we "fought" we weren't even really addressing the actual issue. Or at least I wasn't. But it's not like I was just going to straight up tell Ian that I had feelings for him. I know it's supposed to help to talk about stuff like that, just let it out, but I figured it would just go away soon. It's more like a crush, and it was probably just one of those "want what you can't have" things. I mean, that was super immature and that type of thing had never happened to me before. My crushes had always been pretty standard: boys in my science class or something... and you know, my age. Ian was just.. different. He didn't feel like a normal crush. He didn't feel like the cute boy that made me nervous. He felt like the man I would never want to leave. The man whose voice made me blush, whose smell made me calm, whose looks made me smile, whose touch made me pulse with heat.