My Knight in Shining...Ah, Screw It. He's an Egotistical Asshole.

Toby’s POV.

I shifted on the toilet seat until I heard the click of a door. I immediately opened my door, and peered into the hallway. Max walked past, fuming. I suddenly felt very guilty for how mad he was. Stupid Jacob and his bi-polar issues, he should really see a doctor.

“Max….” I reached out to touch his shoulder, I felt like it was my job to ease the situation. He ignored me, and continued up the stairs. Mumbling something about his last name…

“Come On.” Jacob’s voice said from behind me, as he grabbed my outstretched arm and yanked me towards the stairs.

“Dude, what the hell was that?” I asked, looking at yet another fuming face. Something serious must have gone down out there.

“What the hell was that!? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?” He screeched
“What the hell was with you ignoring our project, and hanging out with my cousin!?” I flinched at his tone. WTF was his problem? Asshole didn’t even know how nice it felt to be able to talk to Max about my brother and have him be considerate about it.
“He was giving me closer over my dead brother, asshole.” I said, ripping my hand away from his angry grasp, and storming childishly up the steps.
Jacob’s face was shell shock. I walked into the hallway, looking for some rotting door that probably belonged to my enemy. Unfortunately, I didn’t find a rotting door. But I did find a blue one, and I opened it.

Whoa. His room was not what I expected. It was relatively clean for one thing, and it had a really cool variation of blue and black colors. He surprisingly had a huge CD player, with tons and tons of CD’s stacked on top of it. He had a desk with a laptop, a fancy one of course, and on it was our poster for our project. So he had been waiting for me….

“Toby I-.”
“Look, I know you didn’t know, and it’s ok. I’m sorry I made you wait. Can we just get the project done?” I asked a little irritated. Surprisingly, Jacob didn’t fight back, but went into a closet in the hallway and grabbed a box of markers.

“Did you bring your notes?” He asked, passing me on his way into the room.

“Yeah.” I said, eyes glued to the stacks of CD’s. I wonder if we have the same taste in music? I got over and my eyes went wild. Scanning over the Albums I already had on my ipod, and some that I had actually thought about getting, but kept putting it off. I picked them up, letting short gasps escape from me as the realization to my question became obvious. We had almost the exact taste in music. Am I on Candid Camera?

“What song do you want to hear?” Jacob’s soft voice came from close behind me. Actually, fairrlyyy close behind me, I actually jumped a little when I heard it.

I eyed the CD in my hand, and smiled. I pressed the open button on his fancy shmancy player, and inserted the cd….waited for it to load, and went to the song that I had eyed. It was a song I liked to dance to in my pj’s. But of course, I wouldn’t tell Jacob that.

“Hey girl, whats your name?
I think I caught you looking my way
Do you wanna know, how to get me all to your own?
Weekends work the best,
I'll pick the place you do the rest,
Hey now don't be shy, but you got to keep me in line
Love at first sight, never thought it could happen to me
but you made me believe…”

The lyrics to “Kidnap My Heart” By The Click Five started to play through the speakers, and immediately I smiled, forgetting the heated atmosphere with Jacob, and started dancing. Jacob sat on his bed, and just looked at me with a weird expression.

Once the song stopped, I laughed at myself and sat down near the floor with the poster. I hummed the next song to The Click Five on the CD as Jacob got up from his bed and approached me smirking.

“I didn’t know you could dance.” Was all he said. Mhmm, blunt much?

“You don’t know a lot about me.” I stated simply.

“I’d like too…” I looked up startled by what he had said. His eyes were sincere, and unfocused as his gaze swept across my face. I suddenly felt terrible. What was I doing? Egging him on? He couldn’t know anything about me. That would be bad, very bad.
“Wouldn’t everyone?” I joked it off.

“Hey, let’s get to the project, k?” I said, cautiously.

“The project can wait. Tell me about yourself…” He asked putting his hand over my hand, which was coloring in bubble letters. An electrical shock sparked there, but not the painful kind. My eyes opened wide at his hand. Did he feel that too?

“I was kidding Jacob.” I said, reaching for another marker with my free hand.

“Yea, well. I wasn’t.” His tone was serious.

I debated how well I could get out of this, but I couldn’t fathom a way. I groaned.

“What do you want to know?” I whined.

He just smirked.

“What’s your favorite color?” He asked.

“Red.”

“Favorite drink?”

“Root Beer.”

“Do you have any animals?”

“I had a pet rabbit when I was little. But it died.”

“What’s your mom’s name?”

“Annette.”

“Dad’s?”

I hesitated, trying to gulp down the big lump that formed at mention of my father.

“J-John.”

“You Ok?” Jacob immediately grabbed hold of my shoulder, and scanned me for any sign of pain.

“Huh? Yeah. I just… don’t like my dad.”

“Yeah. I hate my parents too.” Jacob agreed. HA. If only it was that simple. But he didn’t know that I ACTUALLY had a reason to hate my father. A very, very legit reason. (*I love that word!)

“Lol. Who doesn’t?” I laughed briefly.

“Anyways, what’s your story?” I asked, noticing that Jacob’s hand was off of mine. I took it as a chance to keep coloring, and writing.

“Blue, Root Beer-like you, Claries, and Ronnie.” He said answering all the above questions.

“Ha. How long have you and Max known each other?” I asked, grabbing a blue marker.

“Twelve years. Unfortunately, our parents are pretty close.”

I furrowed my eyebrows. “That’s unfortunate, why?” I asked. Looking up at him for an answer, but I darted my eyes back down, once I saw that he already had his gaze on me. The blush creeping up my neck wanted to laugh at me, but I tried to smother it.

“We just don’t get along like we use to.” Jacob sighed, joining in the marker fun by coloring along with me.

“That’s a shame. Max is really cool.” I said, shifting my position on the floor so that I was on my stomach.

I swore while I was doing so, that I could hear Jacob say, “Cool enough to break my heart.” But I couldn’t determine if my mind was playing tricks on me or not.
“So. What do you do in your free time?” I asked.

“I like to play tennis, or other sports. I’m captain of the lacrosse team, and soccer team.” He smiled widely. HA! He actually thought that that would impress me. So Ignorant.

“That doesn’t impress me.” I said, giving him a smirk of my own.

“What if I tell you, that I hold a lot of charity events with the power I have as captain?”

“No way. You don’t do that.” I said, disbelieving.

“Uhm, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

“Wow… that’s like, nice.” I said.

He just laughed. “Yeah, Tobbes, I’m quiet capable of that, believe it or not.”

I suddenly felt bad. “No. I mean- I didn’t mean- I just- Never mind. Bottom line, THAT impresses me.”

“Score. I was hoping that would earn me some brownie points.”

I laughed. “Indeed it did.”

“Ugh. This project is so lame.” I complained, writing down facts, while being coherent all at the same time.

“I don’t know. I’m kind of glad that we were partners.” Jacob admitted, and I stopped writing. Why was he all of a sudden being so genuine today?

“Hm? Why’s that?” I asked, a little shy of the answer myself.

“I’m just happy I got to know you better, that’s all. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it does to me.” I stopped my strokes of coloring. Had he just said that?

“Yeah. Me too.” I said honestly, giving him a true smile.
He stopped what he was doing, and turned a peach-y shade as I smiled.

It was kind of quiet after that. “So. Were you close to your brother.”

I almost chocked at the abruptness of his question.

“Yeah. He related to me well with all of our family issues.”

“Wow. Then he must have meant a lot.”

“Yeah… he did.” I said, remembering back to my past, and how I wasn’t cold, and reclusive when he was still around.

“I still bring flowers to his grave whenever I can. But that’s hard now, because it’s located back in Georgia.”

“Hey. If you want… I could drive you down there on a certain weekend.”

I gapped like a fish as to what he said. “Uh- y-yeah. Gee, thanks. That would be great.” I asked, excited to go check on my little brother. Well he would have been older than me, but he died young.

“It’s nothing, really.”

I think I approve of this new Jacob. It made it harder to deny that I wanted to kill him, and that was difficult because the feelings were still there. So I was confused. I thought they were only cover-up feelings so I wouldn’t hate him. But I was starting not to hate him, and the feelings were just getting stronger.
Almost hard to ignore. I wouldn’t mind so much, actually if it wasn’t for the fact that my eyes treated Jacob like eye-candy, and couldn’t help but glance at him every few seconds or so. We were actually opening up pretty well. We played twenty questions, and some were even embarrassing. But he didn’t make fun of me for them; he was really nice about it. I was still getting over my shocked state, at his honesty, but figured out that we had a lot in common.

He was actually much more deep, than I would have ever suspected. He liked to read poetry, and old books like Pride and Prejudice, and Midnight’s summers dream, and of course Romeo & Juliet. A thought crossed my mind for a split second when I was finishing up the poster.

I wonder if people at school knew this side of Jacob…? But by how everyone stereotyped him as the typical jock. A stereotype, that even I was guilty of, I was almost certain they didn’t. I felt like I had a special secret to keep for Jacob. It made me kind of funny-feeling in my stomach to know that, too.

“DONE!” I shouted, flopping on my back and sighing out of relief.

Jacob chuckled at my body sprawled out on his floor.

“Did I mention I hate history?” I asked.

“No, in fact. I think you left that one out in your hate list.”

“Damn. Well I do.” I joked, and he grinned.

“You hungry?” He asked, walking to the door. I could have sworn I heard voices outside of it too, but I might be delusional from the long-ass project.

“No.” I said, propping myself up on one elbow.

“You sure?” He smiled evilly. What was he up to? He still hadn’t slowed his pace towards the door.

“Yeah.”

“You sure a party isn’t on your menu?”

“Huh?” I asked, but before I could make since of anything, Blaire darted through the door with a huge grin on her face. In her hands was a giant clothing cover-up.

I gave them confused looks.
“What are you doing here?” I asked her.
“Jacob contacted me, and asked if I would convince you to come to the party!”

What a liar. He said he was going to the bathroom all those times.

“He even said he’d cover the costs of your dress.” She squealed excitedly.

“My wha-?” I stared, wide eyed at the giant cover. NO. It couldn’t be, could it? There was noooo way that that was… my dress?

Jacob shrugged guiltily as his cheeks turned a bright red.

Blaire unzipped the bag, and sure enough. Sitting on the inside was the beautiful black dress.

“Oh my God.” I gasped. “You didn’t have to get that!” I told her, feeling very ashamed.
“Yeah, I already went back to the mall and bought it after I dropped you off at home yesterday. I ran into Jacob and he was really nice. I told him about how I was going to surprise you with this dress to try and convince you to come to the party.” She whispered.

“Can you believe he offered to pay for not only the dress, but matching shoes?” She herself gasped, and dug in a duffle bag and brought out a pretty pair of sleek, black heels.

I was literally speechless. J-JACOB had done all of this? I was way out of line when I though he was nice. He was the nicest person I knew. I felt teary-eyed. No one had ever cared that much to do that for me before… I was completely grateful.

“Thank you, so much.” I said walking to him.

“I’ll repay you as soon as I can.”

“It was no problem, your reaction was enough.” I smiled, remembering what he had said earlier today. He stood there awkwardly

“HOLY CRAP! IS THAT PEANUT BUTTER IN YOUR HAIR!?” Blaire gasped. I turned, and nodded sheepishly.

“Well, we have no time then, we need to get you ready pronto.” She said, looking up into space, and tapping her foot continuously on the floor.”

“Hey, Jake.” She said, addressing Jacob.

“Do you have a guest bedroom or something?”

“Yeah, two doors down.”

“Alright, follow me Toby, we’re getting you ready for the party.”

I was going to protest, but being here around everyone kind of sort of… made me happy. Even though I was ashamed to admit it, it really did. Besides, Max was right. I probably shouldn’t be alone tonight. This was a better idea. I smiled and shook my head at a determined Blaire.
“Wait, don’t you need like makeup and hair utensils?” I asked Blaire as we entered the soft purple guest bedroom.

“ADAM!” Blaire screamed, poking her head out into the hallway. Moments later, Adam arrived in the door. Or what I thought was Adam. He had wires tangled all around him, and another giant cover in one arm, which I assume held Blaire’s dress, and different bags of makeup in the other. I doubled over in laughter. Adam just gave me a pissed look.

“You are so whipped.” I told Adam teasingly.

“Great to see you too Toby.” He spat, sarcastically.

“Thank you Adam.” Blaire said innocently, and Adam’s expression soon melted into a warm smile, directed towards Blaire.

“No problem, see you guys at the party.” Adam said sheepishly before walking away.

Blaire and me just added some “Mhmmm’s.” As she shut the door and faced me.

“You ready?” She asked mischievously, cocking up one eyebrow.

“Will I die?” I asked, taking in her remotely terrifying expression.

“No, silly!” She laughed.

“Then, yes.” I answered, and let Blaire sweep me into the bathroom. Who knows how long it would be till I was allowed out of there.