Stop Pretending. I Know You Really Love Me.

“So Hazel, are we having another movie night tonight?” Peyton asked me. It was Friday and we were heading to biology.

“Uh… yea.” I lied. Truth was, I was going on a date with Phoenix and Taylor and Summer were also going on a date. But Jay was staying home. Maybe if I get them alone for a couple of hours, Jay will finally ask her out.

“So what time should I be over?” She asked. I thought about this. Phoenix was picking me up around nine.

“Around nine.” I told her. This way I can make sure she actually stays and they won’t have that much time to yell at me.

“Sounds good.” She smiled as we took our seats.

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I sighed as I looked through my closet, once again preparing for a first date. This time though, Summer wasn’t here to help me pick out my outfit. Phoenix wouldn’t even tell me where we were going. He just said to bring my bathing suit.

After about half an hour I decided on a pair of jean shorts, a red tank top and my black bikini with peace signs under it, along with my blue flip flops. The bikini.

I took a shower and got dressed. Just as I finished the doorbell rang. I looked at the clock. 8:10. I ran down the stairs to the door. I smiled opening it but my smile faded when I saw Peyton.

“Peyton? What are you doing here?” I asked confused.

“Movie night. Remember?” She asked smiling.

“Oh right! Come inside. I have to get something upstairs.” I said. She stepped inside and I ran back up the stairs to Jay’s room.

“Jay, someone’s here for you.” It wasn’t a complete lie. She is here and Jay is the only one staying here.

“Is it Crystal? Tell here I’ll be down in a little bit.” He said tying his shoe. Crystal? I looked at his outfit. That was not a ‘stay-at-home-by-yourself’ outfit. He was going out somewhere. But with Crystal?!

“Jay I am only going to ask this once, so please don’t joke. Are you going on a date with Crystal?” I asked praying he would say no. He looked up sheepishly.

“Yea.” He said hesitantly.

“No!” I groaned.

“I’m sorry Hazel.” He apologized.

“Why Jay?! Why her?!”

“It’s not like I want to! She just has something over me.”

“What could be that big that you would go out with her?!”

“She kind of found out that I like Peyton.” He whispered. I glared at him and slapped his head.

“Ow! What was that for?!” He yelled rubbing his head.

“For being an idiot!”

“What?!”

“Peyton likes you!”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Everybody can see it Jay! You both like each other! That’s why I told her to come over!”

“You did what?!”

“I told her to come over for a movie night!”

“But everybody’s gone!”

“Exactly!” I sighed frustrated.

“Hazel!” He glared at me. I heard a door slam.

“Jay!” I heard Crystal’s voice yell up the stairs.

“No time to be mad now! I’ll get her out of the house!” I ran down stairs.

“Crystal!” I yelled stopping in front of her.

“What do you want?” She scrunched her nose like she smelt something bad.

“Jay’s running late. He told me there was something outside that he wanted you to see and for me to show you it.” I lied. I dragged her out of the house and to the back.

We stood there for five minutes as I tried to think of something to show her.

“Well? Where is it?” She asked impatiently.

“Just wait.” I bit my lip.

“Whatever. It’s cold. I’m going back.” She turned around and started walking back inside. I followed her to the house. She opened the door and stopped suddenly. I ran into her back.

“What the hell- Oh. My. God.” I breathed looking over Crystal’s shoulder. Peyton and Jay were in the middle of the living room. Kissing! I smiled at the sight.

“JAY! What are you doing?!” Crystal asked, her voice wavering. He broke away from Peyton looking over at us. Peyton started blushing as she looked down at the floor.

“What’s it look like?! He’s kissing his girlfriend!” I yelled excitedly.

“Just shut the fuck up! That little slut is not his girlfriend! I am!” Crystal yelled. Peyton looked like she was about to cry.

“You are not my girlfriend Crystal! I don’t even like you as a friend, let alone a girlfriend! And Peyton is my girlfriend.” Jay said wrapping an arm around Peyton. Peyton smiled at him.

“And she’s not a slut like you.” Jay continued. Crystal turned around and ran out of the house crying.

“Whoa.” I heard Phoenix say. I turned around and saw him looking after Crystal like she was a crazy person. I laughed at his expression.

“Do I even want to know?” He asked me.

“She’s just mad because Jay and Peyton are dating now.” I shrugged.

“Finally.” Phoenix muttered. Jay and Peyton looked down in embarrassment.

“Come on Phoenix. Let’s go.” I grabbed his hand and led him out the door to his car.

We drove for about ten minutes, talking and listening to music.

“Do you have any CDs?” I asked him.

“Yea. In the glove compartment.” He said. I opened it and took out a bunch of CDs. I found a couple of Tokio Hotel CDs. I smiled and put one in. I looked over at Phoenix. He was smiling a little like he had a secret. I looked at him suspiciously.

“What?” He asked noticing the way I was looking at him. Then it came to me.

“Oh my god!” I gasped. His smile got bigger.

“You are such a freaking idiot!” I yelled slapping his arm.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He said still smiling.

“You have Tokio Hotel CDs!”

“So? I like them.” He shrugged.

“Then why did you want to change to a different station the day Jay kicked us out of his car?” We stopped but I didn’t pay attention to where we were.

“I felt like walking.” He said.

“Phoenix.” I gave him a ‘yea-right’ look.

“Fine. I like Tokio Hotel. But I wanted to walk with you.”

“Why?”

“Because I liked you. Besides, I couldn’t kiss you in Jay’s car, with Jay sitting in the seat beside you.” He smirked.

“So you knew you were going to kiss me?”

“I was planning on it.” I leaned over and kissed him. I pulled away smiling at him. He smiled back at me. I looked out the windshield and noticed that we were at the beach.

“The beach?” I asked looking at him.

“Yep. Come on.” He got out of his car and went to the back. He pulled out a picnic basket and a blanket.

“A picnic on the beach? How romantic.” I said surprised. We started walking towards the beach. He put the blanket down on the sand and the picnic basket on it. I sat down on the blanket.

“I can be romantic sometimes.” He said proudly sitting behind me. He wrapped an arm around my waist pulling my waist pulling me closer to him.

“Name one time you were romantic. Besides tonight.” I said smirking as I leaned my head against his chest.

“Last weekend.”

“When last weekend?”

“On the ferris wheel at the carnival.”

“Kissing does not count as doing something romantic.” I said closing my eyes.

“Oh really?” He asked.

“Yes really. Couples kiss all the time so it’s technically not doing something romantic.” I opened my eyes and saw Phoenix’s head leaning over me. His face came towards mine like he was going to kiss me. He stopped, though, when our lips were centimeters away from each other.

“You sure about that?” He asked. I could feel his breath on my lips.

“M-maybe.” I stuttered closing my eyes. He chuckled, still not kissing me.

“Just kiss me already.” I mumbled against his lips. He gently pressed his lips to mine. It was different from the other times we kissed. This was slow and passionate. We pulled away to catch our breaths. I looked at him smiling down at me. His turquoise eyes were full of love. It was silent for a while until he started talking.

“So that wasn’t romantic?” He asked smirking at me.

“It wasn’t so bad.” I shrugged smirking back at him.

“Hey!” He said. I got up and ran away from him giggling. He ran after me. We ran around the beach until he finally grabbed my wrist making both of us fall down on the sand laughing.

Our laughing died down as we caught our breaths again. I laid in the sand looking up at the moon and stars above us. There were some dark clouds and you could tell it was going to rain sometime tonight. I felt Phoenix’s hand grab my hand. I looked over at him. He looked like he wanted to say something to me but didn’t know how to.

“Are you ok, Phoenix?” I asked worried.

“You know I love you, right?” He asked ignoring my question.

“Well yea. You kind of told me last weekend on the ferris wheel. Or did you forget already?” I smiled jokingly. He didn’t smile back.

“You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you on purpose?”

“Yea. Phoenix what is wrong?” I was now really worried.

“One of my friends did something stupid.” He sighed looking back at the stars. I waited for him to continue.

“He went out with a girl because her brother, his best friend, asked him to watch over her. He didn’t want his little sister getting hurt by another guy and he thought he could trust his friend. The guy had liked his friend’s sister for a while but didn’t know how his friend was going to take it. He figured that it would be a good because he could date the girl and the friend wouldn’t get mad at him for it. The guy started feeling guilty about it and he asked me if he should tell the girl about it or not. But I don’t know what to tell him. If you were the girl, what would you do?” He asked looking at me again.

“Well the brother sounds really protective of his sister, maybe a little too protective. If I were the girl I would be pissed at the brother for doing that.” I said truthfully.

“But you wouldn’t get mad at the other guy?”

“Of course I would be. He seems like a total jerk. I would break up with him right then and there. I mean, making a girl think that you like her when you don’t is really pathetic.” I said.

“But what if the guy really did love her?”

“If a guy really loves a girl, he won’t care about what the friend says. He would date her anyways. And if the brother really did love his sister, he wouldn’t do something like that to her.”

“So you’re saying that the guy shouldn’t tell the girl about it?”

“He should break the deal with the brother and then tell the girl about it and that he really loves her and broke the deal with her brother off. What does all this have to do with you hurting me?” I asked.

“What?”

“Just a couple of minutes ago you asked if I knew that you wouldn’t hurt me. What does this have to do with that?” I asked.

“Oh, I just wanted you to know that this was really about a friend and not me. Some girls would think ‘Oh it must be about him, why else would he be asking me this.’ But I wanted you to know that I wouldn’t do something like that.” He said quickly.

“Oh.” I said confused.

“Let’s swim.” He said standing up. He took his shirt off along with his shorts, he had his swim trunks underneath. I was mesmerized for a second by his abs. He smirked down at me.

“Are you just going to stare at me all day, or are you going to swim?” He asked. I started blushing as I stood up. I took off my shirt and shorts and kicked off my flip flops so I was only in my bathing suit.

Just as we were about to go in the water, I felt something wet hit my face. I looked up as more drops of water started splashing me. I looked up and saw that it was raining.

“Well that’s just perfect.” I mumbled.

“What?” Phoenix asked.

“It’s raining. Now we have to go.” I sighed. I turned to leave but he caught my elbow, turning me around to face him. He was smiling at me.

“What?” I asked laughing. He was standing there with the rain getting his hair wet. He flicked his head so his hair was out of his eyes. He brought me closer to him and kissed me. I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy the kiss. He pulled away too quickly.

“What was that for?” I asked squinting in the rain so I could see his face.

“Don’t you know that kissing in the rain is very romantic?” He asked smiling. I bit my lip smiling as I shook my head.

“Come on! We’re going to catch a cold.” He said. He grabbed my hand and we ran over to the blanket. We didn’t get to have a picnic at the beach, but it was still romantic.