In Love With A Tomboy

Joey's POV:

The next night, I spent over at Izzy’s house with Dan, Craig, and Ben.

As soon as I had come in, I lot sight of Dan as he walked away with Craig and Ben leaving me alone. I didn’t mind much since my mind was full of finding Izzy and being the first to present my gift to her.

But, I didn’t get very far before Spencer practically attacked me and started to go on and on about something I wasn’t really listening to.

I knew it was rude to just walk away from her and I certainly didn’t want to be rude to someone who was best friends with the girl that I was in love with. So, I just stood there and looked around for Izzy while pretending to be listening to Spencer.

My attention was finally caught when I heard the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs, causing me to look up and over there.

And that’s when I saw her.

She looked weird and pretty. Like so, so pretty.

For the first time since we've met, I've seen her wear a dress and that too such a short one. The dress was colored bright red and looked great with her perfect curves.

I noticed now that Izzy had the perfect hourglass body that most girls would kill for, but it was so hard to tell under all those baggy clothes she’s always wearing.

But, there must’ve been a reason as to why.

I watched as Izzy slowly descended down the stairs then. My eyes were on her the whole entire time, never moving away. Except for this one time, when my eyes jerked for like a second when she almost tripped when she missed the third last step.

I noticed then that underneath her dress, Izzy had on a pair of red high heeled boots. No wonder, she looked so embarrassed; her face was redder than her whole outfit.

Dani called Spencer away from me then and I knew I was free to go over to her now.

But, just as I started to make my way towards her, Dan suddenly came out of nowhere and beat me to it.

“Hey, I’ll introduce you to my brothers.” he said.

“Ok.” she followed behind me as Dan walked over to where Ben and Craig were.

I didn’t bother going over there and instead just decided to wait in the corner until she was by herself and it was my turn.

“This is my twin brother, Ben, and my older brother, Craig.” Dan introduced.

“Hi.” Craig said simply.

While Ben just exclaimed out loud, “Hey, you’re hot!”

Craig had this girlfriend for a long time now and he’s like really loyal to her, so he doesn’t really look or think about any other girl.

But, Ben, Ben was a huge flirt to any girl he ever met.

“Um, thanks.” Izzy replied back to him.

I could tell she was feeling even more uncomfortable now, just by looking her; she was fiddling with her thumbs and just staring down at the ground.

I guess Dan must've noticed that too, because he then decided to change the subject by saying, "Hey, let's go meet Izzy's friends."

I could see Ben’s eyes brighten at the mention of more girls as they walked away without Izzy.

I saw her sign in relief then and now that she was alone, I tried to go over to her again.

But, at the same time, her mom pulled her over to the cake and everyone started singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to her, so that really wasn’t a good time to talk to her either.

After that, Izzy opened up her presents which was a lot, by the way, so she was busy for the next half hour with all that.

Finally, I decided to just give up and not give her my present at all. Instead, I just thought about how stupid I was to even think that I could do all that and impress someone as strong minded and independent as Izzy, so I hide it. I kept in my pocket and made sure no one else noticed it or anything.

Instead of enjoying the party, I spent it sitting on the couch and just staring into space.

I mean, what else could I possible do?

Well, there were a lot of options, but I just wasn’t in the mood for it.

At some point, I saw Izzy slink away from the living room and head up stairs. I felt like following after, but then I reminded myself that it was a stupid idea and someone was probably gonna get up and follow her anyway.

After five minutes, nothing happened and that was enough for me to sprint up and quickly walk up the stairs, yet try not to draw any attention to me at all at the same time.

“Ugh, what I wouldn’t give to just get outta here and out of this stupid dress!” she was saying, when I found her leaning against the black railing of the balcony and struggling to get her boots off.

“Hey.” I said, coming up behind her.

“Hey.” she replied back, sighing as she finally got her shoes off and tossed them to the side.

"You look...different." I had no idea where that came from, but I could tell from the way that Izzy looked up at me, she was annoyed by it. "I mean, in a good way." I quickly added.

“Thanks.” she still didn’t seem very happy by that though.

We both stood in silence then and just looked up at the sky. There was a light breezing blowing making Izzy’s hair flow around her pretty face and making her look even more attractive than usual.

“I feel so stupid.” she had muttered once, but I didn’t say anything back, instead just smiled up at the sky.

“Hey,” I finally remembered why I had even come up here in the first place. “I’ve got something for you.”

”Really? What?” she turned to face me with an expecting look on her face.

“See for yourself.” I presented a small rectangular shaped box in front of her and waited for her to open it up and see my little present for her.

Izzy looked up at me and stared at me for a few seconds, but I just looked down and away.

I waited until she opened up the box to see her expression. I had gotten her a bracelet that was made out of all diamonds and had this big heart in the middle, which was also made out of diamonds. It wasn’t real, so it hadn’t really cost much, but it also wasn’t that cheap either.

“A bracelet?” she questioned.

“Well yeah, I saw it in the mall and I don’t know, it just reminded me of you.” I answered her.

“Oh.” I realized then what she was implying and I also realized just how stupid I really was.

I mean what kind of tomboy likes jewelry anyway?!

"If you don't like then it's alright, I don’t mind."

“No, no, it’s absolutely beautiful. I love it!” Izzy did the total unexpected then and leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Then to follow, she wrapped her arms around me in a tight hug. “Thank you so much!”

I was just simply shocked. I mean, the girl who I was constantly arguing with sometimes over nothing at all had actually just kissed me and was actually hugging me now.

Well, I thought to myself. I might as well enjoy it then, because in just a couple of hours, Izzy’ll go back to wearing her little cargo pants and other tomboy clothes and we’ll go back to the way we always are.

I sighed happily and wrapped my arms tightly around her.

“I love you.” I whispered faintly.

Izzy pulled away then and looked up at me with a smile.

Had she heard me? I wondered. I could barely hear it.

I stayed silent and waited for her to say something, anything. To yell at me or slap me for even joking about something stupid like that.

But, she didn’t do any of those things and instead just moved away from me and tried to wrap the bracelet around her thin wrist.

She failed to do so, so I took it from her hands and put it on for her.

She smiled at me then and she looked as if she wanted to tell me something, but before Izzy could even open her mouth to get it out, a voice from downstairs called out.

“Bella, come downstairs, we’re taking some more pictures!”

”Coming, dad!” she called back.

Bella? I wondered. I thought her name was Izzy, so why does her dad call her Bella for?

Before I could ask her though, she was gone.

I guess I just missed another chance, huh? I smiled up at the sky again.

“Hey, are you coming?” I heard a voice behind me say.

I turned around and saw her head poking out from around the hallway.

“Yeah.” I replied, grinning.

We walked back down the stairs together and I found myself enjoying the rest of the party then.

By the time, I got home; something new had popped into my mind and was starting to carve itself in with my brain along with the fact that I was in love with Izzy. And it was: that I was really enjoying Cali now.