“We have an announcement to make. Jessie has asked me to marry him.” She held up her left hand. “And I said, ‘yes.’”
Claire told me every little detail about the way Kimosabe had proposed while he kept quiet and laughed at her animated way of retelling the story. He had driven her back to Franklin to the old football field where they had their first kiss and first dance, except this time he played a different song. He told Claire to ask him what the name of the song was and he popped open a ring box as he told her the song was ‘Marry Me.’
It was sickeningly sweet, but I was ecstatic for her. She had really found her prince charming, tattoos and all.
Jessie was definitely staying over tonight because there was no way Claire was sending him to the guys’ dormitory on campus. Not after a marriage proposal like that. It might not be the deed itself, but the boy had some rewards coming his way.
I sat on the couch clutching Nick’s book for another hour after Claire and Jessie went to bed and I had no better idea of what I was going to do than when Dallas handed it to me. I heard Claire’s door open and then shut quietly before she came into the living room where I was.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
I wasn’t sure if I should tell Claire about the journal. She always strived to be perfect and snooping in someone else’s private thoughts would surely make her list of no-no’s.
“Dallas was here tonight.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine, but she had some interesting things to tell me. She said that whole thing with the baby was a hoax made up by that Samantha chick that cornered me at Nick’s race. She had her cousin pretend to have Nick’s baby to break us up. She brought this to me so I could read it for myself.”
I showed her what I had been clutching to my heart for the last hour. “It’s Nick’s journal. She took it from him and she thinks I should read it.”
“Shut the front door.”
“She has no idea what it says, but she’s confident it will change my mind about Nick. Do you think I should read it?”
“The question is do you think you should read it?”
I hated when she answered a question with a question. “Wouldn’t it be wrong to read his private thoughts?”
She looked at me as though I was a stranger. “Have we met? Since when do you care if it’s wrong? Hell, yes, it would be wrong to read it. Should that stop you? Hell, no! Read it.”
Once I crossed that line, I couldn’t go back. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Payton, now is not the time for you to go Team Pollyanna. It doesn’t suit you.”
Okay. Maybe I would read one entry. I opened it up and scanned until I found the day we met.
30 Nick’s Journal
Payton
June 7th
I won another race last night but that wasn’t the best part of my night. I met a girl, a real hot piece of ass w/ a smart mouth on her. I called her Doll Face because she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She acted like she wasn’t falling for my shit, but I played it cool and ended up with her in the backseat of her car. Too bad she was asleep w/ her head in my lap because she got wasted. We could have had a real good time.
She says she’s not looking to hook up with someone like me. She says she’s looking for truly, madly, deeply but I bet I can change her mind. I always do. And I’ll start tonight at Dane’s party.
Well, that entry certainly wasn’t going to make me fall in love with him all over again. Why couldn’t he have said his world stopped turning the first time he saw me or he thought he was in heaven because I must certainly be an angel? Not that I was a hot piece of ass with a smart ass mouth.
Claire saw my disappointment. “What does it say?”
I didn’t want to tell her because it was such a letdown, but I did anyway. “Something about me being a hot piece with a smart mouth."
Claire thought it was hilarious. “Jessie told me his first thought about me was that I had great tits.”
Okay. That made me feel a little better. Now I wanted to read more. “Get out of here and go back to your fiancée. You weren’t in there long enough to reward him well enough for what he gave you tonight.”
“Fiancée. Wow, I have a fiancée. Who’d have thunk it?”
Claire went back to bed and I poured myself a glass of wine before I settled into my bed with my new companion. I had already crossed the line so why stop now?
June 8th
It’s official. I’m nuts. I’m writing about her for the second time today. I thought about her until I went to sleep and then first thing when I woke up. She was on my mind all day, even when I went to the lake and was around all of Gabbi’s hot friends. I always hooked up with one of them. But not today because she was the only one on my mind.
Jake says I should stay away from her but I don’t think I can. And I know I don’t want to try.
I had no idea he thought about me so much so soon. We had just met. I probably would have freaked out and thought he was a psycho if I had known.
June 10th
I’m writing this a day late, but that’s because my eyes were too swollen to see anything last night after the pepper spray incident. Another story for another time. Right now, I only want to write about her...Doll Face.
I saw her again at Danes’ party and asked her to leave with me. I almost shit my pants when she said ‘yes.’ Good thing I didn’t. I had no idea where I would take a classy chick like her, but we drove by the fairgrounds and she told me that no one had ever taken her before. It made me sad that she didn’t have that simple kind of memory from her childhood so I decided to take her. It was fun acting like a kid with her and I hoped she didn’t think it was a lame date. (I’m calling it a date even if she didn’t.) I wanted to kiss her on the Ferris wheel. It would have been so perfect if she hadn’t just finished telling me for a second time how she didn’t want a guy like me. Am I really that unlovable? Maybe not because I did get a kiss from her later last night and it was perfect.
I thought everything was going great until Dad came in from taking her home. I don’t know what happened, but he doesn’t want me to see her anymore. He can forget that shit because I’m into this girl big time.
No. You’re not the least bit unlovable. You were very easy to love.
June 12th
Like the song, Payton Archer is tbtf and I’m falling for her. That’s all I’ve got.