The Girlfriend Request Read online

  I laughed at my senseless hiding spot, and walked over to retrieve it, being careful not to bump it since I didn’t want it losing even more petals. I unwrapped the new flowers, and gingerly slipped them into the vase as well. Perfect. I couldn’t wait to thank him.

  Maybe he acted so weird about the first one since I hadn’t acknowledged he’d sent it. Completely understandable.

  After throwing on a pair of jeans and my favorite Star Wars T-shirt, I sat on the bed to lace up my sneakers. Since I’d never had any use for hiking boots, my beat up Sketchers would have to do. A loose braid seemed like my best bet; less chance of my hair going crazy in the heat that way.

  It was almost ten. My stomach fluttered at the thought of seeing Eli, of getting to spend the day hiking with him. I hurried down the stairs.

  “Mom! Dad! I’m leaving,” I called when I reached the bottom.

  Mom poked her head out of the kitchen. “Bye, sweetie, have a good time. Be careful.”

  “Thanks, I will. See you later.”

  The warmth hit me immediately when I stepped outside. The sun shone without a cloud in sight. The earthy smell of fresh cut grass carried in the slight breeze as I turned left to head across the lawn toward Eli’s house.

  When I reached his door, I faltered. Had the rules changed about walking in and out of each other’s homes considering the difference in our relationship? I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other on the front stoop, trying to figure out what to do. Finally deciding to err on the side of caution, I knocked.

  After a minute or two, the door swung open.

  “Emma! What are you doing knocking? How are you, honey?” Eli’s mom stood in the entrance, a wide smile on her face. Her hazel eyes crinkled up at each corner.

  “I’m doing good, Mrs. Perry. How are you?”

  “Busy, busy. You know me.” She smiled, and opened the door wider. “Come on in. Eli’s upstairs. He told me you two were going hiking today.” She wiped her hands on the bright artist’s smock tied around her ample waist. She had the same dark hair as her son, and wore it flowing loose over her shoulders.

  I stepped inside, and a welcome coolness washed over me. I glanced toward the stairs.

  “You can go on up if you like. He should be ready any minute.” She motioned toward the steps. “Go ahead, I’m working on a new piece, anyway.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  She gave a small wave before turning to head down the hallway that led to her studio at the back of the house.

  I hurried up the stairs. Did I have the nerve to kiss him when I thanked him for the flowers? I crossed the hall at the top of the stairs to go to the second door on the right. Eli’s room.

  His door was open. He sat on his bed, bent over at the waist, tying the red laces on his hiking boots. He wore earbuds, and moved his head in time to whatever he was listening to.

  I walked over and poked him on the shoulder.

  He jerked upright, a broad smile crossing his face when he saw me. “Hey!” He reached out, pulling me down on his lap. I laughed, putting my arm across his back to keep from toppling over. He tugged the earbuds out with one hand.

  I decided to go for it before I lost my nerve. Leaning in, I gave him a quick kiss on the lips. He looked surprised for a second, then kissed me back, longer than my little peck. As much as I liked the kiss, I pulled back after a few seconds, worried his mom would walk in and see us.

  “Hi.” I smiled.

  “Hmm…I like this kind of greeting.” He nuzzled my neck.

  I giggled, pushing him away. “I wanted to say thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Though if I had known you liked hiking this much, I definitely would have asked you sooner.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  Laughing, I wrapped my arms around his neck. “No, silly. For the flowers. They’re beautiful. It was so sweet of you.”

  His brows knitted together.

  My smile faltered.

  He shifted sideways on the bed, moving me off his lap to sit next to him.

  “What’s wrong?” A sinking feeling began to fill me.

  “What flowers?” he asked carefully.

  Uneasiness crept in. Maybe he was teasing me.

  “The…the flowers you left for me on my porch.” His lips pressed together, and I could see the pulse on the side of his forehead begin to throb.

  Oh no, they weren’t from him. What words could I possibly use to backpedal from this completely awkward situation?

  I prayed that any minute he would jump up, smiling, and yell, “Gotcha!”

  He didn’t.

  “I didn’t leave you flowers,” he said. “I thought when I saw it that maybe your parents gave it to you. For Easter or something, I don’t know. They’ve given you flowers before, and you certainly didn’t mention it the other night when I was over.”

  I opened my mouth, then immediately closed it again.

  He stood up so abruptly, I almost fell off the bed. He walked across the room, pushing his hair back on his head with both hands. Spinning back around to face me, he looked hurt. And upset.

  “So let me get this straight. Jake gave it to you?”

  “Eli, no. Well, I don’t know. I thought they were from you.” I stood as well, walking over to him, arms outstretched.

  He moved away, holding up his hands. “Don’t.” He took a few more steps. “Why would he send you flowers? I thought nothing happened between you two. He must really have a thing for you to send you flowers.” He practically spit out the words.

  “It didn’t. I don’t know. From the cards, I just thought…” I was making things worse.

  “What cards? He sent you cards, too?” He shoved his hands in and out of his pockets and paced, not meeting my eyes.

  “No. Well yes, but they were with the roses.”

  That got him to look at me. “Roses? Plural” He looked incredulous. “So he sent you more?”

  I nodded. “This morning. There were two,” I whispered.

  He shook his head, looking stunned.

  “Eli, please, forget I said anything.”

  “How the hell am I supposed to forget some guy sent you roses the day after you were kissing me?”

  I began to get mad, too. It wasn’t my fault, I didn’t send the damn things. Apparently the day was a complete waste of good lip gloss.

  “I don’t know…forget it.” I took a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. “Eli, I honestly didn’t know they were from him, and now that I do, I’ll get rid of them. Okay? You’re what matters to me.” I begged him with my eyes to understand, to believe me. “You. Only you.”

  He sighed, and walked back over to the bed to sit down. I sat beside him, tentatively reaching out my hand and placing it on his leg. “I didn’t know,” I repeated.

  He hung his head a moment. “I know. It’s not your fault.”

  The anger faded from his face, replaced with resignation. He shook his head, finally looking up at me. “It really took me by surprise, I guess.” He shrugged. “I shouldn’t have acted like that, I’m sorry.”

  He reached his hand up and laid it across mine. “So what did they say?”

  “What?”

  “The cards, what did they say?”

  “Eli, it doesn’t matter. Can’t we forget all of this?”

  He shook his head. “Em, I need to know. Please.”

  I sighed. There was no way I wanted to lie to him; lies were what caused all the problems in the first place. I looked right at him. “The first one just said, ‘You’re beautiful,’ and the one today said, ‘You make me smile.’”

  He looked pained.

  I shifted, taking his hand in both of mine. “But Eli, none of that matters to me. I don’t care what the cards said.”

  “But that’s just it, Em. You should. You should be told those things, except I should have been the one telling you. And I didn’t.” He looked away. “And I’m sorry I didn’t.”

  Not sure how to answer that, I simply laid my head o
n his shoulder. He reached up and stroked my hair, not speaking for a moment.

  “I’m going to stop taking you for granted, Em. I want to show you how incredible I think you are. I want you to know how I see you, all you mean to me.”

  “I do know,” I said softly.

  “No, you don’t. Because I never really showed you, but I will. You just wait and see. I promise you that.”

  The rest of the day was amazing, and turned out to not be a waste of good lip gloss.

  He’d brought his camera, and we took turns snapping pictures of each other posing in front of the different waterfalls. Some were silly—making whacky faces or standing like an ostrich, while others were normal, just smiling for each other. We even tried a few with both of us in the frame, Eli holding the camera out as far as he could and then yelling, “Cheese!” He was nuts. And awesome. And just so much fun to spend the day with.

  Hunger pains hit by about 1:00, and since we passed Roma on the way back, we decided to stop there to grab some lunch.

  After placing our order for a medium pie with ham and pineapple, we decided to play a game in the back until the server brought our food out.

  I’d scored my third point in air hockey and cheered when a voice spoke behind me.

  “She’s good, isn’t she?”

  My hand froze on the paddle, the excitement from a moment ago forgotten. I looked at Eli. He stood at the opposite end of the table, jaw clenched.

  Jake walked around me to stand alongside the table. “I mean, we only played about, what was it, Emma? Five or six games that night?”

  Paste. My mouth was made of paste. Nothing came out. I looked back and forth between the two guys, wishing desperately for a sink hole to appear under me and swallow me up, but of course I didn’t get that lucky.

  Jake smiled again, like he didn’t have a care in the world. He walked over to Eli, holding out his hand. “Hi. It’s Ellie, right?”

  Eli refused to acknowledge Jake’s outstretched hand. “Eli,” he corrected stiffly.

  “Oh, that’s right, sorry about that, man.” Jake dropped his hand when it became apparent that Eli wasn’t about to shake it.

  “Am I interrupting?” Jake feigned innocence, looking from Eli to me.

  “We’re playing a game while we wait for our food,” I said weakly.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, I won’t keep you.” Jake began to walk toward the archway leading out of the game room. As he passed me, he stopped, lightly placing his hand on my upper arm. He leaned in and whispered loudly, “I hope you liked the roses I sent you.” He squeezed my arm gently before continuing out the door.

  I looked up at Eli, who stood at the other end of the table, paddle forgotten in his hand. He looked ready to spit. I dropped my paddle and hurried toward him.

  “I’m sorry. I had no way of knowing he would be here.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not mad at you, Em. It’s him. What a dick.”

  I stood next to him, silently agreeing. I didn’t understand why Jake acted that way, it seemed so out of character from the Jake I knew.

  “I mean, who the hell does he think he is? He did that on purpose. And you went out with that guy? Seriously?”

  “I know you don’t want to hear it, but he didn’t act like that with me. I don’t know what that was all about.”

  He snorted. “I’ll tell you what it was all about; it was him trying to make sure I knew that he wasn’t backing down.”

  I sighed. “Eli, you’re right. He acted like a jerk. But what he does is on him.” I bit my lip. “I’ll talk to him, explain things.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Emma

  Later that night, I showered and changed into some comfy pajamas. We’d headed back to my house right after our pizza, but then Eli went home, explaining that he had to help with some work around the house, and would call me later. I hoped he wasn’t still upset about the Jake thing.

  I took a seat at my desk and twisted my hair absently while I waited for my laptop to boot up. Clicking over to Facebook, I realized I should probably delete Kelli’s profile, since there was no reason to keep it up. Just seeing it made me feel kind of stupid. I cringed thinking of all the messages I’d sent to Eli without having any idea he knew it was me, and wished I’d had the guts to simply tell him the truth in the first place.

  After deleting it, I logged into my own account, scrolling through my home page. About halfway down, I spied a picture of myself standing in front of a waterfall, laughing. It was from our hike. The time stamp showed Eli had posted it about two hours ago. He’d written, The most beautiful girl I know.

  My eyes misted up. I recognized it as his way of telling me that he was proud to be with me, that I mattered to him.

  I typed a single symbol in the comment box, and pressed enter.

  <3

  A simple heart. It was my way of acknowledging his gesture, and thanking him.

  I walked over to my futon and flipped idly through a catalogue. I needed to call Jake. Granted, he’d acted like a jerk at the restaurant, but he’d always been nice to me before that. Sighing, I reached over and picked up the phone. I would explain things to him, and hopefully he’d understand. He answered on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jake. It’s Emma.” Silence. “Jake? You there?”

  “I’m here,” he answered. “What’s up?”

  I cleared my throat. What was I supposed to say? Oh, sorry I used you and then thought I might have liked you but I’m with Eli now? I settled for, “I wanted to say I’m sorry if I did anything to upset you. And, I shouldn’t have acted the way I did with you. You know, before.” I paused.

  The silence returned.

  “I was confused, and I’ll admit, you were really sweet, and…” I trailed off, not having a clue what else to say that would make me sound less stupid.

  “So the plan worked, huh? You two are together?”

  “Yes. We are,” I said softly.

  “Well, that’s great. I’m glad I could help.”

  “Jake, I’m honestly sorry. You’re a really great guy, you are. It’s just—”

  “I’m not him,” he interrupted flatly.

  I didn’t answer. After all, what could I say? No, he wasn’t.

  “Look, Emma, I have to go. But I hope things work out for you.” His voice softened. “I mean that, you deserve it.”

  “Thank you.” This was harder than I’d expected.

  “Well, I guess I’ll see you around sometime.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll see you around,” I echoed quietly.

  “Bye, Emma.”

  “Bye, Jake,” I whispered.

  I felt awful. Jake had been nothing but sweet. I hadn’t meant to, but I knew that I’d completely used him. First to make Eli jealous, and then to fill a void. It’d been flattering hearing someone say the things he did, and look at me the way he did.

  But it’d always been Eli I really wanted. I knew that now with complete certainty.

  Setting the phone down next to me, I leaned back and closed my eyes. At least it was done.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Eli

  “So what are you thinking about?”

  I reached over to grab Emma’s hand, and when she smiled up at me, something inside me shifted. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of her smile.

  She shook her head. “Actually, nothing. It feels nice to be here with you.”

  My grin grew wider and I traced a pattern with my thumb on the inside of her wrist. I shifted slightly on the blanket, moving closer. Her breathing hitched a little as I leaned in, and it drove me crazy. Everything about her turned me on.

  I dropped a light kiss on her lips and leaned back to look at her. Her hair curled around her head where she lay, spilling over her shoulders. I hooked a finger under the strap of the little white sundress she wore; her skin felt like satin. I pressed my lips to her shoulder
and then grinned when she giggled. Movie people couldn’t have written a better day. Tree branches above us were starting to bloom, tiny white buds bursting from the dark wood. The air smelled of fresh grass and grilled food

  We packed a picnic lunch to bring along to Stoyer’s Dam. Emma had wanted to feed the ducks, and after that, we spread out a blanket underneath some dogwood trees and listened to music and read together for a while.

  We also talked for hours. We talked through everything that’d happened. She opened up about how scared she’d been to let me know that she was interested, and I apologized for taking her for granted and being so stupid and it taking me as long as it had to realize how I felt. I felt closer to her than I’d ever felt before.

  As much as I loved looking at Emma, my stomach was starting to protest. I sat up somewhat regretfully. “Are you hungry yet?”

  “Not really, are you?”

  “A little.” My stomach grumbled just then, making us both laugh.

  “Well here.” She reached in the cooler to grab a small sub and a can of soda and handed it to me. “You don’t have to wait for me, silly.” She flashed me another smile before lying back down. “Go ahead and eat.”

  “I’d rather do this.” I slowly leaned down, bending over her, and touched her lips softly. In just a moment, the kiss turned deeper. When she responded, her touch felt like the electric sensation before a rainstorm. I shivered.

  I grinned between kisses when the book in her hand dropped to the blanket, forgotten.

  Loud giggles brought us both back to earth. Emma sat up, a sheepish expression on her face. We both looked around to see two young girls, maybe eleven or so, standing about ten feet away from us next to their bikes. They leaned in to each other, whispering and still giggling as they watched us.

  I sat up as well. “Talk about timing.”

  Emma cleared her throat. “It seems we have an audience. Um, maybe we should eat.”

  Laughing, I snagged the sub from the blanket, unwrapped it, and handed her half. “We’ll pick up later where we left off.” I winked.

  She shook her head, laughing. “Deal.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight