Katniss: Hey there, handsome.
Josh: Get your hands off me! I'm already in love, ok?
Katniss: Ok ok. But don't you know who I am?
Josh: Nope.
Katniss: I'm Katniss Everdeen, the Mockingjay, the winner of the 74th Hunger Games, and loads of other stuff that will impress you.
Josh: Actually I'm not that impressed because I've got something that you'd beg for.
Katniss: Really now? (looks at nails with a bored expression)
Josh: Yup. I'm owned by Ally Carter.
Katniss: WHAT!? I'd DIE to be owned by Ally Carter! Will you let her own me?
Josh: I dunno. Ask Ally Carter herself, because SHE OWNS THE GALLAGHER SERIES!
Recap of last chapter.
"YOU KNOW WHAT, JOSH? I DON'T WANT TO EVER GET BACK TOGETHER WITH YOU AGAIN! I DON'T EVEN GIVE A DAMN THAT I QUIT GALLAGHER AND MY OLD LIFE FOR YOU! I. WILL. NEVER. LOVE. YOU. AGAIN! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
But I don't wait for a reply. I stalk off through the screening door and out the cinema, toppling the popcorn stand in the process. It's only when I get back to my apartment that I start to sob openly.
Josh's POV
I just stand there in shock.
Cameron Morgan quit Gallagher Academy for Stuck-up Snobs just for me?
No way.
But then I remember the sad angry way her eyes looked and I knew she couldn't be faking. I know her eyes so well.
Which means she really loved me all along.
"Come on mate," Dillon says. "It'll be alright."
I stare at him blankly. Nothing else matters right now except for Cammie. And nothing is ever going to be alright now that she'll never love me again.
"Josh," Zach says awkwardly. "You could come sleepover at my place. All of us can."
I nod, not trusting myself to speak.
For a moment I remember how his mom ran off in the middle of the night with some random guy to Australia two days ago. [A/N That's just Zach's cover to explain about why his mom has gone.] I feel sorry for that guy. But it can't be as bad as what I'm feeling right now. Guilty and terrible and ripped into shreds.
"I'll go," Dillon says.
"Me too," says all the others, except Grant, who's looking at his feet.
"Grant man, I don't mind if you're Cammie's boyfriend," I say to him. "We're still best friends. I'm so totally over Cammie anyways."
I know the gang can tell I'm lying but nobody objects and Grant looks so happy.
We invite Dillon, Zach and Jonas's girlfriends too, so there's a group of nine: Jonas and Anna, Zach and Tina, me, Dee Dee, Dillon and Courtney, and Grant.
"Let's play Spin the Bottle!" Tina suddenly cries out.
"Ughh…"
"Yeah…"
"If we have to…"
The guys are all groaning but the girls are all for it, so we begin. Zach spins the bottle first because it's his apartment.
It lands on Grant.
"Grant, truth or dare?" Zach asks evilly.
"Uh… uh…" he stutters, scared of the look. "Truth, because you look like you're going to make me kill someone or something."
Zach grins even wider. "Do you like Cammie? As in, like her?"
Grant goes deep red. "Dare, I choose dare! Not truth!"
"New rule," Courtney interrupts. "No backing out unless you want to take off one piece of clothing."
"Uh…" Grant says the sweat building on his forehead. "Uh… Fine, I like her, happy now?"
I lunge forward at him. He took my girlfriend away from me! He deserves a billion punches! But Zach is somehow already there to stop me. How is he so fast? I don't know, but it seems like he's had training or something. Weird.
"Josh man, stop it! You don't like her, remember?"
I realise he's right. I have to stop loving that girl. And I have to make sure that Grant is still one of my best friends. I'm not going to let some girl ruin our friendship. So I sag back down into my seat. Grant spins the bottle and it lands on Tina.
"Tina, truth or dare?"
"Dare. I'm not afraid of you, Grant Newman." She stares readily.
"Fine, I dare you to have Seven Minutes in Heaven with Josh."
Tina takes one look at Zach before pulling off her T-shirt to reveal a red lacey bra. She pecks Zach on the lips and tells him that she'll never betray him like that. Zach, on the other hand, looks sad. He likes someone else, I realise. That doesn't surprise me though. He's a player after all. When Tina spins the bottle, it lands on me. Sadly.
"Truth or dare, Josh Abrams?"
"Truth," I say automatically, because that's what I usually say. It's already too late when I realise what they're going to ask me about.
"Ok, Abrams, do you like Cammie? Answer truthfully or we'll make you strip."
"I… I like Cammie. Truthfully."
"Good." Tina says and everyone around us nods with satisfaction, as though they already knew. Well, I suppose I did make it quite obvious.
A few minutes later, Anna Fetterman starts to whine, "I'm bored."
So we stop playing Spin the Bottle and Zach turns up the music to full volume.
It's booming so loud that I bet Zach's neighbours are all awake. But we don't care. That is we don't care until Zach's neighbours start rapping on the door.
"Turn that noise down, punks!" A tattooed hunk comes down. When he sees Tina's pretty face, he starts to flirt with her. Zach doesn't even blink. When they go up to the guy's room together, Zach just says cheekily, "Do you think they're having fun?" I'm amazed at this guy. But I guess he's likes someone else so I guess it doesn't really matter to him.
Next an old woman comes up from the floor below, screaming and waving her walking stick about, which everyone finds hilarious. That woman goes away after a while.
After her is the little boy screaming at us that he's trying to get to sleep and that it's way after his bedtime. The girls just find him adorable, with his teddy bear and pyjamas. They cuddle him and sickening stuff like that. He goes away feeling happy.
But out of the 7 billion people in the world, the next had to be the girl I loved.
Cammie flung the door open and screamed at us, "What the hell are you doing this late? You know-"
Then she cuts off when she realises it's us. Dee Dee immediately turns off the music. Awkward silence.
"Zach, you didn't tell me you live here."
Cammie's POV
What are those noisy neighbours doing? I think to myself as I rush down the stairs. I stop outside the booming door and fling it open.
"What the hell are you doing this late? You know-"
It's them. Josh, Dee Dee, Grant, Zach, Dillon, Courtney, Jonas and Anna. Things couldn't get more awkward.
I clear my throat. "Zach, you didn't tell me you live here."
"Well, now you know," he answers me.
Silence.
"Jonas, congratulations, you finally asked Anna out," I say to him. He blushes.
"Thank you for sharing that with everyone."
Silence. I can't stand it.
"Well, it was nice seeing you here and all but I really must get to sleep. Goodnight," I say curtly before walking away.
"Cammie! Cammie, wait!" I know that voice too well. Josh. I continue to walk away from him. Unfortunately, he's on the soccer team and I'm not. We lead this huge chase, me walking and hiding and waiting for him to pass, and him running in the direction he thinks I went.
But eventually he corners me at the staircase.
"Cammie, look…"
I know I'm close to tears, but I refuse to cry in front of him. I have to get out, fast.
"Josh, I don't want to hear it," I tell him and I push past him. Somehow, he manages to grab my hand.
"Cammie, look at me," he insists. I stare into his deep blue eyes. They're so beautiful. Snap out of it!
"Josh…" My own eyes are glistening with tears.
"Cammie, I never got to tell you. I love you."
"Josh, please-"
"I love you so much it actually hurts," he says earnestly. "I love you so much that I'd die for you."
"Josh, let me go-"
"If you'd told me that you quit your school, your life, for me, I would've treated you differently, I swear."
"Josh, I'm serious-"
"Cammie, I'll be different, I'll never hurt you or anything, I promise."
"Josh, listen," I say in a gentle voice. I can't even see because my eyes are so brimmed up with tears. "I never knew you liked me so much, but I know that I can't break Grant's heart as well as yours. I like him too and I just don't think I'm ready to date you. I'm sorry."
His face crumples and he stares me with the question why? written all over his face. I hate myself so much that I don't even notice the tears streaming down my face until I hear drip drip drip on the floor. Josh stares, heartbroken, into my eyes but then he turns away from me and rushes down the stairs and out into the night. I sink to the floor, a puddle of tears surrounding me.
Zach's POV
She looks so upset that it's all I can do to stay still, even with all my CoC training. I just want to put my arms around her and whisper into her soft ears that everything will be alright. But I can't. Because she's not mine.
Instead, I have to watch as Grant, not me, walks up to Cammie and say, "That was the saddest conversation I have ever seen." I have to watch while he puts his arms around her and she sobs into his chest and he strokes her hair and she kisses him lightly. My whole heart is screaming, She's with the wrong guy! but I can't do anything except stand at the top of the stairs with the rest.
After that, everybody goes home, leaving me and Cammie alone together.
"I guess since we live so close, we could take each other to school," I offer. Cammie sniffs, because she hasn't stop crying fully yet.
"No, Zach, I'm not your girlfriend," she tells me sadly. But I wish you were, I think to myself.
"Don't worry, we don't need to look that way. I don't need to open your door for you," I tell her reassuringly. I try to convince myself that I'm doing this for Mom, for the CoC, but I know in my heart that I just want to spend some time alone with her.
"Ok, you can take me tomorrow," Cammie says shyly. "But if you lay one finger on me, Grant and Josh will kill you. Oh yeah, and I'll kill you too."
I chuckle. "Right. I'll remember that."
Cammie has a ghost of a smile on her face. She's probably remembering Gallagher, but of course, I'm not supposed to know about Gallagher being a spy school, so I pretend not to notice.
"Goodnight Gallagher Girl," I tell her warmly.
"Goodnight Zach," she replies distantly. "Wait, Gallagher Girl?"
"That's what you are… or were. Eight o'clock tomorrow at my place, ok?"
She nods and I enter my condo with a smile on my face.
[Next morning]
Cammie's POV
I wake up to my alarm ringing and ringing. I groggily push myself out of bed and dress into jeans and a faded T-shirt. Third day of school and hopefully it's going to be better than the last two.
When I emerge from my apartment, I'm feeling bright and sunny. I won't let any Josh problems get in my way today. I wonder what Mom will think when I tell her that Josh and I never got back together. She'll think I've wasted a whole lot of time and training. Maybe I should try training in my apartment after school. That's a good idea.
I make my way down to Zach's condo and ring the bell. Zach opens the door with a smile.
"You ready, Gallagher Girl?" he asks.
"Yup."
"Then let's go! Race you!" And he sprints down the stairs.
"Unfair!" I cry after him and I jump from the top of the stairs through the hole in the middle of the stairs onto the ground floor. I roll to lessen the impact.
"Cheater!" he calls after me and he leaps through the window, smashing the glass and sprints to the car, while I go the long way, through the ground floor doors and through the parking lot to Zach's car.
"You can't break windows!" I scream in delight but then I vault onto the hedge and jump off it and into the passenger seat in the car, just before Zach gets into his seat.
"And you can't ruin hedges, little missy," he laughs, pointing at the hedge I jumped off. He's right, I did ruin it. You can see the holes where my feet were. I laugh too. That was the most exhilarating thing I've ever done since CoveOps last year.
Most guys would have asked me how I learnt to jump from the fourth floor to the ground floor, or how I could jump so far off a hedge, but not Zach. That means he already knows about Gallagher (impossible!) or he's especially stupid (much more likely).
That's why I don't say anything about it. We spend the rest of the time chatting about anything in particular: trees, cars, birds and Zach's girlfriends. It's so easy to chat with him.
"So I heard you're a player," I tell Zach.
"Oh, yeah," he says as though being a player is nothing bad. But it is.
"Why's that?"
"Well, Gallagher Girl," he begins, "Unlike other players, I don't necessarily like breaking girls' hearts. It's just I think I see 'the one for me' so I go to her and hook up with her. But then I find that the girl has something dead wrong with her like I dunno, she likes to kill people or something, so I dump her."
"Kill people?" I snort.
"Well, yeah I was stuck on reasons," he grins back at me.
"Ok then…" I say. "Well what happened to Tina? I didn't see her at the sleepover."
"Oh she went off with one of the neighbours," Zach shrugs. "Probably had sex."
I gasp. "She did what?"
"She went off with one of the neighbours," he repeats. "She probably had sex with him."
"But… you don't care about that?" I ask, shocked.
"No, not really," he smiles slightly at me. "I was going to break up with her anyway. She's a player too. Besides, Gallagher Girl, I've got my eyes set on someone else."
"Really?" I ask him eagerly, "What's she like?"
"Oh, she's perfect," Zach sighs, with a dreamy look. "I've liked her for since last October."
"Then why haven't you asked her out?" I say, puzzled.
"She was dating someone for a long time," he explains. "But then they broke up. I thought that was my chance to be her shining knight in armour, but now she's dating someone else. And she really likes him."
"Awww, that's such a sad story," I sympathise. "Poor you!"
"Yeah," he says, still distantly. "Yeah, I know. I don't know what to do."
"Tell her you love her." I can't believe he hasn't already done that.
"I can't," he croaks. "She's dating… a friend of mine. I can't break my friend's heart too."
"Is this girl a player?"
"No… I don't think so," he says quietly.
"Does your friend really like her? Is she 'the one' for him too?"
"I'm not sure," he answers. "He likes her, but I'm not sure whether she's 'the one' for him. I mean, it started off as a bet between me and him to see whether he could up a date with her in twenty seconds." I stare at him, shocked. Is this the type of bets players do? Because that's just cruel. Poor girl. I bet she doesn't even know about the bet. He continues, "But I'm not sure what he's thinking now. What's worse is that the boy she was dating before they broke up still likes her."
"Wow…" I trail off. "That girl must be pretty perfect for three boys to like her."
"She is," Zach agrees.
"Well, I'm sure you'll get through it in the end," I say, because we're at school now. "But I'll help you think something out. I promise."
What do you think? R&R please!