CHAPTER FOUR

How Close is Too Close?

Lilly's Point of View

Joe was standing in my temporary living room. Right this very second. It gave me stomach lurches just thinking about it.

He looked unbearably hot—and totally uncomfortable. The sight of it was enough to make me get a little light-headed. As for me, I was staring him down like he was a nightmare slowly unfolding before my eyes; like he was my biggest fear. I must have looked really pitiful, because the next thing I knew, Hayden was in front of me, looking unusually concerned.

I looked around the room with a confused, weirded out, seemingly annoyed look on my face. My vision was blurred and my eyes felt like someone put pepper spray into them.

"If this answers the question that I think I see in your eyes, our neighbors—well, just for now, anyway—already left," Miley said quietly.

It suddenly all came rushing back, hitting me like a brick in the face.

"I was so out of it, wasn't I?" I asked, jumping up from the couch I'd been sitting in.

"So I take it that this Joe was the Joe that you kissed?" Hayden inquired. "This is too weird for words," I heard him mutter to himself.

I couldn't blame him.

At all.

I asked them particularly what happened during the boys' visit. Apparently, the story started with Hayden's continuation of the introductions. He was all, "This is my younger sibling, Lilly, and these are her friends, Miley and Oliver. Um, they count as my friends, too."

I interrupted Miley, who was giving me the play-by-play, with a, "Okay, that was so lame!"

Hayden shot me a glare. "What else was I supposed to say."

"Can you two Truscotts just stop arguing?" Miley asked, annoyed with the rude interruptions. When Hayden and I both crossed our arms in front of our chests and nodded, she smiled briefly. "Okay, good. Moving on…"

We all supposedly shook hands with one another. When Joe and I shook hands, Miley said, we avoided each other's gaze. That must have given me away in an instant.

"Mom made us go here," Kevin said (at least, that's what I was told he said), "to bring you these." He would soon whip out a plate of chocolate chip and M&M's cookies (which are standard "Welcome, neighbor!" objects) and hand them over. "I wasn't finished straightening my hair—note the uneven styles—but when our mother sets her mind to something, she can't be stopped."

"I noticed," Hayden supposedly told him. "Well, it was nice of you guys to stop by. We'll be looking forward to hanging out with you."

The boys, Hayden said, nodded with smiles.

"Yeah, thanks," I added in a dry, lifeless tone, according to Oliver. He even added that he wondered if I'd turned into a zombie.

"And please, please don't hesitate to bring more cookies," Oliver, ever Mr. Random, said, munching on one. "These are delicious." Miley told me this part of the encounter with Nick, Joe and Kevin. It was all very typical to me—when did Oliver say something of significance, anyway? Well, he did, sometimes, but most of the time, I end up wondering why the boy even opens his mouth in the first place.

"Oh, really?" Nick had asked. "Our mom makes them. She added the M&M's. She's kind of creative that way."

Oliver nodded, taking a bite off a cookie. "They taste good. In my humble opinion, every cookie should be made this way."

Joe would join in their cookie convo, and it would go on for a few more seconds, with talks of everything cookie-related (even some that are far from the cookie subject), from chocolate chips to oatmeal to the dough to Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream to Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey Ice Cream to ice cream toppings to M&M's and finally, back to the cookies. At that point, even Hayden and Miley and Kevin had joined, but not me, because I'd been too busy getting caught up in the situation.

Kevin would eventually notice the strange look I was giving Joe, who was stating a speech on the joys of having strawberries, bananas and Cocoa Pebbles on ice cream. According to Hayden, they asked if I was okay and I responded with a nod, followed by me telling them that I just needed to sit down for a sec. I would eventually stare out the window for the rest of their visit.

I know. It was so pathetic of me, even I would roll my eyes.

"I have to go over there," I said, taking some steps to the front door and grasping the knob. "You know, to apologize? It must have looked so rude. And I don't ever want to look rude. Ever."

Before anyone can stop me, I turned the knob, walked out and walked over to their porch and rang their doorbell.

Nick got the door. "Oh, hey," he greeted with a good-natured smile. He looked surprised upon seeing me.

"Hi," I told him. "Listen, I'm so sorry for spacing out earlier. That kind of happens to me sometimes." It surprised me how easily I could talk to him.

"Nick!" I heard someone say in the background. "Who is that you're talking to?"

"It's our new next-door neighbor, Lilly!" Nick yelled back.

"Well, just for two weeks," I said.

All of a sudden, Joe appeared at his side, shoving him lightly to make room for himself. "Hi," he said flatly, but with a huge smile. "What'cha doin' here?" His mouth was full of his mom's cookies.

"You're kind of sending me mixed signals," I replied. "But, anyway, yeah, hello."

"I have to get back to that song…" Nick muttered, turning around. "It was nice seeing you, Lilly. And about the spacing out thing? Don't worry about it. I do that all the time myself." He waved. "See you later." Then he walked away, singing about flying and time and knocking on something.

I nodded. "Bye."

"Hi," Joe tried again.

I smiled, although sheepishly, in return. I couldn't speak; I was so tongue-tied. Wouldn't you be, too, if you were standing in front of a boy you just kissed and ran away from, let alone a really cute one?

Joe sighed. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"Me?" I faked innocence and not having a clue about what he was asking, even though I obviously did. It wasn't working.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about—you're the girl at that New Year's party yesterday. The one who kissed me and ran away without telling me her name."

I gave up. Like I could fool anyone, anyway. I was the world's worst liar—and that's the truth. Ah, irony. "Fine, it was me."

"So, why?" Joe asked.

"You know," I said, "asking me one-liners without enough details is going to make this conversation a really long one. And as of now, I'm just trying very hard not to wish that the ground would open up and swallow me in whole."

Joe grinned, walking out and closing the door behind him. "Sorry," he said. "Why did you run away?"

"I guess it felt sort of weird to me," I replied. "I mean, I've never done that kiss-someone-on-New-Year's thing before."

"Could've fooled me," Joe stated. "It doesn't look like it," he went on. "When you kissed me, the first thing that came to my mind was, 'Wow.'"

I tried to ignore the fact that I was probably blushing so hard, my face looked like a fresh, ripe, juicy tomato. "When I pulled you by the collar—sorry about that, by the way—and planted one on you, it didn't feel weird at all. It felt like I've done it loads of times before. It gave me a high like now other."

"Should it be weird that I feel like I've known you for such a long time?" Joe asked. He shrugged, smiling. "It doesn't make me feel uncomfortable telling you all about that, uh, kiss."

"Piece of advice?" was my reply. "Stop using pickup lines on me. It may work on girls around here, but for me? Heck, no."

"That's not a pickup line." Joe looked at his feet. He was wearing navy blue Converses.

I sighed, after a seemingly long and awkward pause. "I guess we should, like, start over." I held my hand out. "Hi. I'm Lilly Truscott."

"I'm Joe Jonas." With a smile, Joe shook my hand. "Pleased to meet you, Lilly."

"So you're really Hayden's camp bud, huh?" I asked.

"Yeah," Joe said. "We both went to Camp Phoenix during the summer of 1999. You're his younger sister, right? By what, two to four minutes?"

I raised my eyebrows. "What? No, we're not twins. He's older by two and a half years."

"I could've sworn you were fraternal twins. You look so much alike."

"I've always been told that I could pretend to be Hayden if I chopped of my hair and grew a few inches," I said. "But when you look inside our minds, you'd wonder why we even bother to share the same home. We have different likes and dislikes. The only thing we have in common is our interest in skateboarding."

"Joe!" I heard Kevin's muffled voice from the inside of the house call out. "The song! We need your ideas."

"I'm coming!" Joe yelled back. He turned back to me, smiling. "Well, it was nice talking to you," he said, "and getting to know you better." He shot me a salute. "Later, Lilly."

I waved, smiling back. "Yeah, same here."

Joe smiled once again before disappearing behind the door that led to his house.

I felt like I was walking on air as I returned to the house I was staying in. When I entered, Ollie, Miles and Hayden stared at me expectantly.

"She wasn't feeling well earlier," Oliver told them. "Now, she's sick—lovesick."

"I don't know," Hayden shot back. "Maybe she's under what I like to call the 'Joe Effect.' Tons of girls fell into it back at Camp Phoenix. As a ten-year-old, Joe sure had the charm he still holds now."

"And you're okay with it?" Miley asked.

Hayden shook his head, although showing no sign of annoyance. "No, not really. I don't think I'd call it that."

Never mind that they were talking about me as if I wasn't there. I didn't care.

Somehow, the only thing in my mind then was Joe.

(A/N: Lilly's falling for Joe—hard! How will it go? Check the next chapter for the deets! Sorry for the late update. I've been busy with school. Soo sorry. Thanks for the reviews! I love writing for you guys. Please review this one! Thanks.)