I do not own Twilight.

Wow, short throw back?

"He's looking over here again."

My head snaps up quickly, but this time I have enough willpower and smarts to not glance in the direction that Alice is peeking in. There's a smile tugging around the corners of her mouth and I want, so badly, to slap it off of her face.

"Stop looking!" I hiss, and it only makes her smile more.

My face is beet red; I can feel it.

Thankfully, she looks away back towards the surface of the picnic bench where her French homework has been sprawled out, untouched for the past ten minutes.

"All I'm saying is that he has looked over here a total of five times in the past five minutes." She flips her mechanical pencil around between her index and middle finger. "If he doesn't have the guts to walk over here, you should go to him."

I scoff, because that is the most insane thing I have ever heard her say and, though I've only known her since July, she has said some pretty crazy things.

"Isn't he with his friends?" I press, staring extra hard at my English essay. I've already perfected it, but it's the only thing that will keep me from looking over at him. I think if he caught me looking at him, I would die.

"So what?" Alice goads, snapping her gum once and it's so like Alice. If this was Jasper, if he was standing in the parking lot after school, smiling and laughing with his friends, she'd have no hesitation whatsoever to go right over there and demand his attention.

I, however, am not Alice.

The essay is pulled out from beneath my fingers and Alice is dangling it in front of me, her eyebrows raised mischievously. "He's been flirting with you all summer—"

"I've only spoken to him three times and I just moved here two months ago," I interrupt, making a missed grab for my essay.

"—and is clearly waiting for you to make the first move," she finishes as though I never spoke.

I reach for the essay again, but she only pulls it further from me.

"He's probably staring over here because we're two idiotic girls, sitting at the picnic benches, doing homework on a September afternoon instead of going to the mall, or to the movies, or to the beach," I snap, finally grabbing hold of the essay. I cradle it to me like a lost child. Of course, I had a hard copy on my computer, but not with the red markings of review I had so cautiously written this morning.

"Hey," Alice retorts, picking up her pencil again, "you're the one who insisted that we finish our homework out here. I am all for hitting up the mall."

I roll my eyes, because that is not what I was trying to say, but Alice is already glancing around at the emptying parking lot.

"Hey!" she calls out suddenly, swiveling quickly to look at me. "Isn't that your step-dad, over by the flagpole?"

Instinctively and curiously I lift my head, my eyes scanning towards the tall white pole at the far end of the parking lot. My eyes train for the police cruiser, but instead are met with brilliant green. The same green that has taken over all of my thoughts from the first week that I moved here with my mom.

He's leaning against the side of his friend's SUV, arms crossed, grin on his beautiful, chiseled face as he listens to something his friends are saying.

My heart flutters at the sight of him and, before I can look back at Alice and give her grief for lying to me about Charlie, he turns his head a fraction of an inch and his eyes meet mine.

I can practically see the emerald irises and the golden hues that swim close to his pupils from way over here.

The grin widens and then lifts higher on one side of his face, giving him those ridiculous, gorgeous dimples that starred in my dreams for nights on end.

I'm already pulled in, everything disappearing around and in front of me. There's nothing but me and him, and the hundreds of feet between us mean nothing. I can practically smell the lavender and soap scent that rolls off of him; can feel the overpowering flush that renders my body motionless.

He goes from grinning to biting down on his bottom lip as stares over at our table and I think, for a moment, that maybe he will come over here.

"See?" Alice whispers close to my ear. "I told you he was looking at you."

I'm grinning back at him and then ducking my head before he can see my blush from a mile away.