TITLE: I Don't
AUTHOR: Mari
EMAIL:Ficangel@yahoo.com
RATING: PG to PG-13 for some swearing
DISCLAIMERS: All characters within belong to Fox and various shiny people who aren't me.
No geeks.
No losers.
No deadbeats, chess players, or guys without cars.
These are the rules of the Newport dating scene. I invented them, and no one follows them more rigorously than I do. There have to be standards, you know? Rules and order to the hormone-on-hormone explosion, or else society itself could fall apart. This is the way that it's been since the beginning of time.
It's certainly not snobbery. It's just that the best date the best, and everyone else…well, out of sight, out of mind.
I've dated jocks. I've dated trust-fund babies. I've dated guys who already had their own stock portfolios, had boyfriends with Beemers that could make you weep. I'm the queen of the social scene and, baby, don't you ever forget it.
None of those guys ever stammered when they saw me. None of them stared at me like my eyes were the most captivating thing in the world rather than my tits, and you can bet your ass that not a one of them would have stood in front of a gun for me.
So where does this leave a girl? Screwed, that's what. I've enforced the rules of dating ruthlessly since I was fourteen, to break them now would have every girl in Newport turning on me like wolves that smell lamb's blood.
He's showed up at another party, and I why. Seth isn't stupid, I have to give him that much. Surely he knows that he's not wanted. He hasn't brought his eye-candy friend, either, which increases his chance of an ass kicking by, like, a lot.
Seth locks eyes with me from across the room, flashing a shy smile and a little wave.
Oh.
It's an odd feeling, knowing that in someone's eyes you're the only woman in the room. I've never known anything like it before. My skin tingles with warmth and, just once, mind you, I catch myself glancing over my shoulder, returning his smile with a flickering one of my own. The dork's entire face lights up like he's just been told that, yes, Santa Claus really does exist, and all of his elves are Playboy bunnies besides.
I don't date losers. I don't date geeks, deadbeats, or other assorted undesirables, and I am not, not, walking across the room to talk to Seth Cohen.
His face says that not only are the elves Playboy bunnies, but they help deliver the presents naked. "H-hey, Summer." He very chivalrously does not ogle my legs, revealed in all of their glory in a skirt cut so short that it's criminal. God help me, I like it.
I lean onto my tiptoes and kiss Seth softly on the corner of his mouth. There. I'm not talking to him.
Seth's grin is the purest, dorkiest, cutest thing that I have ever seen. His return kiss definitely isn't on the corner of my mouth, and I can feel my social stock plummeting by the second. I open my lips to him anyway. What Seth lacks in expertise, he makes up for in sweetness.
Every eye in the room is on us when he pulls away. "Summer," he whispers, his breath tickling my cheek, "I thought you would never ask."
He doesn't play chess. At least I'm not breaking all the rules.