Chapter 5- Mystery Man- Good or Bad?

"It's totally unfair that you my name and I don't know yours. So what's you name anyways?" I ask looking him right in the eyes. He snaps his fingers together in mock defeat.

"Oh, darn, I guess you caught me. Okay, my name is…………………………"

"Jake Jagielski. Nice to meet you." He says as he pulls out his hand for me to shake.

"Nice to me you J.J. I'm Peyton Sawyer. Hope you don't mind if I call you J.J." I say as I gracefully shake his hand. When I try to move my hand back, he doesn't let go. I look up to see him looking at me with a look in his eyes, almost like he's looking into my soul. "Umm, Jake?" I ask as I look at him. He blinks and looks down at our hands. He quickly lets go and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Sorry" he says shyly. I smile and look at him gently.

"It's okay. Just don't try to steal my hand again" I reply as I playfully slap his arm. He looks up and smirks. We both look at each other and smile.

We continue walking up to my friends and I introduce them to Jake. They all shake hands and we start talking about the latest sports happenings. Suddenly my favorite song "Amazed" by Lonestar comes on. Brooke looks at me and smiles.

"Hey Jake, did you that this is Peyton's favorite song? I think this would be the perfect opportunity to ask her to dance!" she says, then grabs Lucas and pulls him onto the dance floor. Jakes looks up at me, and we both start laughing.

"So I take it she's not that subtle about things? Anyways, I guess I wouldn't want to disappoint her. Would you like to dance?" he asks sincerely, placing his hand out for me to take.

"We don't have to, if you don't want to." I reply, looking at him, praying that he'll say yes and dance with me.

"But I want to" he answers and takes my hand in his. We walk onto the dance floor and I place my hands around his neck, while his find their way to my waist. We start dancing to the song, and I start mouthing the words. Jake looks at me and smiles.

"You know this is one of my favorite songs too." He says smiling at me.

"Really, what other bands do you listen to?" I ask, suddenly interested. I mean, we are talking about my favorite subject!

"I don't know, I listen to a lot of Dashboard Confessionals, Counting Crows and The Police." He replies simply. I just look at him stunned. "What are those the wrong answers?"

"No, are you kidding, those are classics! I love them. What's your favorite Police album?"

"I don't have a favorite Police album. But I love The Soul Cages, by Sting."

"That's an awesome album!" I look at him and we smile ate each other before I put my head gently on his chest. I can tell he works out, or plays some kind of sport because he's buff! He then rests his shin on my head.

The song ends, but another slow song comes on, so we keep dancing like that. Even if a slow song didn't come on, we probably would have stayed that way anyways. It's like one of those moments you get once in a blue moon. Like you're safe and nothing can touch you. That's what I'm feeling as I'm dancing with Jake. Then reality strikes back in the form of me getting hit in the butt with what feels like a foot. I turn around to see Brooke and Lucas giggling. I give them both a dirty look.

"What are you doing?" I ask annoyed that they ruined Jake and my moment.

"Nothing, you guys seemed so close, so I thought I'd break it up. Plus, it's about the time for us to do this!" Brooke yells as she and Lucas pull out water guns. I look around for a place to hide and see that almost everybody has a water gun to shoot me with. I scream and try to run but Jake catches me. He holds onto me as I try to squirm out of his grip, but it's too late, and Jake is too strong for me to run away from. Everybody starts spraying me with water, and I can feel the cold water all over me. The funny thing is that Jake probably didn't think that he would get sprayed, but he ended up getting wet anyways. I get out of Jake's grasp and run. The crowd doesn't even notice that I'm gone, because they continue spraying each other. I keep running and decide on hiding behind the bar. I crawl behind the counter and laugh. Then all the water guns stop. I hear Brooke start to yell.

"Peyton, where are you? We're gonna find you eventually!" she says as I hear her heels walking towards and then away from where I am hiding. Suddenly the bartender, Jason, comes out of the bathroom, and comes towards the counter. He spots me and looks at me curiously. I mouth the words "shh, I'm not here!" and I give him my puppy eyes "shh, please!" He looks at me quickly and nods. Then he looks in the direction that I heard Brooke go.

"Hey, Brooke, she's over here!" Jason yells and points towards me. I shriek and run, but this time Lucas grabs me. I try to get out of his grip. Jake then grabs my legs and now I'm not touching the ground. I scream as they carry me over to a kiddy pool that they obviously brought out while I was in hiding.

"Oh no, Lucas, come on! You're not going to do this! Jake please don't! I'll never speak to you guys again if you dump me in that!" I yell as they bring me closer and closer to the tiny pool. When we reach the pool, Jake and Lucas nod at each other, and drop me in the water. It's just deep enough that I wouldn't get hurt as they throw me in. I laugh and shake my hands. Everybody is looking at me as I sit in the pool, having a giggle-fit (you know when you laugh and you can't stop!) I look at Jake, just as he turns around to talk to someone behind him. I smirk and come up with a plan.

I carefully move to the side of the kiddy pool, stand up and then I jump on his back. He jumps and I get off his back. Then I take him by the shoulders and I push him into the water. He falls, but his head doesn't go under the water. He looks at me as I start to giggle at him. I push him down again and we start attempting to dunk each other, but fail because the water is too shallow. I push him down and put my legs on either side of his waist. I pin his arms down and smirk.

"Who's got who now!" I say. I look down at his face to find that he is looking at me as well. We immediately have one of those magnetic connections where you feel your body being towards the others. I slowly move my head towards him. I stop when my face is about 5 inches from his. I smile, and he smiles back. Just as I'm about to place my lips onto his, the mic screeches from feedback. We look around to find Brooke on the stage.

She looks at me and smiles. "Hey P. Sawyer. You know that you're totally awesome, right? Well you are! I know some of the events that happened tonight weren't really what was expected, but that's all a big part of life, right? So I just wanted to say that I love you and that I hope you had an awesome 17th birthday, and that no matter what, you'll always be my bestest best friend ever! Hoes over bros, always!" She finishes her speech and I can feel my eyes start to water. A single tear rolls down my cheek. I carefully get off of Jake, run over to Brooke and envelope her in a big hug. We hug for a good two minutes and then we let go.

"Brooke that was beautiful. Thank you so much. This has been my best birthday party ever!" I say and then hold my fist for her to pound. She obliges then we smile.

"Hey Peyton, only the best for my super dooper friend!" she replies and then brings me into another hug. "Oh hey, I forgot, I have another present for you; don't worry it's not another blind date," she glances over at Jake, "but I can tell that that's going to work out!" she goes into her purse and pulls out a little red box with a pink ribbon tied around it. I open the box to find a gorgeous silver ring. It has a diamond heart on the top of it to add to the design. I look at the ring in complete awe, and find that there is a message engraved in on the inside of the ring. It says "Brooke + Peyton BFF! Happy 17th!" I look at her as more tears fall down my cheeks.

"Brooke this is beautiful thank you!" I place the ring on my middle finger, and it fits perfectly. Brooke holds up her left hand to reveal an identical ring to mine.

"I got one too, so now it's like you're my bitch!" she says, while laughing. I start laughing along with her, and then we hug yet again.

"Thank you Brooke! Really!" I say and then turn to the crowd of people and take the mic out of Brooke's hands, "and thank you all for coming to this party. This has been the best party ever!" Brooke and I then get off the stage as everyone starts clapping, and we walk to where our friends and Jake are.

We talk about random things for about 2 hours. Everybody at the party says good bye to me and happy birthday, before leaving. When the last group of kids leaves we decide that we should head out too. As we walk out the door, I lock up and make sure that everything is all right.

"So Peyton, so you want a ride home with us, or what are you doing?" Brooke asks.

"Umm," I turn to Jake, "do you want to give me a ride home?" I say.

"Sure, that wouldn't be a problem at all" he replies smiling.

"Okay, Umm, Brooke, Jake's going to give me a ride home, okay?" I answer as I walk up to her.

"Yep, no problem. I guess I'll see you tomorrow." She leans in to whisper to me, "be careful and call me tomorrow with all of the deets!"

"I will. See you guys later." With that I walk with Jake towards his car, basically draining all my energy as I get there. Then I plop down into the passenger seat of his car and smile happily.

I'm finally ready to let go of my past, and hang on to the future.

That's it for Chapter 5. It was a close call between Nathan and Jake. If you didn't like that it was Jake, then you should've reviewed, lol.

Anyways, sorry it took me so long to update. I've been kinda busy, you know with school starting. But I'll try to update more often.

Up Next: The ride home, first date- or not, do peyton's friends really approve of

Jake?

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Pauline 