Part Three

At first I thought it was a spark. You know, the kind you feel when you meet someone for the first time and your hand brushes against theirs. But this wasn't like any spark I'd ever felt before. No, it was more like something waking up inside of me. Something exhilarating and terrifying and completely unexpected. It didn't even register in my mind that it was Oliver, not at first. It was like a kiss from my dreams, and some mysterious, handsome stranger had just claimed me as his own. But then at last reality kicked in, and…

Oh my gosh I was kissing Oliver!

He broke away before I had time to panic, looking pretty pleased with himself. "Booyah! Top that, Sammy," he challenged.

Sammy looked devastated. He had no words. I saw the tears welling up in his eyes, saw his lips quiver. He hung his head, turned around, and left.

I watched him go, feeling strangely guilty. I hadn't meant to hurt him, not like that. But honestly, how else was I going to get rid of him?

"I guess we took care of that problem, eh?" Oliver said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go get another egg roll."

I stood there on the dance floor feeling weak and disoriented. What had just happened? Why was my heart still racing? Why did I suddenly feel this strange disappointment now that Oliver had walked off? And why wasn't Oliver the least bit affected by that kiss?

I collapsed onto the nearest chair. Whatever had happened, it was definitely worse than listening to Sammy quote Shakespeare.

"We saw a shark!" Lilly slid into the seat across from me. Lupe sat next to her, grinning. "And some clown fish. The clown fish were cool."

"Sí, cool," Lupe echoed.

"Cool, but not very clowny. I guess you chased off punch bowl guy?" Lilly looked around for him.

"Yeah, he's gone."

"You okay?" She touched my arm. "You don't look so good."

Lilly was so bright and happy, I knew I couldn't ruin the night for her with my problems. She deserved to have fun with Lupe. We could always talk tomorrow. If I died of anguish before then, so be it.

"I'm fine." I smiled weakly. "We put on quite a show for Sammy and he left. Now everything's back to normal."

"Great!" Lilly leaned over to Lupe and whispered something in his ear, then turned back to me. "I just talked to my mom. She said we could walk down to the ice cream shop and she'll pick us up in a bit. Are you good here?"

What else could I say? Don't leave me, I'm in the middle of a crisis? "Yeah, I'm good," I lied. "Go have fun."

Lilly thanked me and traipsed off with Lupe.

Now I really did feel sick. Not only could I not pour my heart out to my best friend for the rest of the night, but I had to go home with Oliver. In the limo. Alone. And Roxie wouldn't even sit between us the whole way because…well, let's face it, he's Oliver. He'd been Roxie-proofed years ago.

The Aqua Zone band blared out a hideous song with a whistle, an out-of-tune banjo, and dolphin calls. I wasn't sure which sound grated on my nerves the most, but one thing I did know: Save-The-Whales was getting scratched off my charity list the moment I got home.

I sat in my chair and watched Oliver move around the room. He ate some food, scared a girl off with a really lame joke, and ate some more. Then finally he came back to me with an ice cream Sundae and two spoons. He handed one to me.

"Want some?"

Suddenly I was on guard. "I can get my own, you know."

He shrugged. "This is the last one. I thought you might like some."

I stared indecisively at the spoon he'd dropped in front of me. If I shared the Sundae with him, did that mean I liked him? Or did it just mean I had a bad sweet tooth?

Oliver seemed oblivious to my dilemma. He started eating the ice cream. "So Sammy hasn't come back?"

"No sign of him."

"We got him good, didn't we?" He licked his spoon.

See, normally I'd be grossed out watching him eat, but now he was actually kind of…no, what was I thinking? Oliver wasn't cute...was he?

Well, he sure was a good kisser.

Stop thinking about it!

"Is that all this was to you?" I said a little sharper than I'd intended. "You were just having a little fun, ganging up on an innocent boy, making him cry!"

Oliver paused mid-bite and looked at me quizzically. "It was your idea."

"And you're the one who tore out his poor little heart with that…spectacle! He'll never set foot in Malibu again."

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"No! Yes! I don't know. Oh, just go eat another egg roll." I slung my purse over my shoulder, stood up, turned to leave – and tripped over Oliver's foot. I landed flat on my face.

"Miles, are you okay?" Oliver crouched down beside me. "I'm sorry."

I wanted to cry. Everything was so messed up, and now I probably had dirt, dust bunnies, and food stains all over my new dress. I wished I hadn't let Lilly leave. I needed her. I needed a hug.

Oliver helped me to my feet. "Maybe we should go home," he suggested.

I nodded and held onto him. He had a strong back, and I found myself relaxing against him. "I didn't mean to yell at you."

"It's okay."

We called for the limo and said nothing as we stood waiting for it to drive around front. It wasn't until we were halfway home that I found the courage to speak.

"You didn't have to kiss me."

He looked at me for the first time since we'd gotten in the limo. Then he shrugged apologetically and looked away. "Listen, Miles, I know how much you didn't like it when I had a crush on Hannah, so I was just trying to help. Don't freak out and think it means anything, okay?" He played with the window button, rolling it up and down.

"It's not that I didn't like it when you followed Hannah everywhere," I said. "It was just weird to have my best friend thinking I was someone else."

"Hey, we're past that. It's all good. Do you think Roxie hid any of those candy bars in here?" He searched between the cushions and under the seat.

"Are you seriously still hungry?"

"No, but the last time I was in here I stepped on one and tracked it all over my mom's carpet. I don't feel up for a repeat tonight."

He kept looking, and I sighed. "I just don't want you to think I wanted you to kiss me."

"Believe me, I don't." He sat back with a grunt, waving a half eaten candy bar in the air. "And Smoken Oken saves the night once again with his quick thinking and irresistible charm."

"Yeah, you charmed that candy bar right into your hands." I crossed my arms over my chest and refused to let his careless words hurt. So it didn't mean anything to him, so what? It's not like it meant anything to me. In fact, this was good. Tomorrow everything would be normal again. Oliver would joke around about everything, and I would make fun of him. That was what I wanted, anyway, so why was I letting it bother me so much?

I didn't sleep all that night. The kiss plagued me every time I thought about it, which was constantly. I couldn't remember the last time I'd thought so much about a kiss. It drove me crazy that I couldn't get my mind off of it. I knew something was terribly different from all the other times I'd kissed a guy, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Maybe this all-consuming paranoia was just an odd expression of my disgust.

Because I sure didn't like him. Not like that.

I called Lilly at 7:00 in the morning and begged her to come over. It was Saturday, so she was understandably mad at me. But I bribed her over with a promise that my dad would have pancakes ready when she got there.

"Daaad!" I pulled his covers back. "You have to come make me and Lilly pancakes!"

"What's that I hear?" He rubbed his ears and yawned. "Oh, that's right. It's the voice of a girl whose daddy's about to lock her out of the house."

"Pretty please? It's important. Lilly and I have serious business to discuss."

"Now I do recall that at one time I showed you how to make pancakes yourself."

"Yes, but you make them the best. And I promised Lilly! Pretty pretty please?" I jumped up and down on his bed.

"You know the double pretty please doesn't work before ten in the morning, Bud. I'm sorry but you're gonna have to fix those 'cakes yourself." He covered his head with a pillow and refused to be disturbed any further.

I made the pancakes myself, and when Lilly came over she complained. "They taste like dried up pita bread with chunks of burnt peanut butter inside."

"How creative of you." I frowned from across the table.

Lilly shrugged and ate another bite. "It's okay, the burnt peanut butter is growing on me. So what's this big thing you wanted to talk about?"

"It's Oliver."

"Did he embarrass you again? I told you from the start not to let him come to Hannah stuff."

"No, he didn't embarrass me. He…kissed me."

Lilly laughed. "Sure."

"He did."

She sawed through her pancake with a knife. "Seriously, come on."

"I am being serious!"

That got her attention. She dropped her knife and stared up at me with wide eyes. "Eww, gross! No wonder you were having nightmares!"

"Lilly, do I look like I'm grossed out about it?"

She tilted her head. "Hmm. Wait." She took my chin in her hands and moved my head around so she could see my eyes at every angle. Satisfied, she sat back. "Nope." It took her a moment to realize what she'd said, and then she jumped up. "Oh my gosh! You're not grossed out. Why are you not grossed out?"

"I don't know. You tell me. I've been trying to figure it out all night."

Lilly began pacing the room. "I wonder what Oliver thinks about this."

I grunted. "Not much, apparently. He acted like it never happened."

"Why did he do it, then?"

"To make Sammy think we were in love so he would go away."

"Well, it worked, right? He helped you out, you got rid of punch bowl guy. It didn't mean anything. What's the problem?"

"The problem is that I don't want it to mean anything, but I keep thinking about it! Lilly, after he kissed me I couldn't make myself admire any of the other guys in the room. I kept watching Oliver, which was crazy because all he was doing was eating and making a fool of himself. Tell me there's a logical explanation for all this."

Lilly made me lie down on the sofa and propped my head up with a pillow. "Calm down, okay? We'll figure this out. First thing's first." She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen off the coffee table and poised herself to take notes. "Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how good was the kiss?"

"I don't know. This is silly."

"You're blushing!"

"I am not. Fine. It was like, an eight. And that's being generous."

Lilly's eyes got very round. "The highest score you've ever given anyone was a seven."

"That's not true. Jake was definitely a nine."

"I'm your best friend, Miley. I think I know how you rated Jake's kisses. You said at first it felt like a ten, but then when you thought about it later it wasn't even a five."

I groaned. "Whatever. We're fifteen. We have to stop rating kisses. It's so junior high."

Lilly jotted something down on the pad of paper.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking notes?" She blinked innocently.

"You're not helping! I'm having a crisis, Lilly! What am I going to do?"

"Okay, okay." She threw the pad over her shoulder and dropped down in front of me. "I think we can solve this pretty quickly. Here's the big question. Do you want him to kiss you again?"

Suddenly, in the silence that followed, it all came together. The thing that bothered me more than anything else about last night was that I knew he would never kiss me again. And I wanted him to, but he had made it clear that he didn't. That's what made the whole situation so unbearable.

"Oh my gosh, Lilly. I like him. I like Oliver. How did this happen?" I buried my face into the couch pillow. "I can't ever see him ever again. You'll have to act as a buffer. Keep him away from me. Tell him I have a contagious disease. No, that'll never work. I have to move. I have to change my cell number and my screen name and…oh, I have to change my real name, too!"

"Miley, please, calm down." Lilly patted my shoulder. "This isn't the end of the world. So you like your best friend. So what? It happens all the time."

"No it doesn't!"

"Well, maybe it won't be as bad as you think. Maybe when you see him today you won't feel anything at all. Then you can go back to normal."

I peered hopefully from behind the pillow. "Do you think so?"

"Probably not, but –"

"Lilly!"

"Why don't you just tell him, then? Maybe he feels the same way."

"If 'booyah' is an expression of affection, then yeah, I'm sure he feels the same way."

"Don't be cynical. He's Oliver. He reacts differently to stuff."

"I know, but this is big. What if I tell him and he doesn't like me back?"

"Then I'll comfort you while you cry," she said sweetly. I frowned at her, and she lowered her head. "Sorry."

"Come on, Lilly, I need a plan. Help me think of a plan." I sat up and brushed hair out of my face.

"A plan to do what?"

"To keep Mike and Hannah together, duh! What else?"

Lilly scratched her head. "I'm not sure how this is going to help."

"Maybe Miley can't date him," I explained, already devising schemes in my head, "but Hannah can. And if he pretends to date me a little longer, eventually he'll want to date me. It's a foolproof plan, Lilly! Quick, get a pen! Write this down!"

Lilly sighed, pulled a pillow off the sofa, and buried her face in it. "Oh, brother. Here we go."