After that he had a lot of trouble looking her in the eye, but looking farther down her body was no good either for those very same reasons, so he ended up staring at points beyond her shoulder or closely examining her hairline (Leah would later tell him that she spent much of this time period thinking something was wrong with her hair). His only other alternative was to turn his back on her, but he had done that before, and it was terrible for both of them.

This wasn't a comfortable solution, of course, and if it wasn't for his natural quietness and her pre-existing ability to read him like a book, he might have developed a speech impediment around her, or they might not have remained friends. But the fact was that she knew him almost as well as he knew himself, even his deepest, darkest secret, and she knew what he meant without him having to say, just like when they were babies crawling around his mother's ankles.

As a result they had conversations that simply perplexed everyone else. It wasn't anything as elaborate as the personal language Rachel and Rebecca had invented when they were small, nor did they finish each other's sentences, exactly. It sounded more like they started conversations out loud but finished them via some kind of psychic link.

One September Saturday over breakfast, Leah asked, "D'ya wanna..."

Sammy nodded. "Y-Yeah, um, but if we don't..."

"Oh, you're right. How about..."

"That's, that's perfect! I was thinking about that anyway."

"Great. So should I bring..." Harry looked back and forth between them as if he was watching a tennis match being played with invisible rackets.

"Uh, yeah. And make sure you've got your..."

"I do. They're packed together. Can you show me..." Now Harry wondered why Sammy looked as if he might be blushing under his brown skin.

"Of course. You're getting really good at..."

"Liar, I suck at it! You're so much better!" Walking behind Leah with a skillet of hash browns, Sue shrugged at her husband. She had no idea what the kids were talking about either.

"No, I've just had more practice. And it's not me, it's thanks to..."

"Of course it's thanks to you, who else could it be?"

"You know that..."

"Pfft. You're the one who practiced. If I was half as..."

"You will be. You'll be better than me. I'll help..."

"You're such a good teacher! If it weren't for you, I'd..."

"I'd never let you drown! I'd..."

At this point, Harry broke in and wanted to know why Leah thought she was going to drown, and how Sam planned on stopping it, and where were they going, anyway?

"Surfing!" Leah declared.

Sammy's ears were definitely pink. Harry narrowed his eyes at the boy, who was staring intently at the sausage patty he was cutting into miniscule pieces.

"Surfing? Where'd you learn to surf?"

"Sammy's showing me how."

Harry was concerned. "On what?"

"He's got a board. And when we were at the beach last weekend we shared his, then some guy let me borrow his for a while."

Harry put his fork down. "What guy? Who is this guy? Do I know him?" He was nervous enough about Sam, but he was downright alarmed by the idea of strange men hanging around his beautiful little girl.

"A friend of Sammy's. Dylan Tate, Megan's big brother."

Harry looked back at Sam, who had stuffed six of the tiny pieces of sausage into his mouth all at once. "You're friends with that Tate kid?" There was nothing wrong with Tate, actually, as far as he knew. But it was odd that the older boy would take an interest in Sam, and the only reasons he could think of that Dylan might take an interest in Leah made his blood boil.

Sammy shrugged noncommittally. "Not friends, really."

"But you know him?"

More shrugging. "He's at the beach a lot. Showed me a couple things on my board."

"What does he want with Leah?"

As usual, Leah had the answers. "Want with me? Nothing. His girlfriend wanted him to hang out with her instead of surfing, so he let me borrow it for a bit since it was just sitting there. I mostly just lay on it and paddled around."

Oh. Harry calmed down slightly. Sue broke in. "That sounds like fun, right? And it won't be much longer that the kids can go swimming. It'll be too cold. Kind of already is."

Harry thought of his daughter starting to outgrow her modest one-piece swimsuit. "If you guys are going to be surfing, I'd better get you a wetsuit for next season."

The thought of a wetsuit actually made Sammy feel better. The only way he had gotten through their last excursion to the beach was by staying at a minimum depth of waist deep in the frigid Pacific. And that was despite the fact that Leah's swimsuit was as boring a suit as he had ever seen. What would he do if she ever wore a bikini in front of him?

X-x-x-x-X

Lucky for him Leah didn't have a bikini yet, and swimming and surfing seasons were very nearly over. Soon autumn was upon them. Sam thought that it would be safer than summer's tank tops and short shorts. But then Leah came to school in a nicely fitted, fuzzy red sweater, a pleated plaid skirt that didn't reach her knees, and white knee socks. Sam just about died when he saw her. His hand itched to touch the soft sweater and what was underneath.

He had thought he had gotten his reactions in control, but nope. Not one bit. He stammered and stuttered when she spoke to him, but she had gotten used to this long ago and didn't hold it against him, thank goodness. And he knew now that the only thing he could really do wrong was push her away, so he just kept quiet. It helped that she was wearing a trenchcoat as they walked to school, so he didn't get the full effect of her outfit until homeroom, when he wasn't supposed to talk to her anyway. And now that they were sitting at different lunch tables, it was easy avoiding her for most of the day. If she caught his glance, he just nodded his head briefly in acknowledgement and looked quickly away. She didn't mind. When they walked to her house together after school, he wisely decided to keep his mouth shut to keep anything stupid from coming out. Thankfully she didn't mind the silence between them. Comfortable, she would have called it, had she a reason to name it.

He pretended to focus on his homework while they sat together at her kitchen table. It was hard to get anything done, especially since they were eating powdered donut holes as a snack, and she kept licking her lips to catch stray bits of sugar. He kept stuffing more food in his mouth to keep from having to talk, and he completely spoiled his dinner. He was certain she had caught him staring at her at least a couple times before Seth got home and rescued him from humiliating himself further, but she didn't say anything. She seemed to know he didn't want to talk, and he was grateful.

She knew him so well, better than anyone else, his mother included. She knew almost everything about him that there was to know. The irony was that the only thing she didn't realize was how he really felt about her. In retrospect it seemed so silly, and he wondered how she'd managed to miss it. Wasn't he completely and totally obvious? He certainly felt like he had been.

X-x-x-x-X

Eighth grade passed in this fashion, with Leah growing ever lovelier and Sam becoming ever more smitten. He continued hiding behind feigned interest in other girls for his own safety, and in response she gained a slightly melancholy air around him that he totally failed to understand. But he wasn't about to give her up, nor she him, so they continued to hold one another at arm's length without ever letting go.

Meanwhile Leah's friendship with Emily blossomed. Sam understood that now there were some things that Leah shared with Emily that she did not share with him. He desperately wanted to know what they were. Some afternoons when he was at her house, her phone would ring and she'd talk in tones too low for him to hear while peeking over her shoulder at him. It drove him crazy, and not just because he wanted to know what she was talking about. Her dimple tended to make appearances when she was talking to Emily, and he wanted to kiss it in a different way than he had when they were small. He wanted to kiss her in a completely different way altogether.

He still remembered the sweetness of her lips and the soft, silky texture of her cheek. He would never forget the warmth that flowed from her into him. The tingle. He was sure he could be old and gray and senile, with no teeth in his mouth and only two memories left in his brain, and that would be one of them.

Lying in his bed, he thought about her lips, her eyes, her skin, her hair, and her shape. He felt bad, because what meant the most to him was her generous heart, her humor and wit, her passion and spirit, but what kept him up at night was her beauty and her body.

He was turning into an insomniac. Every night he would review little details about her from that day: the way her jeans hugged her hips, a glimpse of skin between her shirt and her pants, the sheen of gloss on her mouth, a peek of her bra strap. He would try his damndest to recall something different, to stop his train of thought before it derailed into a fantasy, but thinking about not thinking about her was impossible. So he constructed clumsy illusions about what she looked like under her clothes or would feel like pressed against him. The visions taunted him behind his closed lids, rendering him helpless and desperate. Each night he failed to resist the temptation to relieve the ache, believing he was bad for defiling her in his mind. He always slept restlessly afterward, being unused to sleeping alone.

And the next morning when he saw her smiling at him with unadulterated happiness, he felt crushing guilt and couldn't look her in the eye. Worse than that, he was certain she noticed his nervousness, because her smile would falter a little when he couldn't return it wholeheartedly. That made him feel even worse. He was making her self conscious, causing her to doubt his dedication to their friendship, because he ran alternately hot and cold. The joy she expressed was marred with insecurity, and he hated that he made her feel that way.

But he couldn't bring himself to stay away, nor did he know how to stop.

He tried to distract himself by exercising himself into exhaustion. The tribal school didn't have enough money (or students, for that matter) to maintain its own teams, but the parks and recreation department in Forks had basketball, soccer, and baseball. He was old enough for their soccer league, so he joined that team in the fall when he realized he was tall enough to use Joshua's abandoned mountain bike to ride back and forth. He found that the exertion rendered him tired enough that he fell asleep quickly when he finally tried to sleep (although not so tired that he couldn't conjure up a good fantasy of Leah beforehand). It kept him from losing sleep over his guilt, although not from the source of his guilt. And an unexpected bonus was that taking up his evenings with matches forced him to actually get his homework done in the afternoon, so he was able to focus on his work instead of how good she looked seated across from him over her kitchen table.

By the spring, when the youth basketball leagues scheduled their practices and games right after school, they switched their routine. Sam walked Joshua's bike to school at Leah's side, biked directly from school to the athletic center, and then went home for dinner. But he wasn't about to forgo his time with his best friend, even if she was becoming so beautiful that it turned his brain to mush, so he'd head to her house to do his homework after he ate and leave whenever Sue or Harry kicked him out. Leah, in turn, was inspired by his new fitness regimen to start her own, and she started jogging along the beach or the forest paths while Sammy was shooting hoops.

Then summer rolled around again, and Sam discovered that Leah's running had really toned her long legs, but it hadn't kept the rest of her from continuing to develop. Her curves were more pronounced than they had been the last time he saw her in a swimsuit.

It didn't help that Leah went shopping with Emily instead of her mother. The older girl had been told by her new boyfriend that she'd look better in a bikini than a one-piece, but she was too embarrassed to buy one by herself and took Leah along. Sam hadn't ever met the guy, who himself was apparently three years older than Emily, and he wasn't really listening as the girls discussed Emily's new relationship. If he had, he would have realized that Mark didn't sound like a very nice person, because other than the fact that Emily thought he was "exciting" and the fact that she liked how little her parents liked him, she didn't have much positive to say about him.

Sam missed all these nuances, however, because the conversation about Mark happened during their first trip to the beach in which Leah wore her infamous new bikini. Earlier in the season they had gone surfing, and Sam had enough trouble keeping his eyes trained on appropriate parts of her body her despite the fact that she was wearing Harry's promised wetsuit, which provided as much coverage as a skin-tight outfit possibly could.

He had thought that she was wearing it again since she left the house in it, which was odd because she didn't have her board with her that day (Emily didn't know how to surf and Leah didn't want to leave her by herself on the beach). But after they arrived and spread out their towels, happy to have a sunny day, Leah started to unzip the wetsuit, and Sam thought his eyes might fall right out of his head.

He really hoped he wasn't drooling. And that she couldn't see his burgeoning erection. Maybe he needed to condition himself against his body's response to her. Would it help if, each night, instead of fantasizing about her, he looked at a photo of Leah and then punched himself hard in the crotch? Would that stop this from happening? He shifted his board from his side to cover his crotch as she worked the gray and pink neoprene off her shoulders. He tightened his grip on it when she leaned over and peeled the material over her legs, her round bottom pointed right at him. He gulped and cleared his throat when she turned to listen to Emily, who was standing behind him, and he tried not to gape at her chest.

He failed.

Her bikini was halter style, baby blue, and quite simple. It was perfect. She was perfect. It was like her chest was framed just for him. Maybe it was the way the fabric pushed her breasts together, or maybe they were really just that big now, but she had cleavage, and he could basically see all of it.

He was finally broken from his Leah-induced trance by a football hitting him upside the head. He lost his balance, his unwieldy board throwing him off, and he landed in the sand underneath it. Too late, he retrospectively realized that someone had been calling out, "Uley, heads up!"

Thankfully, Leah was too concerned about a potential concussion to dwell on the fact that he had been ogling her. She yelped in alarm and rushed over to check his scalp and in doing so leaned over him, bringing her lovely Leah-scent and tempting breasts just inches from his face. He gripped the board more tightly against him. She took this as disorientation on his part and tried to pry it out of his hands so she could look him over. He held fast.

It was only the arrival of Dylan, who had apparently thrown the football, that rescued him. But his relief was short lived.

"Dude, you okay? I thought you heard me."

"I... I... Yeah. No, I didn't. I mean, yeah, I'm okay."

Dylan smirked at him. "Playing it up for your girlfriend, huh, Uley?"

Too quickly, he insisted, "She's not my girlfriend!"

He didn't really notice how intently Emily was watching them, because Dylan turned to Leah as Sam sat up in the sand. "No, huh? How old are you now, Leah?" Unlike Sam, he didn't even try to hide that he was staring at her chest.

"Fourteen." Leah shifted back and forth on her feet, uncertain what else to do or say.

"Oh!" Dylan looked startled and stepped back. "You don't look like it! Um, I mean, you look real nice. Uh, I mean, uh..."

Leah shrugged and looked behind him. "Thanks, that's sweet of you to say," she said guilelessly. "So where's your girlfriend?"

"She, um, she's not around..."

Emily finally stepped in and looped arms with her younger cousin. "Maybe you should look for her?"

"Sure." Dylan scurried off. "See ya' round, Uley."

Emily turned to Leah. "I think he's a little old for you."

"What?" Leah had apparently missed the way Dylan had been leering at her, which made Sam both nervous for her safety and relieved that she might not have noticed him gaping at her in much the same way. She really didn't seem to have any idea how beautiful she was.

"That guy. I think he might have been too old for you, Leah."

"For me? What are you talking about? He's got a girlfriend. And he's three years older than me. Isn't Mark eighteen?"

Emily giggled a little. "Okay, fine. I didn't say he was good for me either." Then she glanced at Sam, who had righted himself finally but was still holding his board in front of him. He didn't know what to make of her expression. "C'mon. Let's get in the water before some creepy old dude comes by to hit on you."

Leah followed, but she still didn't get it. She shook her head and smiled innocently. "Em's seeing things."

"Mark thought you were his age when he saw you last month, Leah."

"He must not have been looking at me, then!"

"Oh," Emily sighed and muttered, "he was looking alright."

Leah didn't hear her. "Are you coming, Sammy?"

He figured the cold water would do him good, so he went. He was pretty sure that he just looked like a skinny, drowned rat in the water, but Leah, it turned out, only looked better. He lay on his surfboard near the girls watching droplets cling to her skin until he felt like the kind of pervert Emily was unsuccessfully trying to warn Leah about. He finally paddled off to find non existent waves.

Washington's cloudy weather kept them from spending the entire summer on the beach, but they kept going, sometimes with Emily, often with Seth, twice with the Black kids (who didn't want to come out very much since their mother had died) and Bella Swan, occasionally alone. They both got better at surfing, although she never brought her board when Emily came, as Emily steadfastly refused to try to stand on the board. They watched the older teens jump from the cliff, and Leah wanted to try it herself. But the opportunities to do so were rare, because Leah refused to let Seth even consider it, and she didn't want to leave him behind and make him feel left out. Emily, on the other hand, she urged to jump with her, but Emily was appalled by the idea, so Leah stayed on the beach with her too.

But on a sunny day in June, they were by themselves. They grinned at each other as soon as they realized they had their opportunity. They wedged their boards in the sand and headed straight for the path to the cliff, and Sam made sure to run behind Leah so he could look at her bottom, her long legs, and the expanse of golden skin across her back. When they ascended the ledge, it was empty. Two other people had jumped moments before they got there, and Sam could see them swimming for shore.

"This is great!" Leah's eyes were sparkling, her smile was wide, and her dimples had appeared in each cheek. He wanted to squeeze her tightly in his arms and cover her face with kisses before tasting her lips.

Instead he grinned back at her. "It's perfect."

She held out her hand. "Come with me?"

He resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her waist, but he took her hand gladly. "Anywhere."

She tugged him forward, and then they were flying. It was exhilarating, but somewhere between the ledge and the water, they lost their grip on each other. When Sam surfaced, he didn't just want her back, he needed her. The moment he saw her head bob up out of the water, he propelled himself toward her. Just as he saw her ecstatic expression, he reached her and threw his arms around her shoulders and pulled her close. For a blissful second, he felt her warm skin flush against his. It was as soft as he imagined it. It was bliss. Or it was until they started to sink, their tangled legs unable to properly tread the water.

They separated and emerged sputtering. "You goof!" She was laughing, and he saw her dimples again as she reached for him. She didn't realize he was ridiculously trying to give her a hug in the middle of the ocean, she thought he was playing. So she returned the favor and tried to dunk him. He let her, and then he grabbed at her legs. She joined him under the surface, and they rose up together. He splashed her, and she splashed him back, and he didn't think it was possible to be so happy.

They only had a couple more perfect days like that, just the two of them. Seth or Emily usually joined them. He'd have preferred to have her all to himself, but Sam tried not to mind the other girl's presence too much, particularly since she seemed to do a decent job of keeping predatory teenaged boys and men away from Leah. His best friend continued to be oblivious to the effect she had on the opposite sex, including himself. Apparently he was doing a very convincing job of fooling her into thinking he had crushes on other girls, because every time they saw Lily or Olivia or Megan at the beach, she seemed to get a little nervous. He suspected that she didn't want him to ditch her to hang out with one of them, and of course he never intended to do anything of the sort. Even if he was interested in them, which he unequivocally was not, he wouldn't leave her side for fear of leaving her undefended. He couldn't stop other guys from ogling her, but as long as he stuck by her side, they at least tended to do it from afar. So he kept careful watch up and down the beach looking out for his competition, not realizing that the entire time, she thought he was looking at other girls.

They continued the awkward dance all summer long.

X-x-x-x-X

That changed on the very first day of high school. The other building was situated only a block away from the larger building that housed both the elementary school and junior high, but it felt miles away. Sammy was used to being the tallest boy around; his growth continued to outpace everyone else in his class. But here he felt average, if anything. It was a disconcerting feeling.

Leah's appearance didn't help settle his nerves one bit. After bikini season, he'd have thought that a pair of tightly fitted jeans and a strappy tank top wouldn't render him senseless, but it did. The jeans hugged her in a way that made him want to cup her bottom in his hands. And her neckline was high enough that it didn't show off a significant amount of cleavage, but the little hint he could barely see drove him mad. Going to school wasn't too bad, as he walked next to her and tried to keep his eyes forward, nor was sitting behind her in homeroom. He was thankful for her long, shiny hair, since it blocked his view of the soft-looking skin of her shoulders and upper back. But then she'd pull it over one shoulder or run her fingers through it, and he'd get a peek of the rich color of her skin, and he'd lose track of whatever the teacher was talking about.

At lunchtime he wasn't quite certain what to do. He had spent most of the summer with her and had only occasionally seen Bobby. He would sit and stare at her all day long if he could, but not only would she not appreciate that, he might start high school as a social pariah. He was considering what to do when the bell rang and she turned around in her seat. "I'll see you by the lockers at the end of the day?"

They had had all their morning classes together, but after lunch he had gym when she had art, and she was taking biology while he had earth science. He nodded at her gratefully, and the Black twins took her away. They still gave him dirty glances, and he was fairly certain they weren't ever going to forgive him for his old cruelty to Leah (which was fine, because he wasn't planning on forgiving himself either).

After grabbing his lunch from his locker, he found Bobby and Johnny at the end of a long table. He picked the seat next to Johnny, as it afforded him a good view of Leah, who was two tables away with the girls. He chatted with his friends about their summers. Johnny had spent most of the season with his grandmother a couple hours south on the Quinault reservation. He told them about a girl he had met while he was there, and Sam was pretty sure that none of Johnny's supposed exploits were true. Bobby called him out on it, declaring that the only one of the three of them who had gotten any action was Sam.

Sam's mouth dropped open. "What are you talking about?"

"Dude, you spent the entire summer in the company of at least one hot chick, if not two! I saw you with Leah and that other girl."

Sam immediately protested. "Leah's not a hot girl!"

Bobby rolled his eyes. "You're blind or a liar." He was a liar.

"It's not... it's not like that!" he insisted.

"Whatever," Bobby took a bite of his sandwich. "If you're not with her, you're staring at her. Like you were a second ago."

"Was not!"

Johnny interrupted. "Wait, who's the other girl? Was she hot too?"

"Yeah," Bobby nodded. "Sam's a pimp, man. Who was she?"

"Is the other girl why you're not with Leah? Were you with her? Who is she?" Johnny was insistent.

Sam vehemently shook his head. This time it didn't even occur to him to pretend to have a crush on Emily. Why would he look at Emily when Leah was standing next to her? And why couldn't the guys leave him alone? "I'm not with either of them! Leah's like my sister, you guys know that. The other girl is Leah's cousin. Who has a boyfriend. Who is, you know, okay but boring."

"Leah's definitely not boring," Bobby laughed.

"And she's one hot sister. Who's totally staring right back at you, man. She totally likes you, dude." Johnny looked smug.

Sam looked up, and to his dismay, Johnny was right. Leah was looking at him, and the expression on her face was definitely nervous. She glanced away as soon as his eyes met hers, but he knew she had heard everything he had said. This was so complicated. Why couldn't it just go back to the two of them, alone, without everyone else around making things worse?

"There's no way she likes me. Not like that." The thought just boggled his mind. Impossible.

Johnny shrugged. "You keep telling yourself that."

Bobby was blatantly turned around looking at Leah, but Rebecca had spotted the boys, and Rachel moved to try to block their view.

"She is so fine," Bobby muttered.

Johnny smirked. "If you don't like her, maybe I'll ask her out."

"You can't do that!" Sam blurted out.

Bobby snickered at him as Johnny added, "But you don't like her like that, not at all. You're so pussywhipped."

It was true.

But at the end of the day, it was neither Johnny, Bobby, nor Leah herself who finally propelled him into action. It was Brian Lincoln, the very same bully who had called Leah a boy when they were small. She had gotten to her locker before Sam did; their entire class only held a dozen students, so even though their names were at opposite ends of the alphabet, their lockers were still only feet apart.

As Sam approached, she was putting something on the floor and leaning over. Brian had just turned from his locker on the opposite side of the hall, and he was blatantly checking out her figure. Then he approached her. When she closed the door and turned around, Brian was right there.

"Oh!" She took an involuntary step backward, but there was nowhere to go. She bumped against the metal with a little clang.

Brian put a hand out against the metal, leaning over her. He licked his lips and took a peek down her shirt, apparently liking what he saw. "Hey, Clearwater."

"Um, hi Brian."

Brian tilted back a little and brought his eyes up to hers. He flashed her a grin and ran his free hand through his hair. "Not a little kid anymore, huh? How was your first day of high school?"

"Yeah, um, it was fine."

Sam was frozen in place. What was going on? Something bad, he was sure of it. Why wouldn't his feet move?

"How'd you like Mrs. Ithaca in algebra?"

Leah smiled a little at that. The diminutive, elderly teacher was well known for her permanent scowl and mustache. "She's okay."

"Kind of a battle axe though, yeah?"

Leah's initial surprise wore off, and her normally bold personality took over. "If she is, it's because guys like you made her that way. I'll bet she started off sweet and nice."

"That's kind of hard to imagine."

Leah was smiling now, just a little and only on one side of her mouth. Her eyes were sparkling. "No it's not. If I were her, and I had to deal with punks like you every day, I'd get bitter too."

Brian's smile turned from slightly lascivious to genuinely amused. "Seriously? Are you calling me a punk?"

"Maybe I am," Leah shrugged.

Sam could see Brian's eyes flicking between Leah's lips and her eyes. "You're really something, you know that, Clearwater?"

"Really?" she challenged. "What? What am I?"

Brian leaned back in, and to Sam's infinite horror, he reached out to tuck a lock of hair behind Leah's ear. "Pretty, Leah, you're real pretty."

Leah's eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open a little in surprise. Sam couldn't believe she hadn't seen it coming. She was truly shocked. He wasn't. He was nauseated.

When she didn't say anything, Brian took it as an opportunity and went for the kill. "How'd you like to go out with me sometime, Leah? I've got a car. We could head to Port Angeles for dinner and a movie."

Sam felt like his life was flashing before his eyes. But it wasn't his past, it was his future. The one he had desperately trying to ignore for so long. He was supposed to be by her side, not some random guy. He was supposed to be the one tucking her hair behind her ear and leaning close to her. He was supposed to be the one who was about to bend down and kiss her. They were supposed to be together. They were childhood sweethearts, he finally realized, who were supposed to grow up together, go to college together, have adventures together.

Was it too late? Had he been too afraid for too long? His future was slipping away from him.

"What do you say?" Brian swallowed, staring at her full lips.

"I... I..."

Sam finally found his voice. "LeeLee, please." Their heads snapped toward him. Brian was scowling, but Leah looked... hopeful? Was that it?

"Sammy?"

His feet, which until then felt like they were made of lead, finally moved at his instruction.

"Get out of here, Uley," Brian gestured dismissively with his chin. "We're in the middle of a conversation. A private conversation."

Leah ignored Brian. "Please what?"

Why hadn't he done this months ago, years ago, the right way? "Please, LeeLee." He couldn't find the right words. But she always knew what he meant, didn't she? She always did. Usually he didn't even need to say anything, but she still knew what he meant.

Brian straightened to his full height and put his hands on his hips. "I'd say you're babbling, Uley, but you're not even doing that. Get out of here. She's with me."

She was still staring at him, and he could see on her face that she really didn't know. It was absurd. She knew every single thing about him, but she didn't know this. How was it possible? Hadn't he been drooling over her for over a year?

He still couldn't figure out what to say. He ought to have a whole romantic speech prepared. He should have written something down. He always had an easier time figuring out what to say when he had time to stop and think. But there was no time.

"Sammy?" she asked again.

He finally blurted, "But she's not supposed to be with you. She's supposed to be with me. I'm hers, and she's mine, and we belong to each other."

He should have seen Brian's fists clenching at his sides. He should have noticed the anger on the older boy's face. Instead he was watching the most beautiful smile spread across LeeLee's face. Her eyes lit up. He thought there was a blush underneath her caramel skin. And then her dimples appeared.

He would have melted into a puddle of lovestruck goo if Brian hadn't stepped forward and shoved him back. He bounced against someone's open locker door and tripped onto the floor. "You little shithead!"

"Sam! Brian, don't!" Leah rushed forward and tried to pull Brian away. He looked back at her and tried to shake his arm free. Sam took advantage of his distraction to hook his ankle around Brian's and sweep his leg out from underneath him.

The senior landed on the floor with a startled curse, and Sam scrambled to get up. He'd have scooted backward and out of Brian's reach, but Leah was too close. He reached to pull her out of the way, and Brian, still on the floor, braced his hands on the tile and kicked out with his feet.

Sam landed against a sophomore, since a crowd was gathering around them. As they untangled themselves, Brian stood up and strode toward him, roughly shoving Leah out of the way, where she careened into a locker.

Sam saw red. He didn't really care about Brian fighting him, but hurting Leah like that was off limits. He bent in a low crouch and sprang forward, shoving his shoulder into Brian's gut and knocking him back again. "Don't you dare touch her!" As his opponent fell back on the floor, he pinned him down with his knees and pulled his own fist back, ready to pummel him. But an iron grip wrapped around his wrist and stopped him cold. He found himself being dragged backward forcefully, and when he finally got his bearings, Mr. Rodgers, the science teacher, was hauling Brian to his feet, and Mrs. Ithaca was pulling him toward the principal's office. He gawked at her. She was a head shorter than he and more than half a century older, but she was apparently as strong as an ox. She had been the one to yank him off Brian.

Enough spectators confirmed that he had only been defending himself and Leah, so Brian got suspended for a week (it was apparently far from his first offence), while Sam got detention.

He hardly cared about the punishment. Because when he emerged from the school, Leah was sitting on the curb. She stood up and turned toward him, and sure enough, she was still the prettiest girl he had ever seen, with the loveliest smile aimed at him, and the warmest heart he had ever known. "Is this going to be some kind of pattern?" she asked, and he knew she was thinking of the day in elementary school when he had fought Austin for her. "I really don't want you to get in trouble over me." He shrugged and grinned back at her. He'd earn himself detention every day if it got her to look at him the way she was now.

She opened her arms, and he swept her up, burying his face in her neck and breathing her in. She squeezed him back, and he never wanted to let go. She smelled so good, and she felt so soft, and he was so, so happy.

"Plus it took you long enough," she whispered in his ear.

He chuckled a little puff of air. "Detention? Or asking you to be my girlfriend?"

"Both." Her laughter vibrated her breasts against his chest. Oh man, he was a goner. He hugged her tighter.

X-x-x-x-X

A/N: Thanks again to Babs81410.