So, it's been a while since my last update. I'm so SORRY! School is really hectic and stressful and kicking my butt.

I do have some good news to share with you since my last post, though. I got accepted into college! Yay! Now, if I can just stop procrastinating and watching How I Met Your Mother, then I should be able to write those last three essays for my next college application...

Here's the next chapter. Hope you enjoy!

BTW to my reviewers for bugging me to update. This chapter has been mostly written for about three weeks now. I just needed that little push to finish it up. :)

Chapter SEVEN

Macey and Zach had pushed me out the door so fast that we were halfway to Bucky's when I realized I was still in my lemonade drenched top and that I'd left the kitchen a complete mess.

"My mom is going to kill me." I said, leaning my head against the glass of the car window.

"No, she won't." Macey replied in her no-nonsense tone. To be honest, I was forgetting what her normal voice sounded like these days. Or did she sound like this all the time now and not just around me? "You're mother has never been able to stay mad at you for anything. Ever."

"That's not true." I said, crossing my arms. "There was the time we started that food fight in the school cafeteria."

"Which is the annual end of year soirée at Roseville Junior High. Everyone comes to school with rain slickers in their bags, and no one ever gets called to the principal's office."

I was silent for a minute as we pulled into Bucky's parking lot. "Yeah, well, you should have seen the look on her face when I got home that night."

"Cammie, I've known you since the age of diapers. You can't lie to me." Macey gave me a stern look. "I know your every weakness."

I carefully avoided making eye contact with her and twiddled my thumbs. "Whatever." I mumbled.

I could practically hear her smug smile.

At Bucky's, the three of us slipped into an empty booth near the back. Macey was across from me and Zach was sitting next to me, blocking my exit path. While we glanced at the menus, Macey kicked me underneath the table. I jumped and shot her an accusatory glare but she just ticked her head.

I squinted at her, confused. "What?" I asked.

She shook her head quickly as Zach looked up from his menu to look at the two of us. "What's up?"

Macey smiled at him sweetly. "Nothing. I think I'm gonna get the cobb salad."

"The cobb salad?" I said. Macey only got salad when she was interested in a guy. But she wasn't interested in anybody, was she? She hadn't said anything and the only guy she'd been hanging out with lately was Zach. I watched her for a moment as she folded the corners of her napkin together so that it was triangle. Her eyes darted over to Zach, and she smiled a little. "Oh my god."

She whipped her head up to look at me looking at Zach with complete aghast on my face. She kicked me again. "Hey, Cam, I have to go to the bathroom. Do you?"

I was still gaping at her and subsequently stumbled over my words a little. "Uh, y-yes. Yes, I do."

She gave me the smile she usually reserved for her parents' dinner party guests. Bright, charming, and fake to the bone. "Great. Zach, do you mind?"

Zach quickly stood up to let me out of the booth. I scooted out slowly and then Macey was grabbing my upper arm and dragging me to the bathroom. She shoved the bathroom door closed behind us and then checked under the doors of the two stalls to certify that we were alone. Then, she turned to look at me.

"You saw, didn't you?" She said earnestly. There was a brightness in her eyes, an excitement undulating beneath the surface of her skin. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that Macey McHenry was gleeful.

"I can't believe it." I whispered. "I didn't realize until just now."

She nodded. "I know. It's pretty amazing, though, right? He may just be the perfect man."

I thought that was a little extreme but let it slide on the grounds that she was temporarily insane from love. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"I wanted you to figure it out on your own!"

"What like a scavenger hunt?"

"No, silly," she said, shaking her head. "Like in the movies, where you look up one day and suddenly see the person differently. You see the way they look at you and you just know he's the one you've been waiting for, and he's been but a few steps away this whole time."

She'd gotten a far off look in her like she was envisioning the gooey moment in her head. A slight smile graced her lips as she stared at the sterile, white walls of Bucky's ladies room. And then her words sunk in.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" What did me experiencing a moment of melodramatic epiphany have to do with her crushing on Zach?

She looked at me quizzically. "What are you talking about?"

"I thought we were talking about the fact that you've got a thing for my new neighbor!"

Macey stared at me for a moment, her face stunned. And then, she exploded in laughter. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!" She gasped in between breaths. "You thought I - ?"

She dissolved into more laughter, leaning her weight against me because apparently her laughter rendered her incapable of supporting herself. "What is so funny?" I asked her but she only laughed more.

When she managed to calm down and let go of me there were tears streaking down her face. "I haven't laughed that hard since I dared Timmy Smith to drink a jar of pickle juice and he vomited all over Tina Walter's Highlights magazine in the third grade."

Poor Timmy still couldn't stand the smell of pickles, and Tina never did bring another magazine to school.

I shook my head. "But seriously, what is so funny?"

She smiled and bit back another laugh. "The idea that I would like Zach."

"Don't you?" I pushed my hair behind my ear, wondering at Macey's tone. Surely, it wouldn't be such a terrible thing to be attracted to Zach.

"It-It's just so absurd." She rolled her eyes. "And besides, it's not like my liking him would make any difference. That's what I was trying to tell you."

When she saw that I didn't understand, she hurried to explain.

"Zach's got the hots," she said slowly, "for you."

"Uh, no."

The idea that Zach liked me - as in liked me more than a friend - wasn't just crazy; it was ludicrous, nay preposterous. What was she smoking? So Zach didn't shoot daggers at me with his eyes and I didn't run away screaming from him. That didn't mean he liked me.

Macey wasn't conceding. "It's so obvious, Cam. He's always asking questions about you when you aren't around-"

I talked over her as she continued to talk. "I have no idea whether you made that up or not so I'm going to treat it as a lie."

"And he always smiles when he sees you. And he comforts you-"

"Zach comforts everyone. Abby raised him to be a gentleman."

"He doesn't comfort me." She glared at me, hands on her hips. I mimicked her stance but feeling wholly less intimidating. "Besides, he still asks you to go jogging with him even though he surely knows his way around the woods by now."

I shrugged. "Maybe he's got a bad sense of direction."

"Then he should get a compass."

"You should get a life." I hissed as there was a thump against the door as someone tried to enter and found the way locked. "Zach and I just friends. There is nothing more than platonic camaraderie between us."

She humphed, unconvinced. The person on the other side of the door knocked. "Hello?" The girl's voice came through slightly muffled. "Can I please come in? I really have to go."

Macey rolled her eyes and yelled, "Keep your panties dry, Waterworks."

She stomped over to the door and unlocked it. With much gusto, she flung the door open to show a girl a couple of years younger than us bouncing from one foot to the other. The girl looked up at Macey with fear in her eyes.

"There's this thing called time management," Macey said, "you should work on it."

I smiled apologetically at the girl as I passed her and narrowly avoided running into Preston Winters in the hall as I hurried to catch up to Macey on her way back to the table. I grabbed her by the elbow to slow her down. "Mace, promise you aren't going to say anything like this to Zach."

"Why?" She said gruffly. "Don't want me to call him out on his shit? Honestly, I can think of more embarrassing things to be guilty of than wanting a taste of your midnight delight, Cam."

I looked at her with wide eyes, willing her to believe me. She had to stop spouting this nonsense. "Because, one, you're wrong," I whispered, and she immediately started to move again. I tightened my hold on her arm to stop her. "And two, say you are right. Zach is new here and we just started to become friends. Macey, I have to live next door to this guy. Do you really want to make things awkward between us?"

Macey seemed to deflate a little. I could see I was calming her down and making her think rationally again. "And anyways, I have a boyfriend that I love."

A look flashed across her face but it was gone before I pinpoint it. She nodded. "Alright. Congratulations, Morgan. You talked me down from the ledge."

"Finally, she sees sense!"

She grimaced at me but gave my hand still on her arm a small squeeze to let me know she wasn't mad at me-and maybe to also tell me to let her go before she started having seizures. Macey wasn't always the most touchy-feely of people.

As we approached our table, I noticed that Tina was there taking Zach's order.

"Walters." Macey grumbled as she slid back into her seat. Zach scooted down the booth a little farther so I could slip in next to him.

"Macey, how's the summer going for you so far?" Tina asked cheerily. She was smacking her bubble gum loudly, a fact that I'm sure was irritating Macey to no end. I resisted the urge to hone in on the vein in her forehead that always made its presence known when she was holding back her frustration.

"Nothing of note."

"Really?" TIna said. There was a twinkle in her eye like that of a predator. "'Cause I heard a real interesting story about you and a mystery boy."

"Must've heard wrong," Macey replied sounding for all the world like she couldn't care less. However, I noticed the slight tightening of her shoulders and saw her crossing her legs. If there was one thing her mother had taught her it was that you only cross your legs when you have something to hide. "My love life has been missing a key ingredient for months."

Tina pouted sympathetically. "How sad."

"Truly tragic."

Tina and I both gave her long looks. I continued to stare at her with narrow eyes as Tina returned to talking to Zach. "So, have you decided what you're gonna get?" She asked in a slightly more breathy tone.

Zach gave his order and handed Tina his menu. She seemed a little disappointed that he had asked for the cheeseburger rather than, say, her number. After giving my order, Tina turned to Macey who seemed to have lost track of the invigorating conversation taking place in our booth. She was looking behind us towards the door as if she were waiting for someone.

"Mace?" I asked. "Were you gonna get the salad?"

"What?" She shifted her attention back to us. "Uh, actually, I just remembered that I have to go help my mother with this thing."

"What thing?" Tina asked, her eyes bright with curiosity.

Macey rolled her eyes as she scooted out of the booth. "She's getting the stick surgically removed from her ass." She said sarcastically.

Tina pursed her lips in dissatisfaction. "How sweet. Did you guys get a special deal for a pair of surgeries?"

"My mother never buys anything on sale." Macey said. "Though I suppose you would know all about matters relating to pairs and surgery."

She glanced purposefully at Tina's chest, and the latter blushed.

"I'll see you tonight at Bex's, Cam!"

Then, Macey left, leaving Zach and me with an incredibly embarrassed Tina and a half-empty booth. Tina quickly excused herself to place our orders (and possibly bawl in the back room), and Zach and I sat in silence for another minute.

"So," he said, "is it true?"

I knew what he was referring to. Tina's boobs. He was such a guy. "No idea."

He nodded. "Well...good for her."

I snorted and slapped a hand over my mouth in mortification. Any split-second hopes I'd had about Zach not hearing the noise were dashed as he crumbled into laughter.

"It's not funny." I said, slapping his shoulder. But a smile was growing on my lips and before I knew it, I was laughing with him.

"You're a jerk." I said after we had calmed down.

He just smile at me. "Whatever you say, Cookie."

I'm not going to lie. A flutter passed through me when he said that, raising goosebumps all along my arms. Had he just given me a pet name? My mind rushed to rationalize.

It's not a pet name. It's a nickname. Friends give each nicknames.

Yeah, like shortenings of their full names, not different kinds of food! Sugar, sweetheart, pumpkin, honey bun, tootsie were all affectionate pet names for couples and what did they all have in common? They were edible!

Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

"Cam, you okay?" Zach asked. His placed his hand on my shoulder, but I shrugged it off.

"Yeah, I'm cool as a cucumber."

Tina came by with our food then, and I quickly dug in. The goosebumps that had sprung up when he called me "cookie" didn't go away until we had paid for our lunches.

And I was a little confused as to whether that was a good or a bad thing.

Thoughts? Questions? Feelings?

Sorry for any grammatical/technical/spelling errors! As Jason Mraz would say, I'm only human.