"I have a girlfriend," he said bluntly while shooting me a disgusted look. He turned on his heels, opened the door, straightened his clothes and walked out, leaving me alone in the dark.

Well, that went well.

I walked out after him and closed the door. Thank goodness no one noticed our odd behavior.

I sure had a lot of explaining to do later on.

Austin rambled over with his hands tucked in his jean pockets, grinning smugly. He had obviously witnessed the whole thing and saw what a failure it was.

"So, how'd it go?" he probed mockingly.

"Oh, shut up."

I looked at Dallas' retreating figure in with mock sadness. Austin sensed my 'sadness' and enveloped me in a hug. Yes, this was definitely much better than kissing Dallas' lips. Kissing Dallas honestly felt like kissing a slimy dead fish. Or a slimy dead slug. Whichever sounds more nauseating.

"It's okay Ally, you can do way better than Dallas," he said while rubbing soothing circles on my back. Cue Hannah Montana's "This is the Life."

"Yeah? Like who?"

He paused and stopped rubbing my back. He hummed as he thought deeply.

"Me," he finally said after a second of hesitation. I choked – what?

I pulled apart and looked at him. Play it cool, Ally.

"You?" I asked with a playful grin on my face, as if the thought of dating him was so morbid because Heaven forbid the day that Ally Dawson and Austin Moon start dating. Austin raised his eyebrow.

"Why not? I'm the perfect package!" he said while flexing his biceps. Dang, when'd they get so big? I stared as his muscles contracted and I felt the urge to run my hand over his ka-pows.

No no no Ally, focus.

"Pfft," I snorted as I broke out into hysterics. Way to play it cool, Ally. "Pfft, you and me? Hah, never!" I continued laughing as if the idea of us dating was thigh-slappingly hilarious. Which was, unfortunately, true.

"Yeah, totes ridic," Austin mumbled. I detected a tone of hurt in his voice. Oops, maybe I took it too far. I stopped myself and I patted him on the back.

"No worries, Austie, I'm sure you'll find your princess one day."

It had better be me or I'll strip you of your manhood with those kiddie zig-zag scissors. Mm-hmm, I went there.

He looked up at me and smiled sadly.

"I already have, but I don't know if she wants me to be her prince."

You and me both, Moon.

"Would you would you want it if I stood up above a crowd, got up on a chair and if I shouted your name aloud?"

Yes sir, I certainly would.

"Could you, could you take me, call me baby without a doubt?"

Of course. Anything you say, baby.

"I'm shouting your name right now, shouting your name right now," Austin finished as we did a re-take of the first verse. We already recorded the full song but it was almost impossible to record a perfect version in one take so we had to do re-takes on the parts with errors.

I clicked the stop button and replayed what we had just recorded.

I bobbed my head to the beat and Austin followed suit. We removed our headphones as I high-fived Austin. He was doing an extremely good job so far, the entire song was almost pitch perfect!

"Alright, you went a little flat on the repeated 'beats' in the second chorus – let's try that one more time."

I slipped my headphones back on and waited for Austin to give me the thumbs-up signal before we began recording.

"Ally, do you have a crush?" Austin asked out of the blue. One moment we were discussing the track-listing for his EP (all five songs were selected and post-production was underway) and the next, he was talking about my love life?

Austin and I may seem really, really close (which we definitely are), but we barely talked about love. It was a sensitive topic, I guess. When we were younger, we didn't see a point in talking about crushes because we were 'engaged' back then and we were pretty sure that we were going to love each other forever and get married and have cute little mini-Austins and mini-Allies. Unfortunately, time and puberty broke off our 'engagement' as those memories soon buried themselves right at the back of our – or rather, Austin's – minds.

"Uh... why do you ask?"

"You write really good love songs, I was just wondering how you got inspiration for those."

Oh, that's easy. You're the inspiration for my songs. I wanted to say that aloud but that was like professing my undying love for him. And I valued my humility and dignity way too much to do that.

Of course, I valued our friendship too.

"Well, yes," I admitted. Please be jealous, oh please be jealous!

He looked up at me and held my gaze. It was another one of those eye-contact sessions where we just end up staring at each other for no apparent reason. Adam and Trish call it eye-sex but I'd be lucky to even get to first base, or even half base, with him. Oh wait, I already did, just a week or two ago. Teehee.

Speaking of which, we haven't even talked about the kiss. I needed to know what happened back then but I was afraid to bring it up. Would he think that I was some clingy loser? I decided to drop it and wait for him to bring it up instead. After all, he was the man, he wore the pants in our relationship (or rather, our bestfriendship).

I suddenly remembered the conversation I had with Beth during Thanksgiving.

"You're using Beth to make her jealous, aren't you?" I said, making sure to say the word 'her' with extreme disgust. Real subtle, Ally.

Austin looked taken aback by my sudden accusation but he nodded. "I don't know what else to do to make her love me…"

"Show her that you love her! Do something sweet for her!" I suggested.

"How?"

"You can slip her an anonymous letter and tell her to say the word 'Spongebob' to every person she meets in school, and that you'll be the only one that replies 'Squarepants'. And you can burst into her class wearing a Spongebob costume and ask her out!"

I can't believe I was plotting my own heart's demise. That was my dream love confession scenario that no one, not even Austin or Trish, knew about. And I had just told my crush about it.

God, take a hint already, will you Austin? 'I LOVE YOU, DUMBASS!' I wanted to scream.

Austin, on the other hand, stared at me like I had grown ten noses.

"Yeah, I'm better off getting girl advice from Dez," he said. I huffed and stood with my arms akimbo.

"Austin Monica Moon, are you insulting my genius-ness? Because admit it, that idea was brilliant."

He shook his head and crossed his arms. "Nuh-uh," he pouted. Oh someone please save me, I'm stuck with a four year old.

"Uh-huh, yes it was."

"Nope. Disagree with me again and I'll have to shut you up."

"Yes. It. Was," I said defiantly. Hah, look who gets the last –

Oof.

Well fuck me, Austin Monica Moon was kissing me again. There were zillions of questions swarming around in my mind right now. What is he doing? Why is he doing it? Does he like me? Why is he kissing me?!

Not that I was complaining. Oh shut up Ally, and just enjoy the moment while it lasts!

I threw caution to the wind and started kissing him back like there was no tomorrow. Our kiss grew from sweet and gentle to rough and needy. He wrapped his toned arms around me tightly, squeezing the two of us together, trying to get as close to each other has possible. I, on the other hand, played with his fine blonde hair on his head and started scratching his scalp.

How romantic.

I knew my mind was going to be so confused by this afterwards and I knew I was going to be hurt if I let this go further, but I just couldn't control myself. Do you have any idea how long I've waited to make out with Austin? He is a piece of work, this boy is.

When we finally pulled apart after what seemed like 2917419 years later, our lips disconnected with a loud smack with a string of saliva in-between our lips. It took all the self-discipline and control in the world to not pull Austin back to me.

We did it again. We kissed again. For the second time in our post-puberty years. For reasons unbeknownst to me.

Austin spoke first.

"Sorry, teenage boy problems. Haven't gotten a good lay in ages."

And this time, it was my turn to take off and run.