Disclaimer: I don't own the book series, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor does. And if I did, I wouldn't be writing this right now lol.
A/N: This is the part two to my twoshot, "Today, Tonight, Everything Changes."
Enjoy!
Beth Malloy wiped the sweat off her forehead as they sat behind the bleachers, feeling the sun beating against her ivory skin.
Eddie and Jake had a baseball game today, and in order to find a way for them to realize how much they liked each other, they had to come up with a plan.
So, they all came up with excuses as to why they couldn't make it to the game. Well, all of them except for Peter. He's pretty sick at the moment, so he would've been miserable.
Beth used her t-shirt to wipe the sweat out of her face. "Oh my god. Is it just me or is it stupidly hot today?" She asked. "I can't remember the last tine it was this hot."
"Yeah, it is," Josh said. "Oh! I know. I'll give someone some money to go buy us some drinks."
To a boy that was passing by, he grabbed his shirt sleeve. The boy turned to him, looking at him expectantly. "What?" He asked, looking annoyed.
"Can you go buy me a few glass bottle cokes?" Josh asked as he handed him the money. "If you don't mind."
"No, I don't mind. I'll be back in a a second." The boy said as he walked over to the concession stand.
He came back with four bottles and Josh's change. "Thanks." Josh said as he handed one to Beth, Caroline, Wally, then himself.
"No problem." The boy said as he walked back to his seat in the bleachers.
They all popped the lids off and took a big swig from their bottles. "Mmm," Josh said, as he wiped his lips. "That's so good."
"Mhm. You got that right." Caroline said as she nodded her head. "When will the game be over? I can't wait to surprise Eddie!"
Beth rolled her eyes at her sister. "When the game is over, we'll go surprise them. You just gotta hang on."
Caroline huffed as a loud cheer erupted from the baseball field. "Eddie! Eddie!" They looked from around the bleachers to see Eddie being lifted up onto Jake's shoulders.
They watched as he sat her down and started to walk out of the school parking lot. They were just walking and talking.
Suddenly, Josh turned to them. "Let's follow 'em and see where they go." He said.
Caroline started to grin. "Yeah, that sounds like fun. We should do that." She said as they saw Eddie and Jake heading for the woods.
They followed them into the woods, staying hidden from sight. Suddenly, Caroline stepped on a tree branch that was on the ground and beth turned to Caroline, glaring at her. "Caroline! We're supposed to be quiet! We don't want them to know we're here!" She whispered.
They saw Eddie look around, then she turned to Jake. "Did you hear that?" Eddie whispered, lolking nervous.
Yeah," He responded. "What do you think it is?"
"I don't know." Eddie said, truthfully.
Caroline looked at Beth. "How'd you expect it to be? It's not like I can control where everything is at on the ground, Beth."
Beth started to respond, when Eddie yelled out, grabbing onto Jake's arm. "I think it's a cougar! Run!"
They started running, so their siblings started running as well. They stayed in the woods, far enough away so Jake and Eddie couldn't see them.
Theyd been running for st least ten minutes when they heard Eddie say, "Whoa." They looked as they saw a grassy area. Moss was all over the trees and bright colorful flowers were everywhere, swaying swiftly in the breeze.
"Where are we?" Jake asked.
"Um, I'm not sure. But let's just keep on walking to see if we can find out way out of here." Eddie said, as she started walking again.
"Okay." Jake said. Neither their siblings or eddie expected to hear what Jake said next. "Good game today, Eddie. You played really good."
Beth heard the grin in Eddie's voice as she spoke. "You too, Hatford. You too." She said. "Oh, and also, a compliment? Since when does Joseph Hatford give out compliments? Especially to the girl he hates."
"What?" He said, sounding somewhat confused. "I don't hate you. Why do you think I hate you?"
Beth shook at head at that, grinning, being full aware of how much they hated all of them when they first moved here.
"I mean, have you forgotten how you and your brothers tried to run us out of here? You didn't even partially like us when you first met us."
"We didn't hate you. We just were mostly upset with the fact that the Bensons had moved all the way to Georgia and instead of guys moving across the river from us, we got girls." He said.
Josh knew exactly how his twin had felt when the girls had first moved here. It was exactly as he was explaining it to Eddie right now.
"I get it," Eddie said. "But just imagine bring the new kids in town and the kids who lived across from you, had it out for y'all. That's how it was for us at first. But then it became fun."
This was how Caroline felt at first, but then all the excitement of pulling prank after prank, didn't seem all that bad. It was one of tge best years of their lives. But everything changed when they moved back to Ohio. It was awful. All of Caroline's friends had changed. They'd rather talk about guys then act in the school plays. But not Caroline. She couldn't ever give up her dream.
"Well, I actually never thought about it like that before. All we honestly ever had on our minds was trying to get y'all to leave." He admitted. "But, honestly, it became fun for us too. I don't think my brothers and I have ever had this much fun. Not even when the Bensons where still here."
Everyone knew this was true; even Peter did. But not in a million tears, did Wally think Jake ever admit that to anyone. Let alone an actual Malloy girl.
"So, now that we're all kinda friends, would y'all still try and run us out of here?" Eddie asked. Beth saw gdr grin at him.
He grinned back at her, as he punched her lightly on her shoulder. "You know it." He said.
Beth and Josh snickered at the sight of his brother and her sister flirting.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, Beth and the rest of them stopped, when they heard Jake and Eddie stop and they started talking. "You wanna go over it and see if we can find our way home from there?" We heard Jake ask.
She nodded. "Yeah." She said as they started to cross over it. As they walked over it, Eddie got this look on her face. Knowing her, Beth knew that face was. She's got a plan. What that plan may be, they might never know.
But they soon found out. As they looked through the trees, we saw Eddie reach out and shove Jake into the pond. She burst out laughing, at the sight of him plunging head first into the water.
We heard him come sputtering out of the water, sounding so angry as he spoke. "Malloy, I'm gonna get you for that!" He exclaimed.
We saw as Eddie laughed harder and harder as she leaned down, with her hands resting on her knees. "Oh, man oh man! That was hilarious!" She weezed.
"If thought that was hilarious," Jake growled. "Then you're gonna think this is hysterical!"
As he said that, we saw him reach out and grab her ankle, as he pulled her into the pond with him. "AHHHHHHH!" She screamed as she hit the ice cold water. When she surfaced, she sounded just as angry as Jake just had when Eddie pushed him into the pond. "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
"HEY! You did it to me first!" He yelled. "I was just getting my revenge."
"Of course. Revenge is all you guys care about, isn't it?" She sighed as she pulled herself out of the pond and to the top of the wooden bridge.
We watched as he pulled himself out of the water too. Both of their baseball uniforms were completely soaked. It was just, well, soaked to their skin. "Hey, you have no room to talk, y'know," He said. "It's not like you guys haven't done your fair share of pranks and revenge pranks."
"You might have a point there." Eddie laughed. "Hey, I would say I'm sorry for pushing you into the pond, but if I did, I would be lying."
They heard him laugh out loud. "Hey, are you ready to trying find our way back?" He asked.
Eddie grinned. "Um, not quite yet." She said. "There's, uh, kinda something I've been wanting to do." As we stared at them in shock, we watched as she began to lean in towards him.
As she got closer and closer, for some kind of reason, Jake seemed like he was stuck in a trance. Then, their lips met and Eddie began to kiss him, and it took a second for it to register in Jake's mind what was happening, when he started running his hands through her hair.
"Oh. My. God." We all hissed in shock as he ran his fingers through her kind of short blonde hair. "Did that just seriously happen?" Josh hissed, looking surprised.
"Um, I believe it did." Caroline giggled, atill just as shocked as the rest of them. "I just can't believe it actually did."
When Jake and Eddie pulled apart, they stared at each other in shock, grinning. "Well..." Eddie said, smiling awkwardly.
"Well..." Jake said, and as he said that, he had a similar smile on his face. "Um, did you know that was going to happen?" He asked her.
"Well, not exactly." She said. "But I'm glad it did. I do really like you, y'know."
"Yeah, I do too." He said then he smiled at her. "Well, you ready to find our way home now?"
"Yeah. Let's go." Eddie said, as she grabbed Jake's hand.
As they walked through the woods, trying to find their way back home, we followed closely behind, not trying to get caught.
We stayed hidden behind the trees not too far away, so we could hear everything they were saying. They stood at the edge of the swinging footbridge and Eddie started to walk across it, but Jake grabbed her arm, pulling her back to him.
We watched as they were face to face and he learned in and kissed her again. They pulling back from the kiss, grinning.
"Well, I'll see you later, Eddie." Jake said.
"Me too." She said.
"Y'know, I wouldn't mind getting lost with you again." He grinned at her, and we watched as she turned red.
"I feel the same," She said, as she turned away to walk over the swinging footbridge. "Bye, Jake."
"Bye, Eddie," He responded, before turning around to go to his house.
Eddie opened the front door of her house and walked in. "Hello? Anybody home?" She knew her parents weren't, but Caroline and Beth said that they were going to stay at the house. "Caroline? Beth? Are you guys home?"
Just as she said that, the front door whipped open and Caroline and Beth came tumbling through the door, laughing and giggling.
Eddie stared at them, confused. "Where did you go? I thought y'all said that you were gonna stay at the house?"
"Uh, yeah, about that..." Beth and Caroline grinned at each other before they looked back at her.
Eddie grew suspicious. "What did you do?" She stared at them, then she noticed that they keot on grinning at her. She suddenly knew what they'd done. "You did come to the game, didn't you? And I'll bet, that you followed us home too. So that definitely means you saw us kiss. Both times."
As soon as she mentioned it, Caroline and Beth collapsed against each other, giggling so hard, that they both got the hiccups. "Yeah. We did. Y'all looked so cute though. I'm just surprised that y'all two ended up kissing each other." Caroline giggled.
Eddie rolled her eyes as she laughed. "Was it just y'all two?" She said that, and she saw Caroline and Beth share a look. "What? What was that look for?"
"Well... we weren't exactly the only people who were there." Beth said, as she snorted in laughter.
"Who else could-." Eddie stopped herself as she realized what she was saying. "Oh my gosh. Josh and Wally were there too?"
"Yup." Beth and Caroline said before falling to the ground rolling around in laughter.
"Well, I wonder how Jake's gonna feel about that, y'know, once his brother's tell him." Eddie said as she laughed out loud.
It was wonderful. Jake thought as he opened the front door and walked inside. His first kiss and it just so happened to be with Eddie Malloy.
He didn't hear a single sound, other than the sound of Peter coughing in his room. Where were Josh and Wally? Jake asked himself.
"Josh? Wally? Where are you at?" He asked, just as the door slung open. He turned around to see Josh and Wally standing behind him. "Oh, hey guys. I was wondering where y'all were at. What'd you when I was gone?"
"Oh, you know," Wally said, stuttering. "The same old same old. We played a little bit of Super Mario Kart on the Playstation."
"Oh, ok, cool." He said, as he switched on the tv to the PlayStation, getting ready to play. He stared at the scores on the tv, then slowly turned around. "If you guys played Super Mario Kart today, then how come the scores never changed? My score is still the top one and y'all's haven't moved, for like, two days."
Wally and Josh looked over at each orher, realizing that they were caught. "Ok, what did you actually do today?" Jake asked. "Did you guys go to Oldaker's bookstore or maybe go to the movies or something? Or maybe you went to the drugstore for ice cream or something like that."
"Um, well, you see, we, um, we did nothing." Josh said, trying hard not to laugh.
"Nothing? You mean to tell me that the two of you, all day, did nothing? I don't believe it. You had to hav-." Jake stopped himself as he looked over at the two of them, and they were trying so hard not to laugh. "Wait a minute. Is this what I think this means? Were y'all at the game?"
Josh and Wally both looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes and died laughing. "Yeah. We were. We also saw Eddie kiss you. And then we saw you kiss her."
They watched to see his reaction and the longer they stared, the more red his face got. "You didn't, did you? Oh my god." He said. "HOW? I never saw y'all sitting on the bleachers."
"Yeah, we did. Well, maybe that's because we were sitting behind the bleachers. And you remember how Eddie heard that branch snap and she thought it was a cougar?"
"Yeah?" He responded.
"Well... it wasn't. It was Caroline." Wally said.
"Caroline?! You mean- are you telling me that Caroline was with y'all today? Who else was with you?" He demanded.
"It was me, Josh, Caroline, and Beth." He said.
"Oh my gosh. So y'all all saw us kissing, I suppose?" Jake questioned.
"Yeah, we did. But honestly, we don't care." Josh assured him. "If you like Eddie and she likes you, I say go for it. Besides, y'all do have a lot in common. So it makes sense for y'all to be together."
"Ya think?" Jake asked.
"I do. We're not gonna give you grief about liking Eddie. I promise." Josh said, as Wally nodded her head.
"Yeah, you better not. I know I deserve it, especially after what I did to you when they first moved here, about you liking beth and all." Jake said. "But I want to apologize for that. We good?"
Josh grinned at his twin. "We good."
Then Jake turned and grinned at Wally. "So, what does this mean? You gonna start dating Caroline next?" Jake thought he would look somewhat terrified with him saying that, but all he did was blush. "Oh, I see how it is. You like her, don't you?"
Walky turned around and snapped. "No, I don't!" But his burning ears gave him away. He totally did.
"Denial. You're in denial, Wally." Jake grinned as Wally full on ignored him and walked past him and up the stairs.
Well, that's one way to get your brother mad at you. Jake thought as he grinned.
Jake went and made himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as he watched a football game that was on the tv.
Man, this is the life. He thought as he put his feet on top of the coffee table. I got my first kiss and I get to watch the football game without all the noises? Ahhh, peace and quiet; just the way I like it.