Ready to Take on the World

Chapter 9: The truth has to come out

''So what was up with you yesterday? Did that project really take that long?'' asked Eva.

I decided it was time to tell my friends about Jake.

''Well here's the thing. I bumped into somebody last week. Jake. And it turns out that Mike, the guy with the project that I went to yesterday, and Jake are brothers. I was at their house yesterday to do the project and then Jake showed up saying he lives there.''

''Wait, what? Rewind. You bumped into someone? And he is Mike's brother?'' said Eva widening her eyes even more. 

''And you like him?'' said Nicky. I looked and smiled at her and said:''That's an understatement. I think I'm in love. Well, after we were done with the project, Jake asked me if I could stay a little longer. So I did. And we talked and forgot about time. But here's the best part: we kissed.''

''You kissed?!'' almost screamed Nicky and I put my hand on her lips to shut her up.

''Yeah, but nobody can know. If my brothers find out ... I don't know how they'd react and I can't risk it. I've had enough of the talk yesterday and this morning.''

''You had the morning talk?'' asked Eva and I nodded. They both knew about it, cause I had no reason to keep it a secret from them. They also knew it meant trouble. And that I had to be on my best behaviour after it.

''Then you must've really pissed them off. Well, I get it. It's not so easy to live with four older brothers and have a boyfriend. That's too intense. Although being an only child like me is too boring. Anyway, now you have to be even more careful, you know that, right?'' said Eva.

''Yeah. But look, he's not my boyfriend, we're just friends.'' I tried to reassure her, or maybe more myself than her.

''With benefits.'' said Nicky and smiled.

''No, we just kissed and we'll see how it goes. I've never done this before.''

Eva looked at me kinda worryingly and said:''But you kissed on your first date. Isn't that kinda early? I mean, not that I know anything about dating, but aren't you supposed to kiss like on the third or forth date?''

Nicky responded:''No offense Eva, but you really don't know anything about dating. You can kiss whenever you want to.  Whenever you feel is right.''

Eva nodded and formed her lips into an O, and Nicky put her arm around my shoulder, smiled and added:''Well, welcome to the dating world, girl.'' 

''But there is another problem.'' I said and they both gave me a what-other-problem? look.

''C'mon.'' I added dragging them behind me. When we reached the exterior part of the school property I sat on a bench and they repeated the action sitting down next to me. 

''Jake is ... um, Brian's old enemy. So Brian would be even more pissed if he found out that I'm friends with Jake, let alone that I kissed him.''

''What do you mean his enemy?'' asked Nicky and I explained the story. 

''Is Jake OK with it? That he kissed the sister, no, the younger sister of his old enemy?'' asked Eva and I nodded. I wasn't sure. Was he? 'I think I just gotta go with the flow on this one. Let the universe take care of it.'

 When lunch came I was walking through the hallway when someone grabbed my forearm and pulled me into an empty part of the hallway. When I looked up  I saw Jake.

''Hey, sorry for that. I had to get you away from the crowd somehow.''

I just smiled. 

''Listen I know you're coming to our house again because of Mike and I was hoping you could do that on Friday. You see my friend Kyle is having a birthday party on Friday at 8 and I was kinda hoping you'd be my date. You know, we can go after you and Mike are done.''