The Ivy League

The Ivy League Part 25

I hummed cheerily to myself as I happily arranged chocolate chips in a star design. Jake was huffing with the effort of rolling out cookie dough and Rebecca, my uncle’s housekeeper, was red in the face from standing in front of the oven, pulling out batch after batch of hot cookies and putting the new ones in. Grace had left ten minutes ago to some dinner party of her father’s business associate, and Jay had left with Jeremy even longer ago than that. I don’t know why.

           Humming What a Wonderful World, I frowned in concentration, now filling my star with a swirly design of chocolate chips, careful not to displace any of the other adorable little chocolate chunks.

           “Done!” I announced triumphantly, beaming in satisfaction at the spread-out chocolate chips on the kitchen island. Rebecca, now spooning cookie dough onto greased sheets, rolled her eyes at me. So far, she had done way more than I had for the bake sale that would raise awareness for the play.

           I looked up in time to see Jake bent over the open mouth of the oven, reaching in to take out the finished cookies… without an oven mitt.

           “Er — Jake?” I began, but I was too late.

           “Ah! It’s hot!” Jake yelped, blowing on his burnt finger.

           “It is?” I gasped. “That’s so weird! All I did was put it in the oven…”

           Jake scowled at me, now running his finger under cold water.

           I jumped off the barstool and walked over to him, grinning. “Aw, poor baby,” I cooed, taking his finger and examining it. “Want me to kiss it better?” I teased.

           “Yes,” Jake said immediately, offering his finger.

           I blushed and raised an eyebrow. I took his finger and pressed it to my lips, releasing it quickly. “There,” I said, “all better.”

           “You call that a kiss?” Jake asked incredulously.

           “Yeah,” I snapped, “I do.” I wasn’t sure that I was all too comfortable with the way Jake was now holding me, one of his arms wrapped around my waist and pushing me close to him.

           “That’s not a real kiss,” Jake repeated stubbornly, clenching his jaw and looking remarkably like Nate when he was annoyed. Why did the two of them make it so hard to decide between them?

           “Well,” I scowled, struggling in vain against Jake’s iron embrace, “how would you even define a kiss?”

           Jake grinned wickedly and my eyes widened, regretting the wording of the question so much.

           “I’d define it like this,” he said, and leaned down and brought his lips to mine.

           It was different than kissing Nate. With Nate, there was more fire and I kind of forgot if people were watching – I didn’t care. All I felt and all I knew was Nate. With Jake, it was a different feeling.

           When Jake kissed me it felt really comfortable, and there was a deeper kind of energy below the surface. I was really aware that it was Jake’s arm around me and that it was Jake’s lips on mine. Whereas with Nate, it was more mindless fire.

           I gave a tiny sigh and let my body relax; I could feel Jake smile against my lips. As soon as I gave up fighting him, he pulled back and let me go.