Kissing Jayden: a romantic teen thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t want to think about what would happen to Tyler if she did. Tyler was on the swim team, and the guys on the baseball team were kind of notorious for picking on the swimmers, especially JV.
    Suddenly, it kind of felt like I had something in common with Tyler. We were obviously both crushing on the wrong people. And I didn’t think it was Tyler’s fault, either, really. Emma Simmons had come on really strong, and Tyler was obviously in way over his head. Just like me when I had gone to the dance with Jayden.
    What had I been I thinking, anyway? Guys like Jayden would never notice a girl like me … unless it was all a stupid bet!
     
    A couple of weeks passed, and I really tried to forget about everything that had happened with Jayden. Then I showed up at my locker after lunch one day, and when I opened the door, there was a little black jewelry box. I just stared at it like it was a poisonous snake or something. Afraid to even touch it, I left it there, trying to figure out who had the combination to my locker other than Stace.
    I guess most girls would have been all giddy and excited to see a jewelry box left by a secret admirer. I was more scared or angry, or both. If it was from Tyler, why didn’t he just say he wanted to go out again? If it was Jayden — well, that just didn’t seem like his style. Jayden was smooth, charming. Direct.
    Why would anyone leave weird stuff in my locker? Again — creepy. This time I didn’t even tell Stace about it.

Chapter 5: Party from Hell
     
     
    When my phone buzzed super late on Saturday night, I sat up in bed and grabbed my phone from the nightstand. Looking down, I saw a text from Stace saying she was stuck at some house in the hills with Kelly, who was super drunk and acting out of control.
    Kelly’s step-mom was a realtor, so sometimes Kelly would “borrow” a key from her and go hang out in one of the houses while there was nobody living there. She hadn’t gotten caught yet, so I guess she was feeling invincible or something. I never went with them, because I was afraid of getting caught.
    After a while Stace and Kelly had kind of stopped telling me when they did it because I never went with them. Tonight, though, Stace’s text sounded really desperate. While I was figuring out what to do, she texted again and said that Kelly had drunk dialed all these people and invited them to the house. Stace really wanted to get out of there, but neither one of them could drive because they had both been drinking.
    I had done this once before — driven out and picked them up. But that time they hadn’t invited a bunch of people. Besides, I totally didn’t want to get into the habit of being the friend who always went and bailed everyone out when they did stupid, crazy stuff. It’s not like I wanted to go driving around in the hills — in Mom’s car without her knowing — to show up at some empty house.
    I did it, though. I got up, put on a pair of jeans, T-shirt, and a hoodie. Then I grabbed Mom’s car keys from the front table before sneaking out to the curb. It was really late, so I didn’t think Mom would wake up, but I’d probably get grounded if she did. Stace had texted me basic directions, but it was dark, so it took me forever to find the turnoff. From there, it was easy. And kind of scary. All I had to do was follow the parked cars.
    When I saw Mike Jensen’s pickup, I got this nauseous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was so mad at Kelly! And poor Stace! Sure, she went up here with Kelly and everything, but she’d probably had no idea that Kelly was going to invite people like Mike Jensen.
    I parked behind some other cars and took a few really deep breaths. All I had to do was go in there and grab Stace — and Kelly — put them in Mom’s car, and then drop them off. Easy. Or at least that was what I was hoping, anyway. When I got out of the car, there was music blasting. I kept telling myself over and over that all I had to do was grab my friends