Free Kissing Jayden: a romantic teen thriller by Alessa James

happening to poor, sweet Tyler, either, but that was more because I liked him as a friend and would feel insanely guilty if anything happened to him because of me. When Tyler got up and went over to talk to Kyle and Ethan, Kelly’s sort-of boyfriend, Stace and Kelly dropped down next to me.
    “What happened?!” they screamed in unison.
    I wrapped my arms around my knees and went through the entire story. How I had been hiding out in Mr. Kaplan’s classroom, which Stace knew about. She interrupted and told me she had told Tyler where to find me. Then I told them about Mike Jensen showing up all scary and wild-eyed, holding a bat. I didn’t go into the whole weird “Golden Boy” thing, or how Mike had offered to let me go if I kissed him like I had kissed Jayden. Just the thought of him saying that made my stomach twist.
    That was the strangest part, though. I thought about the girls that Mike Jensen — and Jayden Stone — usually went for. Girls who had gone out with a million guys and had tons of experience. Unlike me. When it came to kissing or making out, I didn’t even know what I was doing! Kissing Tyler had been, well, kind of boring and safe — at least until he crashed his teeth into mine. Kissing Jayden had been out of this world amazing, but I had a feeling it was because Jayden really knew what he was doing — and I was head over heels in love with him. Suddenly I frowned.
    Was I in love with him?
    But the scary part was: why did Mike Jensen think that my feelings for Jayden would in any way apply to him? Like I could just transfer all the pent up feelings I had for Jayden and use them to kiss somebody I didn’t even like — somebody I was afraid of, even. Eww.
    I was kind of exhausted and restless at the same time. I wanted to go home, listen to some depressing music, and read a book to get my mind off things. Stace was getting a ride with Kyle, which kind of made me hope that Mark Milroy, who she just dumped to get back together with Kyle, wasn’t going to turn into a crazy stalker, too. Right now, I could only take so much drama, and Stace and Kelly had already caused enough with their drunken house party stunt.
    When school ended, I ran over to Mr. Kaplan’s classroom to find my abandoned stuff, but my backpack wasn’t there, making my stomach twist into even more knots. Then I went by the office before it closed to see if my stuff was in the lost and found, but no luck. At least I had kept the keys to Mom’s car in my pocket. But when I got out to the parking lot, my heart sank and I kind of lost it.
    One of the back tires was completely flat and the brake light on the driver’s side was smashed!
    As much as I didn’t want to go head-to-head with Mike Jensen, I was really tempted to march into the vice principal’s office tomorrow and tell them what a psycho he really was. Still, I didn’t want to think about what Mike would do next if I ratted on him. Would he come after me? Tyler? Jayden? Even Stace or Kelly? I couldn’t risk it.
    I sat on the curb. How was I going to pay for this, though? There was a savings account at Mom’s bank, mostly from checks from Grams and from the little bit of baby-sitting I did when I borrowed the car on weekends. But I needed Mom to co-sign any withdrawals since I wasn’t eighteen.
    The other problem was that if I didn’t get the car fixed, I’d have to tell Mom all about Mike Jensen — and then things would get even messier. Well, I could try lying to her and say that some random criminal had messed up her car. Mike was a criminal, but he definitely wasn’t random. Besides, I wouldn’t just lie to my mom, and either way, I still needed the car fixed.
    This was turning into the worst week ever!

Chapter 9: Kissing in Cars
     
     
    I was sitting there, kind of in a panicked daze and feeling bad for myself, when Jayden’s black Mustang pulled up behind Mom’s car. His window came down, and I smiled weakly, trying not to feel sick.
    “Molly, get