Free Fall For Me by Melanie Marks Page A

hire my little old aunt with a wooden leg and make her head waitress that’s none of your business. You work for me.”  
    Porcha rolled her eyes, but we both knew, although Riley kept things light, he would only put up with so much crap.
    He took the schedule from Porcha. “Go back to work.”
    I started to follow Porcha out of the office, but Riley’s next words stopped me cold. “Not you, Jones. Stay here a minute.” He waited until Porcha was gone, then he shut the door. “I don’t hate you, Jones.”
    “Right.” Immediately I could feel tears welling in my eyes. “Look Riley, it’s not a big deal.” My voice wobbled. “You’ve been really nice and helpful since my dad died and I appreciate the job. I do. But let’s face it, if I wasn’t dating Finn you’d tell me to go …”—ugh, I couldn’t think of anything clever, nothing—“… jump in a lake.”
      Riley tilted his head, eyeing me. He was watching me so intently, my palms started to sweat and my stomach got all fluttery. The thing was, Riley didn’t usually look at me. Ever. He would look anywhere but at me. And it wasn’t as though he was shy. He wasn’t. At all. Riley was gorgeous and funny and charming, and he was awesome at the guitar and in a cool band and … Well, I could go on. On and on. All day. Seriously. ‘Cause Riley was—hot.
    But face it, he despised me. Always had—since the fifth grade. And it seemed he always would. I guess it could have been because he resented me for coming between him and his best friend and all that. Maybe. But whatever the reason—because really I had no real, true idea why—Riley hated me.
    Actually, it was just as well. A good thing, really. ‘Cause otherwise right then I might have pounced on him, started licking his yummy smelling neck or something. Seriously. Well, not really, of course. But yesterday, he leaned over me a couple times to grab a kitchen order and I almost lunged at him. He smelled so good.
    Plus I’d been so messed up yesterday. Well, not just yesterday—lately. I found myself looking at Riley differently these days. Kind of craving him. Sort of. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never cheat on Finn. Never, ever. But lately—for over a month now, ever since school let out for the summer—Finn and I fought a lot. Like constantly. Suddenly I was a jealous, insecure, hurting wreck—never been like that before, never had to. But this summer Finn lifeguarded at the community pool with a gorgeous bimbo, Bianca Dumpty. She wanted his body—big time bad—and she wasn’t shy about letting him know.
    So … ugh. Lately, things weren’t the same between Finn and me—not at all. He seemed sort of—not interested in me. Well, not as interested as he used to be. Or as interested as he seemed to be in Bianca. Like I said, she flirted with him like crazy. But she always had—since junior high. Only, Finn didn’t use to seem to care. Or even really notice. But now that they worked together as lifeguards—well, it’s hard not to notice Bianca in a bathing suit. So, I got that. I did. And I wasn’t mad so much as hurt. But whoa, they had become really close. And he went on and on about her these days. It had me gritting my teeth. And re-thinking our relationship—and wondering if it was time to move on to someone else. And yeah, okay, it had me kind of fantasying about Riley. Sort of. Constantly.
    Still, I wanted to work things out with Finn. I did. I wanted us to somehow go back to the way things were before this summer. We’d been together forever, and I couldn’t really imagine not being with him. But I couldn’t help what went on in my head these days. I mean, I didn’t dream about Riley on purpose. It just … happened.
    Lucky for me though, it didn’t matter how I suddenly felt about Riley, because, as I said, he hated me. Lucky, lucky me.
    “Jones, you have this all wrong,” Riley said, oblivious to my overwhelming desire to sniff him up closer. “But you’ve been a