Whoooop! This story just hit 100,000 reads (and a bit) as I'm uploading! Thank you so much! :)

I know this one is the later side of on time, but my boyfriend and I were having another Supernatural marathon (season three, whoop!) but anyhow, hope you enjoy this one :)

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Chapter 15

We’re sat in some pretty pricey Italian restaurant at the mall, when my cell phone trills with the tone I’m slowly coming to recognize as my text message tone. (Seriously, it’s hard to get used to, having a cell phone. I keep forgetting about it, and when it rings, half the time I think it’s someone else’s.)

                “Oh!” I exclaim when I suddenly remember that oh yeah, that annoying chirping noise is my cell. I apologize, thinking I must seem rude answering my phone when we’re out at lunch. “Sorry.”

                “Don’t worry ’bout it,” Melissa says. She herself is tapping away at her purple BlackBerry.

                Wiggling my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans, I tap the button on the screen to bring it to life again.

                ‘One new message: Bryce Higgins’ it reads.

                I actually drop my phone, I’m that shocked that he text me. I mean, I hoped he would, and the girls said he would but… I guess I just didn’t expect him to. My cell makes a clatter as it tumbles to the floor. I hope it’s not damaged – and I really, really hope I’m imagining people looking at me for making a scene in the restaurant. It wouldn’t surprise me if everyone else here is shaking their heads at me, the foolish klutz on table nine.

                Hoping for the best but expecting the worst doesn’t seem like the best way to live, but it’s worked for me so far, at least.

                I dive to the floor to pick up my cell phone. It’s fallen underneath the table, and I reach for it. When I come back up, I whack my head on the table. Of course I do.

                “Ouch!”

                If I wasn’t making a scene before, I such as heck am now. Wonderful.

                “Shoot,” I mumble to myself, rubbing my temple as I sit back up. I smooth my hair out.

                “You okay?” Tiffany asks, biting back a laugh.

                “Mm.” I turn my cell phone over in my hands, inspecting it. It doesn’t look scratched or broken, at least. That’s good. Then I click the button to bring the screen back to life again. I let out a sigh of relief when it does come back to life and I see I haven’t just killed my cell.

                It’s still there on the screen: ‘One new message: Bryce Higgins.’ Like it’s teasing me or something. My breath catches in my throat as I hit the button on my cell to open the message.

                “Who is it?” Summer asks me.

                I don’t answer at first. I can’t. I can see the message Bryce has sent me on the screen, but I can’t seem to read it. I see the words, but they’re not making any sense to me. I shake my head to clear it.

                “Madison, who is it? Is it Bryce?” Tiffany prompts.

                I nod. “It’s Bryce, yeah.”

                I tune out their excited babbling and try my best to focus on the screen. Eventually, the words make sense.

                ‘Hey there, Mainstream. How was your night? XX’

                “Um, does it mean anything if he put kisses at the end of his text?” I ask, feeling totally stupid, looking up at the girls helplessly.

                “How many?” Melissa asks, smacking her hand holding her BlackBerry into the table. I guess it must be a somewhat important thing that Bryce put kisses on his text if she stopped texting.

                “Two.”

                “What did he say?” Summer demands, grinning.

                I read out the text and add, “You know, ’cause he calls me Mainstream sometimes?” The girls nod. “What do I say?”

                “Pass it here,” Tiffany tells me.

                It just makes me clutch my cell phone a little tighter in my now sweating palms. “What are you going to say?”

                She sighs when she notices me hold my cell tighter like I don’t want to give it up. “Ask how his night was and put a wink face.” She demonstrates the wink face as she says it.

                “Can’t I just say I had a good time, how was his night?”

                “Well you could,” she huffs. “If you don’t want to take my advice…”

                “No, I do. Um…” I look at my phone screen for a moment before typing in a reply – ‘It was good thanks ;) how was yours?’ – and then I hold my phone around for Tiffany to see. Summer and Melissa leans around to see it too.

                “How’s that?”

                A small smile takes over Tiffany’s face. “Perfect!” She pulls the cell phone out of my hand and hits a couple of buttons quickly – but she does it all so fast I only have time to stammer incoherently.

                “There, sent. Don’t worry,” she laughs, seeing the worried expression on my face, “I just added some kisses and pressed send, I swear.”

                I give a doubtful “Mmph” and she hands my cell phone back. I see she was right though, and relax. But I start to stress out again inside waiting for him to text back.

                It’s the longest minute or two of my life, I swear.

                When he does reply, I open the text straight away and the girls lean in, trying to see my cell, saying, “What did he say?”

                I read it aloud to them. “‘I had a great night too. What’re you up to?’ and then there’s a smiley face and two kisses again.”

                That one doesn’t seem so scary to reply to, so I just tell him I’m at the mall with the girls and ask what he’s up to. I hesitate before I do it, but I type a couple of kisses at the end and hit send. I let out a big gush of air.

                “Told you so,” Tiffany says with a big smile at me, and she leans back in her chair. “I told you he liked you, didn’t I? And who didn’t believe me?”

                I laugh. “Alright, alright, you were right, okay! But he could just be being polite. Or friendly. He’s a friendly kind of guy, right?”

                Melissa giggles and pauses from texting again. “Madison, he likes you. Duh.”

                “Trust me on this,” Tiffany says, leaning across the table to me with a look on her face that’s so open and honest I wonder how I wouldn’t trust her on this. “I’ve known Bryce for years. He definitely likes you. He doesn’t put kisses to just anyone.”

                I laugh nervously, not entirely reassured.

                The text conversation that follows between me and Bryce is pretty casual, so it doesn’t stress me out too much. I’m so grateful his texts don’t sound flirty or anything, because then I don’t have to panic and look like an idiot asking the girls how to reply because I have no idea how to flirt properly, let alone flirt through text messages.

                About ten minutes later, the food turns up, and I tell Bryce that I can’t talk for now.

                His reply comes through almost straight away – ‘Okay, talk to you later then. Have fun shopping :) XXX’ – and I bite back a smile, holding back a blush that threatens to spread over my cheeks.

                Silly as it might sound, I feel kind of excited seeing three kisses on the end of Bryce’s text. It makes my heart skitter in my chest. I never got texts from a guy unless you count Dwight, and his texts certainly didn’t come with X’s on the end. But aside from that, I hadn’t made out with him in a closet the night before he text me.

                “What was Bryce saying?” Summer asks as she begins to dig into her steak and I put my cell phone away in my pocket again.

                “He’s cleaning his car, one of the guys threw up in it last night.”

                “Oh, ew.” Melissa scrunches her nose up. “Did he say who?”

                “Jay.”

                “Ah. Yeah, Jay doesn’t hold down alcohol too well,” Summer says. “Especially vodka. God, he knows he can’t hold that shit. I don’t even know why he bothers with it. I puked my guts up last time I had vodka. Have not touched the stuff since.”

                “Jay didn’t look that drunk when we were playing spin the bottle or whatever it was,” I say.

                “He comes off relatively sober,” Tiffany shrugs. “He’s usually totally wasted.”

                “Oh.”

                “Yeah. I’m just glad he didn’t puke in the house.”

                “You were so lucky with all that,” Melissa says to Tiffany, pointing her fork with lettuce speared on the end at her. “I mean, there were only, what, two people who threw up, and they both did that in the bathroom. Remember the last party I had?”

                “Oh, yeah. God that was awful,” Summer says. She turns to me and adds, “Some girl puked on the couch.”

                “Oh, gross!” I pull a face.

                “Not to deter from the subject too much,” Tiffany says, “but what’s going on with you and Bryce? Are you seeing each other again?”

                “Other than school you mean?”

                “Duh.”

                “I don’t know, he hasn’t said anything.”

                “Whatever you do, don’t ask him to go somewhere. Not even the movies,” Melissa tells me.

                “You don’t have to wait for the guy to make the first move though,” I point out.

                She sighs. “Yes, I know that, but it’ll keep him on his toes. Play hard to get.”

                “Hard to get?”

                “Please tell me you know what that means, Madison,” Summer says – but she laughs a little as she says it, so it comes off as joking rather than plain old harsh and blunt.

                “I know what it means,” I say, mumbling only slightly. I shift in my seat. “I just… don’t…” I clear my throat, then take a bite of pasta from my fork, chewing it slowly so as to stall. I swallow hard. “I just don’t know if that’s me, you know?”

                What I mean is, I have no clue how to ‘play hard to get’, and I get the feeling I’ll just make an idiot of myself trying.

                Even last night, when I was kissing Bryce, I felt awkward, inexperienced. I let him lead because I didn’t really know what to do or how to kiss. But with this – playing hard to get so he’ll be even more interested in me and ask me out or something – nobody’s there to guide me every little step of the way.

                Sure, the girls might advise me on how to act – but I’ll only feel stupid doing it, and mess everything up. I’d much rather just be myself and hope I don’t come off as too much of a fool.

                I mean, I must’ve done something right since I met him at the party at the beach, given that he seems to like me.

                They must see I don’t want to talk about it much more, or maybe they just give up when I start eating and ignoring their prompting sentences.

                We finish eating, pay the bill and leave. I go to hand the check to the guy who served us and tell the others to head on out, I’ll meet them in a minute.

                “You just want an excuse to talk to the cute waiter,” Summer teases, laughing.

                “Why are you after the waiter? You have Bryce now to keep you warm at night,” Tiffany joins in, hugging herself and giggling. I laugh, too, and roll my eyes at them. The guy who’d served us was kind of cute, I guess. He looked like he was in college, but couldn’t have been much older than us. I didn’t think he was really anything special, but hey, what did I know?

                I clear my throat slightly to get his attention. He looks round over his shoulder to me and I give a small smile, holding out the bill with our wad of crumpled notes. “Thanks.”

                “Thanks,” he replies, smiling as he takes it back. “Everything okay with the meal?”

                “Yes, thanks.”

                “Good.” He prints a receipt from the cashier he’s stood at and then scribbles on the back of it before handing it over – signing it off, I assume. “Come again.”

                “Uh, thanks,” I mumble. I always hated talking to waiters and salespeople. I just felt so socially awkward at times, it was horrible. I’d only offered because it didn’t look like the others were going to, and I didn’t like to leave the bill just on the table – it had been a pet peeve of my dad’s I’d inherited. I hurry out of there.

                “Flirt with the waiter?” Summer asks jokingly, elbowing me lightly in the ribs.

                “Hardly,” I reply. I realize I’m still holding the receipt in my hand and fold it over for no reason at all before I shove it in my pocket. As I fold it over I see the scribble on the back. Then, I laugh.

                “Anyone want his number?” I laugh. I laugh because I don’t know what else to do. I laugh because I’m completely shocked. He gave me his number; I’m flattered, but at the same time I know I’m not going to call him, and I’m not even interested in the slightest. I didn’t even think he was as good looking as the girls made him out to be. So I laugh.

                “He gave you his number?” Tiffany looks at the paper in my hand with the scrawled digits on, and shakes her head. “Hold on, two secs.”

                “What’re you doing?” Melissa asks as we watch Tiffany take out her cell phone.

                “Posting on Facebook that Madison just got a cute waiter’s number.” She looks up at me with a wicked kind of grin. “Bryce is definitely going to see it. He’ll be so jealous. This is like, perfect. Ah, thank God for social networking. It makes the whole dating game so much more fun.”

                “Oh my God,” Summer laughs.

                “He might not believe it,” I point out. I barely believe it. I’m still a little stunned, actually.

                “Why wouldn’t he?” Melissa asks. “Besides, he’s bound to ask you out even sooner if he knows you’re in demand.”

                “But I’m not in demand.”

                “You just got given a phone number by some random waiter,” Tiffany points out to me.

                “Well, yeah, but –”

                “Madison, chill, it’s all part of the master plan.” Melissa shoots me an encouraging smile.

                “What master plan is this exactly?”

                “The master plan to get you and Bryce together, duh.”

                “Oh, right, okay,” I say hesitantly. I shake my head, deciding to simply go with the flow and leave them to their ‘master plan’. I can kind of see their point, at trying to make Bryce jealous – I just doubt it’ll work.

“Was he a good kisser?” Jenna asks, grinning into the webcam. She’s so excited for me getting my first kiss. “I remember my first kiss, it was Hank Phillips, at the school prom at the end of middle school. He was such a sloppy kisser, it was totally gross. I kind of avoided him after that.”

                I laugh. “Oh yeah, I remember that, I think. I remember you telling Mom about him.”

                “Yeah,” she says, clicking her tongue as she remembers, “because he rang the house and Mom asked why he was asking me to go skateboarding with him.”

                I laugh.

                My big sister shakes her head then, and holds up her hands, palm out toward me. Either her webcam’s a little jittery, or it’s the internet connection, but her movements all look a bit detached.

                “Never mind about me though, tell me all the details.”

                “He was a good kisser, I guess. I don’t know. It’s not like I have anyone to compare him to, is it?”

                “Mm, I guess. But hey, you’ve had your first kiss! You’re getting yourself out there a little more! You’ve made friends and you have a maybe boyfriend! I wish I was down there right now so I could give you a big old hug, Mads.”

                I smile wryly. “How is college? So far we’ve only talked about me.”

                “And we’re not done talking about you so don’t you dare try to change the subject! College is college, New York is New York, but Maddie, you’re no longer the same old you! So we’re still talking all about you and if you don’t like that, tough shit.”

                “What if I just disconnect the call, huh?”

                “Then I will call you back and call you back and call you back until you answer and then we carry on talking about you.”

                “Oh,” I say, pretending to be defeated and disappointed. But then I laugh and say, “Well I don’t know what much more there is to say.”

                “Has he texted you or anything since lunch?”

                I shake my head. “No, not yet. But I don’t expect that he’ll –”

                That annoying chirping sound that is my text message tone goes off. Jenna laughs, “Is that your cell? Christ, that’s spooky. Is it him? If it is, that’s even spookier. I’m like, psychic, huh? Is it him?”

                ‘One new message: Dwight.’

                “It’s not Bryce,” I laugh, shaking my head at the webcam. “It’s Dwight.”

                “Dwight? Nerdy Dwight from your physics class?”

                “Yeah.”

                “Well?” she asks, leaning into the lens of the webcam eagerly, her blue eyes wide. It’s the same kind of look she used to get when she heard new gossip from one of her friends. “What’s he said? Tell me, tell me!”

                Laughing I load the text message and read it out. “He said, ‘What’s this I hear about you and a waiter?’ And there’s one of those smileys with a tongue out.”

                Jenna laughs. “He likes you, doesn’t he.”

                “Who, Dwight?” I ask doubtfully.

                “Yeah.”

                “He doesn’t like me.”

                “Well, at least as a friend, he likes you. He sounds so cute. Like, a really nice, sweet guy. Unless of course, you like him as more than that?”

                “No,” I say hastily. “No, we’re just friends.”

                “Mm,” Jenna says, with that confidential kind of smile on her face that tells me she’s in on my secret. Though what my secret is exactly, I don’t know.

                “I’m serious,” I reiterate to Jenna. “He’s only a friend. I’m lucky he’s that. I told you he was mad when he saw me hanging around with all the popular people. I mean, I get where he’s coming from, but they’re not that bad. They’re all pretty nice, actually. Well, Kyle, not so much, but they’re all really great people. I don’t know why Carter said –”

                “Hold on, which one’s Carter?”

                “Carter is Dwight’s friend, the one with half an eyebrow missing. He’s in my art class. Anyway, he’d said I shouldn’t really hang round with him even in art class just because Tiffany and the others might get annoyed.”

                “That’s high school for ya,” Jenna says with a bitter kind of twist in her smile. “It can get pretty shitty.”

                “Like I don’t already know that,” I mumble. She hears me; I can tell by the way her expression softens and turns sympathetic. But she doesn’t say anything. “Hold on a sec, let me just reply to Dwight.”

                “What’re you saying?”

                I say aloud what I type, but I speak slowly and erratically, trying to multitask. “It’s nothing much. Just some waiter gave me his number. It’s nothing though. Then I’ve got a laughing face on the end,” I add.

                “Any kisses?”

                “No. I don’t usually put any kisses to him.”

                “Usually?” Jenna picks out. Then she laughs a little. “How often do you text him?”

                “Not much at all. I text him like, Wednesday, about something or other, I don’t remember what. It wasn’t a particularly long conversation. Then he’s just text me today.”

                As I’m talking, a text comes through.

                It’s not Dwight replying though. The text is from Bryce.

                Jenna assumes it’s Dwight though, and doesn’t ask what he’s said. But I do see the expectant, slightly impatient look she’s giving me through my computer screen.

                ‘Movies tomorrow night? I’ll pick you up at six. XXX’ it reads.

                “Uh, Jenna?”

                “Yes?” she replies, drawing the word out.

                “Bryce… Bryce just asked me on a date.”

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Dun-dun-duuuun... you know how I enjoy my cliffhanger chapters ;)

Righto! So this is only a sample of the book; I realise that not all of you had chance to finish, and for that I apologise - but I'm publishing this book as my second book, with Random House, and for that reason, I've been asked to take it down from Wattpad. I understand that a lot of you might not be happy with this, but please try to understand. I appreciate all the support, really.

Rolling Dice should be available as a published book and ebook later on this year, near the end of 2013. 

xxx