Read Online The Crushes by Pamela Wells - Free Book Online

trying desperately to ignore the sound of a skateboard hitting cement across the street.
    On her lap sat a journal, one she’d made at Scrappe a few weeks ago specifically for her lyric scribbling. There were musical notes glued to the front of the white notebook. Across the bottom of the cover, she’d drawn the words Musical Ramblings with a purple calligraphy pen.
    So far, she had about ten pages full of rhymes and thoughts but nothing substantial. There were so many things she wanted to say in a song, but she wasn’t sure where to start. The major thing she was experiencing right now was heartache. She wanted Horace here, now, not thousands of miles away.
    It’d been so long since she’d seen him (okay, only two weeks). She was finding it hard to conjure an image of him in her mind. And if she didn’t think it extremely dorky, she would have asked him to send a picture message of himself so she had something to look at.
    She closed her eyes, daydreaming about Horace, when the front door of the house opened and Jordan clomped out in a pair of espadrille sandals.
    “What are you doing?” Jordan asked, plopping down in one of the wicker chairs across from the hammock.
    Raven sighed. “Trying to write a song. Something. Anything! But I can’t concentrate with all that noise he’s making.” She nodded her head in Blake’s direction.
    Jordan smiled. “Yeah, because you really don’t get any enjoyment out of watching a hot skater boy get all sweaty and stuff.”
    “Very funny.”
    “Just admit it, you’re crushing on him.”
    Raven put pen to paper but drew a blank. “I have a boyfriend, Jordan. I do not have a crush on Blake.”
    “Having a boyfriend has nothing to do with it.”
    Oh, it had everything to do with it because Raven having a crush was the same as Superman being exposed to red kryptonite. Raven would go bad in a second if she had a crush. She couldn’t let it happen.
    Blake kicked off his driveway and rode out into the middle of the street. He did some sort of kick flip or something (Raven wouldn’t pretend to know what all those skateboarding tricks were) and landed smoothly on his board.
    She sat up straighter in the hammock to watch him. It was hard to admire his body in all those baggy clothes, butshe could see the intricate muscles working in his forearms as he balanced and then grabbed the board when he slid down the stair railing in front of Mr. Kailing’s house.
    If that small part of him looked that good, then what did the rest of him look like?
    Oh stop! she chided herself. Get it together.
    “Hey, Raven!”
    Raven jumped and lost her balance in the hammock. It rolled over, tossing her out and onto the porch floor.
    Jordan erupted in a shriek of laughter.
    Raven scrambled to her feet. “Shut up!” she whispered.
    “Come on over!” Mil-D called, waving frantically.
    “I can’t,” she said.
    “Yes she can!” Jordan said.
    “What are you doing?” Raven gritted her teeth. “You’re…you’re…such a meddler!”
    Jordan stood, smacking her lips together. “I might be a ‘meddler’ but you’re crushing on him, and I like watching you squirm because of it.” She giggled again and shoved Raven off the porch. “See ya, sis.”
    Grumbling to herself, Raven went across the street. She could feel Blake’s eyes on her as she passed him.
    “Thanks for the invite,” she said, once she was in close enough range of Mil-D to have a normal conversation. “But I’m really busy right now.”
    From here, Raven could smell something barbecuing in the back of the house.
    “You’re never too busy for food, girl. Stay.”
    Blake skated up behind Raven. “Yeah. Stay for just a little while. My grandpa skipped out on us for bingo so we’re grilling the goods he bought last night.”
    “Umm…” Her stomach growled when she smelled the cooking food. It did sound good…
    No, she was busy and Blake was…sweaty and looking extremely good. But she was starving and, really, what