“You know,” Toby tells me, as we watch my sister, Jill, and my date, Dominic, dance around the middle of Pizza Hut when “Shake It” comes on the radio, “they’re kind of weird.”

“I know,” I say. “But it’s not like anyone’s here but us and the employees.”

“Well, that was the plan,” Toby recalls. “No one goes to Pizza Hut on Valentine’s Day.”

“Except us, right?”

“Right.”

“So did you finally tell Jill how in love with her you are?” I tease him.

His skin tone generally prevents him from blushing, but his cheeks grow slightly darker nonetheless, and he musses his hair nervously. “Yeah, I did.”

“And she loves you too, I’d bet,” I say.

“Of course,” he says arrogantly, sipping his root beer. “What about you and Dominic?”

“Eh,” I say. “He’s nice. But it’s obvious I’m not what he wants. He’s not quite what I want, either.”

Toby claps a hand to my shoulder. “It’s cool, dude. You’ll get it eventually.”

“I guess I will.”

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t look so down. It may not be your perfect Valentine’s Day, but you finally made me and Jill get together.”

I smirk. “Thank goodness for that. The tension between the two of you could be cut with a broadax.”

Dominic and Jill come back to the table when the song ends, both laughing and panting. “You’re so cute,” he tells her.

Toby’s arm tightens around her shoulders. But Jill just laughs, cuddling into Toby’s side. “Thanks,” she tells Dominic.

After we eat our pizza, we decide to walk around for awhile. Toby and Jillian walk in front of Dominic and me, their hands clasped together and smiles evidently on their faces. The roses in my sister’s hair are falling out, but Toby sets them right with a gentle hand. I sigh. It’s good to see them together, finally. Everyone knows they’ve liked each other for ages.

Dominic seems to be thinking along the same lines. “They make a nice couple,” he says.

“Yeah,” I agree.

“It’s kind of cool. He has almost black hair, and she’s blond. And his skin is darker than hers. They just make a pretty picture, you know? Light and darkness.”

“Yeah,” I say.

“Is that all you say?” he teases me.

“No,” I crack a smile.

Dominic sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m a crappy date.”

“It’s cool,” I tell him. “I wasn’t expecting anything big, anyway. I was just going for the sake of Jill and Toby.”

“I’m just like, you know. Getting over this crappy break up.”

“That sucks, man. What happened?”

Dominic shrugs. “No idea. I thought we were happy, you know? But then Luis is like, no, I can’t do this anymore.”

“That’s depressing,” I say sympathetically. “Any idea why he might be like that?”

“Well, you know Jose Ordonez. I got into a fight with Jose ’cause he called me maricón, so I punched him. Then he called his friends over, and they did some nasty shit to me. Well, Luis didn’t like that. He kept saying like, it was his fault and shit. And it’s not his fault, that idiota.”

I roll my eyes. “Well, of course he did it because he thinks it’s better for you.”

“What?” Dominic says pitifully. “Estupido. He thinks it’s better for me to be without him?”

I shrug. “I guess so.”

“Que maldito idiota! How could he—Jesucristo! What the fuck is his problem?”

“He loves you,” I say. “He doesn’t want people to hurt you just because you’re with him.”

“Still, that gives him no excuse to… god. I’m sorry, Jared,” he says. “I mean, we’re supposed to be on a date and here I am, obsessed with my ex-boyfriend…”

I laugh. “It’s okay. No offense, but I didn’t exactly see us going anywhere, anyhow.”

“Holy shit, that guy is totally checking you out,” Dominic suddenly whispers.

“What?”

“Don’t look!” he smacks my shoulder as my head whips around. “He looks familiar. Who is he?”

My stomach drops as I see who Dominic is looking at. “That’s, um, Caden Elliott. And ten bucks says he isn’t checking me out.”

“Why?” Dominic asks curiously. Jill and Toby are sitting on a bench in the park we’ve entered, so that they can kiss better.

Dominic and I walk past them, ignoring them. We sit down on a bench on the other side of the park, far away from my sister, Toby, and Caden. “He hates me.”

“Really? Didn’t look like it, the way he was staring at you. Why does he hate you?”

I shrug. “No idea. I barely even spoke to him, and one day he just yelled at me, saying I thought I was something special, didn’t I, with my jockishness and my 4.2 GPA. I told him to get lost, and he punched me in the nose, saying he knew I was a fag, so why didn’t I just admit it?”

Dominic whistles. “Damn. That sucks. How do you think he knows?”

“Maybe he saw me and Luke Overman making out last year.”

“You and Luke Overman? Really?”

“It was a strictly no-attachments thing,” I say. “Nothing special. I never liked him much, anyhow. But anyway, I don’t see how Elliott could have found out.”

Caden Elliott is a very tall person. I swear, he’s gotta be like, six-foot-seven. I’m barely six-two myself. Anyway, he’s a very tall, very thin guy. He’s got hair almost like Toby’s, hanging in his eyes and whatnot. But I’m used to it on Toby—on Toby, it’s almost endearing. On Caden Elliott, it looks scary. Beautiful, maybe. But way emo. Caden Elliott, aside from being a tall person, is also quite a handsome person. And actually really smart, sometimes. And he has no friends, really, but he’s so sweet to people sometimes that you have to wonder why. And he’s actually quite handsome. Did I say that already? Hmm. Well, he is. Not that I noticed or anything.

But the point is, due to his tallness and handsomeness, it is not difficult to see that he is standing right in front of Dominic and me. “Emerson. Anaya.”

“Elliott,” Dominic and I reply.

“On a date? What happened to your little boyfriend de la Cruz?”

“He’s actually my sister’s boyfriend,” I explain, false sweetness in my voice. “Why? Want a shot at him?”

Caden wrinkled his nose. “I wouldn’t touch that joke of a jock with a ten-foot pole.”

“Neither would I,” I snap. “Now, leave us alone. We’re trying to enjoy Valentine’s Day.”

“Isn’t that sentimental?” Caden says rhetorically, sarcasm positively radiating from his words. “Interracial gayness.”

“We’re gonna have to do some interracial shit beating if you don’t get the fuck outta here,” Dominic threatens.

“Hey, man, chill,” Caden says, raising his hands above his head in a ‘don’t shoot’ gesture. “I’m just saying, it’s pretty damn nice to have someone.”

And in that sentence, I find it: Caden’s weakness, his insecurity. “Dominic,” I bark. “Call Luis.”

“What?” Dominic looks surprised. “Why?”

“Tell him the truth. Tell him you love him.”

“You think that’ll work…?”

“Yes. Here. Take my phone. Go.”

Dominic looks uncertain as he takes my cell phone and walks away. When he’s out of earshot, I tell Caden, “You know, it isn’t very nice to insult people just because you want what they have.”

Caden freezes. “What?”

I stand up. Even though he’s five inches taller than me, I still feel menacing as I say, “You little fairy. You think you can stand there and insult us for being gay, just because you can’t get a fucking boyfriend? You think we’re afraid of you, you think we think you’re tough because you don’t need anyone or anything. But the truth is, Elliott, you’re as gay as I am, and you’re pissed ‘cause I could have anyone and you can’t get anyone.”

“I-I…” Caden stutters. It’s obvious I’ve gotten to him. The sneer returns. “You’re wrong.”

“If I was wrong, you wouldn’t be talking to me. Face it, jackass. You’re in love with me, and you’re so fucked up you think I’ll love you back if you harass me enough.”

It’s a long shot, I’ll admit, but still. It makes sense. I don’t know that it’s true until I say it, until I watch his face crumple and his tall, handsome form collapse onto the bench. “Caden?” I say tentatively.

He doesn’t say anything. But I think he’s crying. I sit next to him, wondering what the hell that ache is—the one hanging around inside my chest. It’s almost as though I feel bad for hurting him. I don’t, though. I don’t care about Caden Elliott. Nobody cares about Caden Elliott. “You fucking little shit!” he shouts at me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

And then I know he’s crying, because he’s shaking and I can see the tears rolling down his perfectly pale cheeks, and I watch as he wipes them away, pushing his light brown bangs out of his face as he does so. But wiping tears away only works when you’re not crying anymore. If not, it’s like using windshield wipers while it’s still raining—you can remove the water all you want, but there’s always going to be more coming down. Hesitantly, I touch the side of his face, forcing him to look at me. He gives me what I’m sure he intended to be a glare, tears still coating his face. “I…” I say. “Caden, I…”

“I don’t care!” he says, his voice breaking. “I don’t give a shit what you think.”

“Yes you do,” I say matter-of-factly. “Admit it, Elliott. You love me.”

And maybe what I don’t realize is that no matter how much I want to feel the vindictive pleasure in knowing I was right, there’s something else there, too. Somewhere, deep down, I want to hear him say it because… I want him to love me. Because somewhere else, just as far deep down, I kind of love him, too. “What would it matter if I did?” he says quietly, spitefully. “What would you care?”

“You don’t know anything,” I say huskily.

For the first time, Caden looks like he’s done something I normally do—cottoned on to what people are implying, that is. And he says, “Jared fucking Emerson.” He tries to laugh derisively, but it doesn’t work, because his voice is rusty from the tears. “Are you trying to tell me that you might be in love with me?”

A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. “I might be.”

“Aw, damn,” Caden laughs. “Just goddammit. You’re just saying that ‘cause you wanna trick me. You want me to tell you some shit, so you tell me your shit. It’s not gonna work, you know.”

“Can I kiss you anyway?”

He looks startled. “Well, I guess you could. But I wouldn’t like it or anything.”

So I press my lips against his, and something happens. Inside my chest, the ache suddenly goes away, replaced by an entirely new feeling. Something I never felt with Luke or anyone else I’d ever kissed. And so I keep kissing Caden, and Caden’s finally kissing me back, and my hands are tangled in his hair and his hold my cheeks softly. When we stop kissing, we’re both breathing hard and staring at each other like, what the hell did we just do?

But then he smiles. And I smile. And we look out over at the empty street in front of us and I say, “You wanna dance with me?”

And as I tug him out to the asphalt, he says, “You’re not supposed to dance in the middle of the street.”

I grin at him, feeling like a little girl, because goodness only knows how long I’ve waited for a guy who would quote The Notebook with me. So I say, “It’s a dancing street.”

“And we don’t have any music.”

“Well,” I say softly, placing each of my hands at his waist, pulling him close to me. “We’ll make some.”

Caden grins softly, his handsome face looking utterly angelic, covered in drying tears and shining in the moon and streetlights. He puts his arms around me, leaning his head on top of mine. “Don’t you dare start singing that song,” he warns.

“Don’t you dare tell me I’m a terrible singer,” I say back.

I feel him laugh. “But that’s the next line.”

“I know.”

But neither of us feel like singing. So we just move back and forth slowly, feeling the cold February night wrap around us, hearing the cars on the other side of the wall that separates this street from the freeway. “I love you,” Caden finally says. “But you knew that, didn’t you.”

“Yeah, I knew that.” I say, holding him closer. “But I think I might love you, too. So it’s okay.”

I don’t have to see his face to know that Caden is grinning. I can feel his smile in my hair, I can feel his happiness in the way he holds me, in the way he sighs contentedly and says, “Yeah. That’s okay.”

Later, we eat ice cream, all six of us—Jill, Toby, Luis, Dominic, Caden and I—and we talk about school and life and love and happiness and it’s all just so great that we have someone to share this with. And that we have each other. Romance is important, but friends are important, too. And I wonder for a little bit if Jill feels weird, being the only girl. But then I realize of course she doesn’t. She’s Jill. She’s my sister. She can handle anything.

She holds Toby’s hand and I hold Caden’s, and I give her a little look across the table to tell her that I’m glad she’s there. She grins and nods, telling me that she’s glad I’m there, too. Because we both know that next Valentine’s Day, everything could be different. But then again, everything could be the same.

But we both know that no matter what happens next year, I’ll still be her brother and she’ll still be my sister. And if she’s not with Toby and I’m not with Caden, at least we know that we’ll always be with each other. Not like that, you creeps. Just in general.

I think, though, that we both secretly know that she will be with Toby and I will be with Caden. Because we both know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. And this is it. This is for real.

Well, cheesy. But hey, it’s Valentine’s day. Thank you so much for reading! Please review, let me know if you like my fluff! Because personally, I think it’s some pretty damn good fluff. But I don’t know. So you have to tell me! Mwahaha. Anyway, to those of you in a relationship, I hope it lasts. To those of you not, no worries. Everything works out. If you want it enough, it’ll come. If you enjoy your single-ness, then that’s freaking awesome, too.

Have a great day/night/whatever,

big. break. and. laryngitis.

(My name SO doesn’t show up when it’s all squished together!)