Summary: "Christina, I'm not sure it's safe for you to drive under your condition." I slammed my foot on the break. The tires screeched as I watched Nolan pull off to the side of the road, dodging a rear end accident by a second. Oh, how he got on my nerves. ONE-SHOT.

HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY PISS OFF A WOMAN FOR DUMMIES

By: Unsure Chances

This is unbelievable.

I took in a deep breath and twisted the key.

Again, nothing.

I'd probably already been sitting on the lawn for a good five minutes, trying to get the goddam golf cart to start up, before I actually thought I might just kick the plastic box and walk back home. It wasn't that far, but considering the summer weather and my lack of a towel to cover up my almost naked body, I figured it might be inappropriate. Little kids asking, "Mommy, why is that girl in her underwear? Is she homeless?" wasn't exactly my idea of a good impression.

The fact that my so-called underwear was actually my bikini is irrelevant.

I wasn't as startled as I should have been when I felt his presence behind me.

"What do you want, Nolan?" I growled, lifting my head for a brief second before trying at the ignition again. "And where are my goddamn glasses?" Somehow, his proximity helped me notice that not only was the golf cart out of order, my dress back at home and my ego bruised, but my glasses were missing from the cup holder as well. We had a strange sort of relationship. Basically, we were the best of friends until the first chance to be competitive. We attended the same school for three years, we stayed in the same neighborhood for months every summer, our parents had been friends since the beginning of time, and we still just couldn't get along. It was pathetic, if you really thought about it. On his part, I mean. We couldn't both be right; it was either him or me. And of course, I was right about 99.99% of the time. Now you're wondering, what happened to that .01%? And, the heartbreaking questions was... (drum roll, please). Was Shakespeare bisexual, or wasn't he? In all honesty, that argument was a bunch of horse shit. Besides which, it's not even a proven fact.

Unfortunately, he won in a different aspect. Nolan could insult anyone, no matter what the circumstances. And the sad part was that his put downs were always good. Don't get me wrong, I'm completely against making other people feel bad about themselves and all. But I had never sprouted out one successful come-back. Ever. How can you win an argument when you can't even defend yourself?

I looked up at Nolan again, watching his lips inch upward into a small smile. He slung his grey t-shirt over his right shoulder, and I was finding it hard not to watch the muscles in his arms flex, if only for that second. Besides, who wears a grey t-shirt to the beach? Isn't it common knowledge that when grey gets wet, it's the most noticeable? No wonder he wasn't wearing a shirt.

"Well, what is it? You haven't already had enough fun mortifying me for the day?" I snapped, throwing my chestnut brown hair over my shoulder. Now that I thought about it, the position we were in could only be considered awkward. I was squatting to more effectively slam the key into the ignition, while Nolan was standing upright, directly behind me. I was still in my dark blue bikini, the one that, not even twenty minutes ago, Nolan had publicly humiliated me in. And by publicly, I meant the occupancy of the beach; Six of our friends, and two others. So, I guess that's eight. Eight people. He had completely embarrassed me in front of eight people. Daniel, being one of them, only raised the stakes higher. Nolan was officially on my death list.

I took his silence as a confirmation that he wasn't done screwing with me.

"Okay, that's it. What did you do?" I spun around to face him, gritting me teeth. I was pissed.

Nolan's eyes darted from my face, down to my chest, and up to my face again, before finally landing on my chest for the umpteenth time that day. I resented leaving the house without a dress because even while the heat was scorching, I couldn't stand to be in this sad excuse for a parking lot in only a skimpy bikini.

As if I wasn't embarrassed enough.

1) Never act like an arrogant pervert in front of an already angry woman. Shit will go down.

"Can you be serious for one second?" I asked, exasperated, and turned my back towards the cart.

Anyway, weren't these carts supposed to make life easier? It was summer, we were in Tahoe just like every other year, and rather than taking the car around everywhere we had the "luxury" (well put, Dad) to rent golf carts. Of course, it was fantastic when you just got out of the water, had sand all over your feet, and wanted to get home. But cars were a lot more reliable than golf carts.

That was where I froze.

Oh, this is not happening right now.

The 17 on the side of the cart couldn't have been printed in a bigger, bolder font.

No, this is not be happening to me. I repeated to myself.

Only, it was.

That's when I knew I was about to break down.

I grabbed my beach volleyball from the front seat and turned to face Nolan.

"You are such an asshole." I spat, before heading off towards the golf cart parked to the right, number 7. I shoved my volleyball into the front compartment, turned the key once in the proper ignition, and sped off towards home. Well, more like sped in a psychological sense, because I could have ran faster than I was moving.

2) To effectively throw a woman off, watch her humiliate herself. Especially when she is completely oblivious to how she is embarrassing herself. And don't correct her at all. No, really. This works. Trust me.

Don't cry. I kept repeating to myself. This is not worth crying about.

Only, it was. This was the biggest goddam straw that had ever broken the camel's back.

"Christina, I'm not sure it's safe for you to drive under your condition." I slammed my foot on the break, tightening my grip on the steering wheel. The tires screeched as I watched Nolan pull quickly off to the side of the road, dodging a rear end accident by less than a second. "Are you trying to kill me?!" He yelped, parked in the middle of someone's lawn. The old white house looked to be empty but I could only hope somebody would come out and beat him with a bat. Just kidding. I'm not that cynical. I don't actually want him hurt. "Scratch that." He immediately corrected. "That was a stupid question."

3) Telling a woman how completely out of her mind she is will act as a efficient way to work her up even more. This piece of advice, my friends, is golden.

"Well, clearly, you were tailgating. You should probably brush up on your driving skills."

"I'm a perfectly good driver, thank you." Nolan announced, pushing down on the parking break with an extra umph.

"I just don't understand!" Oh, no. This is it. "I mean, you know I can't deal with parents. And you still convince a new mother that I'm some demon bitch from hell!" I was out of the golf cart in a flash, and I could already tell it would be bad. There was no stopping me.

"You threw a volleyball at her kid's head!" Nolan insisted, jumping out off his golf cart as well.

"It was an accident, Nolan! It's not like I woke up this morning and said, 'Hey, I'm going to throw a beach volleyball at a three year old's head!'" I'd reached the point where it didn't even matter whether or not I made sense. Nolan reached his arm out- "Don't touch me." I warned. "Don't even think about touching me. I am so sick of you. And you know what? It's not even about that lady. It's about how you purposefully ridicule me in front of everybody. Especially Daniel. All the time." Nolan stepped back, stunned by my abrupt accusation, and frowned. HAH! He finally realized that he couldn't win this one. Not a chance in hell would he win this one.

He ran his hands down his face, squeezing his eyes shut. Then, after letting out a string of incomprehensible words, began. "It's always Daniel this, Daniel that." Nolan stepped forward again, approaching the argument in a different manner. "You don't even like Daniel!"

4) You can't tell a girl whether or not she likes someone. That's just not how it works. And even if you are right, she will not admit to it. There's no real explanation for this other than, that's just how it is.

"What are you talking about?" My face was heating up, and I fought the urge to turn away.

"Stop lying." Nolan snapped, kicking into the grass with his foot. He ran a hand through his short, golden brown hair.

"Why would I tell you I'm interested in him if I'm not? It doesn't work that way!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air again. "If anything, I would tell you I don't! I like Daniel, Nolan."

"No, Christina, you don't." So? I wanted to ask. What's it to you, anyway? "Come on, can we please stop fighting? We look like domestics." When I registered the second half of his statement, I looked down. Oh, now this is embarrassing. I was still only in my bathing suit, and he was still shirtless. This should give the neighbors a great impression.

"What is this? Some sort of hypnotic thing? It's not working, Nolan. Cut it out already." If I squeezed my teeth together any tighter, I thought I'd probably break my jaw.

"No, Christina. It's the truth! You don't like him! I know you don't like him! I've known you for seventeen fucking years and I know you well enough to see how you act around the guys you like." He exclaimed. I rolled my eyes. It didn't matter that he was right, I wouldn't let him have that satisfaction.

"Stop acting like you know everything." My seaglass-green eyes burned holes into his hazel orbs. I stopped fidgeting and squared my shoulders. "You don't."

5) You may think you know everything but you don't. Get over yourself.

"I just know that you have a history of liking nice guys. And Daniel isn't a nice guy."

"Except, he is nice." I countered.

"Because nice guys ditch a girl in the middle of a date. And nice guys spread rumors about two people just for the hell of it. And when they're really nice, they might even ask their best friend's girlfriend out the day after said best friend and said girlfriend break up." Somewhere in the middle of his rant, I took a step back and averted my gaze. This time, Nolan was right. Daniel did skip out on his date with Melanie because a buddy texted him saying that there was a keg at his house. Daniel did tell the entire school that James gave Evan a blow job, even while they're both straight, and caused James' long-term girlfriend to break up with him. (You can see how much trust there was in that relationship.) And the day after Sarah dumped Cole, Daniel did ask Sarah out.

"Whatever." I turned away, about to get back into the golf cart and speed home in defeat. I told you I had troubles with come-backs.

"Christina…"

"What? Why won't you just leave me alone. It's obvious that we don't get along." I grimaced internally, hating each word. The thing was that we did get along. Sure, we fought about petty things, but I laughed when I was around him. Well, when I wasn't completely pissed off. But Nolan was fun, he was friendly and he was one of my best friends. How could he not be? I've only known him for seventeen years.

"Oh come on Christina. That's not true." His frown deepened and something flickered through his expression.

"Yes, it is." I turned back to my golf cart, ready to go home. I didn't need to spend my time with him when nothing would come of it. Nolan grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. "Let-"

His lips were on mine in less than a second, his hands on my hips, pulling me closer.

I pushed my palms against his bare chest, freeing myself. It was too bad my reaction wasn't quick enough to miss the tingles that ran down my entire body.

6) Maybe, if you kiss her, she'll shut up. However, if you haven't made it clear that you like her or vise versa, this probably won't work.

"What the fuck! Do you just go around kissing everyone?" I wouldn't let him know that for those few seconds, I'd been in heaven. Or that I had a massive crush on him for the past two and a half years. Those were just the insignificant details nobody really cared about, including myself. Well, that last part was a lie. I cared. It drove me absolutely crazy just thinking about liking him. Of all people, Nolan. (Insert sad/confused face here.)

If there weren't so many thoughts racing around inside my head, I probably would've heard the door to the old white house opening. Maybe, I even would have heard the lady's footsteps across the patio. I did, however, hear her shakily screech "You're ruining my lawn!" in a voice only dogs could hear. Well, metaphorically, anyway. I looked towards the house to see the old lady, hands on her hips, steaming. It almost would have been funny if I hadn't been so upset.

"What gives you the right to just go up and kiss me anyway, huh?" It had been a rhetorical question, honestly, but he responded anyway.

"I wanted to see what it was like." He shrugged, far too nonchalant for my liking.

"What, you've never kissed a girl?" Of course he had. Because not only was Nolan the 'hook up kind of guy' (his exact words less than a week ago) but he had also gone out with Tawny Nelson and Bailey Dennen in freshman and junior year, both of which I'd seen him kiss several times. I shouldn't have been very surprised with his answer.

"No, I wanted to see what it was like kissing you."

"Fine then, how was it?" Oh God, did I just ask that out loud? I immediately wished I could take it back. Maybe even covered it up with a snide remark, but I couldn't think fast enough. I didn't even want to know.

I really have to stop lying to myself.

"A hundred times better than I would've expected." Oh, there he goes again.

"I can't believe you said that. You're just asking for it." I glared at him, and my fists tightened.

7) Do not tell a girl that a kiss was better than you expected without telling her what exactly you did expect. For all she could know, you really mean that you were expecting her to kiss like a dead frog, and it just so happened to turn out that her kiss was actually average. Now that's an insult.

"Asking for what, exactly?" But before I could answer he kissed me again. It lasted a couple seconds longer than the first time, surprisingly, but I managed to pull away again.

"Again? Really? Nolan, fuck off already. The poor lady wants your cart off her lawn." I could feel the flush creeping up my neck at the sound of my raspy voice. The effect he had on me was so not healthy.

"Settle your problems elsewhere. You're killing my grass." The lady called out again, in response to my own remark. Where was she before he'd kissed me? I almost felt inclined to ask her to call the cops.

"Oh, please. The cart's been on your grass for a good five minutes already, another couple minutes won't change a thing." Nolan looked over his shoulder at the lady, then turned his attention back to me. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you Christina. I didn't mean to. It was just the first thing that came out of my mouth, and I went with it. Really, it was my mistake."

"Well, it's not like I thought it was my bad, Nolan."

"You know that's not what I meant." He insisted, stepping closer again. I stepped back, right into the bumper of my own golf cart. Damn traitor. "I'm really, really sorry." His face had softened, a glimmer in his eyes.

That's when I realized that even though he wore a grey shirt to the beach, sometimes acted like an arrogant pig, had a tendency to humiliate me, was a know it all, and told me that my kiss was a hundred times better than he expected, I was almost, maybe, in love with him. That's right, ladies and gents. I've taken this "L" word to a whole new level.

And this time, when he pressed his lips to mine, I didn't shove him away. Sure, I struggled, but after a second it wasn't just my inability to move that kept me between Nolan and the cart. I wanted to kiss him back. So I wrapped my arms around the back of his neck, my cold fingers sliding across that place that I knew always sent tingles down his body. And when he shivered from my touch alone, I also knew that those seventeen years had paid off. And then he pulled me even closer to him, his own hand grazing my cheek lightly. I didn't feel uncomfortable wearing only my bikini against his toned chest, because this was Nolan, and feeling uncomfortable just wasn't an option. And, when he eventually did pull back, he only had to whisper one thing to get me completely.

"Third time's the charm."

I have an entire list of one-shot's that I want to write. Restless Nights is my main priority at the moment but they're all the product of my (unofficial and not quite there yet) insomnia. What else can I do in those hours of just staring at the ceiling each night? This is actually an almost real life experience for me, but it's a bit different I guess. More one-shots are on their way, along with more chapters of Restless Nights.
I hope you liked it.