Meg Cabot - Haunted

And if, in order to find out, I had to spend time with someone who regularly haunted my sleep, so be it. It was worth the sacrifice.

Or I hoped it would be, anyway.

Adam and CeeCee weren't too happy about it, of course. As the last class of the day let out, they met me in the hallway - I was visibly limping, thanks to my shoes, but CeeCee didn't notice. She was too busy consulting the list she'd drawn up in bio.

"All right," she said. "We've got to head on over to Safeway for markers, glitter, glue, and poster board. Adam, does your mom still have those dowels in the garage from when she went on that Amish chair-making kick? Because we could use them for the Vote for Suze placards."

"Uh," I said, hobbling along beside them. "You guys."

"Suze, can we take all the stuff over to your place to assemble it? I'd say we could take it to my place, but you know my sisters. They'll probably roller-skate over it or whatever."

"Guys," I said. "Look. I appreciate this and all. I really do. But I can't come with you. I've already got plans."

Adam and CeeCee exchanged glances.

"Oh?" CeeCee said. "Meeting the mysterious Jesse, are we?"

"Uh," I said. "Not exactly - "

At that moment, Paul came past us in the hall. He said to me, noticing my limp, "Let me just pull the car around to the side door. That way you won't have to walk to the gate," and breezed on by.

Adam gave me a scandalized look. "Fraternizing with the enemy!" he cried. "For shame, wench!"

CeeCee looked equally stunned. "You're going out with him ?" She shook her head so that her stick-straight white-blond hair shimmered. "What about Jesse?"

"I'm not going out with him," I said uncomfortably. "We're just . . . working on a project together."

"What project?" CeeCee's eyes, behind the lenses of her glasses, narrowed. "For what class?"

"It's ..." I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, hoping to find some relief from my cruel shoes, all to no avail. "It's not for school, really. It's more for ... for ... church."

Even as the word came out of my mouth, I knew I'd made a mistake. CeeCee wouldn't mind being left alone with Adam - in fact, she'd probably love it - but she wasn't about to let me off the hook without a good reason.

" Church ?" CeeCee looked mad. "You're Jewish, Suze, in case I need to remind you."

"Well, not technically, really," I said. "I mean, my dad was, but my mom isn't - " A car horn sounded just beyond the ornately scrolled gate we were standing behind. "Oops, that's Paul. Gotta go, sorry."

Then, moving pretty quickly for a girl who felt shooting stabs of pain go up her legs with every step, I hightailed it out to Paul's convertible and slid into the passenger seat with a sigh of relief at being in a seated position once more and a feeling that, at last, I was going to find out a thing or two about who - or what - I really was. . . .

But I had an equally strong feeling that I wasn't going to like what I found out. In fact, a part of me was wondering whether or not I was making the worst mistake of my life.

It didn't help matters much that Paul, with his dark sunglasses and easy smile, looked like a movie star. Really, how could I have had so many nightmares about this guy who was so clearly any normal girl's dream date? I didn't miss the envious glances that were being shot in my direction from around the parking lot.

"Did I happen to mention," Paul asked, as I fastened my seat belt, "that I think those shoes are flickin'?"

I swallowed. I didn't even know what flicking meant. I could only assume from his tone that it meant something good.

Did I really want to do this? Was it worth it?

The answer came from deep within ... so deep, I realized that I had known it all along: Yes. Oh, yes.

"Just drive," I said, my voice coming out huskier than usual, because I was trying not to let my nervousness show.

And so he did.

The house he drove me to was an impressive two-storied structure built into the side of a cliff right off Carmel Beach. It was made almost entirely of glass in order to take advantage of its ocean and sunset views.

Paul seemed to notice that I was impressed, since he said, "It's my grandfather's place. He wanted a little place on the beach to retire to."

"Right," I said, swallowing hard. Grandpa Slaters "little" place on the beach had to have cost a cool five million or so. "And he doesn't mind having a roommate all of a sudden?"

"Are you kidding?" Paul smirked as he parked his car in one of the spaces of the house's four-car garage. "He barely knows I'm here. The guy's gorked out on his meds most of the time."

"Paul," I said uncomfortably.

"What?" Paul blinked at me from behind his Ray-Bans. "I'm just stating a fact. Pops is pretty much bedridden and should be in an assisted living facility, but he put up this huge fuss when we tried to move him to one. So when I suggested I move in to kind of keep an eye on things, my dad agreed. It's a win-win situation. Pops gets to live at home - with health-care attendants to look after him, of course - and I get to attend my dream school, the Mission Academy."

I felt my face heat up, but I tried to keep my tone light.

"Oh, so going to Catholic school is your dream?" I asked sarcastically.

"It is if you're there," Paul said, just as lightly... but not quite as sarcastically.

My face promptly turned red as a cherry-dipped cone. Keeping it averted so that Paul wouldn't notice, I said primly, "I don't think this is such a good idea, after all."

"Relax, Simon," Paul drawled. "Pop's day attendant is here, in case you're, you know, suffering from any feminine misgivings about being alone in the house with me."

I followed the direction Paul was pointing. At the end of the steep circular drive sat a rusted-out Toyota Celica. I didn't say anything, but mostly only because I was kind of amazed at how easily Paul seemed to have read my mind. I had been sitting there, suffering from second thoughts about the whole thing. I had never exactly raised the issue with my parents, but I was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to go to guys' houses when their parents weren't home.

On the other hand, if I didn't in this case, I would never find out what I needed - and I was convinced by now that this was something I actually really did need - to know.

Paul slid out from behind the wheel, then walked around to my side of the car and opened the door for me.

"Coming, Suze?" he asked, when I didn't move to undo my seat belt.

"Uh," I said, looking nervously up at the big glass house. It looked disturbingly empty, despite the Toyota.

Paul seemed to read my mind again.

"Would you get off it, Suze?" he said, rolling his eyes. "Your virtue's in no danger from me. I swear 111 keep my hands to myself. This is business.

There'll be plenty of time for fun later."

I tried to smile coolly, so he wouldn't suspect that I am not accustomed to people - okay, guys - saying this sort of thing to me every day. But the truth is, of course I'm not. And it bugged me the way it made me feel when Paul did it. I mean, I did not even like this guy, but every time he said something like that - suggested that he thought I was, I don't know, special - it sent this little shiver down my spine . . . and not in a bad way.

That was the thing. It wasn't in a bad way . What was that all about? I mean, I don't even like Paul. I am fully in love with somebody else. And, yeah, Jesse is presently showing no signs of actually returning my feelings, but it's not like because of that I am suddenly going to start going out with Paul Slater ... no matter how good he might look in his Ray-Bans.

I got out of the car.

"Wise decision," Paul commented, closing the car door behind me.