"Hey." Collin smiled at me when I came to the door. "Can you talk for a minute?"

"Yeah." I looked behind me at my mom who, of course, was watching us from the kitchen grinning like we were the cutest little things she'd ever seen. "We'll be back," I called to her. She nodded and walked back into the kitchen. I closed the door and followed Collin out onto the porch. "What's up? You staying over there?" I nodded to his dad's house across the street.

"Yeah, for the summer. You stayin' here?"

"Yeah."

Collin's eyes locked with mine and he smiled shyly at me. "Cool." He looked down at his feet and then over at my feet. Then his eyes slowly traveled up my legs and stopped at my skirt. He kind of shifted his weight and cleared his throat. I did the same and looked away. "Hey..." he reached out for my hand. I gave it to him and took a step closer. "Listen, I know I keep apologizing to you, but I can never say it enough. You'll never know how sorry I am that I did that to you. I mean...you were my girl. My homie...from way back. My homie lover friend..." He grinned at me and we both laughed at the fact that he was trying way too hard. But he was also telling the truth. "I mean, you were. Until I messed it all up." I nodded in agreement. "Tasha, every man wants what we had. And I just...I just can't believe I threw it all away." His eyes lingered on my eyes as he waited for me to possibly say that he didn't throw it all away.

"Collin..."

The words stopped flowing after that and I just looked at him. What could I say? That I was secretly in love with Kenney now? Or that I was still in love with Collin, too, if I really wanted to be honest with myself? The truth is, I was never mad at Collin. I just got my feelings hurt. In the worst way.

But I wasn't about to tell Collin that.

Instead I just shook my head like he was a hopeless cause when, in reality, all I really wanted to do was go out to the creek with him and do...really bad things. This thought trumped all others, and I'm sure I turned crimson when I shifted on my feet again and involuntarily looked over in the direction of the creek. Collin read me all the way through and gave me a smile that said great minds think alike. He pulled my hand a little closer to him and I moved right along with it.

I talked about Kenney's girls all the time, but I was pretty much a hot tail back then, too, if you want to know the truth. And Collin knew it. He knew me. Very well. Kenney, luckily, never acted on the obvious attraction between us, but I'm sure he could tell the effect that he had on me whenever he did his thing. Guys like that always knew exactly what they were doing. Collin, on the other hand, had always been one to just go for what he wanted. And I liked that. I respected it. I never was one for beating around the bush, and that's all me and Kenney ever did. Which might be where the me and Kenney thing somehow got lost in translation, and where the me and Collin thing got...fully translated.

Besides, I had known Collin forever. He knew my whole family, and I knew his. Kenney was still kind of...new. He and I hadn't totally figured each other out yet, but Collin and I always knew without a doubt exactly what each other wanted at any given time. That's why it was weird that Collin didn't kiss me right then. I know he wanted to. And he knew I wanted him to. He sure kept looking at me and pulling me closer like he was going to. He just...didn't. For some reason, he was acting extra shy that night and I couldn't figure out why.

Too bad, too.

How I felt watching Kenney get all in that La'Toya chick's mouth out in front of the gym that day unexpectedly crossed my mind, and I suddenly realized that literally the only thing that had been on my mind as I watched them was how much I missed being with Collin. Kenney was cool and all, and he did have this weird effect on me - which I couldn't quite...interpret. I always got hot like you wouldn't believe whenever I was close to him. But when I thought about him, or whenever I was with him and his hands weren't on me, he was just...Kenney. My peeps. Not my "homie lover friend".

I looked up at Collin and realized that at that stage in the game, Kenney and I could still go either way. And the chances of me having to fight my way into Kenney's final cut were...immense. I wasn't really down for a bunch of second stringing, so...

Collin, on the other hand, was right there. And I didn't see anyone else around, either, trying to take my spot. No one that had a chance, anyway. Collin, I knew for sure, was still mine...if I wanted him. He had already made that very clear. Not only that, but I knew without a doubt that he had always been mine.

That's the one thing that I never could say about Kenney. Kenney was never mine.

Collin was apparently staying with his dad, too, the whole summer, when I knew very well that he hadn't even been over there to visit his dad in years. It wasn't lost on me that Collin went out of his way to stay with the father that he hated, just to get a chance to be put in the game, while all Kenney ever did was act like he invented the game.

And Collin was playing to win, too. As usual.

For the next few weeks, Collin was always coming around embarrassing the crap out of me with his flowers and "please baby I still love you give me another chance" apologies. Some of them were even in front of my parents! Of course, my father was never too impressed with a begging man and neither was I, but my mother, on the other hand, had always loved Collin anyway. Even when we were little. She just thought he was the cutest little thing ever. All she ever asked me about when we were growing up was "that little Collin." My mom just loved the hell out of that boy. And why wouldn't she? Collin knew how to give everyone exactly the side of him that they wanted to see. Including me.

I should have known that he was playing to win from the very beginning, though, the way he used to always help my dad outside with the car in the middle of July - when I already knew that he hated being out in the heat even more than I did.

And so, just like old times, here he was again, conveniently outside every time I was...just like when we were kids. And there I was, not blowing him off, but finding myself enjoying his company more and more. At first, I was probably hanging out with him more for nostalgia's sake than anything, but let me tell you, hormones will get you caught. up. For real. I mean, one minute you hate somebody and the next minute...well, you know what it is.

Here's the thing...on the one hand, I had this great guy who was totally into me...and every other hot ass walking around on campus. But then on the other hand, I had this other guy who was totally into me...and he had made it all about me since the first grade. We had history together, and old feelings that didn't hesitate to resurface once we put our little high school drama behind us. Collin had always made it very clear exactly what he wanted, and that he only wanted it from me. Kenney had always made what he wanted clear, too, but he also never tried to hide the fact that he could and did get it from anywhere. Well, not anywhere, but you know what I mean.

So you tell me, which one would you choose?

Eventually, the answer became undeniable when one day I found myself sitting out at the creek with Collin, asking him to listen to something that I had written. I didn't think it was very good and wanted to get a second opinion. He didn't look too enthusiastic about listening to anything at all for too long, but agreed to sit still long enough to hear it anyway. At that time, he was still trying to get in, if you know what I mean. So he probably would have done anything that I asked him to do right then.

"Alright." I opened the notebook that Kenney had gotten me a few months earlier.

"That is the girliest thing I've ever seen. Where did you get this from?" Collin asked, snatching the book away from me and bending the hand-sewn binding all the way back to get a closer inspection.

"Give that back!" I tried to snatch it out of his hands, but he held on tight and started laughing at me when I accidentally tore a page. "You are such a jerk!" I stood up, ready to leave.

"No wait," he put his hand on my thigh. Our eyes locked and, for some reason, my anger was quickly replaced with...late teen horniness. I wanted Collin to keep his hands on me right then and I'm pretty sure, looking back, that's what kept me from walking away from him that day. "I'm sorry, Tasha. That was stupid of me. Go ahead and read it." As soon as I sat back down, though, he mumbled, "Your boyfriend must've bought that for you, the way you trippin' all over it."

"First of all, I do not have a boyfriend. For the last time. Second of all, Kenney did buy it for me, but that's not why you get on my damn nerves. You just don't have any respect for other people's stuff."

"Oh yeah?" He nodded. "If he's not your boyfriend, then why'd you automatically think I was talking about him?"

"Because you're always talking about him. Kenney this and Kenney that. You must be the one with a crush on Kenney, not me."

Collin didn't think that was even a little bit funny. "Fuck that shit," he snapped, then continued on self-righteously, "...and you don't think I respect other people's stuff? Why you think I haven't even tried to kiss you all this time?"

"What...?"

"It's definitely not because I don't want to." His eyes traveled slowly across my lips. "I want to..." He looked at me like he was doing more than just telling me what he wanted to do. He was telling me what he was about to do. "I just...thought you were with ol' boy." He continued to watch me until my face got hot and I looked away first. He scooted closer and his knee touched mine. "Much as I don't like him, I wasn't tryna step on the man's toes like that."

I tilted my head and smiled at him. Who knew Collin could respect other people? Maybe, like my mother kept trying to tell me, people really could change. I still had to set him straight about a few things first, though.

"Collin, even if I was Kenney's girl...which I'm not, that wouldn't make me other people's stuff."

"I know that. I just meant..." he looked down at the book. "So are you gonna read this thing or what?"

"Oh I'll read it. Just as soon as you say I'm not stuff. Don't ever talk to me like that again."

"Hey," he raised his hands in his own defense. "You said that. I was talking about... something else."

We simultaneously looked at each other and started laughing, and then we both got quiet as he leaned over and kissed me. It was like all of my old feelings had been dammed up since we broke up, and every emotion that I used to have the ability to feel came rushing back all at the same time.

Collin broke the awkward silence first. "Besides, I knew you weren't wit' dude anyway. Just look at this shit! I think he's the one you need to be worried about having a crush on me." He always did know how to ruin the mood.

I shoved him away playfully. "Shut up."

"Make me." He leaned forward and kissed me again, and again...and again.

Something clicked then. Maybe that age old fairytale of getting married to the boy next door and living happily ever after really could come true. That whole "falling in love with the best friend who you never noticed before today" theme that ran through all the teen movies back then had always been something that I could not only get on board with, but had always been something that I wished for more than anything else in the world. I wanted that to happen to me so bad growing up. And as far as my mom was concerned, Collin had been my best friend all this time anyway, not Jean Toussant. I mean, he was the one that I used to spend all of my time with when we were kids. Little did she know, though, that was because we were too busy playing hide and go get it than to be wasting time with the crew, but that was beside the point.

This, I figured, would probably turn out to be that Cinderella kind of love that people always talked about. You know, with the guy that starts out as a frog and ends up a prince. That was Collin alright. Frog and prince to the bone. It all depended on what time of day that you caught him and how much light you held him up to.

I think Collin and I both knew right then that we'd get back together before the summer was over, but at the time neither of us had the guts to say it out loud.

Later that night, Kenney called me. I hadn't talked to him in a couple of weeks and was so happy to hear from him that I almost let it slip about Collin, but didn't. I didn't want to risk having the conversation go left after I had waited so long to speak to him. Instead, I asked him about his own love life.

"Pimpin' as usual?" I teased.

"No, not really." He was serious for a change, which caught me off guard. "Remember Deidra?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I let all the rest of 'em go and kept her."

Well...there you go.

I shook my head. He always did know how to paint a picture.

"Ok..."

"Nah darlin', for real. I really like this girl. We decided to make it official last night."

"Oh, really?" I was suddenly at a loss for words. "That's cool. I like her."

"Good. I think she might be around for a while."

"Well...good."

"Yeah, I'm more of a one woman kind of guy anyway." He paused. "Believe it or not..." We both chuckled. "So, read it to me."

"Read what?"

"Whatever you just wrote."

"How do you know I just wrote something?"

"My aunt told me that you called last night. You always call me after you write something." He was right. "So go ahead."

I smiled. "Hold on. I'll go get it." When I came back to the phone, I heard him sigh loudly into the receiver. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"You must think this call is free," he teased.

"Oh. Well if you don't want to hear it..."

"Wait a minute...who is this?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, the Tashi I know would have made me listen to it whether I wanted to hear it or not."

I chuckled. "Turning over a new leaf."

"Really?" He got quiet. "Have you read it to Collin yet?"

"Why you worried about that?"

He was silent for a minute. I could almost see him look around the room and then back at the phone. "So...have you?"

"Well, I tried, but he kind of blew me off. I mean, he played like he wanted to hear it, but then kept changing the subject like I wouldn't notice. He's not really into that kind of stuff..." My voice trailed off as I heard myself say it. I didn't notice it at the time, but that's exactly what happened.

"Yeah, well if he's into you, then he should be into whatever you have to say." I didn't have a response to that. "So...go ahead."

"Ok. I haven't gone back to rewrite anything, so this is just the first draft."

"Read it already!"

"Why? Your girlfriend waiting?"

"Yes."

"Oh..." It was like the silence was louder than his countrified mouth.

"But she can wait," he concluded easily. "So, let me hear it."

Suddenly, I didn't even want to read the thing anymore. I did it anyway, though, more because I had already wasted enough of Kenney's time than anything else. I began reading quickly, almost in one breath.

"I'm going to be a beautiful writer someday Embrace the hopes, the fears The dreams, pain, suffering And happiness And make it all immortal. The timeless problems Of yesterday, today and forever Will be reflected through My characters And bring insight To a solution..."

"Slow down."

"What?"

"Slow down," Kenney repeated quietly. "I can barely understand you."

"I thought you were in a hurry."

"Like I said, never in too much of a hurry to listen to what you have to say."

I smiled and suddenly wished that I was Kenney's girlfriend instead of trick ass Deidra. Then I chuckled at myself for being such a hater. Kenney was right, I did need to stop talking...and thinking...like a gangster rapper.

I continued. "You'll laugh, you'll cry You'll dream their dreams Until at last, they die. That is my dream. To change the world Through a story. To build a land of imagination Where it all seems so far away Yet close, so close And stays in your heart Forever. That's what I think. I'm going to be a beautiful writer someday."

It was a while before Kenney said anything. Finally, he spoke. "That's what I'm talkin' 'bout."

"What?"

"I said, that's what I've been talking about. When I said that you needed to dig deep and really say what you wanted to say. That's what I was talking about. Finally, you said what was really on your mind. Spoke out loud what you really want to get out of this world." I could hear him smiling through the phone. "And now that I know what you want, you're going to have to have it."

I laughed. "You're silly."

"Not really. And one day you'll realize that. God blessed you with this incredible gift, Tashi, and now that you recognize it for what it is...you gotta use it. Use it to do exactly what you just said. You're going to make it big someday kid, just watch. And I'll be coming right along for the free ride."

I could just picture his dimples and laughed again. "Yeah right, you'll make it big before I do."

"Only if you throw your life away on some fool who makes you feel like you don't have anything important to say."

I let the loaded words linger in the air long enough to dissipate before I responded to them.

"What are you talking about Kenney? Who said I was throwing anything away? And who cares what I do now anyway? We're only eighteen!"

"No. You, my friend, are only eighteen," he countered. "Everyone else is already grown."

Kenney always had a knack for redirecting conversations right before they went left. I still didn't appreciate what he said about Collin, but I also knew he meant it...and that it would be pointless to try to make him take it back.

"I love you," he stated matter-of-factly.

"I love you, too." I answered begrudgingly.

"Well, gotta go catch my...very beautiful...soon to be...senior."

"Whatever Kenney."

"Can't wait to see you."

"Can't wait to see you first...Bud." For some reason, saying that made me miss him a little bit more.

"Bye baby," and he hung up.

I chuckled to myself as I walked back out into the living room.

Who knew little Bud could hook a Junior? He must have really been puttin' that thang down.

Too bad I didn't have the good sense to make a move on him before she did.