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  CATCH YOU IF I CAN

  By Marian Tee

  About Catch You If I Can

  Ianne Clayton is a coward, and she’s missed a lot of opportunities because of it. Her biggest regret: not being able to stop Alex Rockford, her best friend and the hottest cover model for National Geographic, from leaving her for another girl.

  But now that Alex and his girlfriend have broken up, Ianne is determined not to let her cowardice get the better of her again. She’s going to make Alex fall in love with her, by hook or by crook. If she has to seduce her silent, brooding Texan, so be it. Surely, love would make up for the fact that she has no experience whatsoever…right?

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  CATCH YOU IF I CAN

  By Marian Tee

  Copyright 2014 by Streak Digital Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  THE PAST

  ALEX

  Alex Rockford was in love.

  He would of course never admit it to a living soul since he was a Texan at heart, and that meant he didn’t do emotions. He was tough and macho, even though like his dad, he preferred to work with computers rather than horses, spoke several languages rather than just y’all, and wore glasses rather than cowboy hats.

  And the girl he was in love with?

  She was alone with him in his room but instead of blushing or gawking at his pecs, she was staring at the specs…of his computer.

  “I think your video card is incompatible with your motherboard,” Ianne Clayton finally announced, her fingers thoughtfully tapping out a rhythm on his work table.

  He had a feeling her words made a lot of sense – when it came to hardware troubleshooting, Ianne always did know best – but right now her words completely went over his head. All he could think of was the fact that she was alone with him in his room, and she smelled so damn good it was taking every bit of his control not to grab Ianne and just kiss her.

  She was of average height, but since he was not – he towered over everyone at a few inches over six feet even though he was just sixteen like her – she barely reached his shoulders. She was slim, with slender curves that he knew she considered boyish – he had overheard her saying it – but in his eyes, everything about her was perfect.

  She was so different from the girls he was used to back home – or even most of the girls in her school, which had also been his school for more than two years now, ever since his family had moved to Regalia because of his father’s promotion.

  She was shy and awkward, but once she started talking about computers, Ianne would forget about being self-conscious and that was when people would see the real her – the one that was so breathtakingly pretty just looking at her face took Alex’s breath away.

  Not that he would tell anyone about how pretty she was either.

  Maybe it was selfish of him, but he didn’t give a damn even if it was. Alex was extremely possessive about her, and as far as he was concerned, the fewer guys who noticed how gorgeous Ianne really was, the better.

  He was having a hard enough time as it was making her notice him without rivals. If there were other guys in the picture, then that would be hell for him. Just the thought of knowing that another guy was looking at Ianne in the wrong way already made him gnash his teeth. Quietly.

  “…Alex?” Her soft clear voice jerked him out of his thoughts. “Are you listening?”

  He grimaced. “Sorry, I was thinking about stuff…”

  “Ah.”

  The way her face clouded when she spoke puzzled him, and he asked, “Is something wrong? Maybe I called you at the wrong time?” When his computer gave up on him, shutting down for no apparent reason and he had been unable to switch it back on, Alex had been in a panic. The only thought in his mind back then was to call Ianne and get her to make his computer work again.

  He had forgotten to ask her if she had things to do tonight. He had even forgotten the fact that he had been about to take a shower when he noticed the blue screen of death flashing on his monitor before the entire thing switched off.

  Ianne shook her head. “I didn’t have anything to do. I was just thinking about…stuff, too.”

  Alex stiffened. Although Ianne was in many ways as private as he was, he had spent enough time with her to know that when she said ‘stuff’ like that, it usually had to do with guys and dating.

  He walked towards her, pretending not to notice that she looked more and more nervous as he did. Normally, he respected her boundaries but if someone was moving in on his territory, then her unspoken need for “personal space” could go to hell.

  Look at me, he wanted to growl at Ianne. He had never been particularly vain, not even when the way girls were throwing themselves at him had gotten ridiculous. The moment he hit puberty, he had been besieged by the opposite sex. Even women twice his age would come on to him, not realizing they were trying to seduce someone who was young enough to be their son.

  When they looked at him, all they saw was his virility and impossibly large dick and that was it.

  But with Ianne—

  Not one damn thing about him seemed to register with her. It was pathetic, but right now he would settle for anything that would tell him she was at least aware he was a guy.

  Ianne cleared her throat. “So…do you want me to—”

  “What do you think about friends dating?” he asked abruptly
. The way she couldn’t seem to meet his eyes when most girls would have blatantly stared if they had seen him wearing nothing but a tiny towel around his hips – it had him gritting his teeth.

  His control snapped at that moment, and Alex knew that this night would not be over without him getting some answers.

  Ianne’s head had quickly turned towards him at his question. “Wh-why are you asking?”

  “Because there’s this girl I want to ask out but I don’t want to risk losing her if she doesn’t think it’s possible for friends to date.” He looked at her, knowing he was being too intense, but it was impossible to be calm now.

  He had practically laid himself bare with that.

  If she didn’t—

  “I think it won’t work,” Ianne said in a cold flat voice he had never heard her use.

  Alex felt himself whitening. Had she really said those words? And had she really said it like she didn’t give a shit that she was practically shooting him down in flames, without giving him the smallest chance to negotiate?

  “Why?”

  “Just because you’re friends doesn’t mean you’re automatically compatible.”

  He asked snidely, “And I suppose you know what makes two persons really compatible?”

  Ianne blinked. “I’m sorry if I—”

  He knew he was overreacting now, but goddammit, she had turned him down so coldly, like she didn’t need to even think about his words. Did she dislike the idea of dating him that much? Was she like the rest of her countrymen, thinking that all Americans were big, brash, and dumb?

  Goddammit, he thought she was better than that.

  “Compatibility isn’t just a matter of matching technical specs like you would with computer parts, you know.”

  Ianne said hesitantly, “Alex, I never meant—”

  “But I suppose someone like you wouldn’t understand. All you ever think about are your precious computers.” He raised his hand and let his knuckles graze her cheeks. She visibly trembled at his touch, which was slightly mollifying but it was not enough.

  Nothing was enough except having Ianne love him.

  But she didn’t.

  He said huskily, “If someone kisses you…”

  He saw Ianne hold her breath at his words.

  “If I kiss you…”

  Ianne’s lips parted.

  “Do you think it would feel like I’m kissing a computer?”

  The stricken look that broke over Ianne’s face made him suck in his breath. Shit! What the hell was he saying?

  “Ianne—”

  But she was already running away.

  ****

  IANNE

  Love that’s doomed from the start is sort of like those pop-up messages promising you a million dollars. You know they’re no good, but there are just times when you can’t help clicking it, thinking maybe it’s going to be different. But it’s not.

  Most people remember the exact moment they fell in love for the first time. I’m different. I remember the moment my heart first got broken – I wish I don’t, but I do. I vividly remember the exact moment the penny dropped and an emotionally-charged shredder stripped my circulatory organ into pieces.

  Oh, and yes. When I’m heartbroken, I become eloquent. Morbidly so. I think it’s called being emo.

  ****

  Sticky hot. That’s how I liked to describe the kind of weather we had today, and it was the type that only the beautiful ones survived. Beautiful ones, a.k.a. all my friends but me. Here I was, sweating in our stupid three-piece uniform and there they were, managing to not just stay free of sweat but of odor, too.

  Sometimes, I felt like throwing my hands up and shouting, ‘Come on, God. It’s almost summer. Can’t they smell like the sun like I do?”

  But no. They didn’t. They never did, and it often made me wonder how that was possible. What kind of skin pores did they have that not even droplets of saltwater could pass through?

  “Can we go now?” I begged. I hated spending time in the ladies’ room. It was just…just so full of mirrors, and that meant I couldn’t escape my reflection – or theirs. I hated it even more so now, with my eyes so red and swollen it was a wonder no one suspected me of being infected with something and sent me into quarantine.

  I looked at my friends pleadingly.

  Middy was normally a soft-hearted girl, but not where her pretty face was concerned. She said very firmly, “No,” and went back to combing her hair. Train was doing the same. They were both tall, blond, gorgeous, and sexy. Cheer-dancer material. And yes, you read that right. We had cheer-dancers instead of cheerleaders. We, the locals making up the principality of Regalia, were kind of backward that way. Schools here still considered cheerleading a tacky sport. Only when we did cheer-dancing was it considered an art.

  I mentally rolled my eyes at the thought. Honestly, I always thought that was just our way of excusing our schools’ inability to win in any of the world cheerleading competitions where big bad America dominated.

  Glancing back at Train and Middy, I tried not to grimace when I saw that they were still combing their hair. God. Was there some kind of required number of strokes for their hair to remain shiny for the rest of the day?

  My eyes returned to my reflection and I bit back another sigh. Next to them, I looked like an extra for a Walking Dead shoot. The grease marks on my face made me grimace. I had a tendency to spend a lot of time in the computer lab, helping the technician do a little hardware troubleshooting. It was good for my resume, but for my looks? Not so much.

  After hurriedly washing my face and patting it dry with a sheet of tissue I tore off from the dispenser, I took a step back and studied my reflection again.

  Shit. My uniform wasn’t any better, with ketchup stains making my white school blouse look like a polka-dot top. I tended to lose all sense of time inside the lab, and this meant I often ended up gobbling $10 worth of ketchup-dipped fries on my way back to class.

  No wonder Alex thinks kissing me would be no different from kissing a computer.

  I rummaged in my backpack for my comb, which was small, plastic, and designed for men since it was the only kind that my dad bought for me. Thinking about Alex’s words last night hurt, and I tried to distract myself from the pain by staging a war with my unruly locks.

  My hair cooperated but not without putting up a good fight, so much so that Andra, our other friend, said gently, “Let me do it.” She took the comb from my hand and, holding a thick lock of my hair, she ran the comb through the strands. They miraculously obeyed her.

  Well, that was Andra for you. A tiny voluptuous brunette, she could have made all the boys in school lust after her if only she wasn’t so…nice. Like, Blessed Virgin nice.

  “Don’t bother,” I told her glumly. “My hair’s got more knots than a pretzel.”

  Train and Middy groaned. Even Andra stopped combing my hair, a pained look on her face.

  “Was it that bad?” Seriously. Did my jokes suck that bad?

  Jacy snorted. The rude round seemed weird coming from a stunning redhead like her, but then that was how Jacy had always been: the rebel with half a cause. “Word of advice, Ianne. If you ever find a guy who’d genuinely laugh at your jokes, grab him. Even if it means you have to fuck him on your first date—”

  “Jacy!” Andra was properly appalled, and the look on her face cracked us up.

  “I’m done,” Middy sang out a moment later, practically bouncing with every word. It wasn’t because she was a cheer-dancer. She was just genuinely hyperactive, that was all.

  Glancing at her watch, Middy let out a gasp. “Oh my God, I was supposed to meet Kevin at the field an hour ago.”

  You’d think that was an exaggeration, but this was Middy. She loved dating. And men loved dating her, so much so they didn’t mind if Middy sometimes ended up dating them all at the same time.

  “Catch up with you later, k?” Middy was already halfway to the door.

  We didn’t even have time to say goo
dbye. Again, that was Middy. Everyone thought she was such a scatterbrain for it, but she wasn’t. Really.

  Train picked up her super-small purse from the counter. “Let’s go?”

  Andra slung the strap of her bag on her shoulder while Jacy and I both grabbed our backpacks.

  Montgomery Academy, like most of the schools in the city, was built right next to the beach. Outside school, we immediately headed to Pink Mango, a cool beachside bar where most of the kids in school hung out.

  A lot of guys called out to Train on our way there and she took it all in stride. She was sexy and she knew it. That was how the song went, right?

  The guys would have had done the same thing for Andra and Jacy, too, if they weren’t aware that Andra was the kind who’d demand a wedding ring before a guy could even kiss her cheek and that Jacy was more likely to punch them in the face if they so much as waved at her.

  As for me, well…I was sort of this invisible girl that no one really saw. Or if they did, they treated me like I was one of them. And that was okay. Really.

  When we got to Pink Mango, we claimed the last vacant stools next to the bar which was made of recycled wood, as was the rest of the place.

  Huge speakers blasted out the latest songs, marginally drowning the sound of chatter around us.

  Joey handed us menus with a grin. “Hello again, girls. What are you having today?” He was the owner of the place, a thirty-something guy who had a fondness for bandanas and leather vests.

  “I’ll have lemonade,” I answered just as I jumped off the stool and began rummaging through my backpack. I had just remembered about the book I borrowed and—

  Oomph!

  Someone accidentally pushed me from behind and my bag fell to the ground. Good thing Jacy’s hold on me managed to keep me from kissing the sand.

  “Asshole!” Jacy, ever the war freak, was already taking a step towards the guy who had pushed me.