I hope you all like this chapter. It's kind of weird, I think, lol but hopefully in a good way. Lol, I've been on a writing streak lately. Haha, anyway, review!! =D

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The second that Ricky was unlocking the door to his apartment, I knew this was a terrible, terrible idea. I just kept feeling like this was a trap Ricky was planning to get me to sleep with him again or something.

I jumped, startled, at the sound of the door squeaking open as it became unlocked. I was even more nervous when Ricky stood there and held the door open for me, gesturing for me to go inside first. I gulped and went in, and then my heart starting racing once he shut the door and we were in this apartment together. Completely alone.

Suddenly, I heard it starting to rain and thunder. I flinched when lightning struck and it lit up the whole room for a quick second.

"Umm.." Ricky began. "I guess I should turn on a light or something. I thought I had left it on." Yeah, right, Ricky! I bet this is just part of his little scheme, but I'm not falling for it. Nope. Okay, maybe I would play along just for a little while. Ben would be jealous if he found out, and that would be a total bonus. But I was not going to let him take advantage of me again. No way.

Ricky walked over to the wall and flicked on the switch, but nothing happened. It remained completely dark in the room. "I guess the electricity's out," he said. Oh, perfect. Just my luck! How weird is it that as soon as we got over here, a storm came? And now the electricity's off! It's like God's trying to get us together or something. I shook my head. Okay, there's no way that's true. It's just bad timing, that's all. The lights can't stay off for too long, can they? I mean, the longest I've known the lights to stay off is just for a few hours.

I shuddered. A few hours, completely alone with Ricky in the dark.

"So, Amy," he said after another loud burst of thunder. "What do you want to do?" The room was pitch black dark, and I couldn't see anything. Literally. That only added to my nervousness and made me so much more frantic about being over here- on top of him asking me what I want to do.

"I don't know," I replied nervously.

"Well, it was your idea to come over here. I offered the beach, and you said this would be fine. So, you must want to do something," he said. I came to the conclusion that he was just desperate to have sex. Maybe Adrian was ignoring him or something. I don't know.

I finally got the courage to speak. "Ricky, could we just talk or something? I really don't want to do anything."

"Okay, okay. That's fine. We can talk," he said.

My phone suddenly was vibrating in my pocket, and it was so loud that I knew Ricky could hear it even though he was still standing over at the door. I took my phone out of my pocket, and I had three text messages and one missed call.

The text messages were from Ben.

Amy we need 2 talk call me

I no u might be mad but i just want 2 talk 2 u

I still love u Amy i hope i didn't hurt you

I rolled my eyes. I thought Ben was over the annoyingly possessive-clinginess thing that he used to have. Ignoring his texts, I punched in the number and listened to the voicemail.

"Amy, I really want to talk to you. I hope I didn't hurt you the other day, and hopefully you understand why I did what I did. I still love you. You know I do. I felt bad about just leaving you with that and not saying anything else to you. I really hope you'll call me back. Let's at least be friends. I love you. Call me back. Bye." And then the phone went dead.

I deleted the voicemail. I wasn't going to call him back. I shoved the phone into my pocket and sat down on the couch, not knowing where else to go or what to do since it was so dark. A few breaths later, I heard Ricky walking up behind me. I heard him put something down on the table that was beside the couch, and then he lit a match and lit the candle. Wow, this was so awkward. Ricky and I alone at his apartment- the only light being a single lit candle. Wow. Just wow.

And as if to make it even more awkward, Ricky sat down on the couch with me. "So who called you?"

I sighed. "Ben."

"Oh," he said. "What'd he want?"

"He-" I stopped, and I found myself being dazzled by him again. I couldn't really help it, though. I mean, we were sitting at his apartment together and the candle was practically lit right beside him. Embarrassed as Ricky was locking eyes with me, I looked away. "Uh, he just wanted me to call him."

"Oh, and are you going to?"

Ricky was still staring at me attentively. As much as I wanted to look away again, I just couldn't seem to make myself. I was surprised when I managed to get the words out, but there was tension in my voice, and I knew Ricky noticed it. "Definitely not."

With another loud rumble of the thunder, followed soon after by lightning, I saw Ricky's face clearer and a smirk was planted firmly on it. My whole body was trembling with nerves, and I could feel the blood running like a river inside of me.

"You seem nervous, Amy," Ricky stated. There was something about his voice that freaked me out. I have never hard him talk like that before. The tone of his voice, and the way he said it, just sounded so weird and off. Of course he wasn't nervous like I was, but he sounded like he was in a trance-- like he was possessed. He was probably doing that just to freak me out.

"I- I'm not," I stuttered, making it evident how nervous I really was.

As if he could read my mind, he said, "Let me make it better."

I gulped and couldn't say anything. Now I was so sure that he was trying to get me to fall under his spell. But then there was something that was confusing me. Why was he acting so weird about it? At band camp, he was just so different and now he sounds like he's possessed. It really is freaking me out. But maybe I'm just imagining it.

"I- I n-need to go get ch-changed," I stammered, blurting out the first thing that came to my mind. I stumbled off of the couch and ran down the dark hall, being careful not to trip over something. Oh, no! I heard him running after me! I raced down the hall until I reached the door to the bathroom, but it was too late, Ricky had already caught up to me. I stood there, shaking in fear, not sure what I was fearful about, though. All I knew was Ricky was really scaring me. Maybe he was possessed.

"Wh- what?!" I shouted, louder than I meant to as my legs were shaking beneath me.

He laughed, apparently noticing how tense I was as we both awkwardly stood together outside of the bathroom in complete darkness. "Amy, calm down. I was just coming to tell you that you don't even have anything to wear."

"Well, I don't need to change anyway. I- I just, uh-" Great. I couldn't even get the words out. So there I stood, making myself look like an idiot.

"Come on, why are you so nervous? There's nothing to be afraid of," he said.

"Oh, really? Then why do you keep looking at me so weird and saying things like let me make it better?" I was surprised that I managed to say that. I wasn't sure where the sudden confidence was coming from.

He looked confused. "Amy, I'm sorry that you're just over-reacting. I wasn't trying to freak you out or anything. I just wanted to make this as easy for you as possible. I'm sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. Just relax."

"Oh," I said blankly. Okay, so maybe he was telling the truth, but I still had to be careful. This is Ricky we're talking about here.

"Come on. Let's go back on the couch." Oh, no. He is trying to sleep with me. I knew it. I knew it! He grabbed my hand and started pulling me, but I didn't move. "Or if you want, we could go sit in my bedroom and... talk." Ohmygod. This wasn't good. I had no idea what to say or what to do. Stupidly, I nodded, not knowing what I was doing and I regretted it the second Ricky started pulling me again. I closed my eyes and hoped he wasn't taking me in his bedroom.

I heard a door open, and I opened my eyes. Oh, god! We're in his bedroom! My heart started pounding even harder as he pulled me over to the bed. He sat down first in the middle of the bed, and for some reason I sat down near the end of the bed, right in front of him. I didn't know what I was doing. It was like someone was controlling my movements.

"You look really pretty, Amy," Ricky said. Someone just shoot me!

"Th- thanks," I said nervously, and thank God my phone suddenly started vibrating. I pulled it out of my pocket and saw I had an incoming call. Without thinking- except for thinking I wanted to be off of this bed, I pressed the talk button and said, "Hello?"

"Amy, I've been calling you all day. Can we talk? Where are you?" It was Ben.

"I- I didn't get your calls," I lied. He was probably unconvinced, because I wasn't really a good liar. "I'm with Ricky." Darn it! Did I just say that?

"Oh, I see," he said. "At your house?"

"Uh huh," I said, sounding like a little girl. I knew he wouldn't believe me, so I just decided to go ahead and tell the truth. At that exact moment, I just realized that making Ben jealous was definitely not as great as I thought it would be. It's only leaving me feeling as nervous as crap. "Uh, n- no. I'm not at my house, but-"

"It's none of my business," he interrupted me. "We can talk later."

"Ben, it's not what you th-"

"It doesn't matter. We'll just talk later. I don't want to know. I'll talk to you tomorrow or something. I just wanted to apologize if I hurt you. I really do love you, Amy, and I hope you know that. Talk to you later," and with that, the line went dead.

I hung up the phone and put it down beside me. I didn't know what was wrong with me; I felt like I was about to cry.

"You okay?" Ricky asked, only to make me realize that I was already crying.

"I'm fine," I replied. "It's nothing. He just wanted to talk, but I don't feel like talking-" I suddenly stopped, remembering that I hadn't even told my parents I was coming over here. What would they say if they found out I came over to Ricky's apartment?

"Well, we don't have to talk."

"No, I wasn't going to say that. I was about to say I don't feel like talking to him, but then I remembered I didn't tell my parents that I was coming over here.."

"Oh, well do you want to call them or something? I'm sure they're okay with it."

"Uh, no I- I won't call them. It's fine, they probably just think I'm with Ben or something," I lied.

I held my breath. Ricky was moving closer to me on the bed, until we were right in front of each other, our legs almost touching. I felt a shiver run through my body when I felt his hand moving toward mine, and he held it delicately in his. I sat there staring at him like an idiot, unable to take my eyes off of his.

"Don't worry about Ben, Amy. He's just not worth it," he said.

"He isn't?"

"No. He's not. And I'm not just saying that. You're really special, Amy. You deserve someone better than him. But I'm not saying that he doesn't love you, all I'm saying is that his love just isn't enough."

"And what would be enough? If I had sex with him?" I blurted, not thinking about what I was saying. I felt stupid and embarrassed, but I continued. "That's just what you think. But relationships aren't just based on sex. I don't even want to have sex with him. I mean- I didn't want to when we were dating. Ben hasn't touched me like you have, and that's probably what made him so jealous."

"He hasn't touched you like what? Like this," he said and rubbed his hand over my neck.

I froze in complete stillness at the soft touch of his warm hand over my freezing cold body. His simple touch on my neck warmed me up, like my body was suddenly running on electricity or something. "Uh..yeah," I mumbled, not knowing what I was saying.

And then he had his hand on my waist. It was becoming harder to breath and my stomach felt really fluttery and uncomfortable. My head was spinning and goosebumps covered my arms.

When Ricky was looking back into my eyes, holding me, it was like nothing else mattered. It was like he wasn't thinking about what happened at band camp, about school, John, Adrian, Ben, or just the complications of life. I was in denial at first, and I know I'm definitely not an expert at this stuff, but I could tell that Ricky was into me. And it wasn't just sex, I could tell, because the way we were sitting there staring at each other it was like we were actually connecting, connecting on a level that not even words could express.

I just couldn't help it. I know I had told myself that I wasn't going to fall for him. And as much as I wanted to deny it, and as much as I wanted to leave right now and just pretend this whole thing had never happened, I was totally and completely attracted to him.

I kept remembering this morning when he kissed my wrist. I could still feel the kiss all the way up the back of my wrist, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. The more I kept thinking about it, the more it was making me fall for him.

And then he did something that took me completely by surprise- he kissed me. But this time it wasn't just a wrist-kiss, it was an actual kiss, an actual kiss on the lips. I didn't know what to do at first. I didn't know whether to push him away or just to go along with it.

But as he kept kissing me, with his hand around my neck and the other hand on my waist, I had completely forgotten about what I was worrying about. It made me want him. And I knew this was bad, but I didn't even care. This was definitely something I needed to tell Grace. (Oh, yeah, did I mention that me and Grace have become best friends?)

I was kissing him back now, and now I knew what Ricky meant when he said "He hasn't touched you like what? Like this?" And in my mind anyway, what he meant by that, was that Ben hasn't touched my heart the way that Ricky just did. It felt.. right, and it left my lips tingling and my heart fluttering.