Chapter 1 The Blunder

Nick was great at everything—well, almost everything. He could write about any experience in his life and make it into a hit song. He could cook the most delicious cookies in the world without having to follow a recipe. He could pitch baseballs at a speed of 100 miles per hour. Yes, he seemed to be a jack of all trades—musician, chef, and sportsman. That is Nick Lucas for you. However, with every great person there always comes a weakness and for Nick Lucas that weakness came in the form of a particular girl—Penny Madison. She was his downfall because he just couldn't be himself around her. He became nervous, agitated, and always at a loss of words. Basically Nick Lucas was no match for Penny's shiny long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, and sweet angelic smile. She was his Juliet and he was her Romeo. She just didn't know that yet.

Love was in the air at Horace Mantis Academy. The hallways were adorned with red hearts and red streamers. Flowers were delivered to the girls and secret admirer notes were sent to the boys. The three Lucas boys, Stella, and Macy were sitting at their usual table during the morning of Valentine's Day.

"Look, at everyone. They might as well have hearts over their eyes," Joe said teasingly. "Personally, I don't care about Valentine's Day at all."

Everyone in the table glared at him especially Stella because Joe had with him about twenty boxes of chocolates and dozen bouquets of flowers- all from adoring admirers. In fact, all the Lucas boys had the hassle of carrying tons of gifts from adoring girls but Nick was the only nice one to share his chocolates with Stella and Macy. However, Stella and Macy also had their share of admirers. Stella received a box of chocolates and a rose from the jock, Van Dyke Tosh and Macy was given chocolates and a teddy bear from Randolph Brown.

"I personally love Valentine's Day," Stella said. "It's a day for girls and boys to express their love for one another and to be surprised by notes from secret admirers."

"Speaking of secret admirers," Kevin started to say. "Here comes the girl you secretly admire, Nick."

Everyone at the table turned to look at the direction in which Kevin pointed at. And there she was. It was as if she was walking down the hallway in slow motion with her hair swaying from side-to-side. Nick felt his heart speed up and his mouth become dry. He wasn't even speaking to her let alone near her but he was already feeling the effects of her presence within a ten-foot radius.

"I didn't know you had a crush on Penny!" Macy said excitedly. She happened to get out her phone to type this latest bit of gossip into her website. "The Jonas heads are going to love this."

Nick groaned in frustration. He wanted to kill Kevin for announcing his crush in front of everyone.

"I don't like her," Nick lied even though his reddened cheeks were a dead give-away of his true emotion. "Kevin is just being stupid again."

"Oh come on now," Joe said as he put his arm around his younger brother's shoulder. "We know you've been crushing hard on her for- what is it now- four months? You don't need to be shy about it."

Nick just narrowed his eyes at Joe. Sometimes he wished he could trade siblings with anyone for a day because right now his two older brothers didn't seem to get the message that he wanted to be left alone especially concerning this matter.

"Aw, Nick don't be embarrassed," Stella said encouragingly as she reached out and put her hand on his arm. "I think it's really sweet that you have a crush on Penny. She seems like a really nice girl and she's pretty cute, too. Right, Macy?"

"Uh-huh," Macy said as she tried aiming her camera phone in the direction of the cute blonde. "Just give me a sec. Jonas heads are asking for a photo of Nick's crush so—HEY!"

Nick quickly took Macy's camera away from her. He didn't want his crush to be exposed to the world wide web.

"Can we please just drop this? I don't have a crush on Penny," Nick said loudly. "She's just a girl in my class who I occasionally say hello to."

Everyone in the table looked at him skeptically. There was no fooling them.

"She's just a girl that you say 'hello' to?" Kevin repeated incredulously. "You guys, you should've seen him last night. He was busy writing a poem and even— OW!"

Kevin couldn't finish his latest bit of gossip about Nick because he was just kicked really hard from under the table.

The bell rang signaling that lunch break was over. He and Macy both had geometry class together with Penny Madison. Nick usually doesn't pay attention to class because he was too busy staring at Penny but now he couldn't even do that because he was too busy paying attention to Macy who still was trying to secretly take a photo of Penny to post on her website.

"Can you stop that?" Nick hissed at Macy during class.

"Just one picture, pretty please?" Macy said as she tried to bat her eyelashes at him but judging by the look on his face, her feminine charm was not working on him. "Fine. But don't get mad at me when you lose some die hard fans, who want to know everything about Nick Lucas."

That was a risk Nick was willing to take. He knew some fans of his were a bit crazy, in which Macy was borderline one of them, and he didn't want to risk putting Penny in danger of getting hurt from some rabid Jonas fan.

As the day grew to an end, Nick could feel the nerves kicking in. It's almost time. Even though he was giving his brothers a hard time before, Nick really did prepare something special to give to his crush. He spent the whole night writing up a poem that expressed how much he adored her and even bought her a rose. When students were leaving Horace Mantis Academy, Nick stayed behind. He knew that Penny had tennis practice after school so he spent the remaining minutes sitting in the atrium rehearsing what he was going to say to her when he gave her his presents.

Come on Nick, he thought himself. You can do this.

He wanted to rehearse the whole speech he prepared one last time but it was too late because he saw Penny coming out of the locker-room and was heading down the hallway. He needed to move fast.

"Penny! Penny!" he called after her.

She spun around really fast; clearly she was surprised to see him when everyone had left.

'Hi, Nick! What's up?" she asked him sweetly.

"Well, I –uh-….you see," Nick tried to speak. But as his luck would have it, he began to have the Penny syndrome—inability to speak, sweaty palms, rapid heart beat, and reddened cheeks. "I wanted…um…to tell you…about by feelings—

But at that moment when he was about to confess his true feelings, they were interrupted by a boy Nick barely knew but have seen around in some of his class.

"Hey, Penny," the boy said. "You ready to go, babe?"

Babe?

"Just a minute, sweetie," Penny answered. She turned to Nick who seemed to now be confused so she introduced the boy to him. "Oh, Nick this is my boyfriend Jimmy. Jimmy this is Nick Lucas."

Nick realized that he was suppose to shake his hand but all that was running through his head was that Penny had a boyfriend. Suddenly he hid his presents for her behind his back. He couldn't give them to her now that her boyfriend was standing right there. He would be completely embarrassed and he would have created an awkward situation especially for Penny.

"But Nick what was it that you wanted to say?" Penny asked him curiously.

Crap. He needed to think of something fast. Even though he was dubbed the cleverest of his brothers, he was out of ideas. But then he got it. Because at that moment when he knew he was making a complete fool out of himself he spied a particular brunette girl who was hiding behind the lockers with her camera ready for a shot of the blonde girl. So without really anything planned Nick called, "Macy! Come over here!"

Macy's eyes opened wide in shock. She wanted to be incognito as she tried to catch her coveted shot of Nick's crush. She pointed to herself and mouthed Me? –just to make sure she heard right.

Nick nodded his head impatiently. He needed to save face fast. He couldn't look like a fool in front of Penny and Jimmy. So Macy hesitantly walked over to him. She didn't know what to expect from him because she had no clue what Nick was up to. Did he rat her out to Penny? She hardly knew the girl. It would make things really REALLY uncomfortable between them but boy, was she surprised when she reached Nick, he put his arm around her and said, "Well, um, Penny and Jimmy, this is Macy…and –uh- we've been going out for a while too."

"WE HAVE?" Macy asked him incredulously but Nick tightened his grip around her and gave her a look that clearly sent the message to play along, please.

"Oh yeah…we have," Macy said in a completely different tone as she put her arm around Nick's waist.

"And…we thought…that we should…uh…double date," Nick said quickly. He had no idea what he was saying. "Since you and Jimmy are together and me and Macy are together. We can all have dinner together…Right, babe?"

He said the last part while looking at Macy.

Babe? Once he said this, Macy tried to contain her excitement because an actual Jonas called her babe! And she didn't even have to force him to say it.

Nick was giving her another look and Macy quickly piped in, "Y-yeah. Like a double date. All four of us. It'll be great!"

"Hm…that doesn't sound like a bad idea," Penny agreed and she looked at Jimmy who also thought the same thing. "This Saturday then? At El Meat?"

"Great!" Nick and Macy said at the same time. When Penny and Jimmy waved good-bye, Macy and Nick were left by themselves as they both went over what just happened.

"I'm sorry about that. It was just so sudden and—MACY!" Nick started to apologize but then he saw that Macy was busy typing away on her phone with the crazy fan-girl glint in her eye.

"What?" she said as she jumped back from what she was doing.

"Don't tell me you're doing what I think you're doing?" Nick asked in an annoyed voice.

"If you're thinking that I'm typing what just happened on my Jonas site, then you're clearly wrong," Macy lied and faked how hurt she was by his accusation. "I'm just updating the…uh…weather for the site. Hehehe…"

Nick gave her a look that clearly said he wasn't buying any of it so Macy reluctantly put her phone back in her pocket.

"Look, I'm sorry for putting you in this situation," Nick continued what he was saying earlier. "It's just that Penny had a boyfriend and so I couldn't give her what I wanted to give her for Valentine's Day and then I saw you…"

"Don't worry, Nick," Macy assured him. "I understand. And I'm actually really happy that you included me in your plan to win Penny's heart because as you know I've been in this situation before."

"You have?"

"Yeah, remember the whole Joe-Van Dyke- Stella love triangle last year?" Macy pointed out. "And look at Joe and Stella now. They're completely in love. They don't call me Macy Misa Magic-Matchmaker, for nothing!"

"Macy, no one has ever called you that before," Nick replied disdainfully.

Macy pouted her lips and said tartly, "Well, they should because I make magic happen!"

Nick rolled his eyes and said, "Well, I don't want you to break them up on bad terms. I don't think I can live with myself if I knew that it was because of me that—

"Whoa, hold on there Nick," Macy said quickly. "I have no intention on causing any sort of drama. I'll just play it off how great of a boyfriend you are and let her see what she's missing. If anything, it will be all her doing and all the drama that will take place will be staged between us. I can see it now...our epic break up scene where in the end Penny comes to comfort you and viola! Magic."

Nick just stared at her with a dubious look because right now, Macy was getting really involved in this. In fact, she seemed to have the whole thing planned out.

"So what you're saying is that you and I need to act like the perfect-in-love couple in front of them so that Penny can see how perfect we are for each other?" Nick repeated.

Macy nodded her head excitedly and said, "Exactly. She'll get super jealous of the fact that Jimmy cannot even compete with the likes of you."

"I don't know, Mace," Nick said doubtfully. "I still feel like this is a bit scheming on our part."

"Nick, don't worry we got this," Macy said. "I know what I'm doing. You want to be with Penny don't you?"

"Well, yeah."

"Then I don't see what the problem is?" Macy said. "This is a fool-proof plan. Nothing can get in the way. Haha…Except if in the end we fall in love with each other instead."

"You and me? HA! That's so funny!" Nick chimed in. The two of them laughed at that absurd notion before shaking hands and agreeing to go through with this plan.

It really was hilarious to them because they possibly could not fathom the idea of ever having romantic feelings towards one another…at least not in this lifetime, or could they?

Closing Remarks:

Hey readers! I decided to start a new story. I usually am good with updating my stories but that was during the summer. Since I am in school, it's probably going to take me weeks or even months to finish this. I have the basic outline of where I want to go with this story and I think it's kind of obvious where this story is going to go. But the journey of this NACY romance will gradually develop. I think this story will have drama but not as much drama as my past stories. If anything, this story will be rated and similar to my other story 'A Complete 180'.

And all of you who have enjoyed my other story 'Remember Me' I actually have written the first chapter of the sequel to that story. I think I will entitle it 'Trust Me'. It's going to be interesting where the NACY romance story-line will go from there. I'll probably upload the first chapter to that later on today or tomorrow, depending on how many reviews I get. LOL just kidding. Well enjoy!

-Penelope36