My Secret Valentine (My Secret Crush Book 2) Read online

  This is a work of fiction, and the views expressed

  herein are the sole responsibility of the author. Likewise, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual

  events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  My Secret Valentine

  Book design and layout copyright © 2020 by Dragons & Fairy Tales Press

  Cover design copyright © 2020 by Dragons & Fairy Tales Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2020 by Jaclyn Weist

  Printed in the United States of America

  Year of first printing: 2020

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  I slammed my notebook of dreams shut at the mention of my name. Several sets of eyes stared back at me, waiting for a response. I shoved my pen behind my ear and smiled, clasping my fingers together on the desk, pretending like I’d been paying attention the whole time. Not that anyone would believe me.

  “Sorry, what was that again?” My fingers itched to open my notebook and keep going before the dream disappeared, but it was no use. It had been such great story material too.

  Mr. Reynolds, the school newspaper editor frowned at me from across the table. “I see you weren’t paying attention. Again. If your head wasn’t always in the clouds, you’d actually get the good stories for the paper and not just fluff.”

  “What fluff do you have for me this week?” I held back an eyeroll. Even if I had been paying attention, they would have given the good stories to Ellie. Of course, it helped that Ellie was Mr. Reynolds’ daughter, but just once I wanted something other than the weekly events or what we were having for lunch.

  “The school dance. Keep it simple. Where and when it is, how much the tickets are, and that it’s formal. Nothing else.” Mr. Reynolds shot me another look. “Once you get that done, I’m sure I’ll have something for you about scholarships or something.”

  Ellie hid a smile behind her hand. “I’m sure she’ll have plenty of time to write. No date.”

  Mr. Reynolds shot her a dirty look and turned back to me. “Could you cover the basketball tonight as well?”

  A thrill shot through me. I never got sports. I nodded, swallowing my smug comeback to Ellie. This was one reason I loved Mr. Reynolds. He may have thought my head was in the clouds, but he also didn’t like when people were awful to each other—including his own daughter. Basketball was supposed to be her assignment, and judging by the gasp of insult and glare she shot toward me, there would be retaliation.

  The bell rang and all the students stood at once as they gathered their things and rushed off to their first period classes. Mine was only a few classrooms down, so I took my time leaving. No reason to give anyone—Ellie—the chance to come after me. Besides, I had an idea I wanted to pass by him and wanted no witnesses when it was shot down.

  “Mr. Reynolds?” I hugged my dream journal to my chest, attempting to draw comfort from it. After all, it was last night’s dream that gave me the idea.

  “Yes?” He looked up from his paperwork.

  I bit my lip. I probably should have kept the idea as a story idea, but it was too late. “Do you think I could spice the dance article up just a little? Add more than just the date and time?”

  He folded his arms on the desk. “I believe I told you to stick with those things.”

  “I know. And that will be in there. I just wanted to do a little more with it.” I could still get out. Maybe just ask a question about the price or whatever.

  “Like?”

  I paused. Nope. Too late. I was going to do it because this was my one shot. “What if . . . I put in a section where people could ask their dates to the dance? Something like that.”

  “We don’t have classifieds in our paper.”

  “I know. And I’m not saying we should.” I paced in front of him. Now that the idea was out, I couldn’t help but keep going. “It wouldn’t be classifieds, really. Just a way for people to ask their date without having to actually do something huge. It’s gotten so out of hand lately, and I thought this could be a way for those who are a little shy to ask those who maybe . . . aren’t so shy.”

  Mr. Reynolds stared up at me for a moment, tapping his pen on the desk. “Fine.”

  “Really?” I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t heard wrong.

  “Against, my better judgement, yes. I’ll give it a week. If it bombs, or if people start sending in inappropriate requests, we stop.”

  I nodded, grinning. “I understand. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen. Thank you, Mr. Reynolds.”

  “Come back during lunch and we’ll get your email set up.” Mr. Reynolds went back to the paperwork in front of him.

  “Uh, what?”

  He looked up. “I highly doubt you want to give your personal email for people to send the requests to, and I certainly don’t want to bog down the newspaper email with it. I’ll have the password so I can check in now and then, but otherwise, it’s yours.”

  “Thank you.” I turned toward the door and stopped. “Can I get a pass to class?”

  He scribbled on a paper and handed it to her. “And Alayna? This better not interrupt your regular work. I still expect the report from tonight’s game and the ad with the date and time on my desk tomorrow.”

  “Got it.” I snatched the paper from him and hurried out into the hallway so I could finally let out a whoop. I jumped up and down just as one of the basketball players walked past me in the hall.

  He looked back at me with raised eyebrows, but kept going. My face burned as I hurried to class. Even the embarrassment of getting caught doing my victory dance wasn’t enough to shake the excitement of having my idea accepted. Finally.

  Heather raised her eyebrows and leaned close. “What took you so long? And what’s up with that grin? Did you finally get asked?”

  I shook my head as I took my notebook out of my bag. “Even better.”

  The glare from Mrs. Wilkinson was enough to quiet both of us down as class got under way. There were only a few months left of the school year and she seemed to take it as her personal duty to shove as much information in our senior brains as she could before we entered the ‘real world.’

  Too bad not everyone enjoyed marine biology as much as she did. Not that I didn’t like the class. It was interesting and I’d scored high on all my tests. I just wished teachers wouldn’t take their classes so seriously. Except my writing class. That one I took very seriously.

  Between notes on bottom-feeding animals and the food they eat, I jotted down my plans for the proposal column. Although . . . that wasn’t a good word for it. I’d have to think of something else.

  “Miss Lopez. If you’re done drawing hearts in your notebook, I would appreciate it if you would hand in your homework, along with those behind you.”

  I blinked and stared down at my paper. I hadn’t realized I’d been drawing them around my notes. “Sorry.”

  The class snickered. I chose to ignore them and took the papers from behind me to hand to Mrs. Wilkinson.

  The teacher raised an eyebrow. “And yours?”


  “Oh! Sorry.” I ripped my assignment out of my notebook and added it to the pile. Maybe paying more attention to class would be a good idea. Especially since the next few empty pages of my notebook now had imprints of hearts on them. Whoops.

  When the bell finally rang, I held back so people could leave without making snarky comments. I was safe in the room where the teacher sat grading.

  “What’s with you today?” Heather leaned over. “I’ve seen you clock out mentally before, but this is a whole new level.”

  “My assignment for the paper.” I handed Heather my notebook as we left class and headed for math. “I was trying to think of how to make it work right and how to avoid the jerks who try to ruin it for everyone.”

  Heather was silent as she read through it. “This is awesome. And could go so wrong. You sure you want to do this?”

  “Do what?” Max joined us as we walked down the hall. He’d been my best friend since kindergarten, and thankfully stuck around even after Heather moved in when we got to junior high.

  “Commit social unrest via a newspaper article.” Heather handed him my notebook.

  He read through it. “You came up with this?”

  “Well, kinda. It was from a dream—”

  “Knew it.” Heather rolled her eyes. “You and your dreams are going to get you into major trouble someday.”

  I glanced over at Max and grinned. “They already have. More than once.”

  It wasn’t my fault Max loved to reenact the crazier ones with me. We’d broken arms, sprained ankles, and maybe possibly wrecked my mom’s car during grade school. It was usually Heather who stopped us now. Well, that and my dream journal. It had been my mom’s idea after the whole car wreck thing to write my dreams down. That way I could use them for my books instead of getting one of us into serious trouble. Again.

  “Yeah, yeah. See you two later.” Heather waved and walked into her English class.

  Max and I continued to math together. He handed back my notebook. “Honesty time?”

  “Yeah.” It was our way of making sure we weren’t about to do something stupid. Another trick that had come from that day.

  For example. After the accident, he admitted that just because he could touch the brakes, and I could see over the steering wheel didn’t mean we could actually drive the car. Screaming when we got too close to the tree didn’t exactly tell him where we were. Crashing and the ten stitches in his forehead taught him that part. So, from then on, we’d stop and look at it from a practical point of view.

  And usually it meant that my dreams would stay in my book. Usually.

  “Honestly, I think it’s a great idea.”

  I stopped and grinned. “Really?”

  “You have those sometimes.” He chuckled. “But are you ready for the responsibility of choosing what goes in and what doesn’t?”

  “I . . .” Was I? Maybe. But like Max said, it was a good idea. “Sure. I can do that. I’ll just have to make sure I state that I have the right to refuse to post any of them that I deem inappropriate.”

  Max handed me back my notebook. “Perfect. I’d just make sure Ellie doesn’t hear what you’re doing until it’s a real thing or she may sweet talk her daddy into letting her do it herself.”

  I shoved the notes into my bag and pulled out my math homework. “Believe me, I’m not going anywhere near her. I got her basketball assignment. No need to fuel the flames any more than that.”

  “Yikes.” Max sat next to me and shook his head. “I’d be watching your back from now on.”

  The basketball game had almost slipped my mind until that same basketball player from the hallway earlier turned and looked at me. His blue eyes searched mine before turning back to the front.

  I had no idea what his name was. The school was big enough that I really only knew the kids in my classes, even after being here for four years. I was pretty sure he was new, but that’s about it.

  “Good morning, class. I had a chance to go over your tests, and I have to say, I’m rather disappointed in a good number of you. I’m handing them back and splitting you into pairs to study. We’ll retake the test at the end of the week. I suggest you take the time to figure out what you did wrong and fix it.” Mr. Reynolds began handing back the papers. Yes, that’s right. Our math teacher was my newspaper editor. Go figure. Apparently our English teachers were all too busy, so he volunteered.

  “Can we pick our partners?” Ellie smiled back at the basketball player and batted her eyelashes.

  Bad move on her part. Don’t try to flirt when your dad is the teacher. Mr. Reynolds shook his head. “I’m putting those who understood the assignment with those who don’t. I’ll let you guys decide which person is which.”

  I was so busy chanting ‘please not with Ellie’ in my head while he split everyone up that I missed who he actually assigned me with. That was until basketball player guy straddled the seat in front of me and set his test down next to mine.

  That was when I decided Mr. Reynolds was determined to destroy my life. He’d now given Ellie three reasons to hate me and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. I glanced over to see Max’s reaction, but he’d already moved over with his partner.

  “Uh, hey.” I moved my stuff on the desk, so his arms had a place to rest.

  “Hey.” His voice was deep and had this awesome rumbling to it, and when he spoke, the hugest dimple appeared in his left cheek.

  I glanced down at the tests in front of us, hoping to come up with more than two words. His ‘F’ stood out against my ‘A.’ “I guess we know which one of us needs to help the other.”

  Seriously? I clamped my mouth shut, heat rising in my face. I couldn’t believe I just said that. I didn’t even know his name. Oh, wait. Another glance at his paper told me it was Brandon.

  His laugh erupted, filling the room. “You don’t pull any punches do you?”

  “Uh, I guess not. Sorry. Can we start from the beginning? Hey, I’m Alayna, and I like to stick my foot in my mouth.” I held a hand out for him to shake.

  “Brandon. How come I haven’t seen you around before? Well, besides that dance in the hallway this morning.”

  Ouch. “I’ve been here all year. In this seat right here.”

  Never mind that I hadn’t noticed him, either. Maybe I really did need to get my head out of the clouds.

  “We aren’t getting any better at this, are we?” His eyes danced. “Maybe we should just start on the homework.”

  “That’s probably a good idea.” I turned his paper around to face me so I could figure out where he went wrong. Most of the answers started out right, but they messed up on the second or third step. “Okay, here. Check this out. You need to swap these two steps, carry this over here, and make sure you don’t drop this number here. See?”

  Brandon blinked. “Uh . . . no. Can you run that by me again? A little slower?”

  “Sure.” I made sure he knew each part before moving on to the next. I hated proofs in geometry, but at least it helped me break things down to help Brandon.

  By the time class ended, Brandon was able to finish the last of his assignment on his own and get them right. He looked up and grinned at me. “You’re an awesome teacher. Ever thought of tutoring?”

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? People would have to actually admit I go to their school if I did that.”

  “Don’t you want them to admit that?” His eyebrows lowered.

  “Yes. But do they?” I gathered up my things and put them in my bag. “Good luck in your game tonight.”

  He grinned. “Thanks. Are you coming?”

  I nodded. “I’m reporting on the game. See ya.” I left the class and was several yards down the hall before Max finally caught up to me.

  “How’d it go with Mr. Basketball?” Max stopped at his locker to exchange books.

  “I helped him. That’s about it.” I leaned against the locker next to Max. “You know who he is?”

  Max rolled his eyes. “Trust you to ge
t the basketball reporting job without knowing any of the players. Alayna. The guy is the top scorer for every game. He moved here so he could get scholarships easier.”

  “And you know this how?” If anyone knew less about basketball than I did it was Max. He was all about football and soccer. That way he could play the popular sport no matter what country he was in (because soccer is football in other countries—never mind. It’s a funny joke, I promise).

  “Because I pay attention. Seriously. I’ll go with you tonight, so you don’t embarrass yourself with this article.” Max shut his locker. “See ya at lunch.”

  I should have been slightly insulted by his insinuation that I knew nothing about basketball. I knew stuff. My cousins played, my dad played. I watched. Sometimes. But if it meant having company at the game that night, I’d let Max think I knew nothing. Besides, Heather was cheering so she wouldn’t be much help (Yes, she could handle being a cheerleader, but being on stage scared her to death. I didn’t get it either).

  .

  The best thing about being a senior was that I could have easy classes because I was done with all the needed credits. And having a class as library aide was the best because I could get my jobs finished and write whatever I wanted for the rest of the period. Usually I’d write, but I had other work to do that day.

  Once I was finished stapling the bulletin board decorations up, I grabbed my notebook and sat at a table in the corner where no one could bother me. Mrs. Larsen knew where to find me if she needed something, and that’s all I cared about.

  First I’d need the rules, then a fun way to present it, and of course, the details that Mr. Reynolds wanted me to have about the dance itself. The last part was easy. I’d make that tonight after school on my computer. The rules were a little harder since I needed to make sure students couldn’t find their way around them—even though a few probably would anyway.

  1.Poems are okay.

  2.Bad language is not okay and will be censored