Sweet Agony (Sweet Series Book 1) by Jessie Lane

if I made myself look a bit older after Lucas hadn’t seen me in so long, maybe he would finally notice me as a young woman and not the little girl who used to skin her knees chasing after him.
    “You’re right,” I finally whispered.
    Standing back up, Olivia shot me an overconfident smile. “I know I am.”
    Rolling my eyes at her, I quipped, “If your ego gets much bigger, I’m afraid you won’t fit that big head of yours through the door.”
    Olivia shot me a sassy smile. “Don’t hate me because I’m fabulous.” Snatching the cloth with green streaks on it from me, she turned my chair around until I was facing her. “Now, sit there and shut up for a while. Let me show you the valuable lesson that sometimes less is more .”
    Two more makeup remover cloths and twenty minutes later, I stared at myself again in her vanity mirror. I didn’t have an ounce of foundation on my face, but Olivia had put just a bit of a soft, shimmery pink blush on my cheeks. She had also coated my long, naturally blonde, curled lashes with brown mascara and dabbed a sheer, pink lip gloss on my lips.
    It was understated, soft, almost whimsically natural.
    It was me.
    Raising my eyes to watch my best friend run her fingers through the curls I had spent over an hour putting into my hair, I grudgingly admitted to myself that she was right again. Lucas had to love me for who I was, not who I could make myself into for him. I was just so afraid he was never going to love me the way I already loved him—completely.
    Two hours later, as I hugged Mrs. Young good-bye, I thanked her for the art set they had bought me for Christmas while my doubts about Lucas ever loving me weighed heavier on my shoulders than ever before.
    He had barely spoken to me the entire time, and the few times I had managed to make eye contact with him had only resulted in him cracking a joke that had something to do with my age.
    The first moment I had captured his attention, he had roamed his eyes up and down in what I had been hoping was appraisal, but I must have been wrong.
    His eyes had found mine, and he’d said, “Ginny, did you join drama or something?”
    I had already been mortified, and Lucas Young had only made it worse. No, I hadn’t joined drama; I’d just wanted to catch the eye of the boy who had grown into a man whom I couldn’t seem to get out of my heart and off my mind.
    Not long after Olivia had fixed my hair and makeup, the boys had all brought up Ginny and me being able to drive. If I hadn’t already been ready to crawl into a hole and never come out, Lucas’s reply would have made me want to do just that.
    He’d piped up with, “Finally old enough to apply for your learners permit, Gin? Don’t run over any mailboxes.”
    I’d never thought there would be a time I didn’t want Lucas’s attention until tonight. It was just another time I wished the floor would have opened up and swallowed me whole.
    Maybe Olivia was right yet again. Maybe I was crazy to love a boy who didn’t love me back.
    Anxious to get home and take off the dress shoes that were pinching my toes, I followed my mom out the front door. I had just stepped off the Young’s front porch steps when the sound of their door opening and closing came from behind me.
    “Ginny.” His deep voice rolled over and through me until I swore that even the tips of my toes tingled in response to the sound.
    Would there ever be a time when every part of me didn’t answer to the simple action of him calling my name? Just the sound of his voice was enough to wash away the doubt I’d had seconds before and send my heart into overtime with new hope. It was amazing how a boy I had never even kissed owned every piece of me. Moreover, although it probably made me incredibly stupid, I wouldn’t change a thing.
    One day, if I waited long enough, Lucas Young would realize I was offering him everything I was, and in return, I was hoping he would give me the same. He would realize that I