It Had to Be You Read online

  Argh! I wanted to ignore the ringing, but I couldn’t. It was driving me crazy. And I wanted to write back to Kyle. The sooner the better. If he was still online, I wanted him to get my email tonight and write back ASAP!

  The only way I’d be able to send this email was to get rid of whoever was at the front door. Obviously Rob and Michael, who I knew were both home, weren’t going to answer the door. And my parents were both out. So if I wanted the ringing to stop, I’d have to go answer the door.

  I left my computer and stormed out of my bedroom, stomping downstairs. Who could it be? And what was so important that they had to keep ringing our bell? Why didn’t they just leave and come back another time?

  I flung open the front door. “What?!” I demanded impatiently. “What do you want?!”

  The person on the other side of the door took a step back.

  It was Kyle.

  Oops!

  “Kyle!” I exclaimed with a smile, trying to do major damage control. Why did he always get to see me at my worst?! “What a surprise! I didn’t know it was you ringing the bell.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked somewhat warily.

  “I swear!” I said, trying not to sound panicked, crossing my heart, and hoping he wouldn’t leave, that I hadn’t scared him off!

  He took a step closer. “I hope I wasn’t bothering you.”

  I shook my head. “You weren’t. I was online. Answering emails. But I didn’t know what to say,” I admitted. “Sometimes it’s hard to find the right words.”

  Kyle nodded in understanding. “I know. But how about if I say something? Or rather, show you something?”

  “Show me something?” I asked, puzzled. “Show me what?”

  “This,” Kyle said, opening up his sketchbook.

  “I already saw those,” I said as Kyle flipped to the pages with the caricatures I’d seen that morning. I did not want to see them again. I felt embarrassed. They showed me at my all-time worst. Girls, want to know how to scare a guy away? Just flip through Kyle’s sketchbook to see how Emma does it.

  “But you didn’t see everything,” he explained.

  As Kyle turned to the back pages of his sketchbook, I could see there were more caricatures that I hadn’t seen. Of his mother. Of Tommy and Megan. Even my own brothers! And they were all hysterically funny. If I’d bothered flipping through the rest of his sketchbook I would have seen them, but I’d been so angry, I’d thrown down the book after seeing the way I’d been portrayed and stormed out.

  Kyle closed his sketchbook. “I wasn’t making fun of you,” he explained. “I’m working on a comic book of my own. It’s going to focus around a girl who has superpowers but has to constantly disguise herself in silly ways. That’s why I did the caricatures. I do this with everybody.”

  “So you weren’t making fun of me?”

  Kyle shook his head. “How could I make fun of you, Emma? I think you’re great.”

  “You do?”

  HE THOUGHT I WAS GREAT!!!

  “But I thought you didn’t like me!” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  “Why would you think that?”

  Where to begin?!

  “Let’s see,” I said, counting off on my fingers. “After I took back Rob’s comic books, you avoided me for days. You invited me to go with you to the fair and then you broke our date although it wasn’t officially a date. When we were at the fair, you wouldn’t hold my hand. You didn’t buy me a lemonade or a snow cone. You asked me about other girls and told me that you liked girls who were mysterious.” I held up eight fingers. “I could go on but I’m running out of fingers. Can you say ‘mixed signals’? You were acting weird!” I then held up another finger. “And you never kissed me when you had the chance. And you had more than one chance!”

  Kyle blushed. “I was only following Daisy’s advice. When we were at the fair, instead of acting like myself, I kept trying to figure out what Daisy would do. I was always second-guessing myself. First, I’d think I should pretend I didn’t like you. Then I’d think I should show you that I like you. The only reason I was writing to Daisy was because I could never figure you out! You were so mysterious!”

  Suddenly, I felt like a computer that was on overload. I was processing too much information way too fast.

  At the fair, Kyle had told me he liked girls who were mysterious.

  And he just said that he thought I was mysterious.

  He had also been writing to Daisy for advice about a girl he liked and following her advice.

  And I was Daisy.

  Which meant…

  Which meant that Kyle had been writing to Daisy about me!

  I was the girl he had liked all along!

  And I had been giving him advice on how to deal with me!

  I’d been sabotaging myself!

  I began laughing hysterically.

  “Are you okay?” Kyle asked.

  “I’m fine,” I giggled. “Really. You like me?”

  Kyle nodded. “I can prove how much I like you,” he said.

  “You can? How?” Not that I needed more proof. He was telling me he liked me!

  “I don’t just do caricatures. I also do portraits.”

  Kyle opened up his sketchbook, flipped through the pages, and found what he was searching for. He turned the sketchbook around. “See?”

  The portrait of me was breathtaking. It was so real. So lifelike. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

  “Wow, I didn’t know you could draw this well,” I whispered in awe, staring at the image of myself. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Guess you don’t know everything about me.”

  I shook my head. “I guess I don’t.”

  Kyle closed his sketchbook again and tucked it under his arm. “So you were in the middle of answering emails. Was one of them from Romeo?”

  I nodded shyly. “So you really like the girl next door?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s me, right?”

  Kyle laughed. “Right.”

  I couldn’t help myself from asking the question. I had to know. After all, she was my competition. I had to know how Kyle felt about her. Was she his first choice or was I? How did I stand against her?

  “So who’s Red?”

  “Red?”

  “The gorgeous redhead I saw you with yesterday.”

  Now Kyle started laughing hysterically, clutching his sides.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “That’s my cousin Jessica! Her family was driving through town yesterday and they stopped by for a visit. That’s why I had to cancel our plans. I wasn’t sure how long Jessica was going to be around. But once she left, I was able to go to the fair and find you.”

  Ravishing Red was his cousin! She wasn’t his girlfriend.

  And he hadn’t been writing to Daisy about her.

  It had always been me!

  D’oh!

  I was supposed to be an advice expert and yet I’d made a mess of everything. I should have followed my own advice and told Kyle how I felt about him. Instead I’d been torturing myself for days! In that moment, I realized something. Maybe I wasn’t cut out to be Dear Daisy. Or maybe, when it came to my love life, I needed a Dear Daisy of my own. Because when it came to love, I really didn’t know as much as I thought I did. At least when it came to myself.

  Kyle took my hand in his and gazed at it, slowly rubbing a thumb over my fingers. “You know, there was something else I wanted to ask Daisy.”

  “What?”

  “How do you know when it’s the right time to kiss a girl you like?”

  “That’s easy. You just do it.”

  Kyle looked at me shyly. “You do?”

  “Yep,” I said, my heart beating rapidly.

  “Like this?” Kyle asked.

  And with those words Kyle moved closer to me, leaned in, and kissed me.

  Suddenly the whole world ceased to exist. It was just me and Kyle as his lips softly pressed against mine. Ting
les traveled throughout my entire body and as Kyle kissed me, I couldn’t help but kiss him back.

  It was everything I had ever imagined it would be.

  No, wait. Let me correct that.

  It was better!

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re an excellent kisser?” I said.

  Kyle blushed. “Actually, no. I haven’t had a lot of practice.”

  “Well, you know what they say.”

  “What?”

  “Practice makes perfect.”

  Kyle nodded. “You’re right.”

  And with those words, Kyle kissed me again.

  I’m happy to say that his second kiss was just as excellent as his first.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, I have a bunch of people to thank.

  First, my editor, Lexa Hillyer, who lets me do what I love—write novels!—and then makes my novels better! I’m really lucky to have you as my editor.

  To my agent, Evan Marshall, one of the best guys in publishing.

  Jennifer Fisher, one of my best friends, who always puts a smile on my face when she gives me the latest updates on her daughter, Emma, and her son, Ben. I wish you were still living in New York!

  My brother, Vincent, who used to listen to my stories when we were kids and would always ask for more.

  And all my friends and coworkers who are always there for me and always willing to listen: David Korabik, Kevin O’Brien, Colleen Martin, Rosanna Aponte, Jim Pascale, Michael Thomas Ford, Elise Donner Smith, Tracy Bernstein, Beth Lieberman, Paul Dinas, Barbara Bennett, Neven Gravett, Susan Lisa Jackson, John Masiello, and Lou Malcangi.

  If I’ve left anyone out, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to!

  About the Author

  Sabrina Jordan likes to tell people that she was named for Kate Jackson's character on the original Charlie's Angels television series, but in reality, she was named Sabrina after her mom saw the 1950s movie Sabrina, starring Audrey Hepburn. Sabrina is the oldest of four sisters and, when she was growing up, constantly had to retrieve missing shoes and clothes from her grabby sisters. She now lives in New York City in a studio apartment that's much too small, with her dog, Delilah, her cat, Miss Thing, her husband, Julian, and her Archie comic collection.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Read all the FIRST KISSES books:

  Trust Me by Rachel Hawthorne

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  It Had to Be You by Sabrina Jordan

  Credits

  Cover art © 2007 by GK Hart/Getty Images

  Cover design by Sasha lllingworth

  Copyright

  FIRST KISSES #4: IT HAD TO BE YOU. Copyright © 2007 by John Scognamiglio. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub © Edition DECEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061973925

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