Title:You Can't Hide It

Summary: This is what could have happened after "That's What Friends Are For?"

Rating: K+

Pairing: Jake and Miley

Disclaimer: None of the characters from Hannah Montana belong to me. I promise. I'm relatively certain that they belong to Disney, but perhaps they're owned by other companies as well; at any rate they're not owned by me. I'm not making any money by writing this story.

"Bye, Miley!"

Miley Stewart waved from her doorway as she watched her two best friends walk home together.

"Bye Lilly, bye Oliver!" she called back.

Miley grinned as she watched Oliver Oken accidentally brush Lilly Truscott's hand as they walked through the Stewart's gate. Lilly jumped back as though she'd been burned, and Oliver gave her a funny look.

Miley shook her head.

"Really, you guys," she laughed to herself as she walked back into her house, forgetting to close the door behind her.

She went into the kitchen, grabbed a spatula off of the counter, and pulled a bowl of cookie dough out of the refrigerator.

About thirty seconds later, Miley felt someone tap her on her back. She shrieked and whirled around to face the intruder, spatula in hand.

"Jake!" said Miley in surprise. She congratulated herself on not screaming, "Leslie!" loud enough for the entire block to hear her.

He smiled at her and stepped back.

"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you, Buddy."

Buddy.

Miley did her best to smile in return, but on the inside she was boiling. Or sinking; she wasn't sure. Either way she was about to be sick. She hadn't realized just how much she had missed being Jake's girlfriend until she'd found out that Mikayla was going to be his love interest in the alien movie.

Even after she'd proven -quite embarrassingly, actually, to Jake, Mikayla, and half of Hollywood- even after she'd admitted it to Jake- she couldn't bear to be reminded of the truth. She hated that he knew she still liked him. His working so hard to be her friend made it all the worse.

If there was one thing Miley couldn't stand, it was to be pitied… but Jake was being so nice about it. Unfortunately she'd found that it hurt worse not to be around him at all than it did to hang around with him knowing that he knew how much he meant to her.

"That's okay… I wasn't really scared… Buddy."

She punched him lightly on the arm for good measure.

That did it for Jake. He had changed his mind about something since he'd last seen her, but he'd been worried that Miley wouldn't take it well. He had intended to broach the subject gently, but he was about to start laughing. Miley was horrible at pretending that she only wanted to be friends with him. The corner of his mouth tipped.

"I thought you were going to work on growing up some, Miley. But if you're still not ready to be friends with me…"

She scowled at him.

"I am so grown up, Jake!"

He frowned at her.

"Really," she said, inwardly yelling at herself for scowling and trying harder to smile this time. She didn't want to give herself away. "I've grown up so much you wouldn't believe it… um, you know, in the last three days," she added sheepishly.

"Uh huh."

He was smirking again. He took the spatula out of her hand and moved to stand in front of her. Miley froze, and Jake stopped worrying completely. She wanted exactly what he wanted, even if she wouldn't admit it.

The way he was looking at her was making Miley nervous. She wanted to move a few steps away from him; just being close to him was making her palms clammy and her pulse race.

But she was backed against the kitchen counter, and there was nowhere for her to go.

Jake grinned at her.

"Miley," he began.

She turned away from him, trying to regain her composure. The way he was smiling at her wasn't making it easy.

She felt Jake's hand on her shoulder and cringed. She felt exactly the way she had when he'd caught her on the movie set three days earlier.

"Miley."

She shut her eyes. She couldn't see him, but she could almost feel Jake's smile, burning through the blush that was covering the back of her neck.

"Um, yeah?"

"Can you look at me?"

"I'm uh," she opened her eyes and cast them about. "Tying my shoe!" she finished quickly, bending down so fast that Jake almost fell with her as he lost his grip on her shoulder.

"I can hear you just fine like this," Miley added.

Jake looked at her shoes and did his best not to snort. Did she really think that he was buying this?

"Miley… I thought we were going to be friends."

"We are!" said Miley just a little too brightly.

"You're not acting like it."

"Sure I am. I'm just tying my shoe," she reminded him lamely.

Jake smirked.

On to Plan B.

"Miley… you're wearing sandals."

Miley blushed. Did he have to call her on it?

This time Jake couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"Are you still jealous?"

"Oh, no," she said, incredibly unconvincingly, in Jake's opinion. "I'm so over you." She stood up and gave him her greatest fake smile.

His grin widened.

"I think you're still jealous."

He took her hand.

Miley swallowed. This did not escape Jake's notice.

She would have given him a great comeback… if only she could have thought of one.

But she couldn't. She bit her lip. And then she looked into Jake's eyes, and she knew she was done for.

He was really grinning now.

"I'm not over you, Miley Stewart," he whispered.

And then he kissed her.