That Bubbling Feeling: A Feel Good Roommate Romance Novel

Chapter 28

Kai

Jonah entered the room, and I shot up from the bed. He stopped short in the doorway, his eyebrows sinking as he stared. I liked what happened but…the way he looked at me now made me feel like I’d done something wrong, like he wanted to take it all back.

“Kai, I’m so sorry,” he said quickly.

I shook my head nervously, fiddling with the hem of my tank top. “Would you stop apologizing, Jonah? For the love of—”

“Are you okay?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and ripped off a piece of flesh. He seemed so…awkward. “Of course, I am.”

I’d been waiting to see what bed he wanted me to sleep in, if he’d come in and hug me through the night, but it became clear pretty quickly that taking this any further was not on his agenda.

“Right. Good.” He knitted both hands into his hair, staring at me like it was the last time he’d ever see me.

Please come closer to me.

His hands moved, one to his hip and another to drag his eyebrows inward with his pointer finger and thumb. He sighed, rippling his jaw as he let his eyes fall shut.

He regrets it.

Damn.

I’d probably scared the shit out of the guy. It’s not like I wanted to marry him or anything, I just wanted to…I don’t know…explore. We knew everything about each other, we loved each other no matter what, we were there for each other in the hardest times. It only felt fitting that we knew each other in this context too, right? He liked sex but hated people. I wanted to like sex but couldn’t find anyone. Of course, he had the right to put up as many boundaries as he needed, but if you ask me, it seemed like the perfect set-up.

Whatever. I stepped over to my bed and sank into it with a heavy heart.

He immediately straightened up from his slumped position by the door and propelled toward me, dropping to one knee by the futon to help me with the blankets. I placed my head on the pillow, looking at him sideways, and he observed every one of my movements with twitchy surveillance as if he thought the sheets would shatter around me.

I reached a hand out from under the covers, hoping for some sort of connection. It’s fine if he didn’t want to hook up with me, I just didn’t want to feel so far away from him. He took my hand softly, running a finger under my palm. An energy grew inside me from the contact, a tickle running through my wrist and to my chest, somehow pushing my body deeper into the bed. I gasped.

“Palms,” he whispered.

I did a double take, caught his eye, and smiled. He began to do the same, but the look dropped from his face as his hand fell away. He wasn’t okay. I didn’t know why, but he wasn’t okay.

He stood quietly and turned off the light. It was going to be a weird few days.

◆◆◆

The next morning, I found myself splayed on the floor of the shower.

Ribs. Collarbone. Forearms. Palms.

I jumped, and the slick, white tub squeaked underneath me with the movement.

Hips. Oh my god, hips.

My knees bent, folding my legs into me as the hot water continued to fall.

He made me…come. I could hardly believe it. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done that. Years. It had to have been years.

It was clear he didn’t want to repeat whatever the hell happened last night, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever stop thinking about it. This newfound sexuality was like a shiny new toy I got to play with every day if I wanted to. A toy that was attached to me, right between my legs. He’d discovered this treasure, this thing that I never wanted to lose again.

God, how I loved his calm curiosity, his serene seduction. He had always been so plainly himself, whether he was happy about it or not. Unapologetic. Unique. Fucking perfect. That warm, bubbling feeling rose in my gut, strong enough for me to realize I was totally, completely fucked. Never did I think I’d find myself having to get over a crush on Jonah, yet here I was. At least I could play with him in the privacy of my showers.

I ran my hands up my body, thinking of the way he’d touched me at the beach, of the way he’d explored me on the edge of the futon, of those tattoos that lined his arms, and the way he always glared when he was unhappy. The pressure built deep inside me, stacking itself piece by piece as I imagined him right outside in the other room. I wanted him to wonder what I was doing, to put his ear to the door so as to be closer. I knew it would never happen, but a girl can fantasize.

My hips bucked. I was desperate for him to just burst into the fucking bathroom and have me. Anything he wanted, I’d give it to him, if only he’d take it. He wasn’t my strange little Jonah anymore. He was Jonah. God. He was night and day, my peace and play, he was the very person I felt comfortable crumbling for. How badly I wanted him to take advantage and what a shame it was that he didn’t feel the same.

I slapped a hand over my mouth as my head kicked back and pleasure lifted through me in waves. The image of his face watching me hung in my mind, snake eyes staring, those lips smirking. So forbidden. So desperate.

The residual shakes left my body, my escapade hardly offering any reprieve, and I cringed with clarity at the current situation.

Fuck. I was officially done for.

◆◆◆

Jonah

I fucked up. Big time.

For the duration of the night and well into the morning, there were three things playing on a cruelly vivid loop in my head.

One. The heartbreaking truth about Kai’s experiences which seemed to be washed over by what happened directly after.

Two. What happened directly after. My fingers on the soft, wet spot between her legs, the taste of it on my tongue, her mouth sliding over the skin of my hand.

Three. Perhaps the most torturous of them all. That desperate little look she had in her eyes the entire time her body begged me for it.

The last twelve or so years of my life had been spent dreaming about the very moment I almost took. So many nights were lost planning it, calculating it, plotting the hypothetical. But it came without warning, and it came as something else.

I was not going to be her comfort person to explore in order to open herself back up. Besides, if she knew just how dark the things I wanted to do to her were, I’m not sure she’d see me as such comfort anyway. Which was a whole other problem in and of itself.

After twelve years of thinking about her, of being a total fucking dork in high school and researching how to kiss online with Oli because we got no practice in real life, of letting my imagination run absolutely wild while I got no real reprieve, there was no way I was going to be a cute little hook-up for her to experiment with. I’d had more than a decade to think about every tiny detail of what I wanted to do with her, and if I let myself do it, she’d know. It would take her all of two seconds to understand exactly where I stood on the matter of us being together.

Had my lips touched hers, I simply would not have been able to stop. Not until she shunned me away, which I’d never be able to handle. Had I fucked her, I would’ve had to fasten her wrists to the very frame of my bed so she’d never leave me, and while I wanted to do that, I didn’t want to do it in such a way. I wanted to know that when that bind came off, she’d stay with me forever. Willingly. Longingly.

She’d never love me as I did so hopelessly her and, frankly, that was enough pain for one lifetime. The last thing I needed was for her to have me and then leave me as well. I wouldn’t be able to get over that. I’d never forgive myself for losing that. I couldn’t handle the thought of after. I was just so used to living in the before.

This morning, I decided I’d proceed as if nothing happened, knowing fully that she wouldn’t allow it. That part, of course, I’d play by ear. I entered the living room to find her seated on the couch watching cartoons, showered and waiting.

“Do you want coffee?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded normal. I was well aware of the awkward vibe I put out into the world, though I didn’t quite understand it. It was innate to me, apparently. I just acted like myself and somehow other people read it as weird. Kai was the only one who didn’t seem to read me that way, but after last night…

She answered with a nod of the head, her sweet eyes already telling me something I didn’t want to hear.

I ignored that look and prepared two coffees at the counter, disregarding, as well, the magnetic pull between my position in the kitchen and hers on the couch. The spoon of sugar in my hand dumped half into her light blue mug and half onto the counter as my brain put the image of me fucking her on the couch in front of my vision. Shit. I grabbed the sponge and wiped the sugar into the sink as I imagined what she’d look like on top of me, moaning my name just as she had last night. I glanced down at my sweatpants to find that my dick was all but settled.

Universe, spare me. This was by far the most difficulty I’d ever had making fucking coffee.

When my work was finally finished, I brought the two mugs to the sitting area, reaching around the back of the couch to hand her one and keeping a safe distance between her and the mess of fantasies that was me and my ridiculous body. I then proceeded to plant myself on the lonely loveseat, crossing my leg away from her to keep my hips from her view.

“Jonah,” she said with a tone of voice I was familiar with. It was the tone she used when she wanted me to open up, when she could sense there was something wrong, when she tried to climb over my perfectly structured walls.

“Don’t.” A matter of minutes and my plan to carry on as usual was already becoming painfully impossible. Perhaps I’d tried to be normal too soon. Maybe I needed to give it a day. The only issue is, I’d hardly gone a day without talking to her in twelve years, and I preferred not to start now.

“Oh, Jo,” she whispered. “No. Please don’t do that.”

Oh, I am the fucking worst. That plead broke my fucking heart. Though somehow it soothed me to know she was aware of what I was doing. At least this way, she’d know I didn’t hate her. She’d know I was just being Jonah. While it was no excuse to treat each other poorly, it was nice to know each other so well that we didn’t need to explain ourselves when we didn’t want to. In this scenario, I most certainly did not want to.

I didn’t answer her, and she let me be.

An hour was spent watching cartoons in utter silence. I began to question if my left side had a magnet running down it and if Kai was a stack of steel, because our nearness was downright painful.

Her voice piped up once again, a thick block of silent time between her last attempt and this one. “I just think we should at least talk ab—”

“Kai, stop,” I said more firmly. “Please. Just stop. I don’t want to talk about it.” How could I? I’d destroyed our entire friendship in a matter of fucking minutes. Over a decade of waiting and pining and thinking for me to just ruin it all in one night.

Again, she dropped it.

I shifted in my seat awkwardly, attempting to position myself in a way that my throbbing heart wasn’t knocking so loudly at my fucking ribs. There was weight in places I didn’t want to feel weight. Between my legs, in my chest, in my brain. I’d never been in such an excruciating predicament in my life, and right here with the one person who had always been able to make me feel good.

My fingers had been inside of her, for fuck’s sake. I watched her crumble for me. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and now things would never be the same, and that made me sad, uncomfortable, and honestly, so very fucking angry. It could’ve all been avoided. “Why’d you have to fucking start with that last night in the first place?”

Ah, fuck. Did I really just say that?

She snapped her head toward me, any softness that had been in her voice washed away completely now. “So you do want to talk about it.” I sank deeper into the loveseat in silence. I really needed better coping skills than being an asshole, because Kai knew exactly how to bite back and then some. “And don’t blame me. You fucking started it.”

I glared at her. That was so untrue. “You ran your nails down my neck.”

“You pushed me against a wall, told me how excellent you are in bed, and then asked me about my sex life, you child.”

Shit. She got me there. Deflect. Deflect. I crossed my arms tighter and shifted my ass down on the seat to make myself smaller. “You’re a child, you squeaky little freak.”

Her breathing was audible from where I sat, as was the sound of the couch underneath her as she adjusted her position. “Don’t insult me, or I will come over there and shut you up the best way I know how.”

I scoffed. “Teasing,” I said as if it were an insult. “Ribs, collarbone, forearms, palms, teasing.”

A beat of silence passed, and a creepy grin crept across her face. “You forgot hips.”

My eyebrows pooled in the middle of my forehead, my confusion setting in and my curiosity piqued. “Hips?”

“Mhm.” She widened her eyes at me, and my gaze bounced between her stare and her lips. Why the hell did she have to be so pretty? “Found it this morning in the shower. All by myself.”

Oh, she is such a fucking brat.I shut my mouth and slammed my teeth together, ignoring her quite aggressively. I ignored, as well, the weight that continued to grow relentlessly between my legs.

“Perfect.” She lifted a hand and smacked it down on the couch, tossing herself back on the seat to look at the television. “Is this how we’re going to be now?”

I didn’t deign to answer. Fighting with Kai was like being right back in her yard, thirteen years old and bickering over who got to the base first. It seemed my brain was only capable of producing insults for the one girl I quite literally had nothing bad to say about. Either insults or intense confessions of love, and I knew exactly where that would have gotten me. I couldn’t continue this discussion until I got myself in check, but I was so worked up, I couldn’t even communicate that to her.

“You’re so fucking moody,” she muttered through the short silence.

“I’m moody?” I shouldn’t have even entertained the accusation. She knew full well I was in no position to discuss, and she was just provoking me to get an answer. Obviously, it worked. “You’ve gone through fourteen emotions in the last ten hours, and we spent eight of them sleeping.”

“I’m emotional. I have a full range of emotions.” She moved her hands in giant circles. “You just have different variants of a shitty mood. That makes you moody, Jonah.”

“Pray tell, Kai, what does that have to do with the issue at hand?”

“Pray tell,” she mocked with a snooty accent that wasn’t even mine. “Pray tell. I’m Jonah and I speak like an asshole and avoid facing my feelings.”

“I’m Kai,” I said with my best squeaky voice. “I bicker with Jonah just to keep the conversation going because he’s not giving me all his attention for once in his life.”

She snarled and swung out of her seat, her forehead red and bloated with anger.

Fuck.

A few anxious moments passed as her footsteps disappeared and, shortly after, returned behind me. I shoved a finger into my mouth to bite on my nail and slapped a palm over my chest to calm my heart, listening as her stomps neared the front door.

No, no, no. Please don’t go.

The door opened and slammed shut. She left.

My body absolutely throbbed as I found myself excruciatingly alone. I didn’t want her to leave me. Not even for the day. Not even for a few hours. I remained trapped in my frustrated vessel, freezing cold and so very solus.