Chapter 33 Go Straight to Girlfriend
-Drew-
I’ve been trying to play it cool since the party and the Truth or Dare kisses.
I want Annie to want me, to want there to be an us.
Her relationships for as long as I’d known her have been, to my knowledge, the small fling with my brother and the single date with Max.
I want to give this a label. I want other guys—better yet, everyone—to know that Annie is mine.
She wasn’t an option for anyone but me. But I didn’t want to come off as a controlling jerk by making her pick me so quickly.
I knew from being present in her conversations last year with Meg that it caused her a lot of self-doubt when my brother wouldn’t take her out, when he didn’t make it known around school that they were in a relationship.
I wasn’t going to repeat his stupid mistakes.
So, I waited for her to text me. I check my phone an obnoxious number of times, each time greeted with our smiling faces on my lock screen and Annie’s bikini-covered body on my wallpaper.
For three days, I have been trying with no luck to distract myself.
I’ve even tried to finish my last book for summer reading, since school starts next week.
I realize it is a stupid idea when I read the same sentence four times in a row.
I can’t focus. I’m trying to come up with a reason to text her.
Should I text her that I read the same sentence four times because thinking about her was distracting me?
It isn’t the worst opening. I’m still trying to convince myself that I should when her name comes across my screen as a new text arrives.
I smile as I read her message about missing me.
I reply quickly letting her know I'm here when she wants to see me.
She doesn't make me wait replying with an invitation to come over and I'm moving.
***
I don’t waste a second; I leave my room and shout to my parents that I’m going to a friends’, and I’ll be back later.
I hear Dad’s mumbled “Ok.” I leave out the back door, totally forgetting I just said I was going to a friend’s house.
I’d told her I am great at jumping fences, and my mind has taken me to her fence.
I don’t actually jump it—it’s easier to enter via the gate.
I make my way to Annie’s back porch and take a seat in the porch swing.
I only beat Annie by about a minute. She is breathing a little hard.
She must have jogged down the stairs. She’s covered in shadows by the limited light from the house, but I can see that she’s in shorts and a t-shirt.
Her hair is on top of her head, exposing the lines of her neck.
In the shadows, I can’t tell if she’s wearing makeup, but I’d bet that when I get to see her up close, I’ll see the freckles across her nose.
She makes her way to the swing, and as she sits down next to me, the thought passes that I want to have her closer.
My arms wrap around her back, and I pull her to straddle me on the swing.
I want Annie as close to me as possible, at all times.
Especially since I know how she tastes and responds when I kiss her.
The thought of our earlier kisses drives me to lean in and capture her mouth with my own.
I’ve started this kiss slow and easy, with space between her chest and mine.
However, Annie must not want that space, because she wraps her arms around my neck and pulls all her curves against my chest.
There isn’t any part of my chest that is not touching hers.
When I’d picked her up and moved her to straddle me, I’d not been thinking about how it would feel to be between her legs.
But now with no space between our bodies, I can’t help but notice that my dick is pressed into her in the most amazing way.
I want to move my hips against hers or take my hands and help guide her hips to move against me, helping to relieve the pressure building inside, but a very small part of my brain begrudgingly remembers this is only our third kiss.
This is the first kiss that we have started without others daring us to.
My brain forms a better plan for this moment, and my hands travel across Annie’s arms until they are on either side of her face.
I direct her with my hands to change the angle, changing the pace of our kiss.
Eventually, I break the kiss, and Annie moves just enough that we aren’t fused together like we’d been.
We are both breathing heavily. Annie is beautiful even in the shadows.
I can see the line of her neck, to the curve of her lips.
I realize I’ve been staring, but I can also appreciate that she’s been staring, too.
I’m the first to break the silence. “I like starring at you too, Annie.” My voice seems too loud against the sounds of the night surrounding us.
She smiles, and it brings one to my face as well.
She brings her hand to my left cheek, running her pointer finger against the place in my cheek where my dimple is.
“This dimple is my undoing.” She says it so softly, I almost don’t hear her.
I vow to smile so much my jaw hurts; I want her undone around me all the time.
I know I say something along these lines to her before confessing, “Everything about you is my undoing, Annie.”
I’m not sure how long we sit like this, smiling at each other.
Her hand that traced my dimple has skated across my jaw and down my neck, leaving a warm path across my skin.
It’s a comfortable silence, at least for me.
I am enjoying getting to be here with her.
Annie is the one who finally breaks our little quiet bubble.
In an almost whisper, she’s looking into my eyes and says, “Ask me on a date, Drew. I… I want this to be more than just some hookup, I want…” I can see a million emotions cross her face.
I guess this is the benefit of having been her friend for the last year.
Her eyes have pinched, and her smile has been replaced by a worried expression.
I rest a finger on her mouth before she gives voice to the rest of her thoughts.
It isn’t that I don’t want to hear them, it’s just that I realize I need to make my thoughts on this subject clear to her.
I’m not my brother, and I don’t want her to link us together because we share the same last name.
I’m not whispering when I reply, but I’m still honoring our surroundings, and my voice is lower than normal.
“Annie, be my girlfriend? I don’t want anyone else, and I don’t need one or two or five dates to know that I want you to be exclusively mine.
” The look that plays out on her face now goes from a worried expression to shock and finally to that beautiful smile.
I move my finger from her lips to get the full picture.
She doesn’t draw out her reply and simply says, “Ok, I’ll be your girlfriend.
” Then our lips meet again in a kiss that doesn’t end until what feels like hours later.
I’m not even sure what time it is when we finally break apart.
I know that it’s time to go home, but it already feels too far away from her.