Chapter 20
TWENTY
My lips part, but nothing comes out. It’s a different kind of speechlessness than the one I usually experience. My mind is blank, and I can’t remember how to feel about the words he just spoke. I can’t make myself dissect them.
Slowly, his gaze shifts down to my lips.
My heart pummels the wall of my chest, threatening to break through bone and skin and fabric and leave me bleeding out on this bed next to this beautiful boy.
I don’t move. Can’t think. His fingers slide through my hair to cup the back of my head, his thumb sending a shiver through my body as it brushes my jawline.
I don’t breathe as he lowers his mouth to mine.
He kisses me, a soft brush of lips, and the world doesn’t end. The opposite, in fact. It comes alive. And instead of crashing, the terrifying free fall leaves me floating like a feather, weightless and buoyant and light.
I feel the kiss everywhere, a full-body shiver from my lips to my toes. My insides go haywire. Blood rushes to my head. My pulse pounds in my ears. My stomach dips, desire asserting dominance against the fear and anxiety that normally reign.
All for a kiss. All for a sweet, wonderful, perfect kiss.
And as our lips come apart, I decide I don’t want them to.
I lean back in for another, and he meets me halfway, our mouths brushing lightly.
His tongue grazes my lower lip, tentative, and I part my lips on a gasp.
Slowly, perfectly, our tongues move together, our kisses soft and gentle.
Cautious and curious. Butterflies flutter in my lower abdomen, goosebumps raising across my skin as his hand flexes against my knee.
The kiss ends as naturally as it began, our foreheads pressing close as our breathing returns to normal. And when my heartbeat finally calms, I swear I hear these words in every thud thump.
He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s safe.
And I try to keep out the negative, I swear I do, but my mental barriers aren’t strong enough to protect this perfect moment.
When Wes murmurs, “You don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” with his hand still cupping the back of my head and his other still stroking my knee, the floodgates open, and my mind starts racing as quickly as my heart.
Everything seems too much all of a sudden.
The forum. The kiss. His words. My baggage.
I crash back down to reality and pull away from him, detaching myself and swinging my legs over the side of the bed.
I’d retreat to the bathroom, but I don’t want to risk running into my roommates, so I settle for standing in the middle of the room, shifting from foot to foot.
I open my mouth to speak, but my heart’s in my throat, compressing my vocal cords and hindering my ability to form words.
Wes remains motionless in the spot I left him, alarm behind his eyes and anxiety evident only in the tight line of his mouth. “What just happened there, Ivy?” he asks carefully. “Talk to me.”
Through my panic and confusion, I somehow find my voice again, though it comes out a little shriller than intended. “What are we doing?”
“We’re hanging out,” he says. “Like we always do.”
I shake my head a bit frantically because it’s not like we always do. It’s way, way different than what we always do. “Then what—what was that?”
“That was me kissing you,” he says calmly. Matter-of-factly. Like he goes around kissing me every day. I blink at him. “Did you like it?”
“It doesn’t matter if I liked it. I’m not—we shouldn’t do that,” I tell him, because we shouldn’t, right? It will complicate everything, won’t it?
"So you didn’t like it?”
I blow out a short breath. “No. Yes. Okay. I liked it. But—”
“I liked it,” he says, his mouth twitching up at the corner.
“Well. Good, I guess. That’s good. I’m—”
“I really liked it.”
“Wes—I just—” I swallow, trying to put my thoughts into words. “I liked it. I just don’t think I’m in a place for that.”
“For kissing?”
"For…any of it,” I say, ignoring the way my heart squeezes in protest. I really did like the kissing. Loved it, even. But kissing leads to other things I know for a fact I’m not ready for. Expectations, emotional and physical. “For all of it.”
“So you definitely don’t want to do it again?”
“I didn’t say that, exactly. It’s more that I can’t do it again. I’m not—I can’t—I’m—”
I shake my hands out, frustrated I can’t find the words.
I swallow as panic swells inside me for the second time today.
I feel overwhelmed by his declarations and anxious that I can’t figure out the right thing to say, the right thing to do.
My breath starts coming in short pants as my vision darkens around the edges.
Wes hops off the bed and approaches me. When I don’t jump away, his hands settle on my shoulders, squeezing them gently. “Shh, Ivy. It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Take a breath.” I inhale. I exhale. I repeat the two. “That’s it. Keep breathing. Just like that.”
I shut my eyes, focusing on getting air to my lungs. When breathing comes easy again, I open them to find Wes watching me with concern.
“Better?” he asks. I nod, and he squeezes my shoulders lightly. His eyes search mine, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft. Tender. “I’m not trying to pressure you into anything, Ivy. I would never do that.”
“If you’re looking for sex or a hookup, you should search for it somewhere else,” I rush out, hating the way those words sound but knowing they needed to be said.
He doesn’t even blink. “Who says I need sex? That’s what masturbating is for.”
I nearly choke. “Wes—”
“I’m serious!” he says, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t want sex with some random girl.”
“Ben told me you used to hook up with a lot of random girls.”
“Remind me to thank him for that later,” he says drily. “I mean, yeah. Freshman year. That was ages ago. At this point, I don’t even remember my last casual hookup.”
“So if you don’t want someone to hook up with, then what do you want? A girlfriend?”
He regards me with a strange look, almost like he’s trying to piece together a puzzle.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend before?” I blow out a breath, wishing I could lie.
I know he’ll probably see right through me, though, so I shake my head no, and surprise dawns across his face. “That wasn’t your first kiss, was it?”
"No!” I cry, embarrassed now.
“Okay, okay. I was only asking.” He hesitates before his next question. “Have you ever done more than ki—”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” I blurt, my hands going up like a shield.
It’s a knee-jerk response, one I can’t help, and for a moment he looks taken aback.
But then his brows knit together, and he studies me with that same odd look on his face, as though he’s trying to solve some sort of mystery.
“Ivy,” he says softly. “I think it’s fairly obvious by now that I like you. You asked me what I want, and what I want is you. I want to be around you in whatever capacity you’re willing to give me. Whether that includes kissing, or anything else, is entirely up to you. I’m not going anywhere.”
His words come out of nowhere, hitting me straight in the chest, and my eyes practically bug out of my skull. He says he likes me. He says he wants me. He says he’s not going to push me into something I’m not comfortable with.
For right now. But how long will he wait around? How long will it be until he gets frustrated? Until he can’t take it anymore?
I can’t lose him.
“Look, it’s been a crazy day,” Wes says, and his words remind me of how mentally exhausted I am after the mess with the forum.
His hands move down my arms and take mine, squeezing them lightly between his bigger ones.
“Let’s forget about all this and just watch a movie, okay?
Maybe order some food? Don’t worry about this. There’s nothing to stress about, okay?”
I doubt that ignoring everything that just happened is the best idea, but I’m apparently incapable of sorting through my thoughts and feelings right now. I’d like nothing more than to compartmentalize all this for the time being, so I nod and squeeze his hands right back.
“The Phantom Menace and Mexican food?”
“Can we get those quesadillas again?” I ask. “The ones from Casa del Sol?”
He slaps a hand over his heart, eyes rolling back in his head. “I think I’m in love.”
For a moment, I’m paralyzed by his comment, but then I burst out laughing, the tension in the room lightening.
He laughs with me before scooping me up like I’m nothing and tossing me onto the bed.
Then, before I can protest, he jumps on behind me and starts tickling my stomach.
The bed creaks as I try to fight him off, but he’s relentless.
“Wes, stop,” I manage between giggles, trying to swat his hands away. “They’re going to think we’re doing something else in here.”
“Too bad the tickle monster doesn’t give a flying shit what those stupid girls think,” he says in a funny voice. I laugh harder, relieved he doesn’t appear at all upset at tabling our loaded conversation.
Eventually, I manage to fend off the tickle monster—or he just gets hungry for quesadillas, whichever comes first—and we order food.
We eat it on my bed and prop my laptop up on my desk, playing one of the lowest-ranked Star Wars films. It’s not an ideal setup, but I don’t have the energy to go all the way to Wes’s house today, so we make do.
When we’re done eating, he lays back on the bed and positions the laptop on top of his thighs.
The only way for me to fit is to rotate onto my side, my body sandwiched between him and the wall, and I rest my head on his shoulder the way I sometimes do when we’re sitting on his couch.
I wiggle around a little, trying to get comfortable, until he says, “Wait, sit up for a second.” I do as he commands, and he opens his arm. “Now try.”
I hesitate only for a moment before I lie back down. With his arm now wrapped around my back and his hand curling over my shoulder, I rest my head against his chest. “Better?”
Too tired to overthink, I relax into his side. “Much.”
We watch the movie, and despite everything that happened earlier, I feel a sense of calm wash over me lying next to him like this.
With his scent mingling with mine and his warmth combating the winter chill and his heartbeat steady beneath my cheek, the anxiety and expectations leave the room.
It’s just the two of us. Like usual. He makes little quips and comments throughout the movie, and I laugh at the bad CG.
We groan whenever Jar Jar Binks comes on the screen and cringe at the bad child acting.
I’m half-asleep when the film wraps and yawn as he shuts the laptop on the end credits.
“You were wrong,” I tell him. “That was worse than I remembered.”
He chuckles, the deep sound vibrating his chest, and agrees wholeheartedly with my critique. “Yeah, it’s not the best, is it?” His hand squeezes my arm. “Thanks for suffering through that with me.”
“Any time.”
He’s quiet for a moment, his fingers stroking up and down my arm. It feels nice, and my eyes flutter shut. “It’s getting late, Ives,” he murmurs. “Do you want me to go?”
“Do you have to?” I mumble, snuggling closer into his side.
Realizing what I just said, my eyes snap open.
So much for all that bullshit about how I can’t handle anything more than friendship, but after everything that happened today, the thought of spending the night alone forms a pit in my stomach.
“Are you sure you want me to stay?” he asks, giving me a second chance to come to my senses.
I don’t. I simply nod and wait for him to call me out for being a giant hypocrite who can’t make up her mind.
He doesn’t, of course. He just beams at me like I gave him the best present in the world, thrilled by my decision.
Our plan for the evening settled, I take the bathroom first to do my nighttime routine. After rummaging around in my cabinets, I manage to find a spare toothbrush, which I leave on the sink for Wes to use.
We swap places, and I change into an oversized t-shirt and a pair of striped pajama pants, all the while trying to figure out how this sleeping situation is going to work.
Things are going to be…tight. We’ll both have to sleep on our sides in order to fit, so I crawl in first, figuring I can squish up against the wall if Wes splays out in his sleep.
Not that he’ll have much room to work with in my pathetic twin bed.
When he returns from the bathroom, I’ve already tucked myself under the comforter, close to the wall. That excited glint hasn’t left his eye since I told him he could stay over, and even as he regards the bed, he doesn’t seem at all concerned about the cramped quarters.
I watch as he tugs his sweatshirt over his head, revealing a white t-shirt beneath, and I sigh in relief that he’s not going shirtless. And then, without warning, he pushes down his jeans.
“Wes!” I cry, averting my eyes to the ceiling. But not before I catch a glimpse of his dark boxer-briefs that leave little to the imagination and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I told him to stay.
He snickers. “Sorry, Ives, but I can’t sleep in jeans.”
“Great,” I mutter, my heart pounding as I keep my eyes trained upward.
Before I know it, he’s flicking off the bedside light and slipping under the covers behind me, folding my back against his front with a contented sigh. My body relaxes against his.
“We’re just sleeping,” I warn, trying not to think about how little clothing he’s wearing on his bottom half.
“I know,” he murmurs, his breath tickling my ear. “I can be good.” He plants a sneaky, quick kiss on my temple before snuggling in closer. “Except for that. I get one.”
“One,” I sigh, though I’m making an effort not to smile.
It’s mere minutes before his breathing evens out, his arm going lax around my body. I know I should be wide awake given the giant of a man pressed up behind me, but exhaustion wins out and my eyes drift shut. I follow his lead not long after.