Then #2
“Hm, let me think about that for a second.” I place my hand underneath my chin, forming it into a fist. “Should I tell my friend’s sister about my feelings for her? Yeah, I’m going with a no on that one. Blake would end me if he found out about how I truly feel about Violet.”
“Forget about Blake for a second. Let’s pretend he doesn’t exist. You like her, right?”
How do I answer this without sounding desperate?
I nod casually. “Yeah, I do.”
Noah and Xander raise their heads in unison, looking up at the sky.
“What are you guys doing?” I ask, expressing my confusion.
“Hey there, Superhero,” Violet says to me.
Okay, I get it now.
“We should go check out the drinks,” Noah suggests to Xander.
“Yeah, we should. Great idea, man,” Xander agrees with him.
Did my best friends just abandon me, so I could be alone with Violet? Yeah, they did. I’m going to thank them for it later.
They walk away from us, heading towards the drink station.
“Hey.”
“It suits you.” She smiles.
I narrow my eyes. “What suits me?”
Violet points to my outfit with both fingers. “Your costume, silly.”
“Why does my costume suit me?”
“Well, he can shoot webs out of his hands and kiss pretty girls upside down.” Her lips quirk up into a cute smile.
I was right. She definitely woke up and chose violence today.
As I’m looking at her face, my eyes begin to travel down to other parts of her body. Her smooth skin peeks out of the slits in her costume. The leather-like fabric accentuates her incredible curves.
She’s so beautiful.
“Are you admiring my costume?”
“For someone who didn’t want to be here, you definitely took your time getting ready.”
“Do you even know who I’m supposed to be?” She places her hands on her hips.
I tightly squish my face and shake my head.
Violet giggles. “Don’t do that. You’re going to hurt yourself.” She pauses for a moment and starts singing the chorus of a song.
A light bulb goes off in my head. “Oh, you’re Taylor Swift.”
“Good job.”
“Do I win a prize or something?”
“Technically, I did give you a huge hint.”
“Usually when a person gets an answer right in a game or a contest, they win a prize.”
“I guess you’re right.”
I make a goofy face at Violet.
“You’re adorable. Come with me.” She takes my hand, dragging us through a huge crowd of people.
I don’t care where Blake is anymore. Once I’m in Violet’s orbit, there’s no escaping. And I don’t want to escape.
Violet and I make it back inside the house. She takes me upstairs and into her bedroom, closing the door behind us.
“Violet Rose Prescott, what are you doing?”
“Nothing.” Her voice is all high-pitched and squeaky.
I sit down on the front edge of Violet’s bed. “Why are we in your bedroom, Vi?”
“I’m giving you your prize.”
“Really? What is it?” My voice goes up a few octaves.
“The sound of silence.”
Why did I think she was going to kiss me? Did I read the signs wrong? I must have. Now I’m disappointed. Is it obvious? Can she tell?
Violet sits down next to me, crossing her leg over the other and studying my face.
“I thought that…” I trail off. “Nevermind.”
“You thought what?”
“Nothing.”
“We don’t lie to each other, Gray. What’s going on?”
“I wish I could, but I can’t.”
“Please tell me.”
I don’t need to close the gap between us to be engulfed by her sweet scent once again.
Can I bathe in it?
“I’ve been waiting for the opportune moment to kiss you,” I confess.
Why did I just say that out loud?
Her lips curve into a smirk. “Oh, have you now?”
I nod before I run the pad of my thumb along her bottom lip, parting her mouth open just enough, so I can succumb to what I’ve been thinking about doing to her for the past several months.
Before I kiss her, I ask her an important question. “Do you want me to kiss you?”
A blank expression writes itself all over her face. “I’ve been wanting you to kiss me since we were twelve years old,” she admits.
I knew it.
She was flirting with me earlier. She’s been flirting with me this whole damn time.
My nerves quickly dissipate as I comb my fingers through her disheveled blonde hair. “You know that was only three years ago, right?”
“Whatever, three years is a long time. I mean, it feels like a lifetime ago for me.”
“Okay, now you’re teasing me, Prescott.”
“And what are you going to do about it, Becker?”
My lips make a crash landing onto hers as I cup her face with my hands. We back up into her bedroom door, and slide my hand down to lock it, so nobody can interrupt us. We’re both breathing heavily, and our chests are heaving against each other.
I can’t believe this is happening right now.
“Do you have any special moves, Superhero?”
“I have some moves.”
My heart is racing as I grab her face, my lips capturing hers in a more demanding way this time.
“Hey, Gray?”
“Yeah, Vi?”
“I c-can’t breathe. I n-need to stop.”
Oh no, what did I do?
“Are you okay?”
Violet doesn’t answer me. Her chest is heaving. I wish I had the power to read minds instead of shooting webs out of my hands.
“Did I do something wrong?”
She clears her throat, gasping for air.
I give her all the time she needs to catch her breath. When I see that her breathing has returned to normal, I rub her back in gentle circles until I sit down on her bed.
She meets my gaze. “It’s not you.”
“If you’re giving me the whole it’s not you, it’s me speech, please…don’t.”
Looking away from her, I glance around her room. It’s not the same as it was when she was twelve years old. Her walls are covered in posters of Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez.
“Gray.” She walks closer to me.
I can feel her hot breath melding into my skin and becoming a part of me.
I shake my head. “D-don’t come near me.”
“Grayson.” She cups my face with both of her hands. “Look at me,” she whispers.
I meet her ocean blue eyes and find myself in quite the predicament. I can’t look away. “What did I do?”
“You didn’t do anything. I promise,” she reassures me. “Gray…I fell in love with you from the very first second we met. You weren’t like the boys who were our age. You were sweet, perceptive, and gentle. You’re still all those things.”
How did I not know this?
My mouth forms into a small circle. “You’re in love with me?”
She smiles. “I’m surprised you didn’t find out until now. I think I’ve made it pretty obvious.”
“Yeah, well, I can be oblivious sometimes.”
She laughs, the infectious sound bouncing off the concrete walls. “I’ve wanted this to happen for years, but there was always this voice inside my head. It kept telling me how this couldn’t happen. Do you know whose voice that was?”
“Your brother’s.”
“Right. My brother who happens to be your friend. That’s why I got nervous a bit earlier.” She exhales. “And here we are. We kissed, and I want it to happen again.”
I blink my eyes rapidly. “I’m confused. First, you wanted me to kiss you, but you told me stop.
Now, you want me to kiss you again. Violet, I can tell you right now, if I kiss you again, I won’t be able to stop.
If we do this, this is it. You’re it for me.
You’ve been it for me for a long damn time.
And I sure as hell can’t just be your friend now.
” I stare at her for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about kissing you for several months.
I think about you all the time. Trust me, you don’t want to know the things I think about when it comes to you.
It’s hard because all I want is to be with you and around you. You. Consume. Me.”
She swallows, deep and hard. I can see the lump traveling down her throat. Her mouth parts open before she licks her lips. “What are you saying?”
“Do I need to spell it out for you?”
She nods. “Yes, please.”
“I’m in love with you, Vi.”
“That’s what I was getting from all the romantic stuff you said to me, but I wanted to be one-hundred-percent sure.”
A breathy laugh escapes my mouth. “I want to be with you. I want there to be an us. Do you?”
“Of course I do. How are we going to do this without Blake knowing?”
“Have you ever heard of the concept of sneaking around?”
“This is a bad idea, Gray.”
“I won’t be able to be around you anymore if you reject me,” I blurt out.
“I have no idea where that came from, but I’m not rejecting you.” She threads her fingers into mine, looking up at me with those big blue eyes of hers. “We need to be smart about this. Blake can never find out about us. Okay?”
“Okay, Angel.” I gulp. “Can I kiss you now?”
She giggles. “Yes, you can.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Okay, because you know what I said. Once I kiss you, I won’t be able to stop.”
She releases her fingers from mine, wrapping her arms around my neck. Her eyes work up my body and land back up to my face.
How is it that this girl I met when I was twelve-years-old is making me feel like I’m going to explode from the inside out? My stomach is in a million knots, tightly intertwining with one another.
“I’m more than okay with that,” she breathes out.
“I’m not saying you can’t change your mind because you absolutely can. I just want to make sure this is what you really want.”
“I want this. I want you.”
“I want you, too.” I shift closer to her and kiss her lips that have been on my mind non-stop for the past several months.
I never want this to end.