Page 37 of Lost in the Current of You

I wanted to believe him, that I wouldn’t be left behind, but wasn’t that the natural course of friendship after school? Everyone splits up and finds new friends, and everything from high school becomes a forgotten memory. It’s what I believed.

I hadn’t realised I had dropped my gaze to our joint hands, lazily tracing patterns as he was before until he tilted my face back up to his with a crook of his finger under my chin. His gaze burned with sincerity and something else as they stared into mine.

“I could never forget about you, Kody. You are too ingrained in my life to forget.”

I felt all the air trapped inside my lungs, and I don’t think I breathed for a few moments, processing and sinking deeper into his hold and just him. All my thoughts went out the window as his thumb slid up my jaw, caressing my cheek in a way that had me leaning into his touch in a trance. Every worry and anxiety I felt before fled to the back of my mind, and all I could focus on was the smell of mint on his breath, the way his green eyes seemed darker at that moment, and how they scanned down to my lips, and the small proximity they were to his.

I waited for him to move closer, to feel the soft push of his lips against mine, waited to see if maybe he would reject me.

“We probably shouldn’t do this,” he whispered, but he didn’t move an inch.

I flicked my eyes up to his, not realising I was staring at his lips. “You’re probably right.”

His eyes came up to meet mine as well, and he swallowed. “It would mess everything up.”

I couldn’t help but agree. “Everything.”

“But,” He paused, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth. “I’ve wanted to do this for a very long time.” Then his forehead touched mine, and my eyes fluttered close.

“So have I,” I breathed.

“Kody,” he puffed out, and I almost melted right there.

I felt him move closer, his nose brushing mine, his soft lips ghosting mine. A tingling sensation erupted underneath my skin, and butterflies swarmed my stomach. He was so close. His breath was my breath. I was so close to pushing forward and pressing my lips to his. The anticipation was too much.

But the shrill of a phone alarm had us flying apart, and the sharp whip of cool air slapped against my face like it was bringing me back to the present, filling my lungs with air and dissipating the haze around me.

Fuck. Fucking, fuck.

I hastily patted around for my phone, thinking it was mine breaking the bubble we had created, but my shaky fingers and scattered brain stumble around everywhere it was not. I stopped when I saw Reece produce his phone, the screen lit up with an incoming call from his dad.

He cleared his throat, a frown forming on his face. “Uh, sorry. I’ve gotta take this.”

He didn’t even look me in the eyes when he got up from his seat and walked a fair distance away to answer the call.

I sagged with my head in my hands and let out a low groan. “What the fuck?” I smack my forehead a couple of times. “Are you a goddamn idiot?” I questioned myself.

I must’ve been, because how idiotic do you have to be to almost kiss your brother’s and ex’s best friend? That in itself is a whole mess. I promised myself I wouldn’t involve myself with any more drama. But, there I was.

But if I wanted no drama so badly, why did I wish we never got interrupted? Why did I wish I followed my gut and leaned in? Why was my heart beating so out of control, feeling the ghost of his lip brushing mine?

I was definitely a goddamn idiot.

I peeked over my shoulder to where he stood a few metres away, his voice low and barely heard from where I sat. He looked frustrated and stressed, with his hand running through his hair and his arms flailing around him. I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted to grab hold of whatever was stressing him and toss it into the river where all our other secrets and outrage lay. Something to at least ease the crease in his brow. I knew, though, that whatever the phone call was about was private.

When he hung up the phone, both hands dove into his hair and tugged before dropping his hands to his side with a slight slump in his shoulders. He turned, met my eyes, and stilled. I tried to plaster a soft smile, and he returned it with a quick, tight smile. The molten eyes that stared into mine moments before had been replaced with a pained and guarded look.

God, I wondered what troubled him so much for him to feel that type of weight at only seventeen.

He made his way to me slowly as he chewed on his bottom lip, only to stop a few metres away.

“I’ve got to head off.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder, and his gaze avoided mine. I willed it to meet mine, to let me in, but I could feel the distance he was putting between us. “I’m sorry to do this to you, you know after—” He waved his hand around like he was trying to gather his words while also throwing daggers to my chest as he struggled to say what it was. “But I have to head out.”

His phone buzzed in his hand again, and he looked down at it and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’ll see you around, Dakota,” he said in a detached voice as he turned and walked away.

His words felt like a slap to the face, and an invisible wall pulled between us. He never called me by my full name unless he was trying to put distance between us. Like when I wanted to talk to Liam after their game and he refused to let me near him, his words were like daggers then, too.

The ‘I’ll see you around’ felt like a further insult to injury. Like we hadn’t been hanging out every day the past week and the only possibility to see him would be if we bumped into each other at the shop one day.

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