Page 126 of One Night

"Is it a song?"

"Yeah, but I need to finish one last thing before you hear it."

"Are you going to play it at the bar next week?"

Vandyl's playing next Saturday at a bar downtown. It's a big deal because the bar is really popular and does a lot of promos on the radio. They're already promoting the concert next week.

"It's not ready to perform," I tell her. "Besides, I'm not sure I want to share it with anyone but you."

"Dylan, if you wrote it you should play it. You're really good at writing songs. Look how much people love One Night. People go to your concerts just to hear that song."

"That song's only good because of the person who inspired me to write it. If it hadn't been about you, it wouldn't be any good."

"That's not true. It'd still be good. You're a great songwriter."

I tickle her side. "How would you know? You've never heard any of my other songs."

She laughs and squirms from my tickling. "Then let me hear your other songs. Sing one right now."

Reaching around her waist, I lift her on top of me and look at her face, into those bright blue eyes. "I never finished them. One Night is the only song I ever finished and that's only because it came to me so easily." I kiss her. "You're my inspiration. As long as I'm with you, I have a feeling I'll be writing a lot more songs."

Her smile falls and her body tightens like it did earlier. Why does she keep doing that? Is it something I said?

Before I can ask her what's wrong, she pushes off me and gets up from the bed, standing beside it. "Shower time."

"That's it? I thought you wanted to lay here."

"I did, but now I want to shower." She turns around, her back to me, eyeing me over her shoulder. "You gonna join me or not?" she teases.

My eyes go to her perfect, round ass, then up the curve of her back. I move to the edge of the bed, sitting up, my hands landing on her narrow waist, then sliding down, following the lines of her curves. I kiss her lower back, my hands gripping her hips.

"Dylan," she whispers. "The shower."

"There's no rush," I tell her. "Just let me be with you."

She gets back in bed and I touch her, kiss her, make love to her. Because that's what it is. Love. I love Amber but I'm afraid to tell her. I've thought of writing it in a letter but I'd rather say it in person, see her reaction, and explain why I love her in case she doesn't believe me.

I'm just not ready to say it yet. It'll be the first time I've ever said it to a girl so it's a huge step, and I'm worried she may not feel the same way.

That night, as we lie in bed, I think about what it'd be like to have a future with Amber. Having her gone for weeks made me realize how much I miss her when she's not around. How much I'd miss her if we broke up and I never saw her again. That got me thinking about the future and I've been thinking about it ever since. My mind keeps telling me it's too soon to think about that but my heart keeps coming back to it. It knows what it wants and it wants Amber. But being with her means making some big decisions. Decisions that have to be made soon.

It's already January and in a few short months I'll be graduating. I have to figure out where I'll live and what I'll do for a job. I'd planned to leave Chicago and go wherever a job takes me, but doing that means saying goodbye to Amber, maybe for good. Long-distance relationships rarely work, and when she graduates next summer, she may not want to move to wherever I end up.

That leaves me wondering if I should just tell her how I feel. If I should tell her how much I love her and want to be with her. I've already hinted at having a future with her, several times, but every time I do, she gets quiet or changes the subject so I'm taking that to mean she doesn't feel the same way, or she's not ready to admit it.

So I guess for now, I'll keep quiet and maybe drop some more hints in the days and weeks ahead.

Unfortunately, that becomes hard to do because her schedule doesn't allow me to see her, or even talk to her. Monday morning when I call her before class she tells me she's too busy to talk, and I don't see her at the hospital because this semester, we'll only be working together for a couple hours on Friday mornings.

Monday night when I tell her I'm stopping over, she tells me I can't because she has some emergency project to work on. I was hoping to spend the night with her but she turned me down, saying she needed to be up early the next morning.

I was thinking maybe she was avoiding me because I did or said something to make her mad, but she insisted she's just busy and that we'll see each other later in the week.

The next few days, I give her some space so she can catch up on all the things she needs to do. She told me she always gets stressed at the beginning of a new semester so I'm hoping that's all this is and she isn't purposely distancing herself from me. I don't know why she would. Sunday was great and nothing has happened since then that would give her reason to act differently.

By Thursday, I start to get concerned because the night before, she wouldn't talk to me for more than a few minutes, saying she had to study for a test she had the next morning. Normally, that wouldn't bother me but she sounded strange on the phone. Her voice was rushed and a little shaky. I asked her what was wrong and she said nothing, but I knew she was lying. I pushed her to tell me but she still wouldn't open up so I told her I was coming over but she told me not to because she really had to study.

This morning she texted me that she has to work at the restaurant during lunch. She fills in whenever they need her and today one of the waitresses was out sick so they called Amber. Desperate to see her, I decide to go there for lunch. I was already downtown to meet with the bar manager about Saturday night's concert and the restaurant where Amber works is just a few blocks away.

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