Page 79 of When The Night Falls

Good luck tmrw. Not that you’ll need it

My emotions were conflicted. While I appreciated hearing from him and was charmed that he had remembered my exam tomorrow, I also wished he would leave me alone, because this was precisely what I had wanted to avoid: I had been thinking about him most of yesterday, and I couldn’t remember having checked my social media this often before, and it was only because of him. He had become the distraction I had feared he would the first time we’d met, and seeing proof of it was only reinforcing my desire to avoid him.

Nevertheless, I decided to reply.

I do though, but thanks

A grin I hated surfaced on my mouth when he instantly marked it as read. He must have been waiting for my response.

You’ll be fine

You can’t know that

He sent an image of Bob the Builder with the text ‘YES WE CAN’ written across it. I laughed. His humour was frankly one of his most attractive attributes.

Omg

Make Bob proud x

I’ll do my best

I chewed on my lower lip when I realised that his back must be starting to ache from always having to carry the conversation. On the one hand, that was what I wanted, because if all I offered were dry replies, he would be more likely to grow bored with me. But on the other, I felt I owed it to him to return at least a portion of his interest. I convinced myself that it was the polite thing to do, so before long, I started typing.

Have you had a nice day?

I groaned when he instantly saw it and proceeded to like it. Too late to unsend it, I thought.

What’s this? Are you actually showing interest in my well-being?

I already regret it lol

Haha. My day was fine. Miss teasing you, though

He attached a cartoon of an adorable but angry chipmunk. I stared at it, nonplussed.

…

It’s you whenever I tease you

I gaped. Was that really how he saw me whenever I got flustered? No wonder he couldn’t stop himself from teasing me.

Omg

Anyway, I don’t want to distract you right before your exam, so I’ll leave you to it

Break a leg x

I wondered if he was actually busy with something else, or perhaps even someone else, and had said it only as a cover-up to put himself in a favourable light. After all, shouldn’t I be the one to decide whether he was stealing my precious time or not? Knowing how many women he entertained, it was perfectly possible that one of them had either just arrived or returned from the bathroom or something like that.

Hearing my own thoughts, I frowned at myself. Why should it matter who he was with? He wasn’t mine, and I had no intention of pursuing him either. Regardless of whether he was with someone else, he had set aside the time to send me this encouragement, and I ought to appreciate that gesture. One way or another, he was only being kind.

Thanks

By nine o’clock, he still hadn’t sent me anything else, and I noted to myself that I disliked his habit of always letting me have the last word. For some reason, it made me feel inferior. So yes, he had explicitly said that he didn’t want to disturb me, but he had done this last time as well. Was he doing it deliberately, as some sort of strategic retreat? Was he playing games? Trying to attain some sort of psychological advantage? Unsure of what to make of it, I decided I would now pay careful attention to whether he would repeat this pattern.

I put my phone on my nightstand and settled to sleep, but I didn’t feel the least bit tired. In the darkness of my bedroom, memories of our sensual night together feasted on my mind. One by one, they marched into my thoughts, regardless of how hard I tried to suppress them.

My pulse spiked as I imagined him above me and within me, mouth forming dirty declarations while he stared intensely into my eyes. I couldn’t breathe. Wide-eyed, I stared blankly ahead and felt an abundance of heat in my face. Full of tension, I writhed beneath the duvet.

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