Page 64 of Only With You

“Where’s your Aquaphor?” I ask instead, because my mind is all over the place and I think I’m losing it.

He slips his palm in the front pocket of his shorts and sets the tube on the table. “Happy?”

There’s that odd dip and tumble again.

“You actually use it?” I inquire, staring keenly at it.

“How could I not? You were so concerned for my lips,” he says smugly.

“Not concerned. I just hate chapped lips.”

“Not concerned, yet you spent the entire time we were together obsessing over me licking them.”

“I wasn’t. Get over yourself.”

He clicks his tongue all condescending-like and I can hear his stupid patronizing posh accent before he speaks. “I can’t. Not when you won’t look at me because you’re too embarrassed you got caught.”

I look up and regret it because I think he looks concerned and that oddly stirs something in me. Fuck my life. How did I go from finding him repulsive, to feeling…whatever it is I’m feeling.

Maybe I am getting sick.

“Get over yourself,” I repeat again with more finality and a bit of ice in my voice.

Satisfaction glints in his eyes and I realize I fell into his stupid little trap. He wanted me to look up at him, and I did just that.

But the gratifying look wavers and he searches my face. “You’re not sick.”

“I told you I wasn’t.”I’m hot because I just came to the thought of you.

“I know, but I just wanted to make sure.” Landon’s words are so sincere, so oddly soft. He pauses and repeats the four words from earlier. “You’re not a bitch.”

“You thought otherwise not too long ago.”

“I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

This is the second time he’s said sorry to me. I touch my forehead with the back of my hand, wondering if maybe this is all a fever dream. That gets the corners of his lips to tug a fraction upward. It’s not enough to bear a smile, but enough that I know it’s one. In his own way.

“And I’m sorry I called you a piece of shit,” I earnestly say, because that’s what I said to him and earned him to call me one in return.

Our gazes collide and something shifts in the atmosphere.

“It’s been two weeks. Did I pass your trial?” It’s Landon who changes the subject like nothing happened. Like he doesn’t feel anything and that’s probably because he didn’t. He has to put up with me whether he likes it or not. After all, I’m paying him to tutor me.

This time, my stomach doesn’t tumble, but it does sink a little.

I dramatically sigh like it pains me to say this. “Yes, you passed, but if you’re going to gloat about it, at least do it when you’re not here. I don’t want to hear or see it.”

Opening my laptop back up, I glance just in time to see his cheek twitch, but his lips remain flat. Though my gaze falls to our legs as I feel his brush against mine.

“Problem?” His voice pulls my gaze up.

I shake my head, willing my stomach to stop tumbling. “No, we should get started.”

19

LANDON

I hitsubmit and wait for my video to upload on YouTube.

---