Page 79 of The Secret Of Us

“Olly is having a party at his house. His parents are going abroad for New Year's and he convinced them to let him stay behind,” Amelia explains.

“Where does he live again?” Izzy asks as she comes back to my side. She keeps a slight gap between us, and her friend’s eyes me up, eyebrows raised, and gaze pointed as they notice my hands clasped tightly in my lap.

Izzy must notice at the same time that I do because she steps closer to me. She glances down at me for a quick second with a silent question in her eyes. I break my hands apart and hook one arm across her waist, shuffling her forward slightly until Izzy sets herself down on my thigh. She places her arm lightly around my shoulders, her hand coming up to rest against the side of my neck. It’s embarrassing that she can feel how fast my heart is beating. Her friends’ expressions relax as they continue their conversation.

“Surrey, we’ve been there before. He’s the one with the big house, indoor pool, huge garden with the little pond that Josh fell in, remember?”

“You didn’t have to bring that up!” Chloe interrupts, and I have to stifle a laugh at imagining Josh falling into a pond. I will ask him about the story behind that the next time I see him.

“Oh, that Olly. Who else is going?” Izzy asks, her fingers moving lazily up and down my neck. She keeps talking with her friends, but I don’t register a single thing they say.

I do my best to keep my breathing steady, to act like Izzy and I do this all the time, but my heart feels like it’s about to burst out of my chest.

Is this what it would be like if it were real?

Would we sit like this all the time, her keeping me grounded when I feel like running away?

“Noah?”

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were going to come to the party,” Chloe says, exasperation in her voice.

I glance up at Izzy, our gazes connecting. The slight tilt of her head tells me that she won’t force me to go with her, it’s my decision.

“If Izzy wants me to go, then yeah,” I say, my eyes not leaving hers for a second. She smiles down at me, eyes bright with something I can’t name.

“Can you wait until we leave at least?” Amelia says jokingly.

Izzy lets out an airy laugh, her breath ghosting across my skin and giving me goosebumps. She stands up, and the sudden absence of her weight on me makes it feel like half of me has gone missing.

“We will both be there. You can leave now,” Izzy says as she waves her arms at them and shoos them toward the door.

They jokingly complain but both of them hug Izzy on the way out as they make promises to text each other later to make plans for the party. She closes the door behind them and comes back to me.

“Was that okay?” she asks, her eyebrows creased as she twists her hands together. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

“It was fine,” I tell her out loud.

In my head, I tell her that I want to do it over and over again, want her to touch me like that whenever she wants to.

“Do you really want to go to this party?” she asks, perching on the edge of her bed.

“If you want to, then I will. But if you just want to go with your friends, then I won’t.”

“I’d like it if you were there.”

“Then, I’ll be there.”

She nods, giving me a small smile before she leans over me to pick up the box again. Her hair brushes against my face, the scent of cherries overwhelming me and I have to close my eyes to try and ignore how close she is to me.

“Did you really make all of these?” She lifts the lid and fiddles carefully with the stars again.

“It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it,” I tell her as she runs her fingers over every single point of each star. My next words spill out before I can stop them. “I thought about buying you a star, but it didn’t feel like enough. You deserve a whole constellation.”

She’s quiet, her head still ducked low to look at the box, and I worry I’ve said the wrong thing. It feels like I’m exposing myself every time I speak to her now, getting too close to revealing how I truly feel about her. But I don’t want to ruin the friendship we’ve been building. I don’t want to ruin the chances of staying friends with her after the year ends.

“You’re really lovely, Noah. No one’s ever done something like this for me before.”

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