Page 21 of A Slice of Love

If I go over there, she’ll try to kiss me. And I’ll let her.

The last thing she needs is to be tainted by my use-’em-and-lose-’em reputation. If someone were to find out we were hanging out outside of school hours…well, let’s just say that wouldn’t work out well for either of us.

We’d be alone though…

“You, uh, you could come in the back. Stay the night. It would be just us.”

Just us.

No one would ever have to know. They’d never even know I was there. We could spend the entire weekend together, do whatever we wanted, live in our own little world.

It’s a bad idea. The worst idea she’s ever had. The foulest idea in the history of ideas.

But, if there is anything people know about me, it’s that Ilovea good bad idea.

“Jonas?”

Two syllables. A bat of her lashes.

That’s all it takes.

“Yes.”

“It’s Frankie,” she spits at me.

Clearly, she’s still pissed about what happened between us.

Just as I had predicted, Frankie tried to kiss me.

And just as I’d promised, I let her.

She climbed into my lap and we spent way too long on her couch, kissing and touching each other. Exploring.

We fell asleep, wrapped together in her twin bed.

We cooked breakfast on Sunday, unable to keep our hands to ourselves at every turn. It didn’t matter that our lips were sore and swollen. We knew our time together was limited, and we didn’t want to waste a second.

Our last afternoon together, we lay on her bedroom floor, counting the silly glow-in-the-dark stars she had stuck on the ceiling.

I don’t know how it happened, but eventually we were nothing but a mess of limbs.

Her shirt came off. Mine followed. And then she was trusting me with something special as I slid into her warmth.

“I’m sorry. I know it hurts.”

“Then make it feel better.”

I did.

And then we heard it—tires turning onto the pavement.

We were supposed to have a few more hours.

Her parents were home early.

I threw my clothes on as fast as I possibly could and beat feet out the back door, thankfully having been smart enough to park three blocks over so nobody would see my car in the drive.

That was the first and only time Frankie and I slept together—I made sure of it.

---