Page 291 of As the Rain Falls
And by home, I mean my house.
My room.
My bed.
Us acting like roommates is becoming kind of a thing.
“Mn.” She groans, burying her upturned nose into my pillow. I kneel on the mattress, brushing her hair away from her face. Her upper lip is all swollen from too much sleep. “Five more minutes.”
“You have school at one thirty, don’t you?” I ask just to be sure, lowering my upper body to press a kiss to her mouth. Cassandra cracks one eye open. “No classes in the morning?”
“Not on Tuesdays.” She sighs, stretching her arms above her head. Her lips part then, forming a deep yawn.
I smile.
She’s so goddamn cute.
“It’s only seven-thirty.” I lay back down, forcing her to scoot over. “You can sleep a little more if you want.”
Cassandra opens her eyes and pulls me into her arms. She’s always clingy after she wakes up and right before she falls asleep. I let her keep me close, feel her press a kiss to my cheek, then another to my chin.
“Good morning, baby.”
Her voice is raw, still tangled in sleep. She hesitates for a second before kissing the corner of my mouth shyly. Her cheeks redden.
“You’re blushing.” I press my thumb to her warm skin. “Are you embarrassed?”
“I feel like a third grader.”
I don’t point out that we’ve kissed more than once. But it’s true that it doesn’t feel the same anymore. That was about comfort and connection.But this? This is something else.Something entirely different and new.
Cassandra sighs when I suck her skin, closing her eyes again. She pulls me on top of her, and I press my nose to her neck, inhaling the mingled scent of her and me.
She’s so sensitive.
“Am I crushing you?” I ask, biting lightly. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough to get her to blush again. “Tell me if I am.”
“I like your weight on me,” her confession comes out quiet. “It feels good. You’re very strong.”
“You’re very warm.” I brush my fingers against her stomach, lifting her oversized Anakin Skywalker t-shirt until her ribs show. “And ticklish.”
“I’m not—”
Cassandra’s laughter rings in my ears, the sound going straight to my heart. It’s bright and infectious, and I press my face against her cheek, grinning so hard that my eyes squeeze shut.
“Stop!”
I immediately do, flattening my hands against her skin. One rests on her waist, the other on her hip. She wraps her arms around me, surrounding my shoulders and neck.
“You have the prettiest eyes,” I say. She blinks a few times, listening to me attentively. “I’ve always thought so.”
“Even when we were kids?”
I nod, remembering little bits of our younger selves.
Everything feels so fuzzy. Cassandra and I were never close friends by any means, but she was my neighbor. Le Port is a very small place to live in; every kid somehow knows each other, goes to the same schools, and attends the same parties.
“But you were very tiny and whiny, no offense.”
