Page 20 of Strong Side
Once I’m standing, he pulls me in closer to his chest.
Strong. Firm. Familiar.
His eyes haven’t left mine. “So, how about those boundaries?”
“What boundaries?” My mind feels a little muddled by his intense gaze.
“Like, how, when, and where I can touch you.”
“You’re right; we should talk about it. I mean, I feel like we’re pretty comfortable with each other as friends so I don’t know that it will feel like a weird thing. At least not to me.” I shrug, and that part I am sincere about. Hugging, holding hands … those are pretty natural things for us.
“We’ll probably have to kiss in front of people at some point; otherwise, they might not buy it.”
As he speaks, flutters run rampant in my stomach. Kissing Casey. The amount of times I’ve wondered … but I also don’t want to embarrass myself if what Trey said is true and I don’t know what I’m doing.
“How do you feel about kissing me?”
He’s still holding my hands, and I’m close enough to count his eye lashes. His brown eyes are holding me captive, and I feel like I can’t form words.
“Like, right now? Kissing you now?” My voice must sound like a chipmunk.
He laughs and steps back. I immediately want to be close to him again.
“We could kiss now if you feel like you’re ready for that.” He wiggles his eyebrows to try to lighten the sudden tension in the room.
“Well, I was gonna do my facial, but I could wait.”What the actual hell am I thinking?“Ha! I mean, we can if you want to,” I squeak.
His smile widens, and he winks at me. “Take a deep breath. We’ll start with baby steps. I have an idea. Why don’t we start with getting some pics together for Instagram to start building our story?”
“Oh, that’s a good idea. Although I already have a lot of pictures of us together.” I pull my phone from my back pocket and pull up the app. “See, it’s mostly us. I deleted all the pictures I had with Trey.”
“Has he tried to DM you there since you blocked his number on your phone?” He nods to my phone.
I shake my head. “No, but I blocked him there too.”
“You should give me a facial. We’ll do, like, a couples facial or something. Or is that stupid? I feel like Charlie and Beck do weird stuff like that all the time.” He walks to his closet and pulls another towel off the shelf.
“That’s a good idea.” I nod.
“You’ll have to put it on me though. I have no idea what I’m doing.”
He turns toward the door, and I quickly swipe the cleanser and mask from the bed.
“Okay, let me do mine first, I guess, and then I’ll do yours.” I follow him into the bathroom.
As we cross the hallway, I can hear the TV in the other room and Bo and Silas talking about the game they’re watching. It seems like they’re occupied, so they won’t be paying attention to us anyway, so I don’t close the door when I enter.
“Sounds good to me. Do I just use this cleaner first?” He takes it from my hand.
“Yes, use this first. Oh, do you have any washcloths? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any around, but it would be good to scrub your face a little to open up your pores and clean all the dirt off.” I motion to my face and twirl my finger.
“Uh, I don’t have any, but Charlie does. But, shit, I don’t want to go in their room. I’ve more than learned my lesson. Let me text her instead.” He winces and pulls his phone from his pocket. “While we wait … do you want a water or anything?”
“Did Arbor leave any of those sparkling waters here?” I ask.
“I’ll look. If we don’t have any, you want something else? I think we have some Dr. Pepper.” He moves around me and stands in the doorway, one brow lifted.
“Oh, yeah, for sure. I was just trying to avoid caffeine since it’s getting late. But DP sounds good.” I smile. “Thanks.”
