Page 57 of Just Friends
Because if I didn’t stop him, I knew I’d sleep with him. We might not even make it to the bedroom.
And if it wasn’t for the stream still being on? That’s exactly would havehappened. Guaranteed. There’s no way I would’ve had the willpower to stop us from going too far.
But then I remembered that millions of people might still be watching our stream. No, they couldn’t see us, but for all I knew, they could stillhearus. All those people, at that very moment, could’ve been listening to the sweet littlesmacksof suction as our mouths met, and our lips sucked and pulled. Surely, they were rabidly speculating in the chat about the source of my happy whimpers or Jax’s manly grunts of pleasure. Can you imagine anything more embarrassing?
That’s when I knew I had to pump the brakes. Because the last thing I needed right now was to ruin my life even further by sleeping with Jax on live-stream. As much as I wanted him, I didnotwant to go from “dating app creator” to “amateur porn star” in the course of twenty minutes.
The poor boy looked so guilty and wrecked once I’d stopped him. I wanted to tell himit’s okay, we can still keep going, just turn the stream off so we don’t get caught!
But once the moment was interrupted, the gravity of the situation quickly set in: Jax and I werekissing.Yes, it felt amazing, and yes, I wanted him to kiss me more—but wehadto quit while we were ahead. Or things between us would never be normal again.
I jumped into bed and buried my face into a pillow, muffling my frustrated scream.
Part of me wanted to march back into that living room and finish what we started. I’d climb into his lap, wrap my arms around his neck and give him my eyes, and tell him how long I’d wanted him. How long I’d been lying to myself and to him and to the whole world, too—
Oh my God.
The realization hit me like a truck.
I’m in love with Jax.
And the worst part? Realizing that I was in love with Jax didn’t magically steer away the clouds from my head and make my next move so much clearer. In fact, it did the opposite: it made everythingsomuch more confusing. I felt paralyzed because now I hadno ideawhat I was supposed to do.
If I fooled around with Jax, I knew I’d get hopelessly attached. And there was no point in getting attached to Jax, because he has always been crystal clear about his views on relationships: he doesn’t have the time or the energy or theinterestto be locked down to one partner. Helikesbeing single. He likes sleeping around. And I can’t even blame him, because why should he commit to any one girl, when he can walk into any club and go home with any girl he chooses? Every guy onEarthwants to be Jax; they’d killto be in his shoes.
On the other hand, how could we even go back to being friends now that we’d kissed? Now that I knew I likedhim as more than a friend? Was I supposed to just turn that part of my brain off? I guess Ihadto—that was my only real option—but just thethoughtofhim hooking up with another girl, past, present or future, made flares of jealousy explode in my heart.
This sucked.
This scared the hell out of me, too.
And I felt so dumb because I’d spent so long denyingthe truth to everyone that I now had no one to turn to. The whole worldknew about me and Jax. It took creating adating appfor me to see what was staring me in the face all along.
Speaking of Soulmate, an ironic thought occurred to me: since the disaster with Jax’s match happened live on stream, we never got around to drawingmynumber one match.
It didn’t matter now. Finding my number one match wouldn’t changeanything.
… But morbid curiosity got the best of me.
I picked up my phone, loaded the doomed dating app, and pressedthe matchmaking button. My heart hopped into my throat while I watched the loading wheel spin one last time.
Did I want to be matched with Jax? Or someone else? I was torn.
On one hand, the thing I wanted most was for Jax to be my number one match, even if we were star-crossed lovers who could never be together. My reeling heart, desperate for any suitable cope, desired the romantic tragedy. Ineededto know we were soulmates, even if I couldn’t have him.
On the other hand, what if my number one match was some other cute and interesting guy that actuallywantedto be with me? I guess I couldn’t complain … heck, meeting that guy might make moving on easier, since Jax and I clearly couldn’t be together …
Za-zing!Soulmate chimed.
Congratulations, Piper! Your Soulmate is JAX CAMERON.Ready to start a conversation?
Whatever satisfaction I might have felt was extinguished by the fire-engine red text that ran beneath Jax’s square-jawed, handsomely-smiling profile picture. It read,
DANGER! Fuckboy Alert. Proceed with caution!
“Of course he is,” I muttered. “That’s kind of the problem, isn’t it?”
I closed Soulmate. That’s when I noticed I’d had several missed FaceTime calls from Paulina. She’d texted me, too:“I was watching your stream, are you okay??? Call me back ASAP!!!”
