Page 136 of After All This Time

noah and i had sex last night

BELLA

WHAT? YOU’RE JOKING. NO FUCKING WAY. YOU AND NOAH. SHUT THE FUCK UP. You’re joking, right? You’re not serious

ME

oh, i’m serious

My phone lights up immediately with a FaceTime call from Bella.

I’m not in the mood for this shit right now, but I accept the call.

Her face pops up on the screen of my phone, skin glowing. Her caramel hair is carefully placed over her shoulders. There’s no makeup on her face.

She looks like she's sitting on her bed at the Castillo-Ryder family house. The house she grew up in. The house I spent a lot of time in when I was younger.

She smirks at me. “You had sex with Noah? Please tell me you’re shitting me!”

“I’m not in the mood for this.”

“You’re the one who texted me, remember?”

“I told you to not freak out.”

“How can I not freak out about this? Do you know how many years I’ve been waiting for this to happen? Awe, my best friend is no longer a part of the virgin club.”

I roll my eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

“Well…how was it?”

“Everything that led up to it was amazing. The sex itself was mind-blowing, considering it was my first time. It did feel weird at first. Before we lost our virginities to each other, we told each other how we really feel about each other. I found out he used smutty romance books for sex research. He called me his sunshine and I called him my moonlight. Bella, I’ve never felt this way about a guy before.”

She looks around, smiling up a storm.

I pull my face into my neck. “Why are you smiling like that? Please stop doing that.”

“You’re in love with him. Head over heels in love. The kind of love you read about in romance novels and watch in rom-coms. You. My. Friend. Are. In. Love.”

My face goes blank as my mouth gapes open. Bella Castillo-Ryder just made me speechless.

What are the odds?

I thought I was kidding myself when I kept saying I was in love with Noah, but I’m not kidding myself at all.

I’m in love with Noah Kaplan.

“Hold the phone. You said our virginities. He’s a?—”

I cut her off before she can finish her train of thought. “He was,” I tell Bella as a goofy smile appears on my face.

She changes the subject. “Are you going to tell him you love him?”

“I was, but I really thought he was going to tell me first. And he never did. I just don’t want to sound desperate.”

She put her hand on her forehead. “Dani, does it really matter who tells who first? What matters is that you love him. You. Love. Him. Sometimes you don’t need to hear the word ‘love’ out loud. You just need to feel it.”

Sometimes you don’t need to hear the word ‘love’ out loud. You just need to feel it.

---