Page 115 of What I Like About You

In between kisses, Nash slips my cardigan off my shoulders.

Then he pulls my T-shirt off over my head.

It’s cold, so I pull one of the fleece blankets over us. I’m still on his lap, kissing Nash, his skin hot against mine and oh myGodthis is so good. Nash’s fingers graze my lower back and his hand slides slowly up, up, up to the clasp of my bra. I don’t even feel self-conscious, not for one second.

But then his hands are gone and his lips are too far away from mine. I push forward to kiss him more but he pulls away.

“Oh my God.” Nash pulls the blanket off and it’s too bright. I blink to readjust to the florescent basement lights. When I do, Nash is putting his shirt back on. Inside out.

“Nash?” I ask.

He doesn’t saywhat?or offer, like, any sort of explanation.

He just throws my shirt at me.

I’m not even joking. It lands on my head.

“My parents,” he says. “They’re, like—right upstairs. What if they—and we were … ?”

“Oh,” I say.Oh.

I got so wrapped up in Nash, inus, I totally forgot about that. Andrea and David upstairs while we were … well, Nash is right.Oh my God. I pull over my T-shirt and button every single button on my cardigan. Brush out my tangled hair with my fingers. Situp straight against a chair, like how we started, and let my breathing steady. I look at him, my cheeks flaming.

It’s okay, though, because his are also on fire.

“That was the opposite of slow,” I say.

“I wanted to.”

“Me too.”

“I just don’t want our first time to be in my parents’ basement while they’re upstairs watchingSeinfeldreruns.”

Oh my God, you can legit hear Jerry’s voice through the ceiling. I cover my hand with my mouth and laugh so hard.

“Soromantic,” I say.

Nash joins my laughing fit and we are okay. More than okay.

We restart the episode ofStranger Thingsand cuddle until I have to be home for curfew. I can’t focus on the show because I can’t stop thinking about Nash and me. How did we get so intense, so fast? I’m not sure.

But I am sure that I want to keep kissing Nash forever. Getting carried away with him forever.

I’m sure that I’m falling for him, and not only for a moment.

And I’m sure, I amfinallysure that I can’t keep this up. Nash shared REX sketches with me, Halle—and I saidI knowbecause Idoknow. Because I’m Kels. And as much as I’d like to continue to compartmentalize and pretend it doesn’t matter now, it does. Of course it does. I can’t keep doing things like this. I can’t keep waiting for the right moment or finding reasons not to tell him.

I know I can’t lose him; I don’t know why I ever thought I could.

I know I might lose him, and if I do it’s my own fault.

He was never going to wish Kels was someone else because she couldn’t be. She’sreal. It’s all been real.

He’s not going to hurt Kels online or any of the other million excuses I’ve come up with.

If he hurtsme, well—I probably deserve it.

March 1

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