Page 20 of Grand Slam

Yes, what I asked were things I wanted to know, but the way I went about it, it was all wrong.

I don’t even know what time it is, staring up at the ceiling, watching the blades on the fan turn. The shadows it leaves on the wall from the lights filter in the window on every turn. Normally it’s that very movement that lulls me to sleep. But I can’t seem to shut my mind down.

“I don’t want to be just a friend.” I glance toward the door and until then hadn’t realized it’d even opened. But there in the partially open doorway stands Emerson. Her arms are curledaround her body, like some kind of shield trying to protect herself from my reaction.

I don’t move, I just prop my head up using my arm as I curl it behind me.

“I never wanted to be only friends.” She steps in further but never once lowers her arms. I hate how timid she seems.

I did this.

“Come here.” I hold out my hand and she doesn’t move any closer. “Em,” I say, pulling back the covers and sliding over making room. “Lay with me.”

I give her time, I don’t push. Finally she starts to walk toward me and I let out the breath I’d been holding.

The instant she is close, climbing under the sheets the smell of her shampoo hits me. A lotion and body spray, something vanilla and spice, the perfect mixture swirls around me.

For the first time since my dad walked into my place earlier I feel a calm settle over me.

Without pausing, I grab her, pulling her body as close as I can, and bury my nose in her hair. I take a few minutes to breathe her in, finding no reason to say a word, just feel what she offers by being near.

A soothing feeling like all the shit my father threw my way is insignificant.

“I don’t want to be just friends, either,” I finally say and can feel as she takes a deep breath and releases it. “The time we had before was cut short, we both knew it would be.”

“We were in two different places.” I get what she is saying. She isn’t talking about the physical distance we’d be apart. My contract was up and new opportunities arose. She was just starting college, she’d gotten a scholarship. It wasn’t our time then.

“But I’ll never regret it.” She turns in my arms, looking up at me she holds my stare. “I made a decision and I will never be unhappy about that choice.”

I notice the way her eyes shift as she looks down at my lips. I want to kiss her, I want to do more but all I keep thinking about is how she acted the first time.

“I don’t know where we go from here,” she finally confesses, looking up at me once more.

“You could move here.” She smiles at my suggestion.

“Or I could just be here now, and deal with the rest later.”

“I know I don’t want it to end here.” I push the hair back that has fallen in her face to get a clear view. “I don’t want these next few days to happen and you go back to Chicago leaving me with radio silence. I don’t want a repeat of two and a half years ago. I don’t want you to go on living your life and me living mine, only to meet up like this every so often and wasting time when we could be doing more.”

“Kelton.” She starts to shake her head and I say fuck it. Cupping her face I pull her close and kiss away the doubt she is probably having.

Dragging my tongue along the seam of her lips they part and she moans into my mouth when I deepen our kiss.

My entire body feels alive as I roll on top of her, her legs parting, accepting me.

“I’m just saying we don’t lose contact.” What I am trying to say is so much more but for now I won’t push. “We hold on to this.” I kiss her again. “Because I think we can both safely admit that what we feel for each other isn’t only lust. It’s never been that.”

“Well maybe when I was sixteen and watching you play college ball, drooling and wishing you’d notice me.”

“I noticed,” I confess and she offers me a whatever look. A roll of her eyes, her lips pursed, eyes narrowed. “You were underage and I didn’t want the possibility of my career to be derailed because I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”

“And when I wasn’t a minor anymore?”

“You’ve always been my sister’s best friend. Even when something finally did happen I took a chance of my sister hating me.” That fact bothered me more than anything else. “Had I known she knew all this time, I think I could have played everything differently.”

“And what would you have done differently?”

“For starters,” I kiss her, dragging my tongue along hers, biting and nibbling on her lower lip as I pulled back, “I would have kissed you a lot more.”

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