Page 17 of If the Stars Align
“I know.” Dex pulls me in close again, one hand around my waist, the other cradling the back of my head. “It’s okay. We’re home now.”
I smile as Dex takes my hand and leads me to the kitchen to get a beer. “Okay,” he says when we both have drinks. “Tell me everything I’ve missed.”
We only talk to each other the rest of the night. On a soft suede couch in the living room, we sip Natty Lights in red Solo cups and talk about the highlights of freshman year. About drinking games, and late night mac and cheese cooked in illicit crockpots. About open mic nights, and acing pop quizzes on three hours of sleep. About frat parties and fragmented memories of spring break. I tell Dex about the fake IDs my friends and I made with packing tape and hotel keycards, and he laughs and makes me show him mine.
“There is absolutelynoway that you actually got into a bar in Chicago with this thing,” he says, still laughing and flicking the card for emphasis.
“I did! You have to believe me!” I insist, playfully squeezing his shoulder, then letting my hand travel down the length of his arm. He curls his fingertips around mine for a few seconds before letting go.
“Well, this is the worst fake I’ve ever seen, so I’m guessing they let you in because you’re pretty,” he says, looking down at his cup.
I feel a smile start to creep onto my lips, and I quickly take a sip of my drink in an attempt to hide the gigantic grin that’s looming behind it. This is the first time Dex has ever called me pretty.
Just then, Mia swoops in. “Hey, Dex!”
“What’s up, Mia,” he says with a smile. He stands to give her a hug, and when he sits back down again, he rests his arm on the back of the couch—around me.
“I think I’m going to head out,” Mia tells Dex. “Did you drive? Would you mind giving Sunny a ride home?” Then she turns toward me. “Is that okay?” The way she looks me in the eye, Iknowshe’s leaving early on purpose. And I absolutely love her for it.
“Of course,” Dex and I both say at the exact same time. Then we look at each other and smile.
“Perfect! I know you guys have a lot of catching up to do. Call me tomorrow, Sunny!” Mia yells as she zips through the crowd toward the door.
Dex tilts his head toward mine so he doesn’t have to shout above the drunken squeals behind us. “It’s really loud down here,” he says. “Do you want to go upstairs?”
I smile and nod. And when I do, he looks at me with those eyes—the same eyes I saw him give Jenna at prom, during the last slow dance. The ones that made me cry alone in a stall.
But his eyes are fixed on me now. My face is so hot I feel feverish.
And then we’re in the guest room, sitting on the bed. The door is locked.
Dex’s gaze travels from my eyes down to my lips. He looks like he wants to devour me. My blood pulses in all the places I’m desperate for him to touch me.
He leans in slowly, and he kisses me so softly, I’m almost convinced I imagined it. But when I touchmy hand to his face, he’s there, and he’s real, and I smile, and he kisses me harder this time, and I kiss him back, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.
“Wow,” Dex says breathlessly, barely tearing his lips away from mine. “You’re a really good kisser.”
“You too,” I say with a smile before we continue making out. After a minute or two, he pulls away and looks at me, his thumb sweeping across my cheek.
“They’re happy tears,” I say.
A part of me wonders if I should feel embarrassed—but I’m honestly too fucking ecstatic to care. Dex kisses me again, then moves his mouth to my neck, and just the touch of his lips on my skin is already infinitely more pleasurable than a hundred nights I spent with Chris.
I straddle Dex’s lap and peel off my shirt, grateful that I decided to wear my good bra tonight. He leans back, and his gaze falls from my eyes, to my chest, and down to my waist.
He shakes his head. “Mygod, you’re sexy.”
“I have boobs now,” I tell him with a giggle.
Dex lets out a breathy laugh as his eyebrows lift. “I see that.”
When his gaze meets mine again, we stop laughing, and his expression shifts, like suddenly he remembers I’mSunny. His childhood best friend—just a more grownup version.
And that’s when he closes his eyes and kisses the space on my chest where my heart lies, beating for him, and only him.
My hands move up his muscular arms and over his broad shoulders and up the nape of his neck until my fingers are in his hair, and he wraps his arms tight around me and we kiss like it’ssomething we’ve done a million times before.
Then, with one hand still wrapped around my waist, he moves his other hand up my thigh and under my skirt. “Can I touch you?” he asks me softly.
