Page 41 of Because of You
“It’s okay, Ben, really.” And then a flood of words comes out of her mouth. “We don’t have to do this now. Or ever. I know things have been weird lately, and it’s probably my fault because I’ve been so off with everything I have going on. You’re my best friend, and I can talk to you about things I can’t talk to anyone else about, and you really see me, and we’re here with all the lakemagic, and I just started to feel…” She slams her mouth shut, and her cheeks heat, as if she hadn’t meant to say that last thing. But I heard it. I knew I hadn’t imagined it. Everything inside me lights right the fuck up.
I take a step towards her. “What did you feel, Hal?”
She takes a step back. “It’s nothing. Really. Like I said, it’s just being here, at the lake. The whole atmosphere. That’s it.”
“You sure about that?”
She swallows, visibly. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Ben.”
“I want you to tell me what you feel.” My heart is beating so fast that I wonder if she can hear it and if it’s possible I’m going to die of a heart attack before we finish this conversation.
“Why don’t you tell me what you feel, and we can compare notes.”
“No, Hal. I asked you a question, and I need you to answer it. What. Do. You. Feel?” With each word, I take one step closer to her and I see her take a sharp breath, see the pulse fluttering in her throat. Oh yeah, this is not the look of someone unaffected by what is happening.
“I need words, Hallie.”
“I don’t know, honestly.” She takes two more steps backwards until her back is pressed against her bedroom door and she has nowhere left to go.
“I think I might know,” I say, feeling like I’m standing on a ledge one hundred stories in the air, about to jump.
“Well, then could you enlighten me so we can finish this, and I can go to bed?” She says the last part of the sentence in a whisper.
We stand there for a few seconds, staring at each other, both of our chests rising and falling rapidly. We’re close enough that each breath she takes flutters over my skin, and I can feel the warmth radiating from her body. It wraps around me andempties my brain of everything except for Hallie and me and this singular moment where everything is about to change.
“I just have to…” I trail off, not sure how to finish that sentence.
“You have to what?”
I know it has to be me. I have to make this move. It’s now or never, and it has to be now.
“Fuck it,” I say, before grabbing her face in both of my hands and laying my lips on hers. She stands absolutely frozen for a second, and I panic that I misjudged her. But then she winds her arms around my waist and starts kissing me back.
My brain fuzzes, and something loosens in my chest, and my only thought is, “yes, this.” I push my hands into her hair, stroking her jaw with my thumbs as I tilt her head back to take the kiss deeper. And she lets me. A groan slips from me when I run my tongue along the seam of her lips and she opens for me, letting my tongue sweep into her sweet mouth and tangle with hers.
Hallie Evans is in my arms, and I am kissing her, and she feels exactly as good as I always thought she would.
In that first touch of my lips to hers, my entire world unspools. We are the friends we always have been, but in this kiss, I can see all the possibilities of what we could be. What I always hoped we would be. It is heady and intense and the closest to a holy moment as I have ever had in my life. I am all feeling and instinct, and we are electric together just like I thought we would be, and all I can think is now that I have her like this, I will never be able to let her go.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Hallie
I’m kissing Ben Parker. I am kissing Ben Parker! And it feels so fucking good I never want it to end. He tastes like mint and the wine we drank by the fire, and he smells like laundry detergent and the woodsy scent that is so absolutely Ben that it should freak me out becauseoh my god, I’m kissing Ben. My best friend Ben.But it doesn’t, because Ben is kissing me like he has been thinking about kissing me for his entire life. Sparks dance across my skin, and there is a long, liquid pull low in my belly. I should be shocked by how right this feels, but somehow, I’m not.
Ben drops his hands to my waist and moves them just under the fabric of my t-shirt, his thumbs stroking the bare skin there as his mouth continues to move against mine. It feels like the world is tilting at my feet. I reach up to tangle my hands in his hair, pulling slightly, and he lets out a groan and tears his mouth away to rest his forehead against mine.
“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, breathing hard. Then his lips are on mine again, and his tongue is licking back into my mouth in a way that makes my head spin. His fingers leave a trail of fire where they streak up the bare skin along my spine and backdown again. I have been kissed before, but I have never, ever been kissed like this.
Ben’s mouth leaves mine to drift down my jaw and then to my neck. I let out an honest to god whimper and pull his lips back to mine. He comes willingly, angling his head and kissing me like he’ll die without it. He’s close enough that I can feel him hard against my leg, and a thrill shoots through me that I did that. He is hard for me. Minutes pass as we stay wrapped up as we kiss and kiss before finally breaking apart and staring at each other, breathing heavily. Ben’s eyes are wide and dark, his hair a mess. His lips are wet and puffy, and under the hand that I lay on his chest, his heart is pounding wildly.
“Ben,” I whisper, without knowing what I mean to say next.
“I know, Hal.” He covers my hand on his chest with one of his. He seems to answer the question I’m not even sure I asked.
We just look at each other for a few seconds longer, the air between us heavy and charged. Our lifelong friendship is cracked wide open, the pieces scattered, waiting to rearrange themselves into whatever new and fragile thing is forming between us right now. I don’t know what it is, but I already know it is enormous. That should be terrifying but it’s not—because this is Ben, and this is me, and this is Ben and me. Standing here while our eyes search each other’s, his filled with heat and longing and what looks strangely like relief, after kissing each other senseless, feels like the most natural thing in the world and the best thing I have ever done.
And then he closes the small distance between us and pulls me against him, one arm looped around my waist and the other hand cradling my head, holding on tight like he’s afraid if he lets go, I’ll disappear.
