Page 107 of The Confidant
When she’d sent me those texts during my presentation, I hadn’t expected for her to actually follow through with what she was messaging me.
I had initially thought when the first one came through that it had simply been a test—a way to see if I could concentrate on my presentation while she distracted me.
And maybe it had started as something teasing like that. But those flirty texts had broken the barrier we’d needed to tear down for quite some time—giving us a chance to stop thinking so much about the obstacles in our way and just act on what we actually wanted for a change.
No matter how reckless those feelings might be, she had still chosen to come here to be with me now.
I continued to kiss Scarlett, letting my hands run along the sides of her legs and enjoying her smooth skin as I nuzzled my face into the perfume at her neck.
She smelled so good. Felt so good.
But I must have let my hands graze a little too high for her comfort because she covered my hands with hers, stopping their progression, and said, “Hey…h-hold on.” She swallowed. “I know things might have changed for you. But I—I’m still saving certain things for marriage.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I shook my head and lifted my hands up from where they’d gone mid-way up her legs. “O-of course. I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay.” She touched my chest. “Like…” She looked down briefly. “I’m tempted too… Part of me really wants to…” She looked back at me in the darkness, and from the wanting in her eyes, I sensed that she might be feeling exactly the same way I did in that moment. “But I don’t want to go further than kissing.”
I nodded and swallowed. “Yes. I—I wasn’t actually planning to go any further…” I tried to think, but my brain wasn’t really working right now. “I just got a little carried away.” I took a step back, knowing I probably looked super turned on right now.
She slipped off the counter, readjusting her skirt so it rested more modestly around her legs. “It just seems to be how it is with us. Getting carried away.”
“Yeah…” I agreed, my voice sounding froggy. “It does.”
And almost as if on cue, her watch started glowing in the dimly lit room with an alarm.
“Looks like it’s time for our study session.” She silenced the vibration on her wrist. “Everyone will probably wonder where we’ve been if we don’t get there soon.”
“You’re probably right,” I said, even though I really didn’t care if anyone knew what we were doing.
It would actually be kind of nice to shout from the rooftops about how much I was in love with my best friend.
But since we still had so much uncertainty in our path, I would be fine keeping this just between us.
For now.
“Do you know if there’s a light over here?” Scarlett asked.
“Yeah,” I said, taking a few steps to the right. “Pretty sure there’s one right here.”
I felt around the wall for a second until I found the switch that lit the storage area. After my eyes adjusted to the unfamiliar brightness, I grabbed my blazer and slipped it on.
Scarlett picked up her blazer, too. But instead of putting it on, she set it down on the counter and said, “Looks like I messed up your hair.”
And I loved that instead of letting me try to fix it, she stepped close to me again and tamed it herself.
“What about me?” she asked when she was done with my hair. “Do I look okay?”
“You look beautiful,” I said, not needing to look at her to know that.
Her eyes sparkled with my compliment, but then she said, “Seriously though, is my hair okay? Or does it look like I was just ravaged by a beast in here?”
“It’s not quite beast level.” I chuckled as I smoothed her hair back down. “But it definitely looks like an eighteen-year-old guy may have had a little fun kissing you.”
“I guess that’s fair since I had fun kissing him, too,” she said, and my heart flipped when I met her gaze because it looked like she really meant those words.
We grabbed our backpacks, and after I switched off the storage area’s light, we walked to the door. Before we could leave, I briefly wondered how things would go after we stepped back into the hall.
Would they go back to normal? The way they’d been most of the year?
