I smile softly, not willing to lie. I like how he flirts with me. I don’t really want him to stop. “Maybe once or twice,” I offer.
“Twice?” he repeats. “I bet it was more.”
“And why do you think that?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “Because I’m persistent. And it helps me understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why I feel this way,” he replies.
A wave rolls over me, and I’m breathless when I ask, “And how do you feel?”
“Like I know you,” he whispers. “Know everything about you, but just can’t remember.”
I realize that I want him to guess our relationship—say it out loud so I can’t deny it. Make me tell the truth. Make me hurt us both with it, but at the same time, set us both free.
“And I feel...” Wes pauses like this is the most important part. “I feel like lying on this hard-ass cement carpet floor is almost bearable because I’m close to you.”
Silence falls over the room, and I see the first twitch of a smile on his lips.
“You want to move to the bed, don’t you?” I ask.
“Definitely,” he responds immediately, like that was the point all along.
“Fine. But only because this floor sucks.”
Wes laughs, and we grab our pillows. We head to opposite sides of the mattress. I watch him, unsure of how serious he was about knowing me. Where does his joking end? Where do my lies end?
We climb onto the bed, me under the covers, him above. I murmur good night, and he says it back. But the lightness is gone from his voice, and I wish we hadn’t moved from the floor. There we could play off the conversation. We could pretend.
I turn on my side, facing the door. I feel Wes do the same in the opposite direction.
We’re quiet, and I may have dozed off at one point. It’s still dark outside, and Wes’s breathing is calm. I can’t believe he’s next to me. I can’t believe I’m in his bed again. The way I’ve missed him is torturous. I shouldn’t have come here. I should have known it would be too difficult.
I can’t live in this constant state of dishonesty. I can’t keep things from him, not if I love him.
“Do you want to know the truth?” I whisper softly, and turn to look at the back of his head.
I don’t expect him to answer, but almost like he was waiting, he whispers back, “Yes.”
Wes turns over in the bed, facing me. His eyes are questioning, a little unsure. I’m beginning to shake, scared of what I’ll say. Scared of what it will do to him, to us.
“But I’m more interested in now,” he adds. “If I asked you how you felt about meright now, would you answer?”
My senses try to flood in, keep me from making a mistake. The past is one thing, but Wes wantsnow. And it’s the one thing I can’t give him. I’m trying to be a better person. I’m trying fucking really hard.
“No,” I reply.
“If I asked you to kiss me anyway, would you?” he whispers.
I watch the openness in his expression. That simple way Wes always had about him—this raw honesty. His fearlessness.
And despite how my heart aches for him, the word sounds like it comes from someone else when I whisper, “No.”
Wes seems shocked by my answer, but he quickly recovers and smiles.
“I bet I asked you out at least three times,” he says.
