“How do you know he didn’t?”Because if he had hidden his feelings for her then, then what the fuck did it matter?!I was acting psycho.
Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh before she lifted her eyes to mine again.“I know.To him, I was always the friend.The girl who he went to for help with all the things.Even asking out his prom dates.”
Okay, what the fuck?
“His prom dates?”I asked, making sure I’d just heard her correctly.
She nodded.“Yes.”
I needed more than a yes.“Why?”He was a fucking dude.Why would he have asked another girl, who he had to know had feelings for him, to help him ask out someone else?That was cruel.
She cocked an eyebrow.“Are you wanting the full story?”
“Yep, Pickles, I do.”
She tilted her head to the side, and a sad smile touched her lips that distracted me momentarily.I remembered how soft they felt and how damn sweet she tasted.
“I thought he was coming to the house to ask me to prom—you know, with one of those over-the-top prom proposal things.He’d told me to meet him on the front porch, which wasn’t normal for him.”She let out a small laugh.“And so I went out there.Thinking he might do …” She paused and winced.
“Continue,” I told her, not liking where this was going.
“Ugh, this is embarrassing.Even all these years later.I was so silly.”
No, she wasn’t.It still hurt her, and I didn’t like it.
“Fine.But you’d better not laugh.”
“Never,” I assured her.
She tucked some hair behind her ear, and that sad smile was back.“I thought he had set up a … a flash mob with the football team.I don’t know why I had worked this scenario up in my head, but I had.Something to do with another guy doing it at school and Calvin asking me what I thought about it.Anyway, he wasn’t there for that.Instead, he needed my help setting up a scavenger hunt to ask out another girl to prom.”
I hated him.Dumbass piece of shit.He had to have known.Guys weren’t blind to a girl’s feelings about them.If I ever got a whiff, I ran like hell the other way.Fucker knew and asked her to help him?He needed to be throat-punched.
“Seems intelligence skipped him on that side of the family.Much like his mother.”
Her eyes widened.
I closed the rest of the distance between us and slid a knuckle under her chin to tilt her head back.“I want to be your friend.That’s all I’m good for really.But I also want to get my mouth between your legs again.It blurs the lines, and I know that.I don’t want to hurt you or make you think we are something more.So, I’m asking you now, can our friendship survive us adding sexual things?Me sleeping in this bed because, baby, you have nightmares.Or you did last night.After witnessing it, I don’t think I can sleep, worrying about you going through that shit alone.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed.
“I didn’t realize.I thought I hadn’t had one last night.I don’t remember it.I normally wake up.”
Fuck.She had been having them all along.
“I calmed you down, and you settled,” I told her.
“Thank you.”Her words were no more than a whisper.
“No need to thank me.But even if the sexual stuff is off the table, let me stay with you at night until they stop.”
She blinked.Silence.I was ready to beg for the sexual stuff, but I managed to let her work it out in her head without pushing.
“Okay,” she finally said.
“Okay to what exactly?”I needed clarification.
“To all of it.”
