MAX
As much asI wanted some alone time with Jake, the universe had other plans. By the time I got home from work later that evening, he’d been called in to help with another case.
I sighed as I locked the door and leant back against it. Jake’s scent lingered in the house, entwined with mine, but not in the way I wanted. In the way I’d imagined over the last couple of weeks.
We should’ve done this sooner.
Jake had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. How had it taken us this long to get to this point? It still didn’t seem real.
Maybe because we hadn’t had the chance to talk about things? I knew we were on the same page, felt it in the way he touched me, in the way he looked at me now, but I needed to hear him say it out loud.
I stayed up, waiting for him to get home, but I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew, Jake was shaking my shoulder.
“Hey,” he said, voice soft. “Come to bed. It’s late.”
“Shit. I fell asleep?” I yawned, my jaw cracking. “I wanted to have that talk.”
“We can talk in bed. Come on.” He held out a hand, pulling me up when I took it. “Unless you want to go straight to sleep. You didn’t get much last night.”
I huffed. “Neither did you.”
“I didn’t go into the office until the afternoon, though.” He wrapped his arms around me, lips finding the side of my neck.
I could get used to this.
For something so new, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to close my eyes and lean into him. “Not too tired,” I mumbled, wrapping my arms around his waist.
He laughed, warm huffs of breath tickling my skin. “You sure about that?”
“Yeah.” I drew back enough to meet his eyes. “I need to.”
Jake nodded. “Okay.” Taking my hand, he led the way up to his bedroom again.
As soon as I joined him under the quilt, he tucked me under his arm this time. “Who wants to go first?” he asked, fingers rubbing up and down my arm.
I smiled against his shoulder. “I will.” I took a moment to make sure I had the right words. “I can’t pinpoint when things changed for me, but they have.”
He held me that little bit tighter. “For me too.”
“You’re my best friend, Jake, and I never want to jeopardise that, but I want to see where this goes.”
He sighed. “You think we’ll be okay if it doesn’t work out?” I tensed, but before I could say anything, he was quick to add, “Not that I think it won’t, I’m just asking.”
Did I think we’d be okay? Yeah. Yeah, I did. “If we continue to be honest with each other, then yes. I think we can do this and not risk our friendship.” I reached for his free hand and linked our fingers. “But I don’t think it’ll come to that, do you?”
“No.” He pressed a kiss to my temple. “We’re gonna be great.” I felt his smile, heard it in his words. “Anything else you want to talk about?”
“Nope. I think that about covers it.”
“So now we can get to the fun stuff?”
“Definitely.” I yawned again, and Jake’s chest shook with laughter.
“Go to sleep.”
I was already halfway there. “I’ll wake you up early,” I mumbled, eyes closing.
“You do that.”
