“The point would be that you could come back and we wouldn’t have to sneak around.”
“When am I coming back?”She spreads her hands wide, and there’s something almost desperate in the gesture.“I might be coming up in the summer for a weekend, but I’m busy the next few weeks in the city?—”
“I’ll come visit you.”
She looks at me like I’ve just suggested flying to the moon.“Why, Silas?What’s the point?”
The question lands like a punch.“The point is I want to see you again.”
“For what?More sex we have to hide from my brother?More lying to your best friend?”Her voice is getting sharper, more defensive.“This was supposed to be just one night.Just for now, remember?”
“I remember.”I do.I remember every word.“But maybe I want more than just for now.”
She flinches.“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this more complicated than it already is.”She’s looking anywhere but at me now.“We live in different places.You have your life here, I have mine in New York.My brother is your best friend.This was always going to be temporary.”
She’s talking herself out of this.I can see it happening in real time.
I don’t know what the point is, except that IlikeBailey.I’ve missed her more than I realized, and even though she loves living in the city and I love living in Here, I want to see her again.Fifteen-year-old Silas would absolutelykick my assif I let Bailey leave just like that.
So I use the best argument I have in my quiver.I grab Bailey’s ankles and yank her toward me.She squeaks and slides on the linoleum floor, laughing, and I use the momentum to pull myself over her body so we end up toe-to-toe, nose-to-nose.I plant a kiss on her lips.“During last night’s pillow talk, you told me your sex life was blah.”
She rolls her eyes.“I don’t think I used those exact words.”
“Was last night blah?”
I’m in the cradle of her legs and I thrust lightly against her so she can tell how I felt about last night.Her eyelashes flutter.“It wasn’t blah,” she admits.
I kiss her again.“So let me come visit you.”
Her body melts underneath me as she gives in.“I guess we can get it out of our system.”
Get it out of our system.Like this is just physical.Like we can scratch this itch and move on.
She actually believes that.
I don’t correct her.Not yet.Let her think this is temporary, that we can go back to being Hunter’s sister and Hunter’s best friend after a few weekends together.
But I’ve wanted Bailey Price since I was fifteen years old.I’ve watched her from afar, convinced myself she was off-limits, talked myself out of it a thousand times.
And now that I’ve had her?Now that I know what it’s like to make her laugh, to watch her sleep in my bed, to see her lying on my kitchen floor with my cat on her chest like she belongs here?
I grin and help her to her feet, pulling her in for one more kiss.“Yeah,” I lie.“Just getting it out of our system.”
Bailey will never be out of my system.And I’m going to do my best to make sure that when Hunter eventually punches me, it’s because I’m dating his sister.
Not just sleeping with her.
Bailey
“More blueberries?Really, Bailey?”Mom’s voice has that particular edge to it.The one that sounds like a question but absolutely isn’t.
I freeze with my hand over the bowl.“I was?—”
“It’s just that you’ve already had quite a bit.”She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.“Fruit has so much sugar, you know.Natural sugar, but still.”
