Page 16

“Oh, yeah, why’s that?” he asks, cocking an eyebrow as he leans against my car.

“Trey, I carry a Taser and pepper spray, and I’m not afraid to use them.”

He laughs, holding his hand out in front of him in surrender before motioning to the theatre in front of us. “Shall we?”

I nod, and he slips his arm over my shoulders as we walk toward the building. I do my best to ignore the buzzing heat that courses through my body from his touch but it’s hard to do.

We’re just friends.

We’re just friends.

We’re just friends.

“So, what do you want to see?” I ask, hoping to distract myself as I continue to repeat that phrase in my head.

“I was looking at the movies while I was waiting for you, and 10 Cloverfield Lane looks good.”

I nod in agreement. “Sounds good.”

Trey keeps his arm around my shoulder as we stand in line for our tickets and insists on paying for mine also. As soon as he has them, his arm goes back around my shoulders, and he guides me into the snack line. If I didn’t know better, I would say that this was a date. It certainly feels like a date.

Jesus, Addy. Get a grip.

We get our popcorn and sodas before filing into the dark theatre and grabbing two seats in the very back, just as the previews begin to play. There’s a teenage couple sitting to my right and as soon as the lights go down, they are all over each other. I nudge Trey and motion to them. He starts laughing softly, and I join him as we get a nice shot of the boy shoving his tongue into her mouth.

“Ah, to be sixteen again,” Trey whispers to me, and I giggle, clamping my hand over my mouth so they don’t hear me. After a couple more seconds of making fun of them, we turn to watch the movie, the tub of popcorn wedged between us.

About halfway through the movie, I glance over at Trey, and for some reason that I can’t explain, my gaze is drawn to his hand sitting on the arm rest between our seats and I have the urge to reach out and lace my fingers between his. My heart races as I think about what it would feel like, and I wonder if that buzzing heat I felt earlier would reemerge. Shaking my head, I force myself to look back to the screen but now that the thought has entered my head, I can’t seem to focus on anything else. And the more I tell myself to not think about it, the more it seems to take over my mind until I’m not even sure what’s happening on the screen in front of me.

The couple next to us is still making out, and then an image pops into my mind of kissing Trey. After our conversation last night, I went home and forced myself to stop thinking about it but I can’t deny that it’s been difficult to control. I have this undeniable urge to lean over and press my lips to his right now, and in the dark of the theatre, hidden by shadows, I almost talk myself into doing it.

What the hell is going on with me? Maybe I’m finally losing my mind. Maybe the stress I’ve been under for the last year is finally making me crack except when I look over at Trey, kissing him doesn’t seem that crazy at all. When did things change? When did I start seeing him differently? Or maybe, I’m just in such desperate need of affection that I’m latching on to my friend, someone I know I can trust.

I may have only broken up with Kyle a week ago but he really hadn’t been around much before that, and it pains me to say that I can’t remember the last time we had sex – not that it was earth-shattering or anything. The thing with Kyle is that he’s very by the book. He didn’t kiss me unless we were getting intimate or he was leaving, and the sex was very vanilla. It wasn’t what I wanted.

I want a man that’s so crazy about me that he’s just happy to sit on the couch with me and make out like we’re a couple of teenagers again. I want someone to love me so fiercely that they want to be constantly touching me, even if it’s just holding my hand or pulling my feet into their lap. I want a love that’s so overwhelming that he has to take moments out of his day to just stop and kiss me because he can’t do anything else. It may be crazy, an immature dream, but it’s what I want. The concerning part is that when I was thinking about all those things, the man in my mind was Trey.

“Dude, this movie is so weird,” Trey whispers in my ear, his warm breath rushing over my skin, and I fight back a shiver as my eyes drift closed. Why the hell does that suddenly feel so damn good? Forcing my eyes back open, I peek over and find him staring at me with fire in his honey eyes.

“Uh, yeah, it is,” I whisper back, hoping that he doesn’t question my reaction to him. What the hell would I tell him? That I’m pretty sure that I’m falling hard for him?

Yeah, right.

He studies me for a moment, his gaze boring into me like he can read me like a book, and I shift in my seat, wondering just what he’s seeing when he looks in my eyes. Finally, he smiles and shrugs.

“Sorry. You can pick the next one. Okay?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I say, releasing a sigh of relief as I turn back to the screen and do my best to avoid looking over at him for the rest of the movie.