The Silicon Valley Connection

38 | faith: the mechanics of love

"I already knew it, but now that I'm looking at you, you definitely look hotter in my clothes," Aidan confirms when I walk through the door of his place.

I'm not usually a person who would wear a guy's sweatshirt as my own, but I lost in a game of 8-ball in the lounge room yesterday to him, and now I'm stuck wearing his white and black, varsity-style, SSU volleyball jacket emblazoned with BRENTWOOD and the number five on the back.

"I will take this off and grab my own sweater," warning him and trying to sound as threatening as possible, but as I'm holding eye contact with him, I'm finding it difficult to maintain a stern disposition.

He walks over to me with a smoldering and mischievous grin on his face. "Is that so?" His hands emerge from his jean pockets, fingers inching closer to my body, and before I can adequately react, he attacks me with tickles.

Writhing to get out of his grip only makes it worse as his grip tightens and his fingers move faster, and he only recedes when Nichelle and Sol walk through, hand in hand, right after me.

Nichelle turns her nose up in mock disgust, earning a deep chuckle from him.

"Get a room, you two," she mutters.

"We are in a room," he quips back.

I smack his arm. "Seriously? And you say I'm too sarcastic."

"Am I wrong, though?"

I roll my eyes, and at the sound of my ringtone, I peer around Aidan's shoulders, noting the caller ID on my phone. "It's Kacey."

I can only take two steps when Nichelle takes my phone first and launches it into Aidan's room. By the absence of sound, I'm assuming it landed on something soft.

"What the hell was that for? I was just going to answer that!"

"It was just a butt dial. No need to worry about it," Nichelle says.

"But how do you know--"

"It. Was. Just. A. Butt. Dial," she reiterates, an amplified pause between each word. She begins to drag Sol towards the door. "We should probably go help her out."

"We can help--" I begin.

"No! I mean, no worries! We can handle it, right Sol?" Nichelle waves her hands, rejecting my offer.

"Yeah, we got it. We'll be just fine," she reassures me.

"Hmmm, okay," I say, not thoroughly convinced, but let them go anyway.

I turn back to Aidan. "You looked at me like you were going to say something earlier?"

He looks up from his phone and shoves it back into his jeans pocket. "Yeah. I want--"

Blush colors his cheeks when he stops mid-sentence and runs a hand through his hair. "Never mind what I want," his voice quieter now.

I think back to all the dates and little moments we shared in between. The laughs, the tears that were spilled, and the way I opened my heart and soul again after being broken down in the past. I took a chance on an imperfectly perfect stranger, and maybe this day, this moment is when I let go of the guilt that has taken control of my self-confidence for so long.

I push him against the door and move to put a tentative kiss on his lips, and in a matter of seconds, he flips me in response, his arm pulling me up to my tiptoes. The grooves of his apartment door press into my back as he snakes a toned arm around my waist under his sweatshirt, and his free hand tugs at the hem, pulling it over my head.

Aidan's mouth rests at the edge of my lips, and my body is screaming for him to devour it. I'm screaming at him to devour it, but of course, it's in my head because my vocal cords seem to be on mute.