Our indelible pasts|✔

sixty nine - sandra's indelible past

MY EYES FLUTTER open and I'm immediately greeted by the beauty that is Bryson's hazel eyes.

"Good morning." He says, a smile on his face.

"Morning." I literally croak out, voice as hoarse as ever.

"I wish you could come with me today." Bryson reminds me of his plans to go to LA and I feel a surge of guilt build up inside of me.

"Yeah, me too." I say, hoping the nerves aren't clear in my voice.

He plants a kiss on my forehead and then says, "Alright, I'm going to go get ready" before making his way out of bed.

My eyes trail him as he walks to the bathroom and I'm left trying to convince myself that I'm doing nothing wrong, and that I will not. But the fact that I am hiding this from Bryson tells me otherwise. If I was not doing anything wrong, I would have told him already.

Gosh, no one told me that convincing yourself was one of the hardest things in the world to do.

I'm about to hide under the covers in frustrations when I feel my phone vibrate from under my pillow. I grab it and read the text that does the exact opposite of calming me down.

Dylan: Are we still on for today?

"I'm doing nothing wrong." I whisper to myself before typing back a reply.

Me: Yeah, see you later.

Doing my best to push my guilt to the side, I put my phone back under the pillow and try to get a few more minutes of sleep. It's far too early to be stressing like this.

***

"Hey." I say to Dylan as I hug him back.

"Hey." He lets me go and takes a look over at my outfit. "Isn't it a bit too close to winter to be in a dress."

"It's never too cold to wear this dress." I smile at my favourite dress as I take a seat.

I take a look around me, taking notice of the pristine touch of class this restaurant has. With chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and classical music playing in the background, I can't help but wonder how Dylan can actually afford to be here with no living parents.

"It's pretty nice in here, right?"

"Yeah, it is." I peel my gawking eyes back to Dylan. "If just the restaurant looks like this, I'd love to know how the rest of this hotel looks. How could you possibly afford this?"

"I can't." He says and I knit my eyebrows at him. "A friend knew I wanted to come check out the schools in New York and offered to get me a hotel room. His dad owns the place so I'm not paying a dime to be here."

"Lucky! Your friend is really nice." I say. "Last I checked, just like it is for me, this is way out of your budget."

"Yeah, it really is." He laughs just before a waitress comes to take our orders.

We take our orders and Dylan gives her his name which raises my eyebrows in confusion.

"Oh, you're the one that's here under Mr. Gray?" The waitress asks and my confusion is cleared.

"Yes."

"We have a lot of reservations in the restaurant tonight so it could get loud. You can go up to your room and we'll have your food and drinks brought up to you if that's okay." The waitress suggests and the moment it dawns on me that she's talking about the room Dylan is staying in, the guilt I had managed to push down comes rushing right back up.

"Uhm...I don't mind. Do you?" Dylan turns to my panic-stricken self.

"Huh?" I ask, trying to cool my nerves. "Your room?"

"Yeah, if that's okay with you."

I smile nervously. "Yeah, why not?"

"Great. We'll have your orders up in a few." The waitress says before stalking off after giving the world's worst suggestion ever.

"Well...let's go then." Dylan says getting up from his seat and I nervously follow suit.

As we make our way to his hotel room, I do my best to not see this as a bad thing. I mean, Dylan and I were great friends first before we were anything else. This is something we would have comfortably done back then. And now that we are back to being just friends, I shouldn't be worried.

He is just a friend. Nothing more.

"We're here." Even though Dylan says that gently, it startles me as I was so stuck in my own head.

I watch as he hovers the key card over the sensor before we hear a click of the unlocking door and he pushes it open.

He gestures for me to go in first and I take small steps into the hotel room, hoping that my legs won't give up on me.

"What do you think?" Dylan asks and I hear him shut the door.

I look around and notice he has a king-sized bed and the door to the unsuited bathroom is open revealing a fancy bathtub and shower. I move a couple steps forward to step onto the balcony with an incredible view of the New York night skyline like one I've never seen before.

"Wow." I breathe out.

"Wow is what I said too when I first came here." He says as he stands dangerously right next to me. "This is the room my friend stays at when he comes to New York."

"You should really connect me to this friend of yours." I chuckle, trying my best to ignore the warmth I feel on my right arm which is the one his left arm is closely touching.

"Keep sticking around and I will." He says and I look up to find him looking right at me, sending my heart into a spiral.

"Room service." There's a knock on the door thankfully interrupting this...moment.

"That was quick." I let out a breath before quickly making my way to the door, desperate to put distance between Dylan and I.

"Thank you." I say to the waitress before she leaves the room after she brings in the food and places the contents on the table.

I push the door close, turn around and my breathing halts for a moment when I see Dylan standing right in front of me, his minty breath fanning my face.

We stare at each other for a few moments, neither of us saying anything or moving but I will say, my mind is racing. As I look at him, I keep finding my eyes landing on his lips and my thoughts telling me to do the one thing I said I wouldn't do today, but here I am, feeling the burning urge to just do it.

Nervous as hell, but even more tempted, I make the first move and lock my lips with his and the moment that I do...I find myself wanting more than just his lips touching mine.