That Summer Feeling: SUMMER 4EVER [H.S.]

32. Late Night Talking

LACEY

"Feel anything yet?"

"I don't think so." My voice draws out monotone to keep a still face so my sheet face mask doesn't move. "You?"

"Not yet."

I smile as soon as I turn to Harry, spotting the slimy white sheet mask thinly smoothed over his chiseled face with the holes cut out for his eyes and nostrils. His hair is tied up in a small black clip and his body is bundled in a white robe across the bed from me, half sitting up, half laying down with an ankle crossed over the other.

He turns stiffly when I start to laugh. "What?"

"Hold on," I reach for my phone on the nightstand, quietly giggling. Harry begins to question my motives again. "Stay like that."

I stand up and aim the camera at him, snapping as many pictures of him as I can before he processed what I was doing and tried to stop me. He rolls his eyes when he does.

"I don't know why you're laughing at me so much when you look the same. It's like looking in a fucking mirror— Alright, Lacey, enough." He tries to act serious but the apples of his cheeks give his smile away.

"Hold on, one more." My laughter doesn't falter as I climb over the bed again and angle the camera at us this time, not ashamed that I want to capture this moment.

Harry ends up having to take the pictures because I couldn't stop laughing and shaking the camera around— a tell-tale sign that I am, indeed, feeling it.

"This is the best we've ever looked," Harry chuckles as he hands me my phone back.

I was seconds away from clicking on one of the many pictures of us and sending it to my mom and my friends, even to Eli, just for fun until I got a hold of myself, mentally noting that would not be a good idea.

I stayed far, far from my phone, tossing it back on the nightstand with my notifications turned off. I've been living blissfully in ignorance for the past week, what's another night going to change?

It's weird— not the shift that took place between Harry and me since we kissed but that it doesn't feel like the shift itself actually happened. It just feels like we paused seven months ago and picked right up where we left off.

I should probably be more conscious of what we're doing and stop and wonder if we even should be doing it, but I spent so long hoping to be with him like this again. Used up so many cold nights wondering if I'll even ever see him or hear his voice that I'm not about to pause and ruin it all over again. I don't want to question anything anymore, I don't want to deprive myself of what I truly want.

"Let me see that." My fingers wiggle together while I stare at the opened cannabis-infused dark chocolate bar sitting on the nightstand beside Harry.

"This?" He grabs it and holds it up to me but quickly moves his hand back, quietly breathing a laugh through his nose. "I didn't hear a please."

"No, but I've heard plenty from you earlier."

His smile deflates and he hands me the chocolate without another word.

I eye the matte purple packaging, reading over the soft golden words printed on the back label. It says it's supposed to take at least forty minutes for effects to kick in and from the time we each had a small square to how long it took us to get settled in our matching robes, apply the face masks, and spend a few minutes laying down to regain energy, surely it was getting close to that time range.

"So how'd you confuse the chocolates?"

"They look the same but one says sleep on it in big, bold fucking letters." He chuckles, tilting his head back on the pillow and closing his eyes. His hands lock over his stomach, fingers lightly drumming. "Rookie mistake."