the summer you noticed me ↠ conrad fisher {1}

t h i r t y - e i g h t

"I'm sorry, what?" I ask. My heart is pounding through my chest. I feel flushed and dazed. "What?" I repeat, blinking a few times as if that would flash back to fifteen seconds ago when I imagined Conrad telling me he loves me.

He sits up in front of me, never letting go of my hands. "Claire," he says. His eyes are level to mine. I watch as he looks back and forth between my eyes a few times before he licks his lips and I'm so focusing on the way his lips move that I forgot to watch his eyes. "Claire, I asked do you know how much I love you?" He says again.

I laugh, it's dry and slow. "Ha. Ha. I just imagined you saying do you know how much I love you, twice!" I say holding up a peace sign.

He grabs my hand that was still holding up a peace sign, and brings it down to my lap. "You didn't imagine it, Claire honey, I love you."

I stare at his face, his eyes are dialed. I'm watching them pulse as they bounce back and forth between my eyes. It's as if he's trying to break through my layers and see my inner thoughts. Any signs of reactions to indicate weather it was a good thing he just said that or not. The sight of his distress at my waiting causes an involuntary flutter in my stomach to go off, reminding me that I haven't said anything back to him saying HE LOVES ME.

Conrad. My Conrad. The boy I've been in love with forever, just told me he loves me.

He rubs his thumb over my cheek. "Take all the time you need to process," he smiles. "Just because I say it doesn't mean I—"

"I love you," I say cutting him off. "I love you. I love you. I am so in love with you," I say in between kisses each I love you. I press one long kiss into his that it knocks him onto his back.

"I love you," he whispers back. Each time more passionate then the last. I can feel my heart beating through my ears. He breaks the kiss and stares at me for a second.

He tilts his head to the side and clears his throat.

"Sorry this was a horrible time to do that, it's just after what you said last night about how I make you insecure and how you don't understand why I'm with you. I just wanted you to know that I love you, and I'm with you because of that. I'm not going anywhere, I'm here to stay."

      I lean back to stare at him again. "I said that?" I ask.

     His eyes widen slightly, "you don't remember that?"

     I shake my head no. "No," I hesitate suddenly feeling embarrassed. "Im sorry, I clearly was really drunk at that point." I laugh.

     "Yeah, but you seemed sincere about it. It seemed to be something you think about a lot."

     I look up at him. I take in his jaw line, trailing my eyes up through his perfect hair. I go all the way around his face till my eyes trace his lips, and finally land on his eyes.

      I stare at them, and see whats truly in them; love and vulnerability. I've never been seen the way Conrad sees me. The way he stares at me, so patiently waiting for my response. "Sometimes," I admit. "Sometimes I come up with a stupid scenario that would 150% never happen in real life. That's normally what I leave it at, I can bring myself back by reminding myself it's just stupid scenarios. Drunk me on the other hand didn't get the memo," I shrug. "I'm happy. I'm really really happy." I say.

     I press a kiss on his cheek. Then I press a kiss on his jaw line, and another on the spot right below his ear again. He shivers after I do that, and I grin knowing I found his weak spot. "Now, why don't you let me show you." I pause pressing another kiss in the same spot I just did. He lets out a small moan. "Just how happy you make me," I say and press another kiss there, making it as breathy as possible.

      I press a long soft lick from his mid jaw back to that spot below his ear, before he lets out a loud frustrated grunt where he turns his head, smashing his lips into my mind. His hands find their way to my cheeks, forcing my face down on his. Not that I'd ever want to pull away from this kiss. 

   Conrad flips us over in one swift motion, that I don't fully process until he's on top of me leaving a trail of kisses along my collar bone.

    I have never felt this urge to be closer to anyone more then I do in this moment. I tug at his shirt pulling it to the top of his shoulders. Conrad breaks the kiss for a fraction of a second only to pull the shirt over his head and have his lips back on mine before I had a chance to appreciate the show.

     My hands run up and down his back. Feeling the smoothness of his warm skin under my palm. Being skin to skin may not be close enough. This feeling is new and exciting but also really scary.

      When Conrad starts kissing down my neck, getting right above my bra line he pauses. "Is this okay?" He asks hovering over my boob.

      I pause, and shift my gaze away. I feel embarrassed because now that I've stopped to breathe, I realized I wasn't ready to go that far yet. I inhale a sharp breathe, scared that he'd be mad I wanted to stop. "No, I'm sorry I just don't think I'm ready for that just yet."

      "Don't apologize. Of course it's okay," he nods. He lays fully down on me and frankly it feels really safe. It's like my own personal Conrad weighed blanket. He brushes my hair out of my face and smiles down at me. "I love you," he grins kissing my nose. "I love you," he says again kissing my cheek, then the other.

     "Oh boy, this may take awhile," I laugh turning my head away. 

     "What, me telling you why I love you? I'm sorry that sucks an inconvenience for you," he says tickling my side. I squeal and reach for his hand.

      "Sorry! Sorry! I love you, I love you don't kill me with tickles," I squeal, attempting to squirm away. "Conrad, I'm going to pee!" I scream and he finally lets go.

      I quickly get up pushing off of Conrad and book it to the bathroom. I can hear Conrad laughing all the way to the bathroom, and the whole time I'm peeing. I don't know what was so funny about my pee run, he's lucky I didn't pee on his bed because of how long he pushed the tickles for.

Instead of being actually annoyed though, I catch myself smiling. He said he loves me. He didn't get upset and confront me about something I said when I was drunk, he loves me. He loves me!

       "When your done, go get dressed! We're going to the gym!" He shouts.