Eden

Chapter 12

To say I was okay would be the biggest lie on the planet. Hell, I could be put to death for such a blatant lie. It had been almost two hours since he had sent me to heaven and back, but right now, it felt like he was poking hot rods in my sides while we sunbathed in the lowest ring of hell.

To say the silence was awkward would be a massive understatement. I'd probably be having a more fruitive conversation with a gravestone in an abandoned cemetery and still be laughing my head off. He managed to shoot down every conversation starter I threw at him with a mini-imaginary bazooka he hid in his pockets ever since the pool incident. Yes. I'm calling it an incident because of how quickly realized it was a huge mistake.

Cade had been watching TikToks and random YouTube videos for the past hour after we tried and failed to 'Netflix and chill' on his couch. Twenty minutes into Stranger Things, our knees brushed and he suddenly needed to take a shit. He was off the couch and out of the room in record time. He'd make some killer touchdowns with that kinda speed. He came back to the room after the episode was almost over and situated himself on the adjacent couch and whipped out his phone. I stood up from where I was sitting and went to his bookshelf -or his dad's to be specific- and grabbed a book with an interesting cover and buried my nose deep within the pages.

I was artsy and imaginative, unlike Cade who was more into realism and theory. I loved books, he loved God knows what. Don't get me wrong, I was among the best science students in our school, but I had always been more inclined to the arts. I wanted to originally study something like Communications or go to Art school but my dad threw a fit. We reached a compromise where he said I could be an architect, and boy was I putting in the work for it. It was still art but in a much bigger, more permanent way. Okay sure, it may not be permanent, but at least most of my works would transcend my lifetime and that was something worth living for and working to achieve. Cade told me he had been planning to get into marine biology. Ambitious, I know, but even though he didn't show it, Cade is one of the smartest people I know. I'm sure as hell he'd be able to get in.

We had been living and breathing -barely- in this silence for over an hour. Even when I tried to get him to talk to me, he'd just try to give me one worded answers or grunts. Quite frankly, he was beginning to get on my nerves. He's here acting like I forced him to take my dick out of my pants and jerk me off. Hell, he even placed the bet himself.

I whipped my phone out of my pocket and checked the time; 1:28 pm it read. It was almost time for lunch. I put my phone back in my pocket and proceeded to fold one of the pages of the book I was reading, effectively bookmarking it so I'd know where I left off when I get back to my house.

I turned to him, taking in his appearance before speaking. His jaw was set and his brows had a slight crease to them. The skin on his forehead was a little mushed so I knew he was thinking -thinking hard. His back appeared slouched but I knew he wasn't relaxed. Far from it, even. His head was propped up by his left hand that was set under his chin, the upward force causing his lips to press against each other and give them this 'spilling' effect. His lips were red and full, the flesh coated in a slim sheen of wetness, the sight informing me that he had just licked his lips. His fingers were tapping furiously on his phone, the object dinging repeatedly in his hands. He was probably talking to someone from school or maybe they finally put him in the football team group chat.

Cade told me he was sure to get in during the tryouts next week because the captain of the team had a major say on who got in during the tryouts. He said the guy had taken a liking to him and the entire team had, too. I decided to throw caution to the wind and just tell him what I had originally planned to tell him.

"Yo," He looked up from his phone slowly, his eyes glued to the screen yet his face turned in my direction, his fingers ever blazing on the poor film of hardened silicone. He finished whatever essay he was typing on his phone and gave his attention to me.