Begin Again // Calum Hood

Chapter 21.

Calum's POV

I'd just woken up and decided to play some video games, something I hadn't done in a while. I put in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, sat back, and started to play. Some time later, I saw Amber's bedroom door open out of the corner of my eye. She ruffled my hair as she walked by, causing a smile to creep across my face.

She has some sort of unexplainable effect on me. She makes me so happy but so unhappy at the same time. She's the first person to do this to me, and it's pretty upsetting. With all the other girls, it's usually attraction at first sight, talking, fucking, and that's pretty much it. Sometimes a text the next morning if you were lucky. With Amber, I want to hold her and touch her all day. I want to know her better than anyone else and for her to know me. Surprisingly, we aren't sick of each other yet. She's so kind to me and she doesn't know that I like her this much. I think she knows I have a crush, but not the extent that I do. I love when we talk, I hate when we have sex. Well maybe not hate. Of course it's nice, but I want to actually make a connection with her. Also because half the time I'm pretty sure she's imagining me as Michael and that thought doesn't seem to be very sexy. Nonetheless, I could never break the agreement because she's doing this behind Michael's back and has enough trust in me to do this. That means a lot to me so we can keep going. Plus the sex isn't half bad.

I heard her door open behind me and a few steps towards me.

"I thought about what you asked about the other day." She whispered in my ear from behind.

"And what is that?" I angled my head towards her.

"The showering together thing." My eyes got a little wider. "I actually needed to shower now, and wondered if you also needed to shower." She flicked her eyes down to my lips. She looked in my eyes again, smiled and walked into the bathroom. Of course, I paused my game and followed her. I shut the door and immediately attached my hands to her waist and my lips to her collarbone. She pulled the bottom of my shirt up and over my head and I pulled her sweatshirt off to leave her in a white tank top. I slipped my hands underneath it and brought my lips to hers. She to trailed her fingers down my abs to the fly of my pants. Something felt off, but I kept going anyway. She began to unbutton them when I pulled away.

"Stop. I don't think I can do this." I mumbled. She brought her hands back to her sides.

"What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure. Something just feels off." I scratched my arm and looked into her beautiful green eyes. They seemed to sparkle even in the poor lighting of the room.

"What do you mean?" She tilted her head slightly.

"I'm not sure. This just feels, wrong today." I shrugged.

"Okay. That's fine. I'll just shower by myself. Thanks for coming in here though." She laughed.

"Uh, yeah." I paused, then grabbed my shirt and awkwardly left the room.

I should have told her. I should have fucking told her how I feel. Why is this coming to be so hard for me? I talk to her all the time, but yet the words "I really like you" can't come out of my mouth as easily as I want.

She said she told Michael that she loves her but I know she doesn't. There's no way. I've never been in love but they way she looks at me can't mean she loves Michael. I mean, I hope I'm not just being just delusional, but she acts more open around me as far as I've seen so maybe that could mean something. I'm not saying I'm in love with her but, damn. I don't know how I feel.

I returned to the couch to drown my thinking out with some mindless video game violence. After a while, my thoughts wouldn't stop so I paused it and got on my phone. I should get ahold of Luke to meet up with him and maybe I could explain all this shit to him, he's a good listener and pretty smart too. I dialed his number.