The One

🔨 Chapter 25

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"It was Jamie! You know it was Jamie!" I jump up from her bed and pace back and forth with absolute conviction that I'm right. Prim glances down, reminding me that I'm only in my boxers.

"But why, Matty? What could possibly be Jamie's motive?" She is so sweetly naive.

I point at her, "You. He wants you, Baby. He knows I'm the competition and he's trying to get me out of the picture."

She shakes her head, "Jamie might be a little interested in dating me, but he wouldn't do something like this! Do you know how serious this is?" She has no idea how desirable she is. Jerry, Jamie, Chad, Brandon, probably countless others that I don't even know, all want her.

"Prim." I sit on the edge of the bed and look into her sweet face. "Remember how guilty he looked that morning? When he was leaving the lab? You even said he had his hand in the cookie jar."

"Oh." I can tell she'd forgotten about that. "I do remember him looking really regretful. If it was him that changed the letter that would explain why he looked so guilty."

"I bet he switched the letters and he was trying to leave before anyone saw him."

"They were locked in the cupboard, remember? How would he even get to them?"

"He works at the hospital, if anyone could do it he could! Prim, you know I'm right! He definitely had something to do with it." 

I push her back onto the bed and lay gently on top of her. The letter was a fake, which means we are not related. Which means I have held myself back from her for no reason. And Jamie caused this. He's getting a punch to the face. 

"I want to kiss you so bad right now, Prim." I bring my lips closer to hers, begging for her to give in. "Let me kiss you." Her little puffs of breath on my lips only draws me to her more.

She gives me a half hearted push but I take her hands and press them back into the mattress. She clearly doesn't want to be free. She knows one word and I would be off her in an instant.

"We shouldn't." I pout at her response. I know she wants it as much as I do. "And we don't know it was Jamie, what if it was someone else?"

I look into her eyes to see if she really believes this, "Who else? No one else knows." I drop my lips to her neck and breathe her in. "You know how badly I want you right now? Hmm?" I catch my breath at how sweet she is.

I won't deny that this new development has given me hope beyond what I thought possible. It has been a miserable couple of days. My mind flickers back to the moment I read the words 'sibling relationship' on the couch. I have been sick to my stomach ever since. 

It seems like such a cruel trick to get her back only to have her snatched away again. I can admit that I've always been a bit of a worrier. Maybe it's anxiety, I'm not sure. Prim was always the one to pull me out of my fretting, from the time we were little. She's always been so rock solidly confident that everything would work out. She is exactly what I needed over the years to keep my head above water. When I didn't have her, in college, all I cared about, worried about, was never getting her back. But I feel hope again. The possibility now of the letter being a fake is too good not to latch onto it.

Having her here in my arms is all I've wanted. The smell of her. The beauty. My Prim here with me. My whole body is attuned to her every movement, every expression. I lift my head and hover my lips over hers.

"I've been holding myself back from you for almost a week and it's killing me, Prim." I drop my mouth to her ear and whisper, "I need you." I nuzzle her neck. "Say yes, tell me I can have more. Let me touch you, Baby. Please." I know I sound desperate.