Chapter 8

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          For the first time in my life I was excited, real true boyish excited. Not only was this my first sleepover, this was the first time I had ever been myself, my actual, true, completely open self. Graham had looked my demons in the face without faltering. There had been no pity or judgement in his eyes, only absolute acceptance.

        "Ugh.." I moaned softly. "I forgot my toothbrush."

         "So use mine," he said with a shrug.

         I was a bit startled. He said this so quick and easy, as if this was a normal occurrence amongst boys who had known each other little more than a month and it only served to inflate my sense of status in our relationship. It seemed so... Intimate and my cheeks grew hot as I ran it across my tongue, somewhere in the back of my mind thinking that maybe this was what kissing was like.

          Things didn't get easier, my flustered face only growing hotter as I came out of the bathroom to find him laid across the bed in nothing but a pair of camo boxer briefs, cursing under his breath at his phone everytime he rolled on Monopoly go. There was no pallet set up and the way he through his phone onto the bedside table and scooted towards the wall left no doubt that we would both be squeezing into his little twin size bed.

          The toothbrush incident had me on edge, my senses on high alert, so much so that I was overly aware of the proximity of his body to mine. I could feel his breath, warm and moist on the back of my neck and it sent tingles through my body. How things could have become so complicated again so quickly I didn't know but what I did was that even though I had never had one before, this wasn't how friends felt around each other.

          The sleep that came so easy to him evaded me entirely and I lay there unmoving, listening to the sound of his soft even breathing. The heat of his skin so close to mine was a mixture of distress and excitement, and I knew that I would be awake all night despite it being three in the morning and me being so tired my eyes hurt.

           At some point I must have dozed because I awoke, suddenly aware that something was different. I had rolled over , my body pressed against his, our legs entangled and his arm draped across my waist, hand resting in the little hollow on the small of my back. Though I couldn't see, I knew, if I moved only a fraction of an inch, our lips would meet.

         

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