His lips trail feather-light kisses down the side of my neck, sending shivers all over.
"I love looking at you," he breathes, brushing the hair off my shoulders. "Will you let me look at you?"
My heart hammers, a wild thing seeking his. "Yes."
So he...
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————————————— C A M I L A
I'm torn.
Turns out the biology building is limestone. Jed told me this when we ran into each other by the boulders again. He wanted to walk with me. He said, This limestone originates from the bedrock of Southwestern Ontario. I said, What the fuck is Ontario? He said, You sound ignorant, Camila. Then he was off.
Turns out Ontario is a Canadian province. Whatever, man.
The weight of Maddie's coffee in my hand feels heavy. Maybe it's just my looming decision. My duffle bag is a solid presence on my shoulder, grounding me in the normality of just another school day. But it's not. That's naïve.
Despite nearly eight hours since waking up in that hotel room this morning, my head still throbs—a dull, persistent reminder of last night's unraveling.
Apparently it was so stressful for Fox he got a nose bleed. I saw the bloody hand towel when I woke up.
I'm torn, but it should be simple—hand Maddie her coffee, let her vent, walk her to her next lab. It's what I've always done.
But things are different now. Worse. The air between us is dark and murky, heavy with an unsaid wrongness, and my sadness. It seeps into the cracks of what we used to be.
I could just turn around, walk away, let her figure out what that means. But the part of me that can't let go, the part that remembers all the evenings we've shared like this, hesitates.
I don't know what to do.
This sweater smells like Noah—like soap and the woods and something uniquely him. Wearing it feels like he's always hugging me. It helps.
I glance down at the coffee in my hand, steam curling up into the chilly morning air. I think not offering it is the bigger message. But walking her to lab, pretending everything is okay, would be a lie.
The wind of November 1st whips around me. I don't know what to do.
If she'd bothered to look at me at any point this morning, I would have a better idea. But she didn't. She wouldn't.
I woke up in a room that wasn't mine, to start.
I was wrapped up with Noah like ivy, my leg thrown over his, my head resting on the soft plane of his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart. His arm was firm around me, holding me close even in sleep.
Fox was dressed in a large black hoodie, his bed made. He saw my worried eyes on the bloody towel and assured me it was just a normal nose bleed. But hell...It left a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Fox left soon after that.
Noah's words echoed in my mind when I woke. Don't let me kiss you unless I can do it every day. Not until I can wake you up with a kiss on the shoulder. It was our promise of something more, something all-consuming, as soon as we were ready.
