Everything with you

Part 58

Emma

I turned the key in the lock slower than I ever had in my life.

It was almost midnight, but the dorm floor was unusually quiet. A good sign. Maybe Hayley had already slept.

The door gave its usual soft creak as I pushed it open, holding my breath like that might somehow muffle the sound. I slipped inside, practically tiptoeing over the rug that always curled at the corner. My shoes were already in my hand. I just needed to make it to my bed. A few more steps.

"Really?" came a voice from behind the curtain of fairy lights we hung last semester.

I froze mid-step. Damn it.

Hayley sat cross-legged on her bed, mug in hand, face bare, her hair in a messy bun that meant she hadn't left the room yet. Her eyes—half amusement, half interrogation—were trained directly on me. There was no judgment in them, but I still felt the flush rise in my cheeks.

"I thought I could sneak past," I said, trying to play it off, aiming for light and breezy. It came out croaky. Busted.

She raised an eyebrow, took a sip from her mug, and said nothing. Nothing. Just look at me.

That was all it took.

My carefully crafted mental dam cracked and then collapsed entirely. I let my shoes drop to the floor with a soft thud and sank onto the edge of my bed like my legs had forgotten how to function. My voice came out quieter than I expected.

"I stayed at Justin's."

Hayley blinked. "Yeah, I got that part."

"No," I said, shaking my head, trying to find the beginning of the story that didn't feel like a mess. "I mean—I really stayed at Justin's. Like... all night. And today. And... it was different this time."

Her brows knit together, but she didn't interrupt. She just nodded slowly, urging me to keep going.

"We kissed," I said, heat rushing to my cheeks. "In the rain. I know, it sounds like a scene from a Nicholas Sparks novel, but it just happened. One minute we were arguing—because of course we were—and then suddenly I was kissing him, or maybe he was kissing me, and it didn't matter because it felt like I'd been waiting for it since we broke up."

Hayley let out a breath, half-shocked, half-grinning now, but still quiet. Still listening.

"And then we went to his place," I continued. "We just... curled up in bed. No weirdness, no pretense. And we... we slept together."

There it was. Out loud. Out in the room.

Hayley's mug paused halfway to her lips. Her eyes widened a little, but again, she didn't say a word.

"And this morning," I said, "he took me to his dad's place."

Now that got her.

"What?"

I nodded, biting my lip. "Yeah. Joanna stayed over and we went to drop her."

"My God, You're just like a married couple! "

"What! No", I say in shock which makes her laugh.

Hayley set her mug down on the desk like she needed her hands free to absorb this.

"So," she said, her voice careful now, "what does this mean, Em?"

I leaned back against the wall and stared at the ceiling. "It means... I don't know. It meant something. A lot, actually. He asked me out. For real. Like, on a date."