Brian sat me up, and looked at me with a frown. He slowly nodded and said "You wanna get out of here?"
"Sure," I whispered. I was tired, and sobering up, but this conversation needed to happen. And it needed to happen tonight.
"Will you stay?" Brian asked quietly, not looking at me. I nodded. We said our goodbyes, and after promising Oli I would be back before we had to check out, we left Joe's house.
We drove back to Brian's in silence. I stared out of the window trying to work out how to articulate what I wanted to say. Every few minutes Brian would glance in my direction, or open his mouth to say something but he never did. We reached his house in good time, the traffic through the city being fairly light at this time of night. I followed Brian into the house and sat on the sofa while he tended to the cats.
Once he was done, he joined me on the sofa and held my hand. I turned to face him. "I don't know what to do for the best, Brian." I started. "My heart is telling me one thing, my head another. I want to be with you but I don't see how when I can't trust you."
He squeezed my hand tight. "All I want is to be with you. No more messing around. I want you, nobody else. Let me prove that to you. And the trust will come. I hope. We can throw whatever title at it that you want, I will check in with you hourly if that's what it takes, but I swear to you...on my cats lives...that I will never hurt you again. Please Shae. Just give me one more chance? " He leaned over and kissed me lightly. I couldn't help but react. I pulled deeper into the kiss, my hands knocking his hat off as I ran them through his hair.
I pulled back, breathless. "I don't want to be that jealous girl who has to account for her fella's every movement..." I hesitated, biting my lip. "But...right now...I think that's what I need." I really did hate to be that girl but my insecurities were on high alert at the minute and I couldn't think of anything else that would ease my mind. Not when he was thousands of miles away from me.
"Then it's done." He smiled. "Plus there's only a few weeks til Thanksgiving. That is if you still want me over?"
"Of course I do." I whispered. "Ok, I can do this. We can do this." I gave Brian a small smile, which turned into flown blown laughter when he launched himself at me, knocking my onto my back and kissing every inch of my face and neck.
"Thank you Shae." He murmured into my neck. "I promise I won't let you down."
I put my hands on either side of his face and lifted it to look at him. "That's it now. We don't talk about it anymore. We move forward."
"You're right." He said, kissing me on the nose. "Now we only have a few hours til you have to leave. I want to make the most of it." He kissed me passionately, his hands sliding up under my t-shirt.
We sat on Brian's porch, wrapped in blankets, watching the sun rise. "I wish you could stay" Brian said, pulling me closer to him.
I sighed. "I wish I could too. But I've got to get shit ready for school."
He kissed the top of my head. "I know. Can I drive you to the airport?"
"Of course," I replied, chuckling as Brooklyn jumped up into my lap. I stroked her gently. "I'm going to miss these three almost as much as I'm going to miss you. Maybe a little more."
"Hey..." Brian nudged me, pretending to be mad. "You hungry?" He asked. I nodded and laughed as my stomach made itself known. Brian held his hand out to me and pulled me up from the chair, before leading me inside. I sat with my coffee at the breakfast bar and watched him as he littered around the kitchen making breakfast. I really hoped I could move on from all this. Because right now, this was almost perfection.
Too soon it was time to leave Brian's and check out of the hotel. The ride back was silent, Brian held my hand almost the whole way back, running his thumb across the back of my hand. Brian said he would wait for us in the lobby, I think he knew that I would want to talk to Oli alone.
I opened the door to our room and found Oli anxiously pacing. "Thank fuck you are back." She muttered, still pacing.
I sat down on the bed. "Brian's waiting downstairs to take us to the airport. Will you stand still please? What the hell is wrong with you?!" I grabbed her arm to pull her to a stop.
"I erm...I kinda...kissed Casey after you left last night." Oli bit her lip, embarrassed.
I grinned at her. "Awesome! But why the stressing now?" Either I was confused from lack of sleep or she wasn't telling me something. "Olivia. What else happened?"
She flopped down on the bed and covered her face with her arm. "Urgh!" She cried. "After...that...Sal went really weird with me. He barely spoke to me the rest of the night, but then insisted on driving me back here. He was really mad...and, god I don't know how it happened...but we kinda ended up hooking up."
"Oli!" I groaned.
She threw her arms up in the air. "I know Shae! I'm surprised you didn't see him, he only left about 5 minutes before you opened the door."
"Hang on..." I grabbed my phone and text Brian, telling him to look for Sal. "Do you like him?" I asked Oli.
"Sal? I don't know. I never thought of him like that."
"Oh come on, you have flirted with him since day one!" I laughed.
"Yeah but that's because he's a Joker, you know. I never thought about anything beyond that."
"What about Casey?"
"Yeah..." She sighed.
I jumped up and threw myself onto her bed, hugging her tightly. "How do you always end up in these situations, Ol?" I asked.
"Don't..." She groaned.
I stood up and started checking the room for anything is forgotten. "Right come on, you little hussy. Get your things, it's time to go."
Oli rolled off the bed and checked the bathroom. "So you and Brian...?" She asked.
"Are ok. We're gonna try and make this work."
"I'm glad Shae. You two are really good together, if you can move past this, things will be excellent."
