{COMPLETED} ✔ December Bloom

twenty'one

Norah;

"Hey, you." I heard the deep sound of a male voice behind me, whispering into my ear. I smiled and turned around to see Braden standing behind my chair with the most adorable smile on his face.

I was in the library, working on the poem project with Claire. She had wandered off earlier, heading towards the few shelves that were stacked with poetry books. I had been writing and drawing a rough draft of our project, labels and annotations written in various places around the paper, small memos too.

Braden leant forward, his blue eyes twinkling.

God, how I loved those eyes. A beautiful, amazing, pacific blue.

My own hazel eyes automatically closed, feeling his soft lips moving over my own. He kissed me so tenderly yet hungrily, I could only respond by kissing him back.

I felt his tongue come out, lightly licking my bottom lip and I sighed softly, almost inaudibly. I felt him smile against my lips, breaking our kiss yet still keeping our lips touching.

It was not the first time we had kissed in public. We'd done it a couple of times and because I was hardly alone, always with either Jenna and Wes or Braden and sometimes Dante when tutoring, none of the girls had come up to me for fear of being yelled at by my friends for calling me a slut to my face, just because I was Braden's girlfriend.

At least, they hadn't yet.

Thank god.

But honestly, I don't really give two hoots about what they call me or say behind my back. I mean, me is me. I am who I am. If I'm Braden's girlfriend, tough luck for the rest of them.

"Your lips taste like vanilla…" Braden murmured against my mouth, I giggled lightly as I felt his tongue dart out and lick my lips.

"Yep, definitely vanilla." he said softly.

We shifted slightly and were just about to kiss again when we were interrupted by a polite cough.

I turned my head away from Braden to see Claire standing there and looking down the rough draft of our presentation, her cheeks flushed.

I blushed a little.

"Sorry." she said, quietly.

"No, it's okay." I shook my head. I smiled widely at her before stepping aside to introduce them to each other.

"Um, Braden, this is Claire McHale. She's my poetry project partner. Claire, this is Braden Saunders. He's…my boyfriend." I introduced them to each other, thinking a little and rolling the word 'boyfriend' around in my head for a bit before voicing it out loud. I'd never actually voiced that Braden was my boyfriend. It was more like, 'yeah, we got together', you know, that kind of stuff.

Boyfriend. Braden Saunders.

I had squealed like a little schoolgirl would on her crush, when I had told Jenna that Braden had kissed me. Of course, I was a schoolgirl, though.

Kind of, anyway.

"Yeah, I know." Claire mumbled quietly, avoiding Braden's gaze who avoided hers. I felt confused. Yet, I shrugged it off.

"Um, Claire, I'm going to go now, with Braden. Okay?"

She nodded.

I gathered up all my things, a silent Braden watching me and following as I walked out of the library.

However, Claire suddenly called me back.

"Wait, Nors!," she said loudly but winced immediately after as the librarian glared angrily at her and shushed her since we were in a library and meant to be quiet. She adopted a more softer tone, "come by my dorm later tonight okay? I need to talk to you a bit more, about our project."