Slowly Freaking Out

13- It Could Be Love

“Logan.”

“No.”

“Please?”

I shake my head stubbornly. “Absolutely not.”

“Just a little kiss,” Miles grins childishly at me as we’re standing in the kitchen. I’m leaning against the counter and Miles is leaning against the island right across from me. “Less than a minute, I promise.”

“No,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest and looking down at the floor because his blue eyes are way too intense to deny for so long.

“Please?” He repeats.

I can’t hold back a little laugh. “I told you that we’re not doing anything else until I tell Mae,” I remind him.

“Yeah, but Mae isn’t here at all so you can just tell her the next time that you see her and then it’ll be fine, right? It’s not your fault if she isn’t here to listen to what you have to say,” Miles tries to justify it.

It’s only been three days since Mae and Landon have made things official and they’ve spent all day everyday together, which is cute and everything, but it’s very troublesome because I’ve been spending a lot of time alone with Miles and every day, it just gets harder and harder to say no to him. I really don’t want to mess around with Miles before telling Mae about our maybe-relationship. It’s not because I’m a bad liar, because I’m not, it’s just that I hate lying to Mae, who is an amazing friend who deserves my complete honesty about this. When she gets home tonight, I’m going to tell her. I don’t care if she’s super tired or incredibly gushy about how being Landon’s girlfriend is so spectacular, I’m just going to sit her down and break it to her. She’ll be mad, I know that, but she still deserves to know and then after she knows the truth, we’ll deal with the rest.

“You can wait until tomorrow,” I mumble. “I’m not even sure anything will happen then either.”

“What do you mean?” He wonders with a confused frown.

“I mean that even after I tell Mae what’s happened so far, that doesn’t meant that I want to keep doing whatever it is that we’re doing. I still just don’t know about any of this at all.”

“You said that-“

“I know what I said,” I groan, learning farther back onto the counter. “I said that I’d think about it, and I am. Miles, I swear that I am. But I-“

I’m about to try to explain to him my continuous hesitancy about continuing some kind of relationship with him, but I’m interrupted by the door to the garage swinging open. We both jump a little bit and even though we aren’t really standing that close to each other, I side step so that I’m even farther away from Miles.

We watch as Mr. Holland walks through the door and when he sees us standing there, staring at him, he pauses a little. “What are you two up to?”

I look over at Miles, waiting for him to respond to his dad’s question, but his jaw is tense and I can tell that he’s not in the best mood now that I’ve told him that I’m still not sure about what I want. I hope he isn’t angry at me, I’m just trying to be honest.

“Nothing,” I finally say softly, trying not to make it sound awkward but I know that it does. “We’re just talking.”

“About what?” Mr. Holland inquires, walking farther into the kitchen and resting his briefcase on the kitchen island before loosening his tie from around his neck.

“Just stuff,” I say vaguely.

He raises his eyebrows at me, glancing over at Miles, and then back to me. “You two seem very suspicious. Where’s Mae?”