Sunshine || Jai Brooks

chapter eight; trust

In the kitchen he had caught up with her. She ran around the island, trying to catch her breath while she stared him in the eye. He did the exact same. "Why don't we move on and forget that I ever refused to answer why you're such an asshole?"

"You're making it even worse by saying 'such an asshole'."

"Oh, wow. Should I be afraid now?"

"You probably should be."

"Oh, yeah?" she teased him, biting her lip and then she was too late to react. Jai was running towards her and she wanted to run, but as quick as he could he wrapped his arms around her and pulled against him. By that, they fell on the floor and started to laugh.

Jai was first to get silent, after a few second her giggle was also trailing off into nothing. He rested his back against the counter and sighed deeply, glancing at her. Aileen glanced back, blush creeping onto her cheeks once again but this time it wasn't about embarrassment, or nervousness. It was more the tension around them. That tension that made her have the urge to kiss him right here and there, and hands traveling down her side in a non-ticklish way. That tension she realized she had never had with Luke and was still waiting to come. "Can I ask you something, something about you and my twin brother?"

"I don't know."

"That's fine," he smiled, knowing he just imitated what she had said more than an hour ago. "What is it between you and him? If there's no relationship, if you still haven't defined it. How do you think of him?"

"Luke?" she shrugged. "I think there is something about him that reminds me of every crush I've had. Those crushes that makes me feel all tingly inside and die at same time, because you think there's something there but you know there's not. Luke is sweet and funny, and always says these things that makes me want to jump in the air and squeal, but also hide and hope he'll never find me." She played with her fingers. "I don't know. What do you want me to say?"

"That maybe you're slowly falling for him."

"I'm not."

"Why not?"

"I don't feel it's happening."

"You kissed him."

"We kiss, yeah. After you basically pushed me into doing so." A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, but it disappeared back to a frown rather quickly. Yes, it all made her a little upset. Not because she did like Luke, yet not enough to be falling for him. She was upset by knowing there was something going wrong but not knowing what was, because she had never fallen in love.

"You didn't want to kiss him?"

"No. I guess I didn't."

"Then why did you do it?"

"Because I trust you."

"Aileen," the sound of his voice lowered, meaning he was being serious. Very serious. Like that time he told her to trust him and he was staring into her eyes intensively. She knew he was doing the exact same thing, she only didn't dare to look at him. "I can't go around and tell you what to do and have you listen to me. You're not my puppet-..."

"Then why did you break up with Ariana? Don't tell me you listened to my advice-..." she tilted her head, but turned it away quickly when he cut her off.

"Your advice is good and you know it," now his voice didn't only sound serious, but harsh too. She was pushing his buttons and she knew it. Maybe he wanted her to be mad at her, considering she was mad at herself for not feeling the way she was supposed to be feeling for Luke.

"Well, if my advice is so good why the hell don't I know what the hell is wrong with me?!"

"Nothing is wrong with you!"