patience

Chapter Eight

At 8:00 that night, I made up an excuse to Alessia to get off the bus. I knocked on Shawn's bus door and he opened it .

"How have you been?" He asks letting me in. He shut the door behind me.

"Good. You?" I ask. We sit down in the lounge section of his bus.

"I've wanted to see you" He says.

"I've wanted to see you too" I say back.

"I kind of thought Alessia would say something at coffee this morning, but she didn't" He says.

"She...She doesn't know anything" I say looking at the ground.

"Well, when she wasn't asking about it, I figured she didn't. I didn't say anything about it to her either" He says.

"I guess the question is...should we tell her?" I ask.

"That's up to you, Riv. She's your family, and I don't want to say anything to her that you're not okay with" He says.

"I-I'm not really sure why, but something is telling me not to tell her about us. I don't know why, because I know exactly what's going to happen, but I just don't want anyone to know" I say.

"That's okay. If that's what you want then that's what we'll do. We can deal with consequences later. In this moment, I just want you" He says.

"That's exactly what I want" I say. The corners of his lips turn up. He stood up and walked over to sit next to me.

"You and me, River. You and me" He says and leans in close.

"You and me" I say to him. He kisses me softly. Slowly at first then in a way that I had never been kissed before. I had a funny feeling in my chest that only Shawn gave me to me. I pulled away.

"I want to stay right here with you. I don't want to go back with Alessia" I say. I nuzzle my head into his chest. I hated that I felt that way, especially since I had waited so long to see her, now she was the last person I wanted to be with.

"Then stay with me" He says. "It's getting late, so maybe she'll fall asleep. I want you with me".

"I want to be with you" I say. He pulled me close to him. I could stay like this with him forever.

***
Shawn and I must have fallen asleep in the lounge, because around 10pm. We were woken up by a knock at the door.

"Who's that?" I ask. He looked out the window to see.

"It's Alessia" He answers.

"She can't know I'm here" I say.

"I'll go see what she wants" He says. He shut the lounge door then went to see her. Luckily, I could hear them.

"Have you see River?" She asks.

"Uh, no. Ive been asleep. Why?" He asks.

"She told me she was going out to explore, but I thought it was kind of late to be out" She says.

"Don't worry. I'm sure she's fine. Text her or something. There's a lot places that stay open late around here. Who knows, she may have met someone" He says. Hearing him say that was pretty funny to me considering it was true, but he was the person.

"Yeah, River meeting someone. That's exactly what happened" She says sarcastically. I knew she said that because I had never been one to be very boy crazy.

"You never know" He says. She was quiet for a second.

"Well, I'm sorry for waking you up. I'll see you in the morning" She says. He closes the door then walks back to the lounge.

"Text her and make something up" He says.

"I will" I say grabbing my phone. I told her that I was at this coffeehouse just reading and I would probably be back late. I knew that I would be able to wake up early enough to get to her bus and pretend I had been there all night. She responded immediately to my text saying that was okay and she was going to go on to bed. I was thankful for that response.

"I'm so glad you're staying here tonight" He says wrapping me in his arms.

"Me too, but we have to make sure that I'm up early enough to trick Alessia" I say. He nods and kisses my forehead.

"Goodnight​, beautiful" He says. We stood in the lounge wrapped in each other's arms. I knew it was such a terrible thing of me to do knowing that my cousin was right next to us worrying herself sick about me, and I was out here sneaking around with a boy. I knew it was wrong, but it felt so right.