Truth

chapter 41

'Jace'

I awake vaguely aware that I'm laying against an unfamiliar mattress with someones' body cloaked across mine. It takes me a moment to register where I am before last nights events come flooding back to me. I blink my eyes open and gaze down at my chest to find a mass of dark curls sprawled across me, belonging to a sleeping Liv.

We must have stayed in this exact position all throughout the night, I feel an uncomfortable numbness spread in the arm that Liv lies on but I find myself not wanting to move her. A whisper renters my memory.
'I do want you.'

And I can't help the stupid fucking grin that finds its way onto my face. I know I didn't imagine it or dream it up, she had spoken the words in her sleepy, alcohol induced state but it doesn't change the fact that she had said them.

I watch as Liv's body moves rythmetically against mine from her heavy breaths and I'm surprised by how relaxed I feel watching her. A fucking loud pitched ring calls out from the foot of the bed breaking the calming silence and Liv begins to shift in response groaning into my chest.

I keep my hold on her willing her not to wake up just yet. I'm not ready to witness her reaction when she sees me. She may have let me stay with her last night but there's no telling how she'll feel about it in the light of day. 

The ringing stops only to begin yet again, this time Liv's eyes begin to flutter open before she slowly pulls herself from my body to reach down to the source of the noise. She brings the phone to her ear to answer before laying back against me.
"Hello? No I just woke up. Oh shit I'm so sorry I completely forgot to call you! No I'm not feeling breakfast I'm too buisy dying to eat."

From parts of the conversation I can pick out, I can tell she's talking to her obnoxious roommate Sammie.
"Is Jackson okay? Okay, okay I'll see you soon." Liv hangs up the phone and throws it down onto the floor carelessly. I watch her cautiously as I feel her body stiffen against mine as if she's just come to the realisation that's someone is in bed with her. She snaps her head up from my chest to stare at me with wild eyes.

She seems confused. I can practically see the wheels turning in her head helping her try to piece together what happened last night that would lead her to be sharing a bed with me.
"Ohhh." Is all she says before rolling off of me to lay with her back against the mattress, in the small space between my body and the wall.

She turns to look at me once again and I can't help but notice how perfect she still looks. I haven't woke up next to many girls before but the ones that I have usually end up with makeup smeered faces and basically look a fucking mess in every sense of the word but not Liv.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so embarrassed." she blurts out. Well this is going better than I thought, last night I had invisioned her waking up in a rage.
"You don't need to be sorry." I answer truthfully.
"Yes I really do I can't even...oh my God!" She flings the covers back away from our bodies and begins inspecting her bandaged knee.

"Thank you." She mutters stroking her fingers delicately over the band aid. I'm taken back by the way she's behaving obviously she remembers much more than I thought she would. I can't deny how relieved that makes me feel, there's some parts of last night that I hoped she wouldn't forget.
"I can't believe I got in that state! I'm never drinking again." She dramatically throws her body backwards and covers her face with her hands.

"Maybe stay away from the whisky in future." She peels her hands away from her face lost in thought.
"Ohh no Charlie." The words are barely above a whisper but the sound of his name sets my body on edge immediately and memories of Liv's insistence to be with him last night only seem to piss me off further.

"You were there... did I...did I kiss him?" I don't know what fucks me off more the fact that she's asking me about it or the image that's replaying in my head.
"No." I simply answer.
"No...but I was going to you stopped it from happening?"
"Yes I did. I wasn't going to let him take advantage of you." She stares at me in shock.
"He wasn't taking advantage of me." Surely she isn't fucking serious.

"Are you joking Liv? you was out of your head and he was happy to try it on with you anyway."
"He was drunk too Jace." The tension begins to build inside of me with her insistent need to defend him.
"Why are you fucking defending him for?"
"Because Jace it wasn't just him I was the one who was making the shit decisions I could have easily told him no if I wanted to." It takes a moment for her words to sink in and register in my mind.

"Are you fucking saying you wanted him?!"
"No, yes, I don't know. I don't think I did, he just made me feel... I dont know okay! I don't even know why I'm explaining myself to you." She turns away from me and It takes everything in me to not kick off at her words. Is that why she doesn't want me because she wants him instead? I jump off of her bed wanting to create some distance between us so I can attempt to calm my paranoid raging mind.

"So let me get this straight you wanted Charlie but instead you settled for me...for what exactly a free ride home?" Her mouth falls open at my accusation.
"No I didn't want Charlie! I was just upset okay! He made me feel good about myself and obviously I wasn't thinking straight. If I wanted him then why would I leave with you?"
"Why did you leave with me then Olivia?" I say the words out loud before I can take them back.

"Because....I just did, I don't know why." She's holding back as she usually does, I can see the words are almost painful for her to admit but this time I won't stop untill I get an answer from her.
"You do know why you just won't say it." Like a child she lays down hiding herself beneath the covers, as if it will block out the world. I make my way back over to her bed and pull them out of her grasp and away from her face.

"Tell me why." Her eyebrows furrow together and before I realise what I'm doing I begin stroking the pad of my thumb along the side of her face. She lets out a sigh and the worry almost disappears from her features.
"Tell me why Olivia." I don't know why I'm so insistent on pushing this but I need to hear her say the words.
"Because I wanted to and I wish I didn't but I do."

"You do what?"
"I want you." All the anger and tension that was tearing it's way throughout my body has now been replaced with the calmness that I felt this morning whilst I watched her sleep.
"Whatever this is between us that's happening you know no good can come from it don't you?" She says it with such certainty that I choose not to answer because in this moment I don't care.

All I know is that right now I want her and if I'm damned for it then so fucking be it. I tilt her face up towards mine not wanting to give her anymore time to overthink this. I bring my lips to hers hesitating for only a few seconds before I enclose my mouth around her own, savouring the feel of her against me. Her hands clasp around the back of my neck and she pulls me into her, deepening the kiss further before intwining her fingers into my hair and tugging at the roots.

I let out a groan into her mouth in longing and she greedily swallows the sound pushing her warm tongue into my mouth and swirling it around my own. This is the feeling that I needed, the feeling that comes from being with only her.
She pulls back and peers up at me behind her thick dark lashes.
"Why can't I seem to stay away from you?" She breathes out.
"For the same reasons that I can't."