Of Literature & Kisses (Forbidden Romance)

Chapter 28 - Brandon

"Phoenix?" I looked at her from where I laid on my stomach atop her bed. It was full of blush colored pillows. She was holding my hand as she painted my fingernails a striking shade of dark blood red.

"Mhm?"

"It really amazes me how you can paint them so perfectly and never get a single drop of paint on the sheets."

She smiled widely, her blue eyes sparkling. "It's an art."

I lapsed once more into silence, resting my head on my free arm.

"What's on your mind, girl? I can practically hear your thoughts screaming in there."

I chuckled. "You can? Okay, help me understand them."

"Oomph. If you can't understand them I'm not so sure I might, but try me." She swiped off a stray bit of paint from my finger with a small wooden tool, then proceeded to coat the last one.

I wanted to confide in her. Truthfully I wanted to empty out my chest of all the pent-up feelings I had been carrying, on my own, for the past five months. But I had never said them aloud, and taking that step could prove damning.

"I'm afraid I've done something stupid."

She stopped moving and looked at me, her brows furrowed in question. "I doubt that."

"I have. I've fallen in love with him, Phoenix. I have been from that very first week."

Slowly her face fell back into her usual composure. She uncapped a bottle of top coat. "Oh, girlie, I knew."

My heart had been beating nervously before my confession, now it stopped beating altogether. She looked at me again, now with the kindest of pities, and started softly to chuckle. "You're my best friend since we were four. When my parents wanted to put me in a private high school, I begged and cried until they let me stay here with you. We've been inseparable our entire lives, so I think I know how to read you, Cece, better than most. You're so quiet and collected, but your feelings are very genuine and transparent, especially when you care. You often do. And with Mr. Gallagher, that caring lights up your entire face and your body whenever he's around, or when you hear his name, or on the rare rare chance that you mention him. I was just waiting for you to tell me. You're too solid to be pushed."

It took me a minute before I could respond. "Well. Not even a little bit of surprise. I hope no one else knows me as well as you do, or I can be in big trouble."

She laughed now, the sound spreading around the room. "No, I promise you it takes an expert in Celia Cedric science, or a love doctor, to be able to read you."

I sighed. "I'm sure he must know, or suspect it. I don't hide my feelings very well around him."

She shook her head confidently. "I don't think he does know. Or at the very least, he's so professional when I'm around that he doesn't make it seem as though he knows. What I know, without an ounce of hesitation, is that he isn't immune to you. The things that man does for you... Seems deep."

I looked down to collect myself. "I don't even want to think of what's in his mind. It creates a system error in my brain. For now I'm just glad I told you. I had wanted to, so badly, but I was afraid of how you'd react."

She gave me a look of blatant disbelief. "What? Did you think I'd be grossed out that you're in love with Mr. Gallagher? Listen, he's a hottie of the highest caliber, a genius, and very young. And you're in love, for the first time in your life, so he mustn't be half bad."

"No. He's not," and that was an understatement, but I wanted to speak of it no more and divert our focus elsewhere. Phoenix understood, because she finished with my manicure and just handed me her color. Grateful for the distraction, I started on her hands with the utmost care.