The Art of Kissing

8; The Gregory Family

Evan hummed, smirking at me "you're cuter than I thought." He said after a minute. 

I blush and smile up at him, shyly looking at Elliot who clenched his fists into tight balls. 

"Thank you," I mumbled to him, finding myself interested in what he had to say, unlike his brother. Elliot looks frustrated and I almost feel bad that I keep talking to Evan but a part of me wants to know what has been said of me. 

 "Go away Evan," Elliot groaned one last time before physically removing Evan from his room. 

"He seems nice," I note with a small smile, Elliott looks back at me with an eye roll.

"If you're not his brother. "

When I giggle he begins to relax and sit down beside me again, I hardly notice the lack of distance between us and my heart picks up the pace.

Yet he seems hyper-aware of it and moves away a bit and grabs something from a drawer in his nightstand, it's a well kept black leather binder with ELLIOT written in bold on the cover.

"Heres some of my other pictures," he hands it to me with a small and genuine trusting smile.

As I flip through the pages, the back of my neck begins to tingle with an odd feeling.

A feeling that sends that familiar flutter in my stomach and a tightening feeling in my chest.

"They're very beautiful," I say once again, knowing that I have no other way to phrase it.

His eyes are already roaming me when I look at him, he has a neutral expression on but I can see all of his redeeming traits in them.

He mumbles out thanks and begins to grow shy again, his face lighting up with a red tint.

"Are you hungry? My parents won't be back until late and I know Evan's ordering pizza." Elliot declares, he has a way of making me unable to say no.

"I'd love to," I reply with a grin, already feeling my stomach growl.

His smile is bright and boyish, making him look younger and less troubled than at school. His happiness is like a gift to me that I was meant to treasure, so I did. I desperately wanted to hold on to it, protect it and engrave it into my mind. 

Elliot coughed and broke the silence first, his hazel eyes drifting away from me as he uneasily rubbed his palms together. His eyes locked onto something in the corner of his room, a bookshelf with trinkets, discs and, well,  books. 

He mumbled under his breath, pink tinges on the apples of his cheeks. 

"Huh?" I hummed in question, peering over at him, he didn't bother looking back at me. 

"Movies!" He shot off of his bed, bouncing toward it. I wasn't sure his feet touched the ground. 

"What?" I asked again, confused. His interest in looking at the shelves is actually quite cute, but his frame is small like it is when he's at school and has to trail up and down the crowded halls. 

I called out to him after a moment but he wouldn't reply, so I walked toward him and softly touched his shoulder. He flinched as if realizing he wasn't alone and blushed fiercely.  

"Are you okay?" I asked him hesitantly, I knew he could be introverted and tend to hide away, so I did everything I could to make him comfortable after all this was his safe haven. 

Elliot's eyes stared into mine and refused to look away as he swallowed. "Do you want to watch a movie?"

I nodded with a genuine smile, bumping my shoulder into his, watching one of his own reappearing. Straight perfect white teeth exposed sent a tingle down my neck, as odd as I found it, I refused to acknowledge it.  He looked back to the wide variety of films, picking up one and scanning over the cover.