The New Boy

Chapter 26

The light through the curtain was hurting my eyes, this caused me to wake up. I slowly opened my eyes and the realization that I was not in my bedroom hit me. I had slept at Henry's house.

I was about to get up when I felt a grip around my waist. I looked down and saw Henry's arms around me. I immediately remembered that I had asked to sleep in his room because I could not sleep after that nightmare that I had.

I think I was moving too much because he woke up and unwrapped his arm around me, but the feeling lingered. I loved it.

"Morning." He said.

"Morning." I said it back.

"How did you sleep?" Like a baby.

"I slept well and yourself?" I asked.

"Well." He said as he stood up. He told me that he was going to shower.

That's when it hit me, I had no wash cloth, toothbrush or deodorant. What the heck was I going to do? I could not go to my house, I was not ready to see my parents, especially my dad.

At that point love meant nothing to me. Maybe Henry was right all along, maybe love was an overrated feeling and for some reason, everybody wanted a piece of it and it was not worth it. I mean, my dad said he loved my mom but still cheated on her. Had love really lost its meaning? Or it just did not exist? All those thoughts were ambushing me and I could not do anything to push them away.

Henry came back and gave me an extra toothbrush he had together with a wash cloth.

"You want to go shower first or I should?" He asked.

"You go first," I told him.

After he left, I checked my phone where I saw countless missed calls from my mom. She must have been worried about me.

"Slept at Henry's, see you after school." I texted, just to calm her nerves and not have her report me missing to the police.

"Hi honey, are you okay?" Henry's mother asked as she was standing at the door.

"Yes, I am." I lied. The last thing I wanted was to dump my problems on Mrs Peterson. I already ruined her son's birthday and I felt horrible about it.

"Okay, I made breakfast. I'm going to work." She said. "Wait, you guys did not sleep in the same room right?"

"No ma'am." I lied. But even if we did, what did she think we would do? Henry was nothing but a best friend to me and I certainly did not see him that way. The thought of him in bed with me made me cringe.

"Good."

"Mrs Peterson, you do know that Henry is just a friend to me right? Nothing more."

"Sure he is Navia." She said with a smirk and left. What did that even mean? I did not like her sarcastic tone even one bit. Even the smirk that played on her face when she said it, what the hell. Did Henry's parents think we were an item or something? Didn't they know that their son was not into dating and well even if he was, we had platonic feelings for each other and it ended there.

I stood up and made Henry's bed, then went to the guest room to fix it up as well. As I was making the bed and opening the windows, I heard Henry say, "you can go shower."

I immediately turned and my jaw dropped at the image in front of me. He knew how I would react to this and it was probably deliberate.

His beige towel was hanging loosely around his waist. One mistake and that thing would fall to the ground. His v-line was visible and so were his toned abs that had trails of water running on them. His blonde hair was wet and water was dripping from his hair to his broad shoulders. As much as I wanted to look up his face, my eyes would not move from his v-line. Did I secretly want that towel to fall so I would see... what the... of course not. Ew!