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Chapter 23
Just Friends
Friends. I could do that, right?
Totally.
Yeah.Keep lying to yourself.
The fact that my heart sped up in my chest when Neil sat down next to me in ASB for the first time in weeks was beside the point.
“Do you have an extra pencil?” he asked, all calm and casual. I looked up at him, swallowing thickly. It was the first test of what was sure to be many. Could I do this? Did he think I could?Did I?
No, not really. But I was willing to try.
I cleared my throat, dug into my backpack, and handed him a pencil, ignoring my heart and my breaths and the insane amount of thoughts that filtered in when his hand touched mine.
I didn’t say it was going to beeasy.
I puffed out a breath, focusing on our teacher.Tryingto focus on our teacher, anyway. She was writing dates up on the whiteboard—upcoming baseball games and other after-school activities. Neil was writing them down in his notebook, and I should’ve been doing the same, but instead, I was shoving away all smart decision-making abilities and trading them in for staring athim.
Like a wanderer lost in the desert, Neil was the mirage of cold water taunting me in the distance.
His lips, his jawline, his throat, his arms, his hands.
Places I now knew like the back of my own hand. Because I’d felt those places—on me—or tasted them with my mouth, andoh my god!I wanted to strangle my own thoughts.
Especially when I had the thought that looking into his eyes felt like looking into his soul.
Because that was a bullshit thought to be having when you were trying to be friends with someone.Just friends.
On a temporary basis.
Until what?
Until he pulls his head out of his ass and decides…what?
“I don’t want to screw this up again.”Again.Which implied…
I knew what it implied, but my mind was a mess. Andsurprise!I was back here again, with Neil making chaos of everything going on inside my brain. It was…ugh.I didn’t know.
He smiled, oblivious, and I forced one back though I had no idea what it actually looked like from his point of view. At the very least, I hoped it masked everything else going on inside my head.
How much I missed him.Loved him.(Even though there was no way in hell I was telling him that.) The way my eyes drank him in and tattooed my craziest fantasies starring him at the forefront of my mind—ones that weren’t even all that sexual, goddammit.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek and felt a flush creep up my neck. Forcing my eyes away from Neil with far too much effort, I cleared my throat. Friends.Friends.I was going be repeating it like a freaking prayer for the foreseeable future, wasn’t I?
If we had any chance of actually being friends, though, these thoughts were going to have to shut themselves up. And then bury themselves and die. And ignore all hope of Neil coming along to exhume them.
I gave myself a mental shakedown and took a much-needed breath, focusing on the task at hand.
Which waswhat,I didn’t know.
Officially, I was a mess. (And ignoring the tiny little fact that I’d already been one for a while, obviously.) But how did you not tell someone with every look that you loved them?
I was sure Neil could see it written all over my face, flashing over my forehead in neon red letters. It had only been a few torturous days (five,actually, because yes, I was counting), and the secret was already threatening to swallow me whole.
So, I was avoiding him.