Page 61 of Academically Yours

For the rest of the game, his hand never left my shoulder, that thumb rubbing circles against my bicep, holding me into his side maybe just a little too closely. I couldn’t bring myself to care, though, not when it felt so right to be tucked into his body. To absorb the warmth from him down to my bones. I was so close that when I inhaled, the smell of his cologne—a wonderful, masculine scent, with woodsy notes of pine and fresh air layered on top—flooded through my senses.

It was like my whole body had come alive. Just from his touch, his smell, and the thoughtful expression that didn’t leave his face as I leaned into him further.

“Thank you,” I breathed, so quietly I didn’t think he had heard me, even as his fingers dragged against my leg and I inter-wound our fingers.

“For what?” Matthew murmured back into my hair a few moments later, and I smiled.

“For this. For always making me feel comfortable.” I felt like it was just the two of us in this bubble, and nothing could pop it.

I didn’t want to leave this moment. Wanted to stay here, nestled into him, absorbing his warmth, feeling his hand in mine.

“Anything for you,” I thought I heard him mumble before I felt a kiss on the crown of my head. I blushed a little, turning my eyes back to Matthew’s friends on the court.

After the game, the twins, Cole and Tanner, said hi to us in the hallway near the locker rooms, and then Matthew was guiding me out of the Moda Center, towards his truck, and it was only when he stopped abruptly in front of a bench that I gave him a puzzling stare.

“Matthew—” I started, right as he cleared his throat and said, “Noelle.”

“Oh,” I said.

He waved me off. “You can go first.”

“Um.” I bit my lip. “I’m just wondering, Matthew. Because now I’ve met your friends, and we spent Valentine’s Day together, and now this, and I just… What are we?”

“What do you want us to be?” he asked.

“Well, we’re friends, right?” The words felt…wrong, somehow, coming out of my mouth now. Even though we were, we had started to feel like something more, too.

His blonde brows furrowed on his forehead as he looked at me. “Do you think friends normally kiss like that, Noelle?”

That kiss—that spinning, dizzying kiss he had given me for the kiss cam. The kind that set my soul on fire and had me aching for him, aching for more. I’d take whatever he’d be willing to give me. Could I tell him that what I wanted was him, all of him?

I began walking towards the parking garage again when he reached out a hand, grabbing my wrists and holding me in place.

“Noelle—” his voice was pained as if it hurt him to say it. “I just—”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” I confirmed. “Not unless you want it to.” And friends could kiss, surely? Maybe I hadn’t ever kissed any of my friends—didn’t want to, for that matter. I had hardly ever found myself this intimately connected with anyone else… But surely, there was logical reasoning for these kisses beside the one thing I was trying so hard to deny.

“Do you think I kiss my friends like that?” He gripped my chin, tilting my head up to look at him.

I think I swallowed. I might have licked my lips. All I knew for sure was the next thing to slip out of my mouth was “No.”

No. I don’t think you would kiss a friend like that. I just don’t know how to deal with all of my feelings for you. Because what will I do if I get attached and then you decide this isn’t worth it? How will I deal with that, then?

Looking up into his eyes, I realized I wanted things that I hadn’t wanted since Jake. Things I maybe hadn’t even wanted with Jake.

Love. A future. A life together.

Fuck. When did I begin to want those things again? Had this man somehow made me yearn for the love and appreciation I hadn’t felt in years? All because he… what? Cared for me? Made me feel protected, even safe? Because he kissed me like if he didn’t, the world was going to end?

I was really in over my head here.

Maybe I needed to sit down.

Because there was no way I was thinking all of these things—not for him. I tried to remind myself that no matter what I felt, we shouldn’t…

I couldn’t listen to that part of my brain anymore, though. Not when he was looking at me like this.

Like I was everything.