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CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Watching Garret in the pool, I can’t help but check out his body. It’s total perfection. Muscular arms, sculpted chest, six pack abs, broad swimmer shoulders. Every part of me wants to get in the pool with him and replay the scene we didn’t get to finish.

I told myself I wouldn’t get involved emotionally or physically with a guy in college. But I’m already emotionally involved with Garret and am more than ready to be physically involved with him. We’re not even technically dating, so I know it’s too soon for that and it might ruin what we have going on between us, but that doesn’t make me want it any less.

As I watch him swim laps, I wonder how many girls he’s been with. It’s got to be a lot. From the few physical encounters we’ve had together, he definitely knows what he’s doing. I, on the other hand, have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to that. Back in high school, I didn’t have a ton of experience with guys. That said, I have had sex. One time.

It happened after homecoming last year. The guy went to a different school. I met him at a knowledge bowl tournament which I participated in only because I have a better than average ability to remember random trivia. Plus, I thought it would look good on a college application.

A really cute guy from the opposing team asked me out. We went on a few dates, then he asked me to go to homecoming at his school. For the week leading up to it, I kept hearing my mom’s voice in my head, saying how girls always got pregnant at school dances. Because of that she told me I’d never be allowed to go. But since she was no longer around, I went. And for a reason that makes no logical sense at all, I decided to challenge her theory and have sex, proving to her and myself that I wouldn’t get pregnant. And I didn’t. I’ve been on the pill forever and he used a condom.

It was over in a minute. Okay, maybe not a minute. I wasn’t timing it, but it was over really fast. After that, the guy never called me again. So much for remembering your first time. I try to forget it ever happened.

“You bored yet?” Garret is hanging off the edge of the pool, smiling at me with those yummy wet lips that are begging to be kissed.

“No, not at all.” I’ve been pretending to read a book but I’ve spent the entire time staring at his nearly naked body.

“We can go soon. I just need to do a few more laps.”

“That’s fine.” I glance up at the clock. We’ve been here for two hours? I didn’t realize it’d been that long.

A few minutes later, he jumps out of the pool. “I’m done. I’ll go get dressed and be right back.”

He’s in such a good mood. He’s almost always in a good mood. I don’t know how he does it. My mood changes from hour to hour and it’s usually not a good one. Except I’m finding that the more I’m around Garret, the more good moods I have.

We get back to the dorm and Garret goes upstairs while I go to my room to drop off my book. It’s early afternoon and girls are already getting ready to go out. Harper has a new guy in her life and she’s been staying at his apartment all week. I’ve barely seen her.

I head upstairs to Garret’s floor. Some guy at the end of the hall has the door to his room propped open. About 20 guys are stuffed inside, watching a football game on a giant TV. I can smell their beer from the hallway.

One of the guys stumbles out, nearly falling on me as I walk by. “You know, you’re kinda hot,” he says, slinging his arm around my shoulder. “You wanna come back to my room and—”

“Get off me.” I push his arm off, but he puts it right back.

“Come on.” He pouts. “I promise I won’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

Garret comes out of his door and sees drunk boy hanging on me. “Shane, get the hell away from her.” He comes over and shoves the guy’s arm off my shoulder.

Drunk boy looks offended. “I was just being friendly. Shit, can’t a guy be friendly?”

“Go be friendly to someone else.” Garret takes my hand. “Come on, Jade.”

“Where did you find her?” Shane yells from behind us. “Does she go here? She’s got a nice ass on her.” He continues his drunken rambling as he stumbles down the hall.

“Ignore him,” Garret says as we walk to his room. “He’s been drunk for hours. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

“Are you saying he was wrong about my ass?” I smile. “Because I took that as a compliment.”

He smiles back. “You do have a nice ass, but I don’t want him looking at it. That’s my job.”

“Oh, really? Because I don’t think you should be checking out your friend’s ass.”

“Speak for yourself, there, Jade.” He flashes that cocky smile. He totally caught me checking him out at the pool.

He stops in front of his door. “Okay, are you ready?”

I nod and he opens the door. His whole room is decorated for Halloween. The blue lights along the ceiling have been replaced by bright orange lights. Cobwebs are draped along the walls, the windows, the dresser, his desk, and around the TV. Ghost and witch cutouts are taped to his closet door. And the infamous concession stand is filled with more candy than any trick or treater could ever want.

“I told you it wasn’t that great, but it’s Halloweeny, right?”

“Totally Halloweeny! I love it! This is way more than I was expecting.” I lie down on his bed and stare up at the bright orange lights. His drapes are closed but it’s such a gray, dreary day outside that even with the drapes open, it would still be dark in here.

“I’m glad you like it.” He lies next to me, propped up on his side, resting his hand on my stomach as if it somehow belongs there. It immediately takes my focus off the ceiling lights. “Do you want to look through the movies I rented? I don’t know anything about horror movies so I got like 10 of them. You can pick what you want.”

I turn to face him and his hand moves to my hip. “Garret, thanks for doing all this. The movies. The decorations. The food. The lights.” I can’t stop smiling as I glance around the room. “This is so great.”

He leans in to kiss my cheek. “I love how excited you get over stuff like this.”

“What can I say? You combined junk food and movies, my two favorite things.” I tug on his shirt, a black thermal henley that fits snugly over his chest. “You even wore Halloween colors.”

He looks down. “Yeah, I guess I did. I wasn’t even thinking about that when I put it on.”

That shirt looks really good on him. His hair looks good, too. Actually everything about him looks really good. I have this major urge to kiss him right now in a non-friend way and see where that leads. I need to take control and stop waiting for him to make a move. Just as I’m getting the courage to do it, he gets up from the bed. Damn!

“Okay.” He picks up a stack of movies and brings them over to me. “We have zombies, ghosts, vampires, witches, or the classic psychotic killer who lives next door. What do like?”

“Zombies.”

He sighs. “I was afraid you were going to say that. Don’t you think it’ll be boring? I mean, zombies don’t even talk, right?”

“Then how about witches instead?”

“We have all day and night to watch these, so if you want we can start with zombies.”

The zombie movie is so dumb that we make fun of it for the whole 87 minutes, making up lines for the zombies to say. Next we watch the witch movie, followed by a vampire one. After that, we get our pizza and watch a ghost movie which turns out to be way scarier than I thought it would be.

At 10, we’re still sitting there on his giant bean bag chair and I’ve completely stuffed myself with pizza and candy.

Just as movie number five, the psychotic killer movie, begins, someone knocks on the door.

“Kensington, get your ass out here,” a guy yells.

“Just ignore him,” Garret says.

“We know you’re in there. Hurry up,” another guy yells.

“Just talk to them,” I say. “Otherwise they’ll never go away.”

Garret gets up and opens the door and the smell of strong cologne wafts into the room. He walks out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

“What do you want?” I hear Garret say.

“We’re leaving for the party. Let’s go.”

“I’m not going. I told you that earlier.”

“What do you mean you’re not going? Do you know how many girls are gonna be at this party? I just talked to Aiden and he said the girls are all wearing costumes and they’re practically naked.”

“I told you I’m not going.” Garret’s voice is more forceful.

“Why? You got some girl in there? Well, finish up with her and let’s go.”

“Don’t be an ass. Just get out of here.” I hear Garret’s hand on the doorknob.

“Who’s in there? Ava?”

“It’s none of your damn business,” Garret says loudly. “Just go.”

“Whatever, man.” I hear them walking away. “You used to be fun, Garret. Now you’re just a fucking loser.”

Garret comes back in the room and sits next to me again. “Sorry about that. They’ve been drinking so were even more obnoxious than usual.”

I turn the volume down on the TV and scoot closer to him. “You know, those guys are right. You should be out at one of the gazillion parties going on right now. You’re missing out on all those girls in sexy nurse costumes, not to mention all the half-naked angels, witches, devils—”

He puts his finger to my lips. “This is where I want to be, Jade. Right here.”

I pull his hand away and look up at him, practically begging him to kiss me. He leans down and gives me a quick friend kiss, then looks up at the TV. “So what’s going on with this one?”

“The psychotic killer met this girl on an Internet dating site.” I shudder. “It’s totally freaking me out. Look at that guy. Look at his eyes. I feel like he’s watching me.”

He laughs. “I’ll protect you. Come here.” I snuggle up next to him. A few minutes into the movie I fall asleep.

I wake up when I feel Garret move his arm off me. “Jade, I can’t sit here any longer. I need to move.”

The clock on his desk says it’s 1 a.m. “Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Yeah, the movie ended and I’ve been watching TV.”

“You should’ve woke me up.”

“Nah. I like it when you sleep on me, but my arm was starting to go numb.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.” I sit up. “I should go.”

“Do you really want to go?”

“Well, it’s kind of late to start another movie.” I yawn and rub my eyes.

He turns the TV off. “I wasn’t going to watch another movie.”

I’m sleepy and it takes a moment for me to figure out what he means. “Are you inviting me for another sleepover?”

“The night’s practically over. You might as well stay.”

“Yeah, because my room’s so far away. It’ll be morning before I make it back.”

“I’m not trying to get you to have sex with me, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just want to sleep next to you again. Sleep. That’s it. But if you don’t want to, that’s fine.”

“Okay, I’ll stay.” I’m happy he wants me there, but I’m a little concerned that he thinks I’ve totally ruled out the idea of having sex with him. I made that one comment and now he assumes I’m not at all interested.

I get up from the chair, take my jeans off, and climb into bed.

“What are you doing?” he asks, standing over me.

“Going to sleep.” I pull the covers up.

“But you’re not wearing anything.”

“I’m wearing a shirt.”

“Yeah, but nothing else. You want a pair of my shorts?”

I prop up on my elbows. “I’m wearing underwear. I’m not going to wear my jeans to bed. What’s your problem? You can’t sleep next to me like this?”

“Uh, no. Definitely not.”

I tilt my head and smile. “And why is that? We’re just sleeping, right? Nothing else? You won’t even notice what I’m wearing because you’ll be asleep.”

“Trust me. I won’t be sleeping if that’s all you’re wearing. I’ll go get you something from your room.”

“You’re being crazy. Just go to sleep.” I lie back down with my back to him and close my eyes. I hear him sigh as he changes into his pajamas.

The mattress sinks in as he gets in behind me. The bed is so small our bodies can’t help but touch and I can tell my lack of clothing is affecting him. He keeps trying to move away from my lower half, but can’t because he’ll fall off the bed. I love torturing him like this. I try not to laugh when he attempts to move again.

“What is going on back there?” I ask, feigning annoyance. “I’m trying to sleep.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this. You need to put something on.” He gets up, goes to his drawer, and comes back with a pair of fleece athletic shorts.

I can’t hold in my laughter anymore. “Are you saying you can’t resist me?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” He throws the covers off and drags my legs to the side of the bed, pausing a moment to look. “Damn. And then you have to wear sexy underwear? Did you do this on purpose?”

“Nope. This is my normal underwear.” I pull my shirt up more to show off my silky black bikinis.

He slips my legs into the shorts. “You were not wearing underwear like that when you were running last night.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. For someone who isn’t dating me you’ve sure seen me naked a lot.”

He pulls the shorts up to the top of my legs. I stand up and yank them the rest of the way on.

“There. That’s better,” he says, looking at the oversized shorts that go past my knees.

We get back in bed, the orange lights glowing above us. He’s lying on his back and I sneak under his arm, making myself comfortable. “You know, I wouldn’t care if you tried some stuff.”

He kisses my forehead. “I know. But that will lead to other stuff. And I want us to start dating first, like a real couple.”

“Then let’s go out on this date you keep talking about.”

“Okay, next Saturday night we’ll go on real date. As in go out, not sit in my room.”

“Saturday? But that’s so far away.” I don’t mean to sound desperate but it almost comes out that way.

“Are you in a hurry or something?”

“Um, no. I guess not.” I actually am in a hurry. I’m finding him hard to resist and now he’s holding out on me. I don’t know why he’s so insistent on having this official date. It seems like we’ve been dating this whole time.

“So I think it’s time to make another tradition.”

I lift my head up to look at him. “Like what?”

“I think we should have one of these sleepovers every Saturday night.”

“Hmm.” I lower my head back down on his shoulder, hiding my smile. “But we already have a tradition for Sunday morning.”

“Yeah? So?”

“I’m just saying if we did this, we’d have two traditions in a row, really close together.”

“We could add another one during the week if you feel the need to even things out a little.”

“Yeah, I guess we could do that.” My smile keeps growing. He wants more traditions with me? So he thinks we can really be a couple? Even with his rules and his family? I’m not going to question it. At least not tonight.

“Then it’s settled. Saturday night sleepovers are our second tradition. You figure out the midweek one since I made the other two.”

The way he says it makes me laugh. “Okay. I can do that.”

I turn over on my side and he does the same, my back against his front.

“Goodnight, Jade.” He moves my hair aside and kisses the nape of my neck, sending a tingle through my body. It makes me want to flip around and have my way with him, but I don’t. I’m sure he did it to get back at me for my underwear trick.

He pulls me closer to his chest and tucks his arm around me. It makes me feel warm and safe and happy. I’ve never felt so at peace.

Being with Garret all day, I haven’t even thought about my mom’s letter or my argument with Frank. He took all of the bad stuff away, at least for a little while.