Page 29 of Game Point (Game, Set, and Match #2)

Oliver

Close to You – Gracie Abrams

One week. That was my limit on the airbed. The support under my back shifted with every toss and turn, attempting in the middle of the night to try and get the inflation to just the right place like I was Goldilocks.

And to make it worse, it wasn’t the mattress that kept me rolling over.

Even if I found sleep, visions of long brown hair, deep hazel eyes, a slight smirk, the teasing chorus of her voice, they all tore me awake.

Bolting up in a cold sweat. Blood hot and racing; that is, the blood that wasn’t sent directly to my dick.

There was no relief. No matter the number of nervous, quiet midnights wanks like I was living back in my parents.

By night seven I was officially done, relegating myself to the sofa downstairs, but not before I kicked the air mattress for good measure as I gave in. I grabbed my pillows and duvet, dragging them into the hallway feeling too much like a kid off to build a pillow fort.

At least it would be comfier.

Creeping quietly out into the hallway, my eyes landed on Dylan’s closed door. She was right there. One thin wall away. I’d never been this aware of someone else’s presence.

I inhaled deeply, holding onto that edge of control that was wearing thinner as I carefully headed down the stairs, the distance doing nothing to lessen the hold she had on me.

Those eyes. Long legs. Unusually small hands. Everything about her was hyper magnified now that I was with her all the time. We’d gone from almost zero in-person contact to sleeping under the same roof, and she’d stayed exactly where she was, sitting on the edge of my every thought, driving me mad.

Reaching the sofa, I cleared off the small cushions, setting them to the side.

Dylan had called them ‘decorative’ and they had to be, because they were far too small and firm to be used as actual cushions.

Just as I got my pillows in the right place, my feet sticking out at the end, the sofa too short, I realized I’d left my phone upstairs.

I was planning on sneaking back before morning, before she found me here and discovered how I despised that air mattress so much that I was forced to sleep somewhere else.

I wouldn’t be the one to blame for someone else becoming that so-called mattress’s next victim. I’d sooner pop the damn thing.

I was at the top of the staircase when I first heard it.

A sob? I stood frozen, eyes glued to Dylan’s door where I was sure I heard the noise.

Maybe a nightmare? I didn’t have to wait long before there was another one, a little louder and easier to hear.

Taking a step closer, I weighed up what to do.

Should I knock and try to wake her up? Leave her, hope she woke herself up?

I was trying to recall what I’d read about sleepwalkers when there was another noise. Not a sob or a cry. But a moan. And another. Loud enough to be heard through the pine door that might as well be paper.

My feet felt like they were trapped in cement, stuck to the ground only a metre away from her door, torturing myself with the whimpers, the moans I could hear, the light buzzing that told me this was no dream.

It might have been for me, although whether it was a nightmare or a wet dream so powerful it had me almost certain it was reality, I was still yet to decide.

I swallowed, realizing how heavy my breathing had become. Standing outside her door, listening to her … come undone, like I was a pervert, reality crashing in around me as I forced myself to take a step and then another down the stairs, towards the safety of the couch.

‘Oliver.’

I heard my name. I HEARD MY NAME.

I span around on the spot, peering up the stairs at her door, expecting it to be wide open, expecting to be caught red handed. But the hallway was still empty and unlit, the noise from her room quiet now. A second realization dawned on me.

I would never wonder how my name would sound coming from ( my friend ) Dylan’s mouth as she came.

Never have to wonder what kind of rasp it would carry.

Because now I knew, the sound seared into my memory like a torturous brand.

Much like the inside of the box, and now the image of her, wrapped up in her bed sheets, her fingers in between her legs. A toy vibrating between her thighs.

I told myself I’d misheard. Maybe she knew a different Oliver. Maybe … maybe anything other than it being my name.

Now all I had to do was survive the rest of my trip without losing my mind around her. A situation I felt was less and less likely every day I spent here.