Page 91 of Surviving Slater

Whatever it was, I felt like I was walking around with less baggage.

Back in the real world, our fledgling relationship flourished. Despite my friends' misgivings about us, they supported me. Even Matthew.

"You sound really happy," he said over a phone call a couple of weeks later.

"I am." But there was always that fear that would never go away. It was the fear that something was going to happen to ruin what was happening between Slater and me.

"You deserve it," he said, holding off on any other lectures about how Slater was going to break my heart.

Taylor was happy for us as well but I think, despite the fact they were happy to see me happy, everyone was just waiting for it to end badly. Or maybe it was just me who was not convinced we had what it took to make it as a couple. Our track records weren't a good reflection for success.

"Are you daydreaming again?" His voice brought me out of my thoughts. Slater stood in the doorway, dressed in jeans and nothing else. He was hot. The awareness I felt every time he was near tingled through me. I loved him, and he was mine. Even if it didn't last.

"Sorry," I mumbled, sitting up in the bed.

"That's okay. I like watching you when you're deep in thought."

One thing I had learned in the time I had spent over at his place was that he didn't sleep much. When I would doze off and wake up during the night, he was either on his computer or watching TV. It wasn't healthy but somehow he managed. If I didn't get eight hours' sleep I was cranky for the day.

I was still naked beneath the sheet. I could still feel his touch from the night before on my skin, the slight sensitivity of my skin that his stubble had brushed against.

"I'm thinking about you," I said. He gave me that lazy confident smile that always made my stomach somersault.

"You keep looking at me like that, I won't be able to control myself," he said, his voice deep.

That wouldn't be such a bad thing.

My phone started to ring. I got it from the side table.

"It's Connor," I said to Slater before I answered.

Slater disappeared out of the room when Connor spoke.

"Hi, Jordan," he said.

"What's up?" I asked him. I hadn't heard much from him in the last month. I had dealt with my guilt for snooping into Slater's past by ignoring the fact that I had asked Connor to look into it in the first place.

After the last six weeks, it was easier to forget because I hadn't had much contact from Connor.

"I wanted to give you an update," he said, and I frowned. "Looking into what happened to Shannon is more complicated than I expected."

It was on the edge of my tongue to tell him to forget about it but he had spent weeks on it and I couldn't bring myself to tell him to stop now.

"There are a lot of things that don't add up," he said, sounding subdued.

"If it's too much trouble…" I began to say.

"It isn't," he assured me. "It's just going to take longer than I expected. I'll keep you updated."

"Sure," I said.

The longer it took, the more I could talk myself into the fact that I hadn't crossed a line, because technically I didn't know anything that Slater hadn't mentioned already. My asking Connor didn't, on its own, in my mind count as a betrayal. Yeah, I knew it took some warped way of thinking to talk myself into that conclusion, but I had.

My inner peace was unsettled by the phone call from Connor. I got out of bed and slipped into one of Slater's shirts. He loved it when I walked around his place just dressed in his shirts.

I padded into the living room to find him busy on his laptop.

"What are you doing?" I asked, looking at the screen. None of the writing made any sense. It looked like gibberish but Slater understood it.