Chapter Thirty-Four

Julia

THE FIRST CONSCIOUS THOUGHT I have is confusion. The scents I'm picking up with each inhale are familiar on their own, but out of place together. My mom's detergent, coupled with a spicier soap. My second thought is that my head lays on something firm. 

I blink my eyes open and notice the room is dim, though it's clearly early morning. Light from the edges of the blinds trickles in and it's enough for me to catch sight of white cotton, then further down my field of vision, someone's bottom half, in underwear. A large hand resting on his inner thigh.

Giles.

I'm jarred by the thought that we've had sex in my parents' house, but quickly dismiss it as the details of the last few hours fall into place. My mother insisted Giles take the guest room on the main floor, instead of driving back to San Diego in the middle of the night. I was staying in my room upstairs, which is on the same floor as my parents' room. 

But Giles lured me to come sleep with him, the way he always does. I resisted at first, knowing it was a reckless thing to risk my father finding out about. My parents are extremely old fashioned and they would never condone my sleeping with a man in their own house, even if I could convince them nothing sexual was happening.

Somehow, in my frustrated state of insomnia, driven by my apparent dependence of having Giles near me as I sleep, I snuck downstairs and climbed into bed beside him.

We talked until we were overcome by drowsiness, the way we always do. But I don't recall how I ended up practically on top of him. This has never happened before.

It might be the effects of drowsiness, but I'm slow and disoriented. I'm unable to move, as I assess all the parts of me that are pressed to him. I'm curled up on his side, my head resting half on his chest and half on the nook of his underarm. His other arm draped across me, his fingers are on the skin exposed by my shirt, which must've crept up during sleep. 

I try to move away, but his hold suddenly grows firm, locking me in place. His eyebrows furrow the moment his lids flutter open. He looks at me, then down at his arm and how my body is up against his, and seems to be gathering the pieces himself. 

"Well, this is different," he says with a small smile.

His hold relaxes and I sit up in bed. 

"What I want to know is why you aren't wearing any pants?" 

I'm trying to remain unaffected as I gather my hair up, freeing up tangles with my fingers, and twist it back into a high bun with the elastic on my wrist.

He pulls his arms behind his head, watching me. "I didn't bring any clothes with me. I wasn't going to sleep in my jeans."

I don't answer him right away, stretching instead. "Yeah, well, it would've been nice to know you were half naked when I got in bed with you. I thought you were wearing pajama pants under the sheets like you usually are."

"Next time, you're welcome to check," he says, lips curling. When I narrow my eyes at him, he shifts gears. "Are you feeling better? Did you get your closure?"

"Honestly? I'm not sure. I think I did what I needed to do, now it's just a matter of putting time between me and...everything."

He's looking up at me, way too comfortable being in his underwear in front me. And my eyes drag down his body before my brain can tell me it's not a good idea. I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I guess I just like the way he looks lying in bed.

I clear my throat. "So...I'm going to go see if I can sneak back to my room without anyone realizing I was here."

"You don't have to worry about your parents thinking something happened. Trust me, they wouldn't think that."

"Because they know I wouldn't--"

He cuts me off. "No, because the whole house would've heard you screaming all night long."

My mouth drops open. I take my pillow and try to smother him. He makes a playful, halfhearted attempt at removing it, arms wailing around in pretend suffocation, until I pull the pillow off again. Something about his face emerging from the cloud of white makes me forget to breathe. Because his eyes look so bright, like every green hue in them is charged up. 

He's undeniably handsome. And we slept in the same bed, bodies tangled around each other. Damn it. Why does that bring a flurry to my stomach? 

I refuse to let this be a big deal. Refuse. Nope. Won't be me. Not going to happen. Do you hear that, brain? Ovaries? Get in line. Not going to happen.

"Let me know when you're done staring at me," he says. "Then you can head off to your room."

I roll my eyes at him, lost at what else to do. He sits up and brings his hand up to my hair, where he tugs on the hair tie until my bun is undone and my locks fall over my shoulders. 

"What are you doing?" 

"I like your hair when it's down. It's wild and gorgeous."

There it goes again, my stomach does a summersault. Why does the silence that follows, where we hold on to each other's eyes, make me think we're flirting a dangerous line? And why do I enjoy it so damn much?

"I feel close to you," Giles says, seemingly out of nowhere. "I don't have a friend like you. I don't even know if I have any real friends. If this is what it's supposed to be like."

"I'm not sure this is what it's supposed to be like," I confess. "Sometimes I'm afraid you'll want more." 

"And I'm afraid I don't have more to give."

The shadow that whisks past his eyes is fleeting, but I catch it nonetheless. 

"This? Whatever this is? Friendship, roommate-ship, whatever? I like it," I say.

"I never thought I could spend so much time in bed with a girl I wasn't having sex with. Sex is great. But honestly, I'd choose a night sleeping beside you over sex with anyone else. Hands down."

I watch him carefully. He's looking at me in a way I've never seen him look at me before. "You sound drunk," I tease. "Are you drunk?"

"Maybe I am," he says. "I don't know. I always feel drunk around you. I constantly want time to stop, freeze, so I can just breathe there for a minute. Like when we were dancing? I wanted to be there with you for longer and I wanted time to just stop."

I cover my face with my hands and shake my head, willing myself not to smile. 

"You can't do that, Giles. You can't say things like that."

He pulls my hands from my face, forcing me to look at him again. "Why not? It's the truth."

"If we're going to keep things here..." I press my palm against his bare chest like it represents where we stand. His skin sears my palm, making the gesture seems too intimate. I let my hand drop back to my side. "You can't say things like that. Okay? It's just going to make things...hazy." And things are already too hazy. "So just don't."

"I'll try," he says, dragging his knuckles lightly over my cheek. Then, as if in an after thought, he adds, "I'm glad you made things right with your family."

"What about you?" I blurt out without thinking. "Have you called your mom?"

His relaxed expression tightens a notch. "I did."

I'm at a loss for words, truly surprised that he already contacted his mother and never mentioned it. All these nights we've spent talking until we fell asleep, I've been waiting for him to bring it up, sure I'd be the first person he'd tell. I watch him now, waiting for him to elaborate.

But he gets out of bed to pull on his jeans, and I don't miss the way his underwear clings to his ass.

I rub my eyes and refocus. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he says, instantly. "Not yet. Let me get through my meeting with her first."

My chest tightens, a dozen words rushing to my tongue but held at bay by my lips. "Okay." It's all I can think to say.

He turns to me, holding out his hand. I take it and let him help me off the bed. "Let's go home," he says. "Where our biggest worry about sleeping in the same bed is keeping it from Ava, not your father breaking my neck."

I laugh, then lean over and kiss his cheek. "I'm here for you, okay?" I echo the words he spoke to me a while back, on a night I needed so badly to hear them.

He pulls me into a hug and I don't try to resist, taking in his scent and settling my face on his chest. 

"I know you are, little leopard," he says. "And, I swear, it means everything."

I close my eyes at these words. They sound as good as him holding me feels. His arms tighten around me, wrapping me in warmth, and his scent caresses me all the way down to my inner thighs. I ignore the nagging in the pit of my stomach that we are edging closer and closer to a foggier and foggier zone. 

I know what we're doing isn't smart. We are latching onto an almost we seem to enjoy torturing ourselves with. An almost kiss, an almost touch. 

An almost romance we're both too hesitant to trek. 

Our hesitation litters the way behind us. It litters the way in front of us, too, boulders of uncertainty that are crowding us right off the edge of everything. 

And there we are, pretending we're exactly where we want to be. Like the craziest kind of fools.