Shut Up And Kiss Me (gxg)

15. Monroe F*cking Kingston

    I WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE OF the night in a bed that wasn't familiar.

    Slowly, carefully, I shuffled the blankets off myself. I had been tucked in, as snugly as my dad used to, back when I was a kid and I'd been afraid of monsters eating my exposed limbs.

    Once I slipped out of bed, my bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor, I shivered.

    I had to go pee―badly. But I had no idea where I was. This wasn't Aaron's bed, and it definitely wasn't his room.

     On a bean bag in the corner, I saw someone sleeping.

     The figure's head was tilted back. I could see the smooth column of her throat. One hand resting behind her head, the other on her lap. My eyes drifted to the bruises on her knuckles.

     This was Monroe's room. And . . . she was sleeping.

      I didn't know what I was thinking, only that she was . . . really pretty. The bathroom nearby still had its light on, and a sliver of golden light slanted over her face.

     While she was sleeping, she didn't look like a bitch or a god or a legendary shot-drinking, motorcycle-riding senior.

      She looked like a girl. Just a girl, with long black lashes feathering over her cheekbones. Raven-dark hair twisted up atop her head, stray strands wisping out, framing her face. 

     Just a girl with the softest, pinkest lips I'd ever seen. 

      I wanted to kiss her, and I didn't know why.

      In the darkness of the room, knowing she was asleep, knowing she couldn't see me, I got to stare at her. Finally. 

      She looked so damn peaceful. I wondered what she was dreaming about.

       If she was ever dreaming about me.

       That was stupid, though. Just because my subconscious had manifested itself in the form of sex dreams about her, it didn't mean hers did, too.

        I couldn't forget it―that she hated me. That I hated her, too.

        But I looked at her now, the way one corner of her lush mouth tugged up in her sleep―as if even in her dreams, she was a confident son of a bitch. A cocky, smirking―

        "Hi, Talia," she whispered.

        Her eyes opened, and the green startled me back a few steps.

        I wondered what time it was. Probably two or three in the morning.

        "You're awake," I said.

        "I'm a light sleeper."

        Had she been aware this whole time that I'd just been looking at her? 

        That wasn't a normal thing people did, was it?

        Oh, God. Definitely not.

        She probably had no idea I'd been staring at her. That wicked smile―she was probably just bluffing. 

        "I have to go pee," I said, by way of explanation. And I darted into the bathroom, trying not to breathe hard as I closed the door behind me.

         I hated her. I hated her. 

         That was what this was, wasn't it? The slow burn that crawled from my blood to my bones to my ragged heart? Hate.