Dear Darling

46

Josephine

"You spent the night with him?" Megan said excitedly to me.

I nodded furiously, failing to wipe the smile from my face as I rummaged through my bag, looking for clothes to wear. Dylan had brought me back to the hotel so I could shower and get ready for the day; he had gone to get breakfast from a cafe down the street after leaving me in mine and Megan's room.

I found a pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt, turning to walk into the bathroom. Megan grabbed my arm when I began to move away from her.

"No! You can't shower yet, you have to tell me what happened!" Her eyes were wide with wonder as she looked at me with an awed expression.

"It was really nice," I said bashfully, looking down at the clothes in my hands. "Let me shower and then I'll tell you about it,"

Megan huffed at me, but let me walk away from her. I went into the bathroom, getting out of my clothes and climbing in the shower. As soon as the water had turned on, I heard the bathroom door open from behind the curtain.

I peeked my head out and laughed when I saw my best friend sitting down on the closed toilet seat.

"Megan!" I exclaimed.

"I'm sorry Jo, but I can't wait to hear about this," She said candidly with a smile. "You can shower, but talk while you do it,"

"You're impossible," I told her, pulling my head back behind the shower curtain and letting my hair fall under the water stream.

"We both know that," I heard Megan say. "So, what happened last night? I gave you time to go out and be with him by yourself, but I didn't think you'd go back to his place!"

I heard the giddiness in her voice and I realized that she thought Dylan and I had hooked up. I felt my body heat up as I blushed deeply, and I was glad that nobody could see me in that moment.

After hearing the implication, I couldn't help but picture it in my head, just for a second. I felt embarrassed at the thought of someone seeing me that way...a way that nobody had ever seen me before. I tried to shake off the comment, but then I remembered the way his lips felt against mine and I found myself drifting back to the beginnings of a fantasy.

I remembered our kiss last night and then the feel of his toned body under my hands this morning, like a perfectly sculpted man. I remembered his smirk and the look in his eyes when he caught me staring at him, the way he had said I don't mind if you look.

"Jo?" Meg snapped me out of my thoughts. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I coughed, squirting some shampoo into my hand and applying it to my hair.

"Okay," Her voice told me that she didn't believe me for a second, but then she changed the subject. "So what happened when you left?"

I recounted the events of yesterday to her, telling her about our walk through the city, simply people watching and talking. I told her about how he held my hand and led me around, smiling at me with his doe eyes that never ceased to make me melt inside.

I told her about our almost kiss in the street and then our actual kiss at his apartment. I told her about how he held me and spoke sweet words to me, making me fall even more in love with him than I already was.

I told her that we had slept together, stopping the story to put emphasis on the fact that sleeping was the only thing we did, leaving out the part about his nightmare. I hadn't told Meg about Dylan's abusive childhood, I didn't know if he would be comfortable with me telling her and it honestly wasn't my story to tell.