By now, you must have read the author’s note about 40 times or something. :P You know this book has been published, and you’ve read a bunch of chapters, so you must like the story. :) The book is only $16.99 so go and order yourself a copy!
The link: https://www.createspace.com/4799393
If you want to order on Amazon, massage me for the link!
=======
God. I always feel so relaxed after showering. Still damp from the hot streams of water, I wrapped myself in a towel and walked into the bedroom – Simon’s bedroom.
The first thing I saw was Simon’s bare back. He was rummaging through his closet for clothes – wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. Of course I had seen him like this last night, but it had been dark and we’d been tired. Somehow, seeing him so naked, with so much skin exposed… It felt different from all the other times I’d seen him half naked while brushing his teeth in the bathroom, when I stopped by in the morning. He looked… good. Really good. He was tall and had a lean build, but there was something unexpectedly graceful about the way his muscles flexed while he moved around.
When he turned around to face me, I almost expected him to say “Like what you’re seeing?” But his expression was soft, his lips slightly parted. He seemed… self-conscious, maybe a bit scared of what I would think of him. A tiny little part of me told my thoughts that the remark I’d been expecting was one Eros would’ve made, not my sweet old Simon. But I shrug off any thought of Eros and smile at Simon.
A little shy, he opened his arms and I threw myself at him so I could drag him into a bone-crunching hug. The moment we touched, though, the hug didn’t turn out bone-crunching at all. It was sweet, soft and warm. His breath tickled my neck when he bent down to give me a very careful kiss.
When he pulled back, his eyes were exploring my face as if searching for a reaction. I was just gaping at him. Was this what it was like to be Simon’s girlfriend? Would he always be so sweet, kissing my forehead and my neck, or would that fade once we’d been together longer? When I realized I was already starting to think as if we were in a relationship, I flushed bright red and pulled him back into the hug so I could hide my face. I pressed my hot cheek against his equally hot chest, hoping my feelings wouldn’t betray my thoughts.
“I’m sorry,” Simon said, stroking my back. “Too soon?”
A surprised laugh escaped from my mouth. “Too soon?” I repeated, frowning against his skin. He could probably feel my brows go up. “No, why do you think…?”
“You feel guilty and troubled,” he whispered. “I figured you didn’t know how to break it easy to me, that you’re not ready for me to kiss you.”
I shook my head and leaned back so I could face him. “You need to stop analyzing my feelings. Yes, you can tell what I am feeling, but not what I am feeling that about. I was feeling guilty and troubled about well, about my thoughts, not about the kiss.”
“So it’s okay?” he asked, smiling.
“Sime, when I said I wasn’t ready, I meant I wasn’t ready to be your girlfriend. To suck face, making it look like I am a cannibal trying to eat your cute face. I’m not ready to not be friends anymore, but in a relationship…” I shook my head again. “It’s not like you never kissed my forehead before or something. And I think it would be a bit weird if I wouldn’t want you to kiss my neck, while I did quite a lot of kissing since I came here…” I stopped when I realized bringing Eros into the conversation wasn’t a great idea.
Simon wasn’t fazed though. “Good.” He bent down and kissed my neck again, very softly and very sweetly. I shivered and he pulled back again, looking confused.
I sighed. “Seriously, Sime, I can’t even shiver? That means I like it, okay?”
He flushed bright red. “I just don’t want to mess this up, okay?” he mumbled. “And well, I – I – it’s not like I ever had a girlfriend before or anything.”
I gasped. “You’ve never been kissed?” God, why hadn’t this topic come up in conversation before? That was the thing when you hang out with guys without any girls present – a lot of things stayed unspoken.
“It’s no big deal.” But his red hot face told a different story. “I know you have been, but well, it is kind of all new to me.”
I slapped my forehead. “God, I am so sorry, Sime. I truly am.” I threw my arms around him once more and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “I’ll make sure our first kiss is just perfect, okay?”
“That sounds pretty definite.” Simon said, smiling down at me. “What happened to neither of us being ready?”
“Oh, we’re not.” I said, backing away from him, but keeping one of his hands in mine. “But we will be one day, and I will make sure I won’t mess up our first kiss then. Now go hit the shower, you smell.”
“I do not.” he protested, but he headed for the shower anyway. “When I’m done, we’ll need to exchange gifts!” he told me before shutting the door. “It’s Christmas morning!”
“This is too much.” Simon told me sternly when he had opened all of the gifts I had bought him. “You must have spent a fortune on me.” His eyes were sparkling though, and he’d already opened one of the books, ruffling though the pages.
“I’ll act as if you just thanked me politely and gave me a hug.” I said, shaking my head at him.
He smiled and opened his arms. “Come here!”
I threw myself into him and we fell backwards onto the couch. He started tickling me, and I cried out in laughter. I’m a very ticklish person, but I bet he was too. When I started tickling him, he almost fell of the couch. So, I was right: he actually was ticklish. While I tried to tickle him again, he flipped me over so he was on top. He pinned my arms above my head like I had done with him that morning and smiled down on me.
“Not so tough now, are you?” he whispered. His lips were so close to mine it was hard to think of anything else. God, we really needed to start acting like we weren’t ready for a relationship, instead of acting like two teens that were in love above everything else.
“That looks cozy,” Will’s dry voice sounded, followed by the sound of a door slamming shut.
“It does,” Antwan chimed in.
Simon quickly released me and pulled me up so that we were sitting. His face was flushed, but I was smiling widely. There was no point in being self-conscious. If this was really going to work out, everyone would have to get used to Simon and me fighting and kissing… Oops, I was getting ahead of myself again.
“We have presents for you!” I said, jumping up and down with excitement. “Sime, go get them.”
“Yes, boss.” He rolled his eyes at me, but got to his room to pick up the presents anyway.
“So, you got the guy whipped already?” Will mused. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“Don’t make any jokes in front of him,” I warned them speaking too low for Simon to hear me. “He’s… well, let’s just say all of this takes some getting used to.”
“I’m glad you guys are hitting it off,” Antwan said with a lopsided grin. “You make him happier than I’ve seen him in a long time.”
“But don’t you dare hurt him, okay?” Will warned. “Are you sure you’re ready for all of this? No turning back now, Dem.”
“Don’t go all soppy on me, now,” I told him sternly. “The reason I hang out with guys is because they don’t go overanalyzing everything, they don’t need to put everything into words and most of all, they’re not soppy.”
Simon was back with their presents then and he handed both of them a package. Without much ado, they ripped their presents open – typical guy behavior, not even appreciating the nice bow I had put on the paper myself. Or well, the bow I had made the lady at the store put on. It’s almost the same. Anyway, they ripped it open and both looked surprised.
“Coupons for dinner and a movie?” Antwan asked surprised. “Seriously?”
Will just looked at me with a frown. He seemed to realize I was up to something – smart guy.
“I gave Minnie one too,” I informed Antwan. “She’s very excited.”
His eyes lit up and he smiled. “Oh, Dem, that’s actually real nice of you.” The way his eyes were glinting, I could tell he truly liked the gift and the idea of going on an actual date with Minnie – not just a school date because everyone in this idiotic place needed a date even to just go take a leak.
“Demona…” Will said softly. “Who did you hook me up with?”
“The girl you stared at last night. Tatiana. Dropped it off when I was getting some clean clothes today.” I was pretty proud of myself, because I had certainly noticed Will liked her, but as I had anticipated, Will’s face fell. “She said she would love to go with you,” I assured him. That wasn’t the whole truth. She’d said that she’d love to go out and that she supposed Will was all right. But Will was a great guy and I was sure if Tatiana just gave him a chance, she’d see that too.
“Well, fine.” He shook his head at me. “But if I have a horrible evening, I want my gift to you back.”
“You – you bought me a gift?” I asked surprised. I hadn’t seen that coming. Most guys I was friends with didn’t think of buying you anything and just pulled out some old shampoo or some air freshener they had laying around in their car. That’s how I got all the weird stuff in the boxes underneath my bed.
“Sure we did,” Antwan said. He was smiling wickedly when he took a bottle out of a bag that had been laying on one of the couches. “Tada!”
“Oh, gosh, guys, it’s… a bottle…” I stated, frowning. “You really shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s for Simon too,” Antwan added, still too happy and smug to notice my sarcasm.
“It’s a potion,” Will explained. “We’re witches after all… We brewed you a potion. You take a sip of before you go to sleep and it will wake you up when a teacher is on patrol and about to enter the dorm. Since you and Sime are having so many illegal sleepovers, we figured it might come in handy.”
I was shocked. They hadn’t only thought of a great gift, they had actually brewed a potion. I had no idea witches did that. I knew witches from old TV shows did that kind of things, but Antwan and Will didn’t look like potion brewers at all. They looked like… well, regular kids. Ah well, so did I and I was a female vampire. Plus, I had a sort-of-boyfriend who was a fairy. Who was I to judge?
“Thank you guys so much!” Simon said, taking the bottle from Antwan. “Seriously, that’s real nice.”
“Yeah, well, we are pretty amazing guys,” Will replied with a wink. “Did you give Demona her present yet?”
“Oh no,” Simon realized. He turned to me and smiled shyly. “I hope you like it. If you don’t, just say so, okay? I don’t buy presents for girls very often… Well, never, actually.”
“Just give it to me,” I urged, rolling my eyes at him. I was excited to see what he’d gotten me – this wasn’t the first time a boyfriend (or almost boyfriend) was giving me a present, as I’d dated before, but this was different. This was Simon, probably the most amazing friend I’d ever had – no offence to my old friends, but the bond Sime and I shared was something else entirely.
He took something out of the deep pocket of his dark jeans and handed it to me. It was an envelope, a rather battered one at that. I raised my eyebrows at him. He shrugged, meaning that the way the present was wrapped shouldn’t matter. I opened the envelope and peered inside. There were two tickets inside, so I pulled them out and inspected them.
“No way!” I screamed when I realized it were tickets to a concert of The Killers in a city nearby. “Seriously, Simon, this must have cost a fortune!”
“Nah,” he denied lightly. “You like it?”
I didn’t even seriously reply to that. It was obvious I liked it. So I threw my arms around him and gave him a kiss on his cheek. I had the urge to kiss him on his mouth, but since I knew he’d never been kissed, I wanted it to be special for him. Besides, I would like our first kiss to be without Will and Antwan looking at us.
When I let him go, I held out one of the tickets. “You want to keep your own ticket, or should I keep it for now?”
“You don’t have to take me if you want to go with someone else. Anne of Greg or whoever.” Simon said quickly. He was dead serious.
“Shut up,” I dismissed his comment, grinning. “There is no way I am going without you.”
“Aren’t they a cute almost-couple?” Antwan whispered, making Will grin.
That night, I woke up in complete darkness, feeling strangely vulnerable. Feelings of fear and despair washed over me, leaving me gasping for breath in the safeness of my warm comfy bed. I tried to remember what I’d dreamed, hoping to find the cause of my fear. Surely it wasn’t normal to wake up covered in sweat, heart full of desolation, without a nightmare to explain it. Nothing came to me, though, and the feeling of wretchedness only grew.
When I realized the fear wasn’t my own, I jumped out of bed. If the feelings that were coming to me – getting stronger every second – weren’t my own, that meant Simon was in some kind of danger. I wasn’t going to lay in bed and wait for morning to come when Simon was feeling this awful. Who knew what had happened?
Without thinking, without even pondering for a moment if I was being smart, I stormed out of the dorm and ran through the corridors. I didn’t even really watch where I was going, I just followed the emotions that were channeled through me. My heart was beating in my throat, my own fear mingled with his. I was just hoping I would be on time to save him from whatever it was that made him feel this way.
With a jolt, I came to a sudden, stuttering halt in front of a door. Before I realized what I was doing, I was banging my hands on wooden frame. I didn’t care who I woke up in order to get to Simon. When no one opened up and I couldn’t even hear footsteps coming my way, I groaned. I banged on the door again. Strangely, the sound of my knocking didn’t sound the same way as usual. When I came to think of it, the entire corridor didn’t feel and look the same way as usual. I checked the door, the hallway, the stairs I’d ran up. This wasn’t Simon’s dorm. With a start, I realized this was Eros’ dorm. What the hell was I doing here? Better yet, what the hell was Simon doing here? WHAT WAS EROS DOING TO SIMON?
========
Where can you order a copy of this book, you ask?
Create Space: https://www.createspace.com/4799393
On Amazon (but they barely give me any royalties).
Don't hesitate to message me about where to buy it!
Please like this story on Facebook and stay tuned about developments in the series: https://www.facebook.com/SupernaturalBoardingSchool