Hey guys, I know I said I'd post the new books at the same time as these last two chapters but one of them isn't ready just yet so I'll post it on Thursday. I always post the first five chapters of a book to give you guys something to get attached to and I am still torn about whether or not I like the first chapter of one of the books. So just stay tuned. :)
"Because I like you, you idiot!" Nova shouts at me, sending waves of shock through my body. I find myself incapable of forming a coherent sentence so I can only stare at her. Her face reddens substantially as her eyes search mine for an answer. "Say something!" My phone is hurled in my direction and lands in her hamper. I go to speak but nothing comes out. This happens a few times before I can formulate a single word.
"What?" I ask. I probably look like an idiot. I must've heard her wrong. But I couldn't have. She wouldn't be overreacting so much if I did.
"I'm not saying it again," she snaps in a low voice, which only confirms my thoughts.
"You like me?" I ask as I wrap my fingers around her wooden desk.
"Yes," she says in frustration as she throws her pillow at me. I catch it with one hand and clutch it to my chest. It smells vaguely of her and I give a quick inhale.
"You mean like-like?" I query. "As in more than a friend? As in you have feelings for me?"
"That's what liking someone means," she grunts in annoyance. She throws her other pillow, which, again, I grab and pull to my chest. I can only stare at her as I process the words coming out of her mouth.
"Are you sure you're not drunk?" I ask before I get my hopes up. She assesses me for a second before offering a slow headshake.
"I'm not drunk," she verifies. I deeply examine her face, searching for any signs of disorientation. I sigh in slight relief when I notice that she seems fine.
"Why didn't you say anything before?" I ponder aloud as thoughts race through my mind. She likes me? She really likes me? Is this really happening right now?
"Because you would've assumed I started liking you after we slept together," she announces as she stretches out onto her back. My eyes double in size as I struggle even more to put meaning to her words. She liked me before we had sex? I approach her bed and pull myself up, placing her pillows down before taking a seat.
"Is that not what happened?" I question as I pull her legs onto my lap. I lightly rub her calves and she seems less nervous now. She averts her gaze and returns her pillows to their place beneath her head.
"No," she answers. I wait for her to tell me when it all started but she doesn't.
"Since when?" I press as I give her face a brief once over. She lightly nibbles her bottom lip as she contemplates answering.
"Junior year," she confesses. I don't intend to react as quickly or as fiercely as I do. My mouth drops open and my eyebrows shoot up. Junior year? She's liked me since junior year? And she's never said anything?! "I know... I'm such an idiot."
"Are you being serious right now?" I ask again. This better not be a fucked up joke.
"Yes," she answers and my heart starts to pound in my chest as I search her face over and over again.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" I beg as I shake her legs.
"Because I didn't want to be rejected," she responds and I gape at her.
"You're kidding me, right?" I press. I've been in love with her for what seems like forever and she was scared of being rejected? Why the hell would I do that?
"I didn't want to deal with the awkwardness. Even now I'm scared because I don't know what's going to change. But I'm also relieved because I've kept all of this in for a while now. I just can't keep pretending to be okay with casual sex and all of that-," she rants but I cut her off when I realize she isn't catching on to what I'm trying to say.
"Nova," I begin as I jolt her legs a bit to gather her attention. "You're kidding me, right?"
She gazes at me in slight confusion. "What?" she mumbles.
"I've been actively pursuing you for the past year and you've blocked every single shot I've taken," I respond in slight exasperation. I sigh when she tilts her head at me curiously. "Nova, I flirted with you every single day since I met you! I introduced you to my parents! I stopped sleeping around! My friends literally harass me about it- even in front of you! What did you think all of that was for?"
"So you like me?" she summarizes.
"So much! That's new information to you?" I retort with a look of shock on his face. All this time I thought she had some idea that I had feelings for her. "You're telling me you didn't already know?"
"No! I just thought you were a flirt! You never outright said anything!" she gasps.
"I dropped everything to come over here just to kiss you and you weren't aware that I liked you, Nova? Seriously?" I retort.
"I just thought you were sexually frustrated! I knew you were going through a dry spell," she notes, which gets a slight cringe from me. Jee, thanks Nova. "As for everything else, I just thought that's how you treat your best friend!"
"Why would I ask you to marry me if I only saw you as my best friend?" I reply with a slightly tilted head. Does she think I say this to everyone?
"I don't know! I just thought you were a flirt," she repeats. "Why couldn't you tell that I liked you? I made it obvious."
"Because everytime I flirted with you, you'd reject me! Until you just stopped and everything just got twenty times more confusing from there!" I respond.
"I literally had sex with you," she snaps. She's got a point there... "And you didn't think I liked you?"
"I just thought you were feeling sexually liberated!" I reason.
"What about the jealous breakdown I had?" she continues to list off.
"I just thought you were upset because you didn't like Raven!" I explain. "Maybe if you didn't have Eli bobbing and weaving through all of this, I'd have made myself more clear."
"Oh I don't want to hear that Mr. Secret Group Chat Conversations," she scowls at me. I go to grab my phone from my pocket before realizing that it's across the room in the hamper.
"Those messages were literally the guys telling me to just suck it up and tell you how I feel!" I sum up. It's also them telling me that she definitely likes me, which I now understand. "That's all they were! They were trying to convince me that you like me. The text you saw in the car was Jack bringing up the so-called jealous breakdown you had about Raven!"
"Why didn't you just tell me?" she complains. "You're supposed to be the outgoing one who's open to everything and anything."
"Why didn't you just tell me? If I'm so open to everything and anything, why wouldn't I be open to having that conversation?" I counter.
"I was going to but you freaked out when I told you I loved you so I got scared," she rants. My stomach jumps for a second at the mention of her little slip up.
"You meant that?" I ask in a hushed voice. She locks eyes with me for a few seconds before shifting her head up to peer at the ceiling.
"Yeah, I did," she confesses, which causes my heart to pound even harder than it was before. My vision blurs slightly as I try to absorb everything that's happened in the last twenty minutes.
"I feel like I'm going to pass out," I admit. "This is all happening so fast."
"Did I drop the L bomb too soon?" she wonders aloud.
"No," I scoff. "Oh yeah, and another thing, I've told you that I love you practically everyday for the last year and a half, and you're telling me you didn't know."
"You can't blame me for that one," she retorts immediately. "I'd have driven myself crazy if I read too much into that. It was better for both of us that I assumed you meant it as a friend."
"As a friend?" I ask. "That's stupid."
"Did Jack and West know you liked me? I mean, before the whole group chat drama," she questions, which earns a loud laugh from me.
"Everyone did! Except you," I inform her. "Even Adrian knew- that asshole."
"Is that why you punched him in the face?" she gasps.
"Yes!" I say with a small sigh of relief. "He knew I liked you but he went after you anyway and in a weird, disrespectful way."
"Wow..." she mumbles. "Why didn't you say anything in the beginning?"
I purse my lips and stare at her, racking my mind for a good enough response. "A lot of reasons..." I trail. "Do you want the long explanation or the short one?"
"The long one," she encourages, which I follow with a sigh. Where to start?
"Well, in the beginning when I first met you, I thought 'wow, she's cute' but it was just that. I looked at you kind of like a little girl because I knew you were so innocent. I didn't even have to ask," I attempt to tell her. I figure she'd have scoffed at 'love at first sight.'
"Gee thanks," she grunts. I repress the urge to smirk when the pout on her face grows.
"It was funny though because you knew who I was from the jump. You knew I got around and you made it clear that you weren't interested. I didn't even risk flirting with you too much because I knew you'd put me in my place. In short, I knew from then on that you were out of my league. So I kind of just told myself not to bother going after you and that you would just be a special girl in my life. But I knew that if I ever planned on settling down, it'd be with you...or someone as similar to you as I can get. At least I hoped it would," I admit. Her eyes search my face curiously and I bask in her satisfaction. I honestly don't know why she's so surprised. All I've ever done is flirt with her.
"So basically you friend zoned me is what you're saying?" she asks with a growing smile.
"For your sake, not mine," I clarify as I lightly lick my lips. "And I definitely gave you multiple opportunities to get out of it. Now tell me, when did you start liking me?"
She squints at me as she analyzes my face, which makes my heart skip a beat. "I always thought you were cute, even before I met you. When you asked me to tutor you, I was really nervous. You were popular and good looking and you had all the cheerleaders and softball players talking about you. I thought you were so out of my league that I literally told myself to not even think about you in that way, so I didn't at first," she explains and I hold my scoff until the end. That's absolutely ridiculous. There's no such things as leagues but if there were, then she's way out of mine.
"Gee thanks," I mumble when I get over the shock of her categorizing me as out of her league.
"But then I got to know you and you were nice and funny. I wished we could be friends but I didn't think you'd be interested in that. Then you started asking me to go with you to parties and I assumed it was a form of payment for tutoring you. It wasn't until you started hanging out with me doing things I liked that I realized that you were trying to be my friend," she expresses in a quiet voice.
"You make me sound like an asshole," I note.
"I had to think you were or else I'd have fallen for you way sooner," she explains. "I think I started to really like you around New Years of junior year. I thought it was cute how you spent the night with me instead of your friends. When you kissed me on the cheek, I knew I was a goner."
I stare at her for a second as I envision us dating in high school. "Why didn't you say anything?" I ask with a short sigh.
"Look at it my way; in high school, you were really popular and you got with so many girls. I hadn't even kissed a boy and I had three friends that I wasn't even close to. I would have looked so stupid had I told you," she describes, which gets a shrug from me.
"It's not like I hadn't heard it before," I mutter and she shoots me a short glare.
"That's another thing; I didn't want to be just another girl you slept with," she rolls her eyes, "I didn't want you to sleep with me and then leave."
"I would never," I promise with a slow shake of my head.
"I know that now," she assures me. I watch her from my position at her feet before letting a chuckle escape from my mouth. "What?"
"Isn't it funny how a couple months ago we couldn't even talk about sex and now we're doing it...together?" I voice my thoughts and she laughs loudly. I feel her body vibrate against mine and relish in the feeling.
"Yeah, a little," she admits. I can feel the conversation coming to a slow end and I can tell where it needs to be directed. What's the next step?
"So...are you going to ask me?" I prompt with a smirk. Her gaze is locked on our hands, which are entangled loosely on her stomach. I absentmindedly rub circles in her palm as I wait for her to reply.
"Ask you what?" she questions while peeking up at me nervously.
"To marry you," I reply, which gets a boisterous giggle from her.
"Just skip the whole dating thing right? From friends with benefits to engaged?" she supposes and I grin at the idea of us getting engaged.
"Why waste the time?" I dismiss. Realistically, I would propose if I knew she'd say yes.
"You claim to not be ready for a serious relationship yet you want to get married," she reminds me in a slightly teasing voice. I can sense the genuine concern laced in so I decide to address it.
"I only told you that I wasn't ready for a serious relationship to get you off my back about why I wasn't dating," I confess. "I was being honest though when I said I couldn't see myself in a relationship because I couldn't bring myself to get over you."
Her eyes are locked on me as she absorbs my words. "So you're ready for a relationship?" she presses for a simple answer.
"Yes," I assure her. She nods in understanding as her eyes fall back to our hands. "So?"
"So what?" she continues to egg me on.
"So are you going to ask me to be your boyfriend? I'm not getting any younger," I tease..
Her eyes fall to the back of her head as she scoffs. She pulls herself up into a sitting position and tightens her grip on my hands. I wait patiently for the words to leave her mouth but she makes it a point to dramatically gaze into my eyes. Playfully, I press my cheek against my shoulder, which makes her serious face waver to one of amusement. "No," she blurts as she drops my hands completely and returns to her resting position.
"What?" I retort in slight shock. I didn't exactly expect her to ask but I wasn't expecting such a hard no.
"You're asking me," she demands as she waves a finger around. "I initiated this whole conversation so you're going to ask me to be your girlfriend."
The grin returns to my face as I stare at her. "Fine," I give in. I take her hands in mine and lightly tug her up so that she's poised in front of me. She lets a sigh slip through her lips as my eyebrows bounce up and down suggestively. "Do you want to be my girlfriend?" I propose and she takes in my facial expression before giving a weak shrug. I see the smile threatening to break through on her face and I feel my heart start to thud harder.
"Sure, I've got nothing better to do," she agrees as the smile falls to her lips gracefully.
"Can I tell the guys? They're going to be so surprised. And happy for me. And Adrian can literally kiss my-," I start to think aloud but she stops me.
"Can we tell them together? In person? I want to see their responses," she suggests, which gets a loud sigh from me. That's so far away. I can shoot them a text right now!
"We're not going to see them for a week and a half," I inform her with a sour look on my face.
"I waited two years for this. You can wait a week and a half," she retorts as if my struggle is bad.
"I can't wait to show you off," I remind her as I lightly poke her tummy. She grins at me, which reminds me of a significant part of our relationship. The gasp that falls from my mouth startles her a bit. "How are we going to tell your parents?"
"Jeez," she mutters as she turns her gaze to the darkness outside the window. "I didn't think you'd die so soon."
"Your dad probably will kill me," I confirm with another shrug. "At least I'll die doing what I love- talking about you."
"Where do you come up with this stuff?" she chuckles and I beam at her in response.
"I can't wait to tell my parents," I announce excitedly. They're going to be elated.
"They knew?" she asks in a slightly surprised tone.
"Yes," I admit awkwardly. "My mom knew for a while and she eventually told my dad."
"So literally everyone knew but me," she questions.
"That's what I said," I agree. My gaze falls to her lips, which are parted slightly and still a bit glossy from her chapstick. I want to kiss her. As if a light goes off above my head, I gasp quietly again. My hands go up to the sides of her face and she's slightly alarmed yet again. "Does this mean I can kiss you wherever, whenever? And we can hold hands? And do the cringeworthy couple stuff?"
"Yes," she answers with a smile as her hands lightly clasp my wrists. I peck my lips against hers just because I can and she grins widely.
"You don't know how happy I am right now," I whisper.
"I do," she agrees before falling back onto her bed. I repress the urge to climb on top of her and instead, let her beckon me to lay with her. I do and she immediately snuggles up against me. "Now I can tell people you're my boyfriend." The word sends butterflies catapulting throughout my entire body.
"Or soon-to-be husband," I shrug, "I don't mind." I wonder if she can feel how fast my heart is beating.
She lets out a girly laugh before rubbing her head against my chest. "Shut up, Dominic."