Page 15 of More Than Friends

I close my eyes, trying to push the memory of her lips against mine to the very back of my mind. It was a terrible idea to want to kiss her. I know that, but it doesn’t change how, for a few perfect moments, the only thing I needed was to feel the press of her lips against mine.

When I open my eyes, I make sure to plaster on a smile. It feels incredibly forced, but I hope she doesn’t recognize it as that. I pick up the discarded wet paper towels before standing up. I whistle, trying to come off as if I’m completely unfazed by what just happened. My mind races with things I can say that can ease the tension as I try to find a way to pretend we didn’t just kiss.

“We were about to make things totally awkward between us, weren’t we?” I laugh, trying to play it cool. I hope she doesn’t see right through my lie. It didn’t feel awkward at all. It felt right, and the realization is jarring. I try to push all thoughts of that away, knowing just by the look on her face and the way she keeps looking down at her lap instead of at me that no matter how right it felt for me, it didn’t feel right to her. Me calling itawkward when it was anything but is just an attempt to make her feel better about what just happened.

Char looks up at me. She chews on her lip for a moment before plastering on her own fake smile. “Yeah,” she mutters. I can’t help but look away from her blue eyes for a moment to notice the way she twists her hands in her lap before making eye contact again. “It’s just the wine,” she offers, her words coming out so quiet I almost don’t catch them.

I nod. “Of course it was the wine. You and me kissing?” I force out a laugh. “That would besoweird.”

There’s no denying that the wine has gone to my head, but it hasn’t clouded my judgment in the slightest. Now that I’m being honest with myself, I still would’ve wanted to kiss Charlotte completely sober, but I’m not going to tell her that.

I can’t.

I clear my throat in an attempt to get myself under control. Standing up, I grab the dirty paper towels and walk to the kitchen to throw them away. “If you want to follow me to my closet, you can pick out a new shirt to wear,” I offer.

Charlotte nods before her eyes skirt over the coffee table. “I feel like I should help you finish cleaning up.”

I don’t tell her that I need to get away from the living room for a moment. All I can think about when I stare at the coffee table is the fact that we almost kissed in front of it. If we leave the room, maybe I’ll stop replaying the feeling of her lips against mine over and over in my head.

“The coffee table is fine. The only thing still covered in wine is you. Let’s go find you a new shirt.”

I walk to my room and hope that she follows. My head feels fuzzy, and I know it isn’t because of the wine. It’s Charlotte. Kissing her—no matter how brief it was—has unlocked something inside me. It’s like the floodgates have been opened, and now I can’t think about anything other than her.

I don’t have to look over my shoulder to know she follows me into my room. I take a deep breath as I turn on my closet light in an attempt to clear my mind of her.

When I turn around, it doesn’t work. All I can think about when my eyes meet hers is how much I still want to kiss her.

“Do you want a T-shirt or sweatshirt?”

The long pieces of her blonde hair cover her face as she looks to the ground. “A T-shirt is fine.”

I nod and turn around to sort through my T-shirts, trying to decide which one to give her.

Which one have I worn recently? I want to give her one that smells the most like me, although I won’t tell her that. It won’t smell like my cologne, but it’ll smell like my detergent, and for some reason, I’m crazy about her wearing anything that smells like me.

I pull a Pembroke one I know is freshly clean from a hanger and turn around to face her again.

“How’s this?”

Charlotte looks at the shirt. “Good.”

I nod and take a step closer to her. Now that we’re standing so close, I’m wishing I had turned more lights on in my closet. I only turned on the ambient lighting, and it makes things feel far more intimate than they should.

Or maybe the way she stares at me makes it feel intimate.

Her chest rises and falls in quick succession, mirroring my own rapid breathing.

Neither one of us moves or says a thing. We stand in the middle of my closet, staring at one another, and there’s never been a moment when I’ve ever wanted to read someone’s mind more.

I’m dying to know what she’s thinking.

Is she recalling our kiss? Is she wishing it’d happen again? I know I am.

My eyes rake over her face. I’ve always known she’s beautiful. I accepted my attraction to her the moment we met. But I didn’t pursue her the way I typically would because she made it clear early on that nothing would ever happen between us. I made sure to bury the attraction because I didn’t want to mess anything up. She was off-limits, and because of that, I’ve never taken the time to appreciate just how stunning she is until now.

She’sstilloff-limits. Her stopping the kiss proves that. But at this very moment, there’s no use in burying my attraction. It runs rampant through my veins. There’s no burying it.

I trace the curve of her cheekbones with my gaze. Even in the dim lighting, I can see the flush to her cheeks. I can’t help but wonder if I could turn them from the soft shade of pink to a scarlet just from kissing her…from touching her.