The Absence of Olivia(16)
“It was more like brunch,” he said, his lips lifting into another beautiful smile.
“Thank you for brunch,” I acquiesced. He nodded slightly, and then I saw his free hand rise. He pushed some wayward hair behind my ear, and then his large hand slid around to the back of my neck, gripping me there softly, but with just enough force to take my breath away completely.
“I’m going to kiss you now.” His voice was low, his smile had disappeared, and in its place was a serious expression, one of longing.
“Okay,” was all I could manage before his impossibly soft lips touched mine.
I breathed in his kiss, taking everything from him in that moment. My hands pressed against his chest, slowly folding my fingers around the soft cotton of his shirt, pulling myself as close to him as I could. The night before, our kisses had been passionate and new, exciting and hurried. But in that moment, with hours of conversation and laughter between us, we were connecting on another level.
His hand slid slowly up from my knee, smoothing over the bare skin beneath my skirt, but only came to grip the fleshiest part of my thigh, inches below the elastic of my panties. I didn’t want to go any further, sitting in a restaurant parking lot at a diner, but a large part of me wanted to know what it would feel like to have his hands all over me, his fingers inside of me. A flash of heat climbed through me at the thought of him being inside of me at all, and I pulled him closer.
When we finally pulled away from each other, we were both panting. He rested his forehead against mine and his hand came back up to frame my face.
“I foresee myself coming to visit you a lot this summer.”
I smiled, and then pressed a small kiss against his lips. “I foresee myself enjoying that a lot.”
“I hate to even tear myself away from you, but I think we should get going. Another kiss like that, and I’ll lose my mind.”
Laughing, I disentangled myself from him, sliding carefully toward the center of the bench, but before I got too far, his hand was back on my leg. This time, though, his fingers were higher up and just barely under the hem of my skirt. Just the sight sent shivers up my spine and goose bumps along my thigh. Whether or not he noticed, I’d never know, but his thumb grazed the sensitive skin all the way back to my dorm.
When he pulled up to my dorm, a wave of sadness washed over me. Why had he waited so long to make his move? Now it was summer and we were both headed in different directions. The excitement of new romance was being squashed by our separation.
“Elliot, why did you wait so long to ask me out? I mean,” I said nervously, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I’m glad you did, but, now it’ll be really hard to see each other. We could have been doing this for weeks by now.”
He turned the ignition off and turned to face me on the bench seat. “Can I ask you a question before I answer you?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
“What’s your history with Devon?”
His question caught me off guard and my head pulled back as my face contorted into a look of confusion. “What?”
“Don’t get upset. It doesn’t matter to me, I’m just curious.”
“I don’t have a history with Devon. He’s my best friend’s boyfriend.”
His eyes were darting back and forth between mine as he was silent for a few moments. Then his thumb and forefinger came up to touch my chin, looking directly into my eyes, leaving me even more confused than before. When his hand fell away, his forefinger trailed down the front of my throat and my body immediately reacted, my breath shuddering. “Sometimes,” he started to say, his voice low, and then it looked like he changed his mind about his words. “Before, when you’d come around with Liv, it was obvious Devon and Liv were together, or, that he was interested in her.”
“Yeah?” I urged him to continue.
“But it also kind of seemed like you were into Devon.”
“Oh,” was my response. Without thinking about it, I pulled back, putting a little distance between us.
“If there’s nothing there, I totally believe you. But, before last night, I was never sure and I didn’t want to pursue you if it was going to be a waste of time.”
My mind was racing, thoughts pinging back and forth inside my head, making me feel mentally dizzy. It never occurred to me that strangers would think that about me, that people who just observed me would think I was interested in Devon. When we’d first met, I’d been insanely attracted to him, hoped with almost embarrassingly frequency that we’d run into each other on campus and we’d laugh about our first meeting, then we’d fall in love and have a dream life together. The night I realized Liv was dating the guy who I’d met and been harboring a teenage crush on, for just a small moment, I was devastatingly jealous.
But to think other people could see the feelings I thought I was hiding so well..., well, that made me nervous. I was sure the silly feelings I thought I had for him had been buried a while ago. Once he and Liv were a real thing, I had tried to turn it all off. I tried to ignore the way my eyes always found his form at a crowded party, ignored the way his hand always pressed into the small of my back when I went through a door ahead of him, and the way my heart reacted to his hand there. I was suddenly extremely nervous that not only Devon had noticed my not-so-well-hidden feelings, but Liv might have as well.
“Elliot, listen, I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression. There’s nothing going on between Devon and me. There never was.”