You and Everything After (Falling #2)(16)

“Stop it!” I tease, pulling the pillow from the corner of my bed and shoving it at her. When I open my eyes the second time, she’s hugging the pillow close to her body, and her stare has only grown more intense, and full of…f*ck…I don’t know…fondness? “What already?”

“You love your brother,” she says. Not a question; just a statement of fact. All I do is nod yes in return, and I’m no longer embarrassed by her attention. She’s right, and I’m glad it shows. When she scoots a little closer to me, I feel my muscles tighten on instinct, and everything in me freezes. It feels like minutes pass, but I know it’s only seconds ticking by before I feel the tickle of her hair along my arm and the warm touch of her hand sliding flat over my chest until she’s completely cradled against me. I need to know what I did to deserve this moment. I need to know so that way as soon as the sun comes up, I can go do it again.

“I know it doesn’t seem like it on the outside, but Paige loves me like that too,” Cass says, her voice a whisper. I’m sure she doesn’t want to wake her sister up, but I saw the amount of shots she put down. I’m fairly confident we could invite a mariachi in to perform, and Paige would sleep straight through.

“You and Paige…are you close?” I ask, my arms still flat against the bed, though I slowly start to let my fingers relax into a curl. At this rate, I may finally get to put my arm around her by sunrise.

“We are. Sort of,” she says, stifling a chuckle. “We’re different. I know, I know—that’s pretty obvious. But we still always have each other’s backs. When Paige wanted to win homecoming queen, I campaigned for her. And when I wanted to come to McConnell, Paige stood up to my parents for me and told them they needed to loosen their grip. That’s really the only reason she’s here, you know. She came to McConnell so they’d have to let me come with her.”

“That’s kind of crappy,” I say, defensive against Cass’s parents, whom I’ve never met, and realize mid-sentence could honestly be lovely people. “I mean…why would they let Paige go away, but not you?”

Cass pauses at my question. She doesn’t even open her mouth to answer for a long time, instead reaching over to touch a loose string on my blanket—her eyes intensely staring at the string while she thinks. When she finally does speak, I can tell part of what she says is a lie. “Paige was always planning on staying in California, and my parents wanted us to both be near home. Empty-nest syndrome or something like that, I guess. But she’s better at standing up to them. She fought them so I could go,” she says, keeping her gaze locked on my chest and that damn thread. I play a lot of poker, and I know that if what she just said were really no big deal, I’d be looking into her eyes.

Lying is usually a deal-breaker for me. That’s one thing I don’t do. Do I omit the truth? Yeah, I do that all the time. But I don’t lie. But for some reason, I’m compelled to give her this one. I’m breaking the rules, my rules…for her.

“So honestly, when do I get to kiss you again?” She laughs at my harsh left turn in our conversation. I love the way she laughs. There’s this rasping sound that comes from deep inside her, showing it’s genuine, and her smile creases deeply into her cheeks.

She flops to her back, and I instantly kick myself for causing her to move away. “You’re really trying to wear me down, aren’t you?” she asks, her hand running along the side of her face until she covers her eyes, peering at me through her barely-spread fingers.

“Wow, well…I’ve never really had to wear anyone down before…” I say, shielding my slightly dented ego.

“And that’s precisely why we need to be friends, and why I can’t kiss you…” she starts, and I interrupt.

“Again,” I say.

“Right, again,” she whispers, and moves her hand back to cover her eyes. I take this opportunity to roll onto my side and really look at her, the way her lips barely part when she breathes, the small twitches they make when she fights against her body’s urge to smile, the tiny movement of her tongue as it wets her lips. I have to kiss her again.

“But…and hear me out,” I say, startling her with how close I am. She uncovers her eyes and turns to face me, scooting back a few more inches just to maintain this new self-imposed safety distance. “Maybe the fact that I am willing to work so hard just to get you to say yes makes you different.”

She stares into my eyes for several long seconds, her lips slightly parted as she considers this. “Am I? Different?” she asks.

“Now see, there’s the catch,” I say, running my thumb softly over the wrinkles in the sheet between us. “I can’t know for certain unless I kiss you again.”

“Oh really,” she says, smirking.

“Cross my heart,” I say, motioning my hand across my chest. “It’s in the handbook.”

“There’s a handbook,” she says.

“Uh, duh. There’s always a handbook,” I challenge back.

“And your handbook says you can’t tell if I’m worth your time without jamming your tongue down my throat?” she fires back.

“Wow. Again with the word slap,” I say, secretly loving this back-and-forth we’ve got going now.

“Word slap?” she questions.