Back to You(82)

Del brought his body forward suddenly, bringing her arm behind her back, and the shock combined with her fuzzy reflexes forced her backward onto the grass.
He landed on top of her, one of his hands trapped between her body and the ground and the other on the grass beside her, holding up some of his weight.
For a second, they both froze.
And then Lauren shifted her leg slightly, urging his body into the cradle of her thighs.
Instantly he pushed off of her, wrenching his hand out from underneath her as he sat up. Del looked down, brushing the grass from his pants before he reached for the bottle that was now lying in the grass between them.
As he righted the bottle, he could see her sit up slowly. Her eyes were forward, but there was a firm set to her jaw.
She said nothing.
Del focused his attention on wiping off the mouth of the bottle with his shirt, and then he looked straight ahead, taking another shot.
“You pick girls for sex.”
He closed his eyes, resting his elbows back on his knees as he swirled the bottle.
“You pick girls for sex, but they’re not good for you. They’re not nice girls.”
“Thanks for the news flash. I had been so confused as to what keeps going wrong.”
“I have a point, you know,” she said, matching his tone.
“Well then why don’t you stop stating the obvious and get to it?”
He heard her take a small breath, and when she spoke, her voice had softened significantly. “Did you ever think about a friends with benefits situation?”
Del froze with the bottle at his lips. He sat that way for a second before he resumed his movements, taking a long, slow sip.
Had he ever thought about it?
Jesus. Ever since they’d kissed a few months ago, all he’d been doing was fantasizing about her.
Sure, he’d fantasized about her before that a few times; after all, he was a guy, and she was a beautiful girl, and he was only human. But he never had any intentions of acting on it.
Then they’d made out on his bedroom floor.
And once he’d kissed her, really kissed her, felt the weight of her body moving against him, it was all he could do not to push her into the janitor’s closet every time he passed her in the halls.
And nights like this, nights they spent alone together, were always the hardest.
But he knew better than to sully her. So he continued to throw his efforts into other girls. Meaningless girls. Girls that were all wrong, of course, like she had said.
On the surface, their friendship had gone back to normal after his little slip-up. But underneath it all, he knew he wanted her. He had crossed a line, and now the craving he had for her@is"> shoulder was a living thing, gnawing at him all the time.
But the absolute worst part was that he knew it was more than just a physical desire. He didn’t just want her body. But he had been burying his emotions for most of his life, and emotional feelings were so much easier for him to ignore than physical ones.
That night in his room, he could see in her eyes that she wanted him too. And now the alcohol was making her brave enough to ask for it.
Del was aware that she was looking at him, that she was waiting for an answer, so he did the only thing he could think of to do.
He laughed it off.
“Enough of the sauce, Red.”
“I’m not drunk,” she snapped.
“Well, you’re not sober.”
She looked at him for a second before she rolled her eyes. “I was just asking, Michael,” she said, taking the bottle from his hands and turning forward again.
She took another slow sip, and for a second, Del thought she was going to drop it, but then she turned back toward him.
“You said it gets messy, but why does it have to?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
“If you’re friends with someone,” she continued, “if you care about them and trust them, it shouldn’t get messy.”
“If you’re friends with someone, that’s the reason it gets messy,” he said tiredly, passing a hand over his eyes.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “You don’t think it would be so much more enjoyable if you cared about the person? Trusted the person?”
She turned further toward him, hopping up on her knees, growing more earnest as she argued her point. “Look, you told me once that I should use better judgment when it comes to guys, right? And clearly you need help in that area. We both care about each other, so why can’t we just be something a little more to each other instead of going to the wrong people for that kind of thing?”
She was making sense. Perfect sense. But his mind was already made up.
“Relationships get messy,” she continued. “But this?” she said, gesturing between them. “This could be great.”