"Because you're making it complicated when it doesn't need to be. We're hanging up and you're going to go talk to him."
"I'm not ready to."
"I'm hanging up now. Good luck!"
I'm left with silence. I set my phone down and bury my head in my pillow. This is so frustrating. How did everything become such a mess in just a matter of days? If Silas had just kept doing his volunteer work overseas I wouldn't even be having to deal with this. I'd still think about him but I'm used to that. I've been thinking about him for two years. But thinking about what we used to have is much different than having to think about the here and now and where we go in the future. My future is already planned and it doesn't include Silas.
Ugh...why did he have to come back?
Lilly's right. I need to talk to him. But not about us. Not yet. I need time to think, to really think about what I want in life, beyond just my career. After that, I'll talk to Silas. But until then, I want him back as my friend. I can't go any longer without seeing him. My heart hurts I miss him so much.
I shoot up from the bed, check myself in the mirror, adjust my ponytail, and leave my room, walking fast down the hall.
My mom passes me. "Honey, where are you going in such a hurry?"
"To see Silas."
I go out the front door and down the sidewalk to his house. I hope he's home.
Martin answers the door wearing his reading glasses, a book in his hand. He's always reading.
"Hi, Martin. Is Silas home?"
"Hello, Willow." He smiles, peering at me from above his reading glasses. "Silas is upstairs in his room."
"Okay, thanks." I walk past Martin and race up the stairs to Silas' room. I knock on his door. "Silas? It's me."
I hear him set something down, then wait as he walks to the door. He opens it and gives me that famous Silas smile. "Hey."
I put my arms around him and hug him, my head plastered against his chest as I give him a tight squeeze. He probably thinks I've lost my mind but it was my first instinct when I saw him.
"Willow, are you okay?"
"Yeah." I stop squeezing him but keep my arms around him. "I just needed to do this."
"Um, all right." He's hugging me back and it feels like heaven. A warm, sweet, heavenly place that I never want to leave. I inhale his scent, that perfect mix of Silas and the cologne he always wears. It's the cologne I picked out for him when we were dating.
"Do you want to sit down?" he asks.
I let him go. "I didn't come here to talk."
His eyebrows rise, suggestively.
"No!" I put my hand up. "I didn't mean I came here for that. I meant that I didn't come here to talk about last night or what it means. Because honestly, I don't know what it means, and until I do, I don't want to talk about it."
"I think we need to."
"I agree, but I'm not ready to. So for now, can we just go back to being friends?" I take his hand, glancing down at it. "I miss you Silas. Just one day without you and I missed you. Really bad. I don't know what that means. I just know that I had to see you. That's why I'm here."
He lifts my chin up. "I'm glad you're here. I missed you too."
My eyes dart to the side and I see the accounting book on his bed. "I didn't know you were studying. I should leave."
"I'm done for the night. Why don't we watch TV?" He gets the remote and turns the TV on, then sits on his bed, leaning up against the headboard. I'm standing by the bed, staring at it. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know if we should be on a bed together."
He chuckles. "Am I that tempting?"
"Honestly? Yes. Especially after last night."
"Come on." He pats the area next to him. "I promise to keep my hands to myself." He smiles. "Or at least above your waist."
I climb over him and into his waiting arms. He hugs me. "I love—" He stops himself.
"It's fine. You can say it. We love each other as friends, right?"
He pulls back. "I don't know. Do you love me as a friend?"
"You know I do." I hug him again, then whisper, "More than that." I don't know if he heard me, but I hope he did because I'm still too much of a coward to come out and tell him how much I love him.
I snuggle under his arm, getting comfortable.
He hands me the remote. "I didn't watch TV when I was overseas so I don't know what any of the current shows are. You'll have to pick."
I flip through the channels, landing on a movie I've never seen. I watch a few minutes of it but it's boring so I turn my attention back to Silas. "So have you been studying all night?"
"No. I met Trent at the park for some basketball, then we went out for a burger. Don't tell my mom. She's been on my case about eating too much meat. She's trying to get me back on her vegan diet."
"I'm surprised Trent wasn't out with Haley."
"That's over. He broke up with her last night."
"They hadn't even dated two weeks."
"He was ready to move on. He's already out looking for someone new." He picks up the remote. "This movie sucks. There's gotta be something else to watch."
There's a knock on the door. "Reed?" It's his mom.
"Yeah, what do you need?"
She opens the door, looking surprised when she sees me. "Hi, Willow. I didn't know you were here."
"I got here a few minutes ago."
She smiles. "Well, I don't mean to bother you but, Silas, Trent's here to see you. He's waiting outside."
"Okay. Thanks for letting me know." Silas gets up and I follow him past his mom and into the hall. His mom has this sly smile on her face, like she assumes Silas and I are back together. I guess it does look that way, given that she caught us snuggling on his bed.
Silas and I go outside to the driveway. It's dark out, but the house lights are on. Trent isn't the only one there. Next to him are two blond girls in short, tight dresses. So one girl wasn't enough? Now he has two? Trent is such a manwhore.
"Willow," he says, looking shocked that I'm here. Why is everyone so surprised to see me tonight? "How's it going?"
"Fine. I see you brought some friends."
"Yeah. Tana and Tess. Silas and I met them at the park earlier."
Funny that Silas neglected to mention that. He's standing next to me, giving Trent an angry stare.
One of the girls goes up to Silas, standing very close and putting her hand on his chest. "We're heading to a club and I could really use a dance partner."
"You'll have to find someone else," I blurt out as I put my arm around Silas. "I'm Willow, Silas' girlfriend."
"Oh." She steps back, crumpling her face at me. I don't know what that means. Is she angry? Annoyed? Does she think I'm not hot enough to date him?
"I told you about Willow when we were at the park," Silas says as his arm wraps around my waist. "You must not have heard me."
"Come on, girls, let's go," Trent says. "I'm more than enough man for the two of you." He slings an arm around each of the girls, and as they're walking to his SUV, he looks back and mouths the word 'sorry' to us.
"What was that about?" I ask Silas once Trent's SUV is no longer in sight. "You mentioned the park but not the girls."
"There was nothing to say. They came up to us while we were on the court and Tana gave Trent her number."
"The other girl seemed pretty interested in you."
"Until you told her you're my girlfriend." His lips turn up and he folds his arms over his chest. "So are you? My girlfriend?"
"No, I just said that to get her away from you."
"So you refuse to date me, but I'm not allowed to date anyone else?"
"Yes," I say, fully aware of how bad that sounds.
"The whole summer?"
I cringe. "Forget I said that. I promised I'd never be that girl, so just forget I said that."
"What girl?"
"The girl who likes a guy but can't have him, but doesn't want anyone else having him either."
"You can have me." He spreads h
is arms out. "I'm right here. All yours."
"You know what I'm saying. I'm still not sure about this." I motion between him and me. "And until I am, it's not fair of me to try to forbid you from dating other people."
"So you're saying I should go out with Tess?"
"No." I cringe again, then take a calming breath. "What I mean is that, no, I do not want you going out with Tess. But that's for purely selfish reasons. If you'd like to go out with her, go ahead. I should probably get home anyway." I turn to leave.
"Hey." His catches my waist and draws me into him. "I don't want to go out with Tess. I don't even like Tess. I like the girl I'm looking at right now. The girl I've liked since meeting her in second grade. Now can we go inside and finish watching TV?"
"We weren't watching anything."
"Then we'll do something else."
"Like what?"
He smiles. "You didn't say no when I mentioned touching above the waist."
I laugh. "That will lead to touching below the waist."
"You have my word. I promise to control myself. Hands above the waist."
I smile. "It wasn't you I was worried about."
He tugs me closer and talks in my ear. "You're making this a very complicated friendship."
CHAPTER TWELVE
Silas
"Seriously, what is wrong with you?" I say into the phone when Trent finally answers.
"What? What's wrong?" he yells back. I can barely hear him with the lawnmower noise in the background. I couldn't reach him last night so I called him on my break this morning. He's at the golf course.
"What's wrong?" I yell so he can hear. "You brought a girl to my house. Without even calling."
"Tess wouldn't shut up about you. She asked if we could stop by your house quick to see if you'd want to go out." A mower goes by him. "Just a minute. I have to move so I can hear." The mowing noise dies out and then he says, "Okay, go ahead."
I check to see that Carl isn't around. He's not, but I still lower my voice. "I just freaking told you I had sex with Willow. So why the hell would I be interested in going out with Tess?"
"You need to move on, man. Just because Willow had sex with you doesn't mean she wants you back. What did she say after I left last night? Was she pissed about Tess?"
"Yeah, she was pissed. She was also jealous."
"Which is why Willow told Tess she's your girlfriend. But after we left I bet Willow went back to saying you two are just friends."
I don't want to acknowledge that he's right so I don't.
"I'm right, aren't I? You see what I mean? She's using you, bro. For sex. Friendship. Running her errands. Driving her places. Who the hell knows? All I know is she's using you and it's wrong."
"She's not using me. She just needs time to think about our relationship."
"What's there to think about? She either wants to be with you or she doesn't. It's not that freaking hard."
"You know how Willow is. Everything in her life has to be neat and orderly and planned out. She can't handle change. Me showing up here threw her for a loop. She wasn't prepared for it. She needs time to figure it out."
"Well, while she's figuring it out, you need to be out with Tess, getting your needs met."
"I'm not going out with Tess. And my needs are being met."
"You and Willow had sex again?"
"We came pretty damn close, but we stopped before it got to that point."
After Trent left last night, Willow and I went up to my room to watch TV but we both knew we had no intention of doing that. As soon as we got there, we started kissing and touching, and right before I was about to break my no-touching-below-the-waist rule, she got out of my bed and said she needed to go home. So she did, and I took a long, very cold shower.
"So she teased you, then cut you off," Trent says. "That's fucking bullshit."
"We had an agreement. We said we wouldn't do it, so we didn't."
"Why not? What's the big deal? You guys have probably done it like a million times."
"When we were dating. But things are different now. I'm not going to sit here and explain it to you. This is between Willow and me."
"So you're just going to spend your whole summer waiting for Willow to make up her mind about you? And you're not even going to get sex? What the hell?"
"Right now I just want to spend time with her and we'll go from there. And I'm not interested in dating someone else, so stop bringing girls over to my house."
"She's gonna break your heart, bro."
"Then when she does you can get me drunk and fix me up with Tess. But until then, stay out of it. I have to get back to work."
"You didn't even ask me what happened last night."
"Fine. What happened last night?"
"I had sex with Tana."
"Big surprise."
"It sucked. The sex was mediocre at best and then she got all clingy when it was over. She wanted to spend the night but I told her I had to get up early for work. She's called me five times already this morning."
I laugh. "That's what you get for having sex with a girl just hours after meeting her."
"Shit, I just got a text from her. I might have to change my number. I gotta go. Talk to you later."
I get back to work, and at noon, as I'm washing my hands at the hose, Willow shows up with a big paper sack in her hand.
"Want some lunch?" she asks.
"Yeah, that'd be great. Thanks." I shake the water from my hands and follow her to my truck. "I should probably eat with the other guys sometime. They're going to think I'm avoiding them."
She hops up on the back of the truck and pulls me toward her. "But if we sit with them, I can't do this." She kisses me. A long, deep kiss that has me hoping her dad doesn't walk by.
I talk over her lips. "Why don't we do this later? When there aren't so many people around? Specifically your dad?"
"My dad doesn't care if we kiss."
"Still, let's save it for later, when we can do more than kiss."
"Okay." She smiles and kisses my cheek.
I sit next to her. "You're in a good mood today."
"Does that mean I'm usually not?" She laughs as she starts unpacking our lunch.
"No. I meant that you're usually more serious. Today you seem...not so serious."
"Because I'm not worrying about homework and tests. It's nice to finally be able to relax. And I like being home. College is great but I missed my parents." She hands me a sandwich.
"Did you miss anyone else?" I take a water bottle from the sack.
"I did, but I tried not to think about it. I didn't think I'd never see you again." She glances back at the tables where the workers are having lunch, then turns my face to hers and kisses me, another hot and heavy kiss. Then she leans back and says, "Sorry. I couldn't stop myself. I've been dying to do that."
"You've been dying to kiss me?"
She bites her lip. "This is really embarrassing and you better not make fun of me. In fact, I shouldn't even be telling you this."
"Telling me what?"
She sighs. "I had this really hot dream about you last night. It was so intense. I thought it was real but then I woke up."
"What happened during this dream?" I casually ask, trying to hide the fact that I'm completely turned on by this. Willow never remembers her dreams so if she remembered this one, it had to be good.
She leans over to me, her eyes glancing behind us, making sure no one is there. "We had sex. Multiple times. Multiple ways. On multiple surfaces."
"Holy shit," I mutter, blood rushing to my crotch. "You sure you don't want to tell me this later?"
"You're lucky I'm telling you now!" she whispers. "This is embarrassing. I only told you so I could explain why I was kissing you."
"Isn't kissing me just making it worse? I mean, if you're needing to um...relieve yourself—"
"I already did that." She grabs her water bottle and takes a drink, leaving my mind full of images of her "relieving" herself. This
is too much stimulation to be experiencing while at work. "Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that. So how's work going?" She bites into her sandwich.
"Forget work. I want to hear about this dream."
"Not now. I don't want my dad to hear. He's always sneaking up on me."
"So you'll tell me later?"
"Probably not. I told you, it's embarrassing."
"Sex doesn't embarrass you. It never has."
"It does when it's stuff I haven't done before. I don't even know where I came up with this stuff."
Now I'm even more curious. What the hell were we doing in her dream?
"We shouldn't talk about this." She points to my sandwich. "You better hurry and eat. Your lunch break is half over."
"What is this?" I ask as I unwrap my sandwich.
"Hummus and cucumber. We were low on groceries so I used what we had. With my mom working, she hasn't had time to go to the store. I'd go but I don't have a car. I'm just lucky your mom let me borrow hers again, but she needs it back in an hour."
"Why don't you take my truck? If you ever need it, it's yours. Take it for the whole day. I don't care."
"Then how would you get here?"
"You can drop me off."
"I guess that would work. Then I'd just pick you up at night."
The way she smiled when she said it, I think she's looking forward to this. She keeps finding ways to spend time with me. And now she's having sex dreams about us. I wonder where that will lead. Are we going to be friends with benefits? I wouldn't say no to it but I'd rather have her agree to an actual relationship with me.
"Do you want to take it tomorrow?" I ask.
"Actually, I'm working here tomorrow so could you maybe pick me up?"
"I drive right by your house, Willow. Of course I'll pick you up. You don't want to ride with your dad?"
"No. He leaves too early. Plus I'd rather ride with you."
I smile at her comment. "Are you working a full day?"
"Yeah. I'm picking strawberries. That'll take all day and probably the next day as well."
"How about I bring lunch tomorrow?" I look down at my empty sandwich wrapper. "No offense but your lunches aren't very filling. I'm still starving."
"Sorry. I didn't have time to go to the store."
Still Love You Page 11
