“Possibly. I also needed a break from my friends. It was easy to see you were interested, so I took the chance.”
“You used me.”
She doesn’t look apologetic as she says, “Yep, but look how great it turned out? You’ve warmed my bed—”
“And floor.”
“—for the several nights now. Now we’re having dinner together and snuggling on the couch. Is it really using you if you get so much out of this?”
I bark out a laugh. “Is that your logic? If the roles were opposite, I’d be a creeper, a jerk, an asshole, and whatever else society would call me. Why is it okay if you’re the one using me?”
“It’s not, Gaige. I never said it was okay. I only offered a positive outlook on it.”
Shaking my head, smiling, I stare at her in shock. “You truly are something else, Haley.”
Her own smile turns…serious, if a smile can be serious. Maybe it’s the way her eyes dim, or the way her body stiffens, but something just shifted around us. The air is thicker, the mood darker, not so carefree.
“A good something?” she asks quietly.
I nod. “A good something.”
Two AM.
We’ve been sitting wrapped around one another for hours. I’ve lost track of what episode we’re on, but the show is growing crazier and crazier. Now that I’m actually paying attention, I love it.
Haley’s curled under my arm, tucked in sideways and propped up on pillows so her legs are slung over mine. She’s practically sitting on my lap at this point, and I don’t mind at all.
I idly run my hand over her legs, playing with the hem of her pants as she grips my shirt tighter, pulling me closer into her while a suspenseful scene plays out in front of us. As intimate as this seems, it doesn’t feel that way. All my earlier thoughts of sex have gone right out the window, floated elsewhere, and we’re firmly planted in a friendly area. I don’t know what changed. Is it how comfortable this feels? That this is the first time I’ve felt normal and relaxed in a long time? Or maybe it’s how easy this is?
Easy. That’s something I haven’t experienced in some time. I’ve always had difficulties to overcome in any relationship I’ve ever had. With Hudson and Tucker, I was on the cusp of changing my life for the better. With my parents, it was not having a relationship for ten years then suddenly being thrust into being a so-called family after they had Gia. With Horton, it was getting past the fact that I tried to break into his house and he caught me. With Harold, it’s simply opening up. My siblings? That’s easy: it was my abandoning them. Mercy? That’s a whole slew of issues. And with any girlfriend I’ve ever had, it was not distancing myself and learning to trust them.
Maybe that’s what it all boils down to—trust. It took me years to trust Hudson and Tuck. I didn’t have an option with Horton. It was either trust him and work for him or he’d turn my ass over to the cops. My family? I have no excuse for what I’ve done to them. Harold? I trust him, always have; I’ve just never trusted him not to give up on me. That’s a whole different kind of faith, the kind of faith I can already feel stirring up in Haley.
Something feels right about her. Pure. Whole. Honest. She seems like the type of person you spill all your secrets to and she smiles and tells you to keep on kicking ass. I barely know her, but true judgment seems like something she rarely passes, which is exactly what I need considering the shit I’ve done.
“No way. Is it really two in the morning already? Crap. I have to be up early tomorrow.”
I glance down at her, her eyes sleepy. “Today.”
“Huh?”
“You have to be up early today.”
She groans and sits up. “Don’t be that guy, Gaige.”
“What guy?”
“The technical guy.”
“It’s just who I am.”
“I may need to re-evaluate our friendship then.”
“Friendship, huh? So we’re friends now?”
“Don’t be daft, Polly. We’rebestfriends.”
I hold up a finger. “First, did you just say ‘daft’? No one says that. Second, did you just admit we’re best friends? Already? That’s moving kind of fast, Hales.”
