“Jesus, Lake.”
“Don’t make fun.”
“I’m not. I like it,” I said.
“Don’t patronize me either,” she huffed playfully, starting off. But I caught the nape of her neck before she could walk away and kissed the growing smile on her face.
“I’m not,” I murmured, pulling away to gaze at the loose, white dress she had on. It was asymmetrical at the bottom and if I looked hard enough, glittered a little. She looked ethereal – like an insanely voluptuous and sexy brunette Tinkerbell. It felt appropriate, considering the decor. I laughed again though, when I saw the open bottle of nail polish in her hand. Her fingernails were bare so I looked down at her toes. Three nails done on the left foot and the other still bare.
“You came early,” she protested.
“I’ll refrain from jokes.”
She snorted and sighed. “Well. At least I got the décor right. I was trying to look all special and perfect before you get here.”
“You always look that way.” Lake tipped her head down and wiggled her pursed lips to the side – her expression every time I said something she liked and she was too flattered to say something smart in return. I liked the way it made her dimples look. “Care to tell me why you needed this night to be in your dorm room and not my much nicer apartment?”
She put the nail polish down and laughed. “Because.”
“Yeah?”
“Because… it just feels right. Like what normal girls do. And I want to be a normal girl.”
I looked at her, so fucking angelic in front of those Christmas lights. “You could never be a normal girl if you tried.” She wiggled her lips again but now something had shifted in her. She was nervous. She went quiet so I stepped close to take her by the waist. “Lake. You know I’m always going to be here waiting for you if you can’t do it tonight.”
“I don’t want to wait any longer.” She paused. “And I can’t know anymore that you’re sleeping with other girls.”
“Then I won’t.”
“What if I wait till I’m fifty?”
“I’ll wait with you.”
I meant it but she laughed and closed her eyes. They opened to gaze at the floor. “I love you, Callum.”
I grinned. I actually said it more often than she did. It felt like a gift when I heard it from her. “I love you, too.”
She lifted her eyes at me. They were wet and that glossy hazel was as good as two bullets to the knees. “I want it tonight,” she murmured. “I just want you to tell me that I’m a normal girl. Like Isabel and all my friends here. Even Dara.”
“Why would you want to be?”
She closed her eyes again as I kissed her forehead. “Just tell me I am.”
“You’re a normal girl,” I said. I’d never said anything that felt more like a lie to her but I didn’t mind doing it tonight if it eased whatever was going on in her head. I slid my hands from her cheeks into her hair and kissed her. “You just also happen to be the most beautiful one in the world.” She didn’t say anything in reply but her lips curved against mine.
The sex we had that night in her bed was slow, at first painful for her. I kept my eyes on her the entire time, reading her body, moving to her wordless instruction till she was moaning softly. My arms caged her shoulders, my biceps and forearms flexed completely tight as my palms dug into her mattress so I could control the pace, the strength of every push and pull. My muscles burned and strained with my need to just bury myself all the way inside her because she looked so beautiful and felt so unreal, but I wouldn’t let myself. Of course I wouldn’t. I took it slower than I thought I knew how and because it was Lake, I loved every torturous second of it.
I kissed every inch of her skin till she was no longer tight or tense. She felt too fucking good to be true and the first time, I came before getting to see how her perfect face would twist when I gave her an orgasm. But an hour later, I took in every second of it – that open mouth and the gorgeous, sexy pinch between her eyebrows. Her jaw trembled in my hand as I drove into her, filling her completely like she couldn’t bear the first time. I’d been ready to explode on ten different occasions but I forced myself to hold on and to keep my eyes open because she was too beautiful to miss even a second of.
I shuddered in her the second she was finished.
At midnight, we sat together on the fire escape and she dangled her legs from where I came to talk her down from her panics, whether it was a bad critique in class or some other issue. I wrapped a blanket around us as she sat back against me, painting my initials onto the wrought iron.
“It just looks like the word ‘cap,’” I teased her.
“To everyone else, but we’ll know what it is.”
I nodded. “How long do you think it’ll stay there? Next time it rains?”
“Not unless it’s raining nail polish remover.” She leaned over to admire her work. “This is strong stuff.”
“Yeah.” I raised my eyebrows. “Glad you willingly put it on your body.”
She snorted. “I don’t think it’s toxic.”
“Doesn’t matter. Even if it was, so are you.”
She dropped her jaw. “Callum! What kind of thing is that to say?”
I caught her hand as it tried to smack me. “I meant it in a good way. You’re the best poison I could possibly ingest.”
“Wow. Great. I’m so flattered.”
I laughed. “Get over here.” I turned her around to face me. I let out a breath. Her skin was still glowing and for Christ’s sake, she was almost too gorgeous to handle. “I don’t always know what goes on in that crazy head of yours, but I don’t ever want you to forget that you’re my best friend and the best person I know. I couldn’t live without you. And when I say that I mean you, exactly the way you are.”
My words had her shy but she didn’t break her stare from me. She raked her perfect bottom lip between her teeth and gave a little nod. “Likewise,” she murmured. It was a short reply but all I wanted. We liked to say it because more often than not, our feelings mirrored exactly and there were only so many words with which to phrase us, so when one of us actually got it right, the other stole it and said “likewise.” I didn’t like one-word replies from other girls but with Lake, it was more than fine. She hung her hands on my shoulders as I wrapped the blanket tighter around us. “You’ll always love me?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes clouded over. I could see the thoughts brewing in her head and I knew she was thinking about all the things that had happened in the past year. She thought about it enough that I recognized how she looked when she did it. She looked down as she took in a deep breath. Her eyes were on me when she let it out. “Am I worth it to you, Callum?”
I brushed her gorgeous hair back when the wind tried to take it. I kissed her on the lips. “You are. You are and you always will be.”
Chapter Eighteen
Callum
We celebrated Lake’s twenty-seventh birthday on Thursday, the night before I left with Oz for Scotland.
I was fast to get ready because Isabel warned me that she planned on kicking me out of my own apartment by early evening. Something about it being important for them to get ready together. I had no idea what she meant but I knew better than to argue with one of them let alone two, so I showered quickly.
As quick as it was, the hot water and steam still had my blood rushing and my brain running, as usual, and it was in there that I realized it. That while Lake had given me something, it was far from everything. I had let her tears cloud my vision for a bit but the reality was that I knew why she left but jack about where she went. How she came back.