Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 91363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
We cleaned every ounce of peanut butter from the proverbial spoon, and I didn’t want it to end. I wanted a second helping.
I wanted the whole jar.
Ben pulled away, leaving me in a puddle just like the ice cream on the floor. For a few seconds, our labored breaths were the only sound in the stairwell as we eyed each other with what felt like confusion and disbelief.
I opened my mouth to speak first, to fill the painfully awkward silence, but someone pushed open the door behind me, giving me a nudge.
“Oh, sorry,” the girl from my floor said, giving us a quick inspection and grinning before jogging down the stairs.
What had we done, and what did it mean?
I caved first, tearing my gaze away from his and making a beeline for my dorm room.
“Gabby,” he called, but didn’t chase me.
I was grateful for that because my brain was ready to explode from the lack of mental capacity to deal with kissing my best friend like that. Before I unlocked the door, I rested my forehead against it and fought back the tears.
I kissed my best friend for real, not for practice, and I liked it so much I could hardly breathe. Ben was my anchor, my protector, and my common sense when I went out of my mind. We couldn’t cross that line and put our friendship in jeopardy.
What did we do?
My heart ached.
That kiss ripped open something inside of me, and it felt like I was bleeding feelings for Ben that I buried years earlier after he rejected me and went on to sleep with random girls.
That kiss knocked the wind out of me and left me gasping like waking from a dream so real, it felt like reality.
Was Matt nothing more than a dream?
“Hey! How was your date? Oh, my gosh. What happened to you?” Olivia sat up on her bed and set her book aside when I opened the door.
I touched my fingertips to my lips. Were they swollen? They felt like it. That was the kiss of all kisses.
“Did Matt come on your face?”
“What?” I wrinkled my nose.
“What are those dark spots?”
I looked in the mirror. There were tiny pieces of chocolate on my face. As I picked them off, I opened my mouth to tell her that Ben smeared his ice cream on my face, but that would have only been a half truth. The whole truth was, I didn’t want to say his name in front of her or tell anyone what happened.
Except Ben.
I wanted to tell my best friend that a guy kissed me, and it was everything and a million times more than what I ever imagined a kiss could be. That kiss reached far beyond my lips. I felt it everywhere.
“We got into an ice cream fight,” I murmured.
“Oh my god! That sounds sexy.”
“Yeah,” I whispered to myself. “It was.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TOM PETTY, “FREE FALLING”
Gabby
The elephant wasn’t in the corner of the room; the elephant was the entire room. In fact, there wasn’t even a room. Just a big, fat elephant.
As soon as Olivia left for breakfast Sunday morning, I hopped down from my bunk bed and called my sister, Sarah. We weren’t Catholic, so confession wasn’t our thing. Baptism and daily prayer sufficed for our religion. But after the events of the previous two days, I needed to clear my conscience.
“Hello?” Isaac answered.
“I need to talk to Sarah,” I said, while nibbling on my thumbnail and pacing the room as far as the telephone cord would allow.
He chuckled. “Good morning to you, too, Gabby. Just a sec. She’s a little indisposed.”
“Indispo—” I cringed.
They were having sex.
Sarah giggled. “Hey, Gabbs. What’s up?”
“Sorry to interrupt.”
“You’re fine. What’s up?”
I tried to organize my thoughts into a coherent story with the events in order, proper punctuation, and delineated dialogue, but it came out as one big word vomit. “Matt had a party and removed my shirt. Then I worried a kiss might be next. So Ben showed me how to kiss on the mouth, which was really nice of him, but then after discovering I’m the most boring person on the planet and Die Hard has a lot of swear words, Matt leaned forward, and I thought he was going to kiss me, so I turned and pressed my lips to his. But that was all wrong because I don’t think he was planning on that. Then Ben showed up and the next thing I knew he was smearing ice cream on my face with his, and then he licked it off and then we kissed. Like we totally really kissed like licking peanut butter from a spoon. Then the door opened and I ran to my room. But I can’t tell Olivia because she likes Ben. And I like Matt, and I’m sorry if that upsets you, but he was always too good for you anyway, and I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just a fact. At least I thought it was factual, now I don’t know anything because stupid Ben kissed me. And now I don’t know what to say to him because he’s my best friend, but I can’t tell my best friend that I kissed my best friend, and so you need to tell me what to do.”