Page 77 of Unnecessary Drama

‘It didn’t feel like we were just pretending,’ he says.

‘No, it didn’t.’ My brain is buzzing, and my hands are sweaty.

I want to get up and run away. Minty must sense my nervousness. She opens her eyes and gets up, stretches, jumps onto the floor and leaves the room. I want to scream after her, Don’t leave me! I need emotional support right now!

‘Would you ever want that?’ he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. A piece of his hair has fallen over his forehead, and it takes all my power to stop myself from pushing it back.

‘A relationship like that? Sure.’ I say. I’m being deliberately obtuse.

‘I mean, would you ever want that with me?’ he says. His eyes are soft and he’s looking at me in a way I don’t think anyone has looked at me before.

‘Would you?’ I say, my voice rising a little, louder than I want to be, but I can’t help it, because here we are again. ‘I heard you, remember. I heard you say no when Harper asked if anything was going on.’

He shakes his head.

‘That was because of the house rules, because I didn’t want her to think anything was happening, and because nothing was happening, technically.’

‘But the way you said it,’ I say, closing my eyes. ‘You meant it.’

We’re talking in and around things. We’re talking about being together without actually saying it. We’re fighting about it without saying it. This is the worst possible way to go about things, because I won’t even get a moment, a nice moment before we fought, before I shut things down, a nice, clear, definite romantic moment to hold onto.

‘You’re wrong.’ His arm is touching mine now, just a tiny bit.

My heart is racing, and I open my eyes.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway. We live together, it would be too hard. Too messy. There are rules. It wouldn’t be like it was that night. It would be a mistake,’ I say, firmly.

I wish he would kiss me. It’s a thought that pops into my mind often these days, but it’s never been stronger than now, and I need to whack-a-mole it down in case he can read it on my face, in case he can feel it in my skin.

He nods.

‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘It would be a mistake. But—’

‘But what?’ I say.

‘What if we pretended again? Just one more time, just for one minute.’ Our arms are pressed together now, our faces close.

‘For one minute?’ I say.

‘Just one minute.’ He gets out his phone, sets a timer for one minute, starts it, and puts the phone down. I almost laugh at the absurdity, but my heart is going too fast for the laugh to escape.

‘Okay,’ I say.

It feels like we’re playing a game, again, and it’s not real, again. But I can’t help myself. I’ll take any scenario, any chance to kiss him again. I know this but he can’t be allowed to know this—no one can. I close my eyes, sensing him getting closer. I feel his hand on my cheek, and I open my eyes and look at him. He takes my face in both his hands and then he kisses me, and it’s somehow even better than when we kissed at the bar.

I slowly move from sitting up to lying down, and Jesse follows, leaning over my body, kissing my neck. Then the oneminute alarm dings, and he stops kissing me, turns it off, takes off his glasses and puts them beside the phone, and comes right back to kissing me.

I don’t want it to end. Kissing Tristan was always nice, but that’s it. Just nice. Kissing Jesse isn’t even in the same realm. They don’t even seem like the same activity. Kissing Jesse is making me feel things I’ve never felt before. It’s like someone has flipped a switch and turned on nerve endings I didn’t even know existed.

I want to stay like this forever, but my brain starts interrupting me. With chatter, with anxiety, with warnings.

We live together.

It won’t work.

You’re going to get hurt. Again.

The house rules!