“Look at that,” he whispered tracing the outside of my lips as we lay in his bed.
“What?” I asked staring up at him enjoying the first real feeling of closeness I’d ever experienced with him since we’d met.
“That pretty little mouth. No hint of that forked tongue and fangs.”
“They’re retractable,” I explained.
“Oh right.”
“Reserved for moments of provocation,” I murmured eyeing him with playful indictment and he smiled.
“But I like getting you all worked up…its cute.”
“Don’t be condescending,” I warned him before he started.
“Oh, There’s a fang, I see a fang,” he said pointing at my mouth and I caught his finger and bit it harder than he probably anticipated that I would.
“Ow! Jesus Sophie, you bite harder than your dog,” he exclaimed shaking out his hand.
“Only I don’t feel bad after,” I grinned as he inspected his finger in the dark looking for broken skin.
When he was satisfied that I’d left his finger in tact he lowered his hand on the bed and look down at me with a sigh.
We just stared at each other for a while delaying the inevitable conversation of “us.”
“So…” he sighed resting his head on his knuckles, “that conversation you were very intent on having...let’s have it.”
I had since changed my mind about all the things I wanted to say to him now, thinking if I told him how little faith I had in us to make it work for more than a week, he’d just get pissed off.
I figured in the amount of time it would take for us to either kill each other or decide that we should break up so that it doesn’t get to that stage, I couldn’t get all that attached to him. I hoped.
“It’s nothing,” I said in the end, “Just that…we’re totally like Ned & Stacey.”
Justin appeared puzzled.
“That’s it? That’s the conversation you wanted to have?”
“Yeah,” I lied but I knew I wasn’t convincing.
“Okay…the only reason I’ll pretend to believe you is, because I know that if there was something that bothered you that much you wouldn’t have a problem telling me all about it,” He said and I smiled and nodded.
“Yeah that’s right. If I can ever get a word in with you, I’ll be sure to let you know all the things you do wrong,” I grinned playfully raking a hand back through his hair. “God, this is so weird,” I sighed shaking my head.
“What?”
“Being in bed with you and being all…lover-y. I feel like we’ve wandered into the twilight zone or something…it’s strange.”
“Strange and Beautiful.”
“Good song.”
Suddenly he began singing “Strange and Beautiful” by Aqualung.
“To me, you're strange and you're beautiful,
You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see,
You turn every head but you don't see me.”
I don’t know why, but I suddenly started laughing and reached up to cover his mouth.
“No, don’t sing to me! Stop!”
“Why,” he asked, his question muffled behind my hand.
“I don’t know, it’s just so weird. It’s kind of making me nervous,” I giggled, not quite understanding my reaction.
“I'll put a spell on you,
You'll fall asleep cause I'll put a spell on you,
And when I wake you,
I'll be the first thing you see,
And you'll realise that you love me, yeah”
It was so peculiar to me that he was being so romantic, it was like seeing your brother kiss a girl and I wasn’t fully comfortable with it and couldn’t stop laughing.
“Oh my god, Justin this is way too strange,” I laughed wrapping the white sheet around me and getting out of his bed.
“I have to go home, you’re freaking me out,” I stated shuffling out of his room and tripping every now and then on the material that caught my feet.
“You’re taking my sheet with you,” he called out.
“Yes!” I called out just before I made my way out of his apartment and I was still laughing to myself when the elevator doors shut and opened on my floor.
Juggling my belonging while wrapped in a big white bed sheet was a consuming task and I didn’t notice until I looked up that Adrian was standing right at my door.
My heart stopped for just a moment before the pounding began and I felt about a foot tall.
He took one look at me and instantly knew where I’d come from.
He hung his head for a moment and then looked up at me and simply nodded.
“Adrian-“ I started to say, but how was I to finish that sentence with any kind of grace? I shut my mouth and just hung my head.
“Someone was coming into the building so I snuck in with them. I thought I’d surprise you,” he explained, “Guess we both are surprised huh?”
“I…” I started to talk again but he held up a hand to tell me not to bother.
“It’s alright,” he said simply with a shrug starting towards, the elevator, but I knew it was anything but “alright.”
As he walked past me and pressed the down button on the elevator, I could hardly breathe.
I felt awful and his handling of the whole thing was making me feel worse.
He was so defeated and so dejected, I felt like I was a monster wondering how I could have done this to such a sweet guy.
The doors opened and he stepped inside, pressing the ground floor button.
“You know Soph, I’ll give it a month tops before he makes a fool out of you,” he explained and that was something that my mind was trying not to think about and it didn’t bode well that another guy could possibly sense in Justin what I was worried about all along.
“Guys like that…they’re collectors,” he said the color now almost completely drained from my face and I was finding it difficult to swallow.
“Just be careful okay,” was the last thing he said before the doors shut and all of the air rushed out of my lungs in one huge sigh and I didn’t even notice I was holding my breath.
I stood out in my hallway trying to re-gather myself. I felt like a silly little girl.
I’d let Justin get to me despite my reservations, which were supposed to be warning signals.
The phone ringing in my apartment snapped me out of my thoughts and I hurried down the hallway, dropping all my clothes and I reached to pick up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Sometimes, the last thing you want comes in first,
Sometimes, the first thing you want never comes,
And I know, the waiting is all you can do,
Sometimes”
I sighed and touched a shaky hand to my brow, having trouble being amused.
“What’s wrong,” he asked gently and I didn’t know what to say.
“Nothing, I’m just tired, I’m going to go to bed okay?”
“Are you having post coital guilt?”
His tone was jovial but I wasn’t in the mood to tell him that yes, that was precisely right.
“I’m going to sleep, I have to get up and go to work soon.”
“Sophie.”
“What?”
“Come back up here, I promise I’ll let you sleep.”
When his tone was that gentle, suggesting a malleable temperament it was hard to believe he could do anything wrong by me.
The traffic running through my brain right then was loud and confusing and I felt like I was standing right on the median strip on an express way with cars passing me in opposite directions on either side.
“Soph.”
I snapped back to attention and decided against taking him up on his offer.
“Oh, no it’s okay, I’m just going to go to sleep, I’ll talk to you tomorrow okay?”
“Okay,” he said conceding to let me sleep alone that night.
“Goodnight,” I said and hung up the phone heading off to bed now more conflicted than ever.
Story Tags: friendsturnedlovers celebrityj triangles
