Justin is stretched out in my leather desk chair and telling me a story about his cousin and I’m watching his lips move but I can’t concentrate on a single word he’s saying.

It’s Sunday. March fourth. It’s Sunday, March fourth and Justin and I have officially known each other for twenty two days. Twenty two days is over three weeks but there has been no kiss. What the hell is this.

I love that he respected my three week rule and didn’t try anything during that time. But when I had first told him about the rule, he had made a point to say that March third was the day in which we had officially known each other for three weeks. He was waiting for the day and then yesterday came and went and I barely heard from him. Given, he had an interview for most of the day and then he had a birthday dinner for his uncle he had to go to, but still. I was expecting something.

At the very least, I expected the kiss when he arrived at the store this afternoon for lunch. But he had merely given me a brief hug and handed me the bag of takeout and then asked for a tour. I don’t even know how to explain this. And it doesn’t help that this has been the longest three weeks and let’s face it, I’ve really been waiting for him to kiss me. Every time we’re together, there’s like this buildup of tension that I know will go away as soon as we kiss.

Anticipation makes everything sweeter but at this point, anticipation is killing me.

I suddenly realize that he’s fallen silent and is staring at me. I blink a few times and focus my eyes on him. I look at his expectant stare for a few quiet seconds.

“Sorry, what?”

His lips curve up into a smile. “Where were you just now?”

I fight off a blush from creeping up my cheeks. “Lost in thought.”

“I asked if you had plans tomorrow night.”

“I do actually. Susan is coming into the city and I’m meeting with her.”

“Who is she again?”

“She’s a friend of the family. She’s almost like my agent but more of a mentor. She’s helping me with the opening.”

“Ahh.”

I shift against the top of the desk I’m sitting on as he lean his chair back into a reclining position. He’s so relaxed and casual right now and I feel like my nerves are on edge. It’s waiting for the inevitable and just wondering at what moment it will come.

But…maybe it isn’t the inevitable. Maybe the reason he hasn’t kissed me is because he’s changed his mind about me. I thought we were kind of a done deal but maybe that isn’t the case. If it were, wouldn’t we have just kissed by now?

I hate how I’m sitting here obsessing about it and how I’ve been obsessing about it since he walked through the front door today. I can’t even remember one thing we’ve talked about because the entire time we’ve been here, all I’ve been thinking about is kissing him.

I should just take the first step and kiss him at this point. It would save all this mental abuse I’m putting myself through. But I like the guy to make the first move. I want him to sweep me off my feet and kiss me like I know he’s been wanting to do since that night we painted at my house. I may live in a fantasy world sometimes, but I’m pretty sure I’m right about his attraction to me. And my attraction for him is growing day by day.

Justin’s hand is suddenly touching my knee and I meet his eyes.

“You really are off in another world today,” he says. “You keep zoning out.”

I shake my head, trying to rid my brain of all thoughts but the current situation. “I know. I’m sorry.”

His hand slides from my knee back to his lap. “What’s on your mind?”

I bite my bottom lip and stare at him, his eyebrows raising a bit as he waits for my response. It’s only quiet for a short moment. “It’s March fourth,” I blurt out.

His eyes glance down at his watch and then back up to me. “Yes,” he confirms.

I give him a look. “And yesterday was March third.”

A smile is slowly spreading across his face. “And the day before that was March second.”

He’s teasing me and it’s only serving to make me flustered. “No, March fourth means that we’ve known each other for twenty two days.” He continues to just watch me with a smile on his face and I press forward. “Twenty two days is over three weeks.”

His smile relaxes for a second but then comes back full force. “Just say it. You’re wondering why I haven’t kissed you.”

“Yes,” I exclaim and a blush promptly covers my cheeks at how loud my voice is. I hadn’t meant for that to happen. I automatically go to run my fingers through my hair but when they get caught in my ponytail, I drop my hand back to my side.

He leans forward slightly in the chair, resting his forearms on the armrests. “After you left the studio on Tuesday, Bridget asked me we were dating.”

Not exactly the response I was anticipating, but I went with it. “Oh?”

“I told her it was complicated because I don’t know what we are to each other.” His eyes briefly search mine. “I want to be able to say yes to that question though.”

My lips twitch into a small smile. “Me too.”

His slightly serious look relaxes into an easy smile. “So, Cassandra Reyna, I’d like to make this official and ask you to be my girlfriend.”

My smile gets a bit bigger and I desperately try to hide the giddiness inside that resulted from his words. “I would love that, Justin Timberlake.”

His face breaks into a full smile and I can’t help but return it. I love when he really smiles. His eyes squint up and his eyebrows go together a bit and it’s like his entire face smiles, not just his mouth.

He brings his leg up and rests his ankle on his knee and then taps his foot against my leg. “And as for the three week thing…” He shrugs as if he doesn’t need to explain and I narrow my eyes a bit and kick the underside of his chair. He lets out a laugh. “You have your three week rule. My rule is that a first kiss should happen when the time is right. All this anticipation…you don’t want to just ruin it by kissing each other just because it’s been twenty one days, do you?”

“Well…no.”

“I’ve never waited this long to kiss a girl before after wanting to kiss her the first day I met her,” he says and a blush promptly forms across my face. “You have your three week rule and I respect that and want it to be perfect for you.” He weaves his fingers together behind the back of his head and cocks an eyebrow at me with a smile. “Is that acceptable for you?”

I let out a short laugh. “Yes,” I reply. I swing my legs back and forth a few times in the space between us and brace my hands on the edge of the desk. We sit there in silence and that’s just fine.

My day started off pretty bad. I woke up late and had to rush to get ready and then on my way to the store, realized that I was low on gas. I probably could have pushed it but I get paranoid that I’ll run out of gas on the middle of the highway, which is not high on my to do list. By time I got gas and got to the store, the contractor was waiting and not exactly happy with me for being late and that is not something I want or need. As if to get back at me, he informed me that it was going to take longer than he had expected to get the store ready for opening and that severely sucks.

But…Justin just made all of that disappear. He wants me to be his girlfriend. He wants to date me and he does want to kiss me and after listening to his reasoning, I’m glad that he didn’t kiss me right away. How perfect is he that he wants it to be at the exact right time and for it to be special? I’ve never had a guy want to do something like that for me before. When you make a guy wait three weeks for a kiss, either he’s running for the hills or can hardly contain himself once the twenty first day hits. Justin is something else.

I want to just sit there with him all day. But when the contractor comes into the room and clears his throat in a not so subtle way, I pull my eyes away from Justin’s and push myself off the desk so I can go talk to the guy. I stand there as he goes over some renovation plans and I’m really trying to give him my full attention but my eyes keep wandering back to Justin. He’s merely sitting there, watching me and smiling. His smile is warming my insides and making me feel giddy. The grumpy contractor is not going to bring me down from my high.

“I should probably let you get back to work,” Justin says once I get rid of the contractor and join him back at the desk.

I want to protest and insist that he stays but I know I need to concentrate. I’m never going to get the store open if I spend all my time with him. “Yeah,” I say and he gets up from the chair.

I try and hide the disappointed expression on my face but I don’t think I do a very good job because he laughs a bit at me and grabs my hands. He weaves his fingers through mine and brings my arms away from my sides before swinging them in between us.

“Busy tonight?”

I begin to smile. “No. Want to change that?”

He laughs and rubs his thumbs over the backs of my hands. “Definitely. Feel like going out or staying in?”

“Staying in.”

“Come over to my place. We’ll watch some movies.”

“Okay.”

“Remember how to get there?”

I’ve been there once before but he was driving and it was night. “Maybe?”

“Give me a call if you get lost and I’ll give you directions.”

“Okay.”

“What time do you think you’ll get out of here?”

“I’m going for six.”

“And you’ll come over right from here?” I nod and he smiles. “Perfect.” He begins to walk to the door and with his hands still holding mine, I’m pulled with him.

“Do you want me to bring anything?” I ask when we reach the door.

“Just your lovely self,” he replies and I blush a bit. This guy knows how to talk to a girl.

He lets go of my hands and then leans down to hug me. I return it, gripping onto his back a little tighter and letting out a laugh when he straightens and pulls me a few inches off the floor. When he lowers me back to the ground, his lips get dangerously close to mine but then at the last minute, they veer to the left and land on my cheek.

“See you tonight.”

My hand comes up to rest on my kissed cheek and I can’t tear my eyes away from him as he strides out of the store and to his car. My hearts beating faster than normal and my whole body feels hot.

That kiss better happen soon. I can’t take much more waiting.

* * *

“When did it start to rain?”

I look away from Cassie and out the window of the front door. “I dunno. I didn’t hear it start.”

She finishes putting on her shoes and straightens. “In a house this size, a bomb could go off outside and you wouldn’t hear it,” she states matter of factly. “Really, I think you should consider what I said before.”

I chuckle. She’s been going on all night about how my house is much too massive for just one person. I tried to defend myself saying that Trace or Rachel stay over a lot so I’m not always by myself but she kept teasing me about it. I think she likes getting a rise out of me and hey, I can’t say I hate it. It’s fun.

“You’re just jealous that my house is bigger than yours.”

She glares at me but her smile gives her away. She likes this as much as I do. “I happen to love my house. Do you think the roads will be bad?”

I’ve noticed she does that a lot. She likes to have the last word in and then she’ll change the subject before you can say anything. I’ll let her have this one. She knows she’s jealous of my house.

“They’re probably not great. You’ll want to drive slow.”

“It’s the other drivers I should worry about more than myself. I swear LA drivers are absolutely crazy. I have never gotten the finger so many times than in the last couple weeks.”

I begin to laugh. “What are you doing out there to get the finger?”

“I have no idea! Apparently Seattle has a different set of driving rules than the rest of the world. Maybe one day you can enlighten me on driving out here so I don’t become the object of hatred for all the other drivers.”

“I’m sure I can manage that,” I laugh. I lean my shoulder against the wall and we fall into a comfortable silence.

I’m not thrilled she’s leaving but it’s past eleven and she has to work early in the morning. I wish she didn’t because I could see myself spending all night with her. All we ended up doing was watching a couple movies but it was one of the best nights I’ve had in a really long time.

I let her pick out first movie and she ended up deciding on this movie that I borderline hate. I don’t even know why I own it. I think I got it for a gift from some family member and I couldn’t bring myself to tossing it. She seemed to want to watch it though so I went along with it and it turned out to be a good thing. She sat close beside me on the couch and a few minutes into the movie when I put my arm around her waist and rested it on her hip, she curled into my body and put her head on my shoulder and stayed that way then entire movie. At that point, it didn’t matter what we were watching. We could have been watching the damn weather network and it still would have been amazing.

Even now, standing by the door, I can still feel her on the couch with me. Her body was so warm and she fits nicely against me. She’s not too big or too small or too tall or too short. It’s just…right.

“Tonight was fun,” Cassie says, pulling me from my thoughts. I focus my eyes on her as she puts on her jacket. “We should-”

“Do it again sometime?” I finish for her and she laughs.

“Exactly.”

I reach past her and open the front door to check out the weather situation. The rain is coming down pretty steady and she’s going to be drenched before she even reaches her car. “I’ll get an umbrella and walk you out to your car.”

She doesn’t protest and I smile as I grab an umbrella from the closet floor. I like that she just lets me be a gentleman with her. I’ve yet to meet a girl who didn’t like it but a lot of times, you offer to do something and they protest and make you talk them into it, which is irritating. I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t want to do it.

I slip on my shoes and then open the front door, open the umbrella, and pull her to my side. We had only taken a few steps outside when something seemed off.

“What’s with this umbrella?”

I look over at her. “What?”

“Are there ho-” She stops abruptly and brings up a hand to wipe her cheek. “There’s holes in your umbrella, Justin!”

I look up just in time to get a large drop of rain in my eye. Squinting, I shake my head to get the water out. “What the hell…”

She begins to laugh. “Where did you get this thing?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never used it before. It’s always just been laying in the closet.”

The umbrella is suddenly pulled from my hand and tossed on the ground. I look over at her as the rain really begins to hit us.

“It’s not like we were dry anyways,” she says, flicking a bit of water off the tip of her finger at me.

I laugh. “Well we weren’t quite this wet either.”

She shrugs. “It’s just rain.” She grabs my hand and begins to pull me across the driveway to her car. I trail behind her, smiling. With ever passing minute, I’m falling more and more for her. There’s just something about her that keeps pulling me in. I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.

She halts abruptly by her car and I bump into her slightly. I give her a tug on her hand and she turns around to face me. The few strands of hair that weren’t in her ponytail were sticking wetly to her face and she brings up a hand to push them away. She stares at me silently for a long minute and I can’t do anything but stare back.

She looks amazing standing there and I feel so lucky that she’s mine. She’s now officially my girlfriend and no one can take that away. I’ve never felt better than I do right at this moment, with the rain pouring down around us.

I reach out to grab her other hand and then pull her the few steps towards me. She smiling as she stands right in front of me and I release one of her hands to run up her arm and then to her face. I brush my thumb over her cheek, taking the water with it and then bring both hands up to run over the top of her head, smoothing her hair back. She continues to watch me and I realize that neither of us has said anything in a while. As soon as that thought comes to me, another does as well that it really doesn’t matter. I don’t need to say anything and neither does she. We just have to be here together.

Her eyes flutter shut as I bring my hands from her hair to her cheeks. I run both thumbs lightly over her eyelids and then under her eyes, wiping away the bit of her mascara that’s run because of the rain. My fingers then pause on her face and this prompts her eyes to open.

The moment her eyes meet mine it catapults me into motion and I move my head down to capture her lips with mine. She’s waiting for it and leans up into it.

Immediately, I know this is a first kiss I will never forget. And at that moment, I realize that for a first kiss to be amazing you need it to mean something. It has to be with someone that who’s been running through your head for twenty two days and who has plagued every thought since meeting her backstage at a fashion show. Waiting for this kiss has made it that much sweeter that I never want to come up for air.

My mouth moves across hers and her hands come to life. A chill goes through me as her hands circle the back of my head and keeps me right where I am. This kiss is so hot, so deep, that I can’t imagine ever not kissing her. This is exactly where I needed to be all along.

It’s easy to become lost in this fantasy but the physical needs of a human body, such as sucking in a breath of air ever few seconds begins to interfere with this heaven. My chest is tight and I force myself to pull my lips from hers.

It would have been easy to just take a breath and go in for more, but I stop myself. There was something so perfect about that kiss that I can’t let this turn into a make out session. The kiss was so perfect that it feels like it just needs to be left at that. So instead of going in to kiss her again, I open my eyes and find her staring at me. When our eyes meet, she wraps her arms around me and hugs me tightly.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice barely audible over the rain pounding down around us. She rests her head against my chest and I move my arms to circle her.

“Thank you,” I return, kissing the top of her head. “That was so worth the wait.”

She lifts her head and looks up at me and smiles and I look down at her and smile as well. I’m not quite sure how long we stay like that but it’s long enough for me to memorize every detail of her face and replay the kiss in my mind a few times. I’m finally pulled back to the present when I feel her shiver against me and I realize we need to get out of the cold rain.

“You need to go to bed,” I say. I don’t want her to leave and she knows that but we both know she has to be up early tomorrow so she nods in agreement.

I reluctantly let go of her and she turns to her car and unlocks the door. She gets in and settles her self and turns on the car. I lean in across her and turn on her heater full blast so she’ll warm up and not get sick from the rain. I begin to pull back out of the car but a hand on my cheek stops me and when I turn my head to her, she brings me in for another kiss. It’s different from the first, quicker, but just as amazing.

“Call me tomorrow,” she says when she releases me.

She didn’t need to tell me that. After tonight, I wouldn’t be able to not talk to her tomorrow. “I will.”

I pull myself away from the car and stand up, shutting the door for her. Shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans, I step away from her car and stand there as she drives away. I could stand there all night but the cold rain eventually pushes me into going back inside.

I’m in a daze as I go back into my house and shake the water off of me. This girl is some kind of drug and I think I’m getting addicted.