Chasing Ivy (Oak Hill 1)

I grabbed another, pulling things out of his dresser.

“I’ll tell them that they probably should have acted like they cared a little more.”

He chuckled but then his expression turned stormy. His blue eyes darkened to the point that the color blended in with his swollen black eye.

“Are you gonna be okay?” he questioned, pausing his packing.

I grinned. “I have Ivy. I’ll be fine.”

He nodded as a smile worked its way on his face.

“Don’t fuck it up.”

I gulped, turning my attention back to filling up the other bag.

I won’t fuck it up.

I couldn’t.

Chapter Seven

Ivy

Something jolted me awake, but I wasn’t sure what it was. The dim light of the small lamp beside me caused my eyes to adjust quickly. My heart pounded in my chest when I realized that I wasn’t where I was supposed to be.

I was in Dawson’s room. I wasn’t alarmed that I was in his room; it’s not like I hadn’t been in there before, but I suddenly remembered what had happened before I accidently fell asleep.

Us almost kissing again, the proximity of his body near mine, the way my body burned with his hand on my leg. Then, his promise to discuss it when he got back from talking with his brother.

As soon as Dawson’s hand left my thigh and he exited the room, I jumped to my feet and had to cover my mouth before a girly squeal fell out of it. I was prepared to pretend like it hadn’t happened, just like we’d done earlier in the day, but he told me he didn’t regret it.

That meant he wanted to kiss me, right?

That meant he wanted things to change, right?

Doom washed over me like I’d just walked through an open waterfall. Things would change. Feelings that I’d buried deep within would surface and I would get even more attached to him. Dawson and I were the best of friends; we’d been that way since I was in seventh grade. I had enough memories of us to last a lifetime and the thought of adding in intimate memories, things like knowing what his mouth would feel like on mine…those would haunt me until the end of time if things didn’t work out between us.

I’d watched enough movies and read enough books where two best friends fall in love and then things go wrong and then never return to how they once were. Sure, in the movies and books, the two characters always end up back together in the end, blissfully in love and happily married.

But those were fictional. I might be young and naïve but I knew, for a fact, that reality didn’t play out like that. The guy doesn’t always get the girl in the end, and the girl doesn’t always end up with her happily-ever-after.

Dawson and I could fall madly in love, he could take my virginity and I’d hang off his arm like I’d seen so many girls do at my school, but what would happen if things went in a different direction? What would happen if he got sick of me and wanted to be with another girl?

I was totally out of my league compared to all the other girls Dawson has been with. I was a big, fat virgin! I had no idea how to have sex. I mean, okay, I had a little bit of an idea from what Becca and Casey had told me but I was more of a hands-on learner.

Awkward.

I honestly would be destroyed if something happened between us, causing our friendship to go up in flames. And, even if we did salvage our friendship, I would never be able to deal with him being with someone else, knowing that I hadn’t been good enough or that I hadn’t made him happy. Our friendship would be based on a lie. And then it would cease to be.

Dawson and I would cease to be.

Things were going to get complicated and messy and I could openly admit that I was scared to death for things to change. That was the last thing I remembered thinking about before I fell asleep with Charlie’s Angels playing in the background, curled up on Dawson’s bed.

Now, the TV was on low and an infomercial was playing, advertising some super-amazing pan to cook eggs in. My legs were intertwined with Dawson’s and his muscled arm was laying heavily across my stomach.

I’d taken my hoodie off after he’d left the room earlier because I was completely burning up (probably something to do with the way he’d looked at me and the way his hand had felt on my thigh), and my grey t-shirt had risen up a few inches…meaning that Dawson’s bare forearm was lying on my bare stomach.

The wild fluttering that occurred in my lower stomach was almost embarrassing.