“Well,” I told her, grinning, “I’ll be here when you figure it out.”
We spent the next two hours working on our project, tweaking our questionnaire and figuring out ways we could get a good subject pool. On Monday, I’d ask the professor if we could use the class as a base, a starting point. I supposed we could add our families, too, though their answers might skew the data. We’d put it on social media, share the link everywhere we could. Hopefully some of our followers and friends would take five minutes out of their day and help us out.
Don’t get me wrong, it was insanely difficult to focus while knowing what her lips felt like against mine, and as the day wore on, I couldn’t help but wonder if that Calum guy had kissed her on their date. If my advances to her confused her, I didn’t want to say it was good, but I sure as hell did not want to bow out of the running just because of some other guy.
No, just because some other guy was in the equation didn’t mean I’d simply take a step back and let him have her without a fight. I liked this girl, too. And, hell, who knew? Maybe this Calum guy only wanted one thing.
Of course, I wanted that too, not going to lie, but that was just a tiny fraction of what I wanted from Bree. What did I want? Everything. Her body, her mind, her soul. I wanted everything, and I wouldn’t stop until I got it.
Chapter Eleven – Calum
I texted Bree a bit during the week. Not much, because I knew she had class, and I had to remotely work, but when Friday came around, I upped the messages. I wanted to see her, needed to see her again. I…it was time for me to go back, for me to go home, and I needed to see her one more time before I left, to know whether what I felt was real, or if, somehow, I was caught up in the moment during our date.
With the moon overhead and the string lights lighting the walkways in the park, it was damn near impossible not to get caught up in the moment, but the more I thought about her, the more I knew it wasn’t just me being a romantic.
Hence the reason why I needed to see her again.
I’d already packed up most everything, save for a change of clothes for tomorrow and a toothbrush. Really, all that was left was to see Bree.
She told me I could come over, which I took to be a good sign. She wouldn’t invite me over to her house if she didn’t like me at least somewhat, right? Or maybe it was that sister of hers pulling the strings. Michelle was very into her sister’s business.
I didn’t wait a single second after I got the confirmation from her; I hopped in the car and drove right over.
Only her mom and her sister were home. Her dad, from what it sounded like, would be in the office until later. Her mom was nice, although much more reminiscent of Michelle than Bree. It did make me wonder if Bree was more like her dad than her mom, though. Michelle and their mom shared the blonde hair and blue eyes—their hair color was more a dirty blonde, though. Nowhere near as light as mine.
Michelle would be leaving to go out with Kyle in a few, which left their mom. It seemed she got the hint, though, for she ordered pizza for us and then promptly disappeared up the stairs to give us privacy, I guess. And the living room all to ourselves.
Bree and I sat on the couch. The flat-screen television set across the room was off, the remote sitting on the coffee table near us, though neither of us went for it. She hugged a pillow to her chest, glancing at me every so often, as if she was nervous about what I was going to say. Maybe she thought I was going to tell her I didn’t want to see her again, that everything I’d told her last Friday had been a lie.
It wasn’t. I meant what I said. I wasn’t a liar.
And the more I looked at her, the more I realized that I couldn’t just say goodbye to her. Everything I’d told her wasn’t only in the heat of the moment, the romantic atmosphere of the walk; I meant it with all of my heart and soul, as sappy as that sounded.
Usually, I wasn’t one for sap, but Bree brought it out of me. I wanted to tell her everything she wanted to hear, I wanted to make her at ease, to wrap my arms around her and let her relax. To push the world and its horrors away, to protect her. I wanted to do all these things for a girl I’d basically just met. How bad would I be in a month, if I still talked to her? If I made the drive out here every weekend and saw her, kept dating her?
If…if I made her my girlfriend?
Would she even want to be my girlfriend? It was hard to read her sometimes, even more difficult to know what she wanted. She was the epitome of shy and reserved, though those green eyes were the windows to her soul.
“How was your week?” I asked,
