Naughty or Nice - Alexis Winter Page 0,40
hold her close to my chest. She turns her head up and our eyes lock. I move my mouth to hers and we kiss softly for several long moments. When I break the kiss and find her green eyes again, I can’t hold it back any longer. “Felicity, I love you.” The words come pouring out.
I expect her to laugh or playfully smack me across the chest, tell me she loves me too, but that’s not what happens. She doesn’t do anything. She freezes like the words I just said have done nothing but scared her.
Fuck. Undo. Go back. Cancel. Nothing is working!
“I’m sorry to tell you like this,” I start, but she shakes her head and pulls away from me. She crawls out of the tent and starts digging around for her clothes.
“What are you doing?” I ask, pulling some shorts on.
“You love me?” she asks, pulling her pants up. I can’t help but watch as her breasts jiggle with the action. “You love me?” she yells louder when she catches me not paying attention.
“Yes! What? Why are you yelling? I thought you’d be happy!”
“Happy? Happy?” she repeats again.
“Yes, why do you keep repeating everything?”
She shakes her head as she pulls her shirt on, no bra. “You thought that telling me that you love me would make me happy?”
I roll my eyes and flop down on my bed in a sitting position, giving up.
“Why now, Carson?”
“What?” That takes me off guard.
“Why now?”
“I always have loved you, Felicity. Always. Why do you think I’ve done all of this?”
She pulls her coat on and picks up her shoes, not bothering to put them on. She shakes her head. “There’s a difference in loving me then and loving me now. Then you loved me as your best friend, your little sister. So why do you love me now? Is it because we’re sleeping together?”
I’m speechless.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. The only reason you love me now is because you fell in love with someone I’m not. You didn’t love me until I started throwing myself at you. You didn’t love me until I started acting completely out of character by giving you a peep show in front of the window or parading around in sexy underwear in front of your mom. You’re not in love with me, Carson. You’re in love with this character I created.”
Without another word, she turns and rushes out, slamming the door behind her. I’m left sitting on my bed alone in a mess of clothing and blanket forts. I rest my elbows on my knees and hang my head. What am I supposed to do now? Give her time to cool off, obviously. But what then? How long is too long? How long is just enough? I don’t want to wait too long and have her write me off completely, but I don’t want to go bugging her too soon either.
“Carson, you have a visitor,” my mom calls from the other room.
Oh, thank God, I think as I get up and rush out of the bedroom, expecting to find Felicity. I stop dead in my tracks when I’m face-to-face with Gillian.
“Gillian?”
She smiles. “Hi, Carson. I hope I didn’t come at a bad time.”
I look around and shrug. There’s no good time. “What’s up?”
“Well,” she starts but then looks around at my mom and stepdad. “Can we talk in private?”
“Ugh, sure,” I agree, leading her back to my bedroom.
She walks in. “Oh, what’s all this?”
“Oh, it’s a…uhh. It’s a blanket fort. You know? Did you ever make those as a kid?”
She smiles. “Of course, but I haven’t made one since.”
“Yeah, that’s the difference between me and you,” I mumble, pulling at the blankets and tearing it down. I throw the wad of blankets onto the bed and find Felicity’s bra lying on the floor next to the pillows.
I look up at Gillian and she sees it too. “I see you’ve found some way to spend your time.”
“Yeah, about that…” I start, about to tell her the whole story with me and Felicity, but she holds up her hand, cutting me off.
“You don’t have to explain, Carson. We’re both single right now, and I can’t say that I’ve been a saint through our breakup either.” She bends down and picks up the pillows and bra. She tosses the pillows onto the bed and the bra, she folds in half and places it on the nightstand.
“Okay, then what can I do for you?” I ask, sitting on the edge of