Cleo doubles over in a fit of laughter as the lock firmly clicks. The house had one of those fancy doors where all you had to do was enter a pin to get into the house, so she wastes zero time unlockingit again.
“Why’d you invite Denver?” I ask as Cleo sobers up, following her back into the house with Sienna.
“Because that’ll teach my dear old brother a thing or two about laughing at me.”
Cleo’s family dinner goes off without a hitch, her family welcomes Denver and me as if we were their own, with her older cousins teasing us about dating and her grandma fawning over myimpeccablebone structure.
I have to tell my mom that freaking Marie Jones just pinched my cheek and called meher‘handsome boy’.
I fucking love it here.
“Having fun?” Cleo’s teasing tone is like music to my ears as she saunters over to where I’m seated on the couch. She leans her body over the top of the couch, wrapping her arms around my neck, forcing me to look up at her but I’m not complaining.
I love looking up at her, especially when my tongue is deep inside of her as she grinds on it. That’s my favorite view of all.
Wait, no… second favorite.
Her little annoyed nose scrunch takes the cake.
“I’m having a blast. I’m pretty sure your grandma loves me!” I try my hardest to tamper down my excitement but it’s hard especially when her grandmother is a musical icon.
“I can tell…” She chuckles. “Would you like to go out tomorrow, just us? I know we haven’t had time to go out with one another since we’ve been on this side of town and—”
“I’d love to.” I cut her off, kissing her cheek.
I’d love nothing more than to kiss her pouty lips but I settle for the cheek especially since I can still feel her dads glare on me.
“Great, we can leave at two!” She smiles brightly before yawning quietly.
I grin up at her, watching as she stretches before agreeing.
“It’s a date.”
“Wait, no! Mine iswaybetter than yours!” Cleo groans as I switch over our gourmet hot chocolate.
I chuckle at her failed attempt at grabbing the hot cocoa from my hands yet again before finally swapping it with heragain. When we’d first ordered at the hot cocoa stand in the middle of the park, she’d ordered a signature hot cocoa which is basic hot chocolate with nothing in it while I went with the hot chocolate deluxe, the added bells and whistles being just what was needed for today’s brisk walk in the park.
“We’ve traded twice already,” I chuckle as she trips a little in her step trying to keep up with my long strides. I slow down seeing as she’s having trouble and shorten my steps.
“Yes, well, I think we must trade again. You know that they say…third times a charm,” She chimes back in the worst English accent imaginable, and to anyone else in the world, it might be corny and fuckingawfulbut to me, it’s fucking hilarious.
I feel like that one girl from that one movie franchise that’s always overly laughing at her male co-star’s horrible jokes.
That’s how Cleo makes me feel and it’s exactly how I want to feel forever so without thinking, I open my big ass mouth and ask her a bizarre question.
“Will you be my girlfriend?” I ask and in my head, I think I sound normal but in reality it comes out more like: “Uh…W-Will you b-be my girlf-friend?”
An idiot, I tell ya’.
There’s no response to my question and my hands grow clammy because of it. What if I fucked up our little arrangement? I remember she said she didn’t date but then she also said that she wasn’t mine until I made it official...
Fuck.
Why are women so complicated? Why can’t she just wear a shirt with her thoughts on it so I can know exactly what she has going on in her head?
And fuck why didn’t I think this through?
I was supposed to take her to a fancy dinner, set the tone and mood for the night. Ask the waiter to write the words on a plate with a donut on it and propose my question to her that way.
