# Never assume her red flannel pajamas will be any kind of prevention against unwanted erections
I’m both relieved and disappointed to see that she’s wearing pajamas for bed. And they are quite the pajamas—red tartan flannel monstrosities festooned with dogs in Santa hats—but on her, they’re fucking adorable. I have no idea how the fuck I’d keep my hands off her if I could see any of her skin given how much of an effort it is when she’s covered from head to toe in flannel. She stares at me through her dark lashes and I ball my hands into fists to stop myself from touching her. But I think about it. I think about rolling on top of her and letting my hands wander over every goddamn inch of her flawless skin. And then I’d do the same with my mouth, until she was writhing beneath me and begging me to fuck her. I still recall how sweet she tasted. How her snug pussy squeezed tight around me when I took her first time. How she moaned out my name and raked her nails down my back when she came for me. How she wokeme for more in the middle of the night and then fell asleep in my arms afterward.
My stiff cock throbs.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispers.
“Whether Samuel is going to have a heart attack tomorrow if Brax gets his steps wrong again.” I lie with ease.
She giggles and it’s so damn adorable that I want to kiss her. Sharing a bed was a mistake. I’m going to spend the entire night with a painful hard-on.
“Do you regret me being your first, Addie?” I ask, unsure where that question came from, and why the hell I want to put myself through such torture. But it seems like this has been a day of opening up old wounds, maybe healing some too if we’re lucky. Maybe we can become friends again, even though what I’d like is so much more.
Her brows pinch together in a cute-as-fuck frown, like the kind she used to have when I’d help her with calculus. Eventually she answers me, “Yes and no.”
Okay, that could have been worse. Could have been better too. “Care to enlighten me any further?”
“Well, that would require me being vulnerable with you, Chase. Can I do that?”
I nod. “You can trust me, Firefly. You can tell me anything, even if it hurts.”
She chews on her lip for a second. “For a long time, I would tell myself that what we did was a huge mistake. I think it made it easier to deal with.”
Well, that stings. We weren’t a fucking mistake! I made a huge fucking mistake afterward, but that doesn’t mean what happened was one. Sensibly, I keep my mouth shut and let her talk instead.
“But I don’t think we were, were we?” Her voice cracks a little, like my heart.
As relieved as I am to hear her say that, it’s gratitude I’m feeling more than anything else, grateful that she’s allowing me to see this vulnerable part of her after I hurt her so badly.
“No, we weren’t, Addie.”
She smiles and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from kissing her.
“So, no I don’t regret that you were my first because it was special and it was incredible. Even if it didn’t mean all that much to you?—”
“It meant something to me, Addie.” I can’t stop myself for interrupting her this time.
Now her eyes are wet with unshed tears. “But that’s also why I regret it too. Because it meant so much, but what you did and said afterward…it kind of made it all mean nothing.”
A tear runs down her cheek and she flicks it away before I have a chance to. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad about it anymore. I’m just explaining how I feel.”
“I know, Firefly. And I deserve to feel bad.”
She sniffs and shakes her head. “Not anymore, Chase. It was eight years ago. You were grieving. We were young.” She rests a warm hand on my cheek. “I forgive you.”
How do I tell her that I don’t want her forgiveness, and not only because I don’t deserve it—she was so innocent and trusting and she loved me so fucking much and I broke it—but also because this feels like she’s letting me go.
She speaks before I have a chance to say any of the things I should tell her. “We’d better get some sleep. We have a big day tomorrow.”
I can only nod, worried that if I speak, I’ll tell her how much I want her. Or how many times I have dreamed about that night and wished that it didn’t still affect me after eight long years without her. There has never been anyone who could get under my skin like her. And we can pretend that it was just one nightbetween us, but it was so much more. All the times we watched a movie together, or laughed at a stupid in-joke that only me and her understood. Every smile. Every lingering look. Every brush of skin. All the times she hugged me and I held on a little too long. Every second that we ever knew each other, leading to me falling in love with her.
Yeah, I fell in love with Addie Kinsella eight years ago, and I’m still in love with her now.
Chapter 21
Addison
# If you’re going to have a panic attack, make sure to do it in the vicinity of an annoyingly perfect demigod with sparkling blue eyes
