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My own eyes filled with helpless tears, hot against the chill of the rain on my skin. “You…you don’t want to be around me?”
“It’s not—” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, his gaze swept downwards, hiding his eyes from me. “I…I love you.”
A sudden warmth spread through me at his words. “Elliot. I love you too.”
He shook his head again, slumping back against the door. His breaths came faster, his body trembling. “It’s not the same,” he sobbed. “I know you love me as a friend. But I—I’m in love with you. I’m sorry. I tried not to be. I tried so fucking hard. But I can’t do this anymore, and—and I’ve ruined everything between us.”
Helovedloved me? Not just as a friend? The same way I loved him?
The rain was pouring, but it felt like the sun was coming out.
Releasing my grip on his shoulder, I brought my hand up so that I could cup his face, my fingers sliding across the wet skin of his jaw. “Elliot Clarke. Look at me.” I waited until his distraught gaze met mine, and then I leaned closer so that his beautiful face was the only thing I saw. “I’m in love with you. So fucking in love with you, you wouldn’t even believe.”
“What?” His stunned whisper was snatched away by the wind, but I was close enough to hear.
“Yeah, you heard me. I love you. I’m in love with you. I want everything with you. You’re my best friend in the whole world, and you’remyperson.”
“Ander,” he choked out, and then he kissed me, or maybe I kissed him, hot and salty from his tears or mine, and it didn’t even matter that we were standing outside our student house with the rain pouring down on us. All that mattered was the fact that I had the person I loved in my arms, where he belonged.
31
Icouldn’t stop shaking. This had to be a dream. Was Ander really here? WasIreally here? Was my hand pressed against his chest, the other curved into a fist where I was clutching my keys so hard that the metal was digging into my skin? Were my lips moving against his?
Had my best friend really just told me he was in love with me?
“You’re shivering. Let’s get you inside,” Ander murmured against my lips, and then he pried my keys from my death grip and unlocked the door of number 1.
By the time we were in his en-suite bathroom and he was carefully stripping my wet clothes from my body while steam from the shower filled the room, I was beginning to believe that maybe this wasn’t a dream, after all.
“Is this real?” I whispered.
Ander paused in unbuttoning my soaked jeans, his gorgeous hazel eyes meeting mine. His gaze went so soft, and I could see the truth written all over his face as he cupped the back of my neck, pressing his forehead to mine. “Yeah, it’s real. I love you.”
My breath hitched, and I swallowed hard. “H—how? I thought…I thought this was just something fun for you. That when you’d decided you’d had enough, you’d move on. I never even dreamed…”
I shivered again, and he released me, going back to unbuttoning my jeans again. “Need to get you out of these wet clothes,” he muttered, peeling the denim from my legs, then my drenched socks, and finally my boxer briefs. He then tugged off his clothes in what felt like three seconds and led me into the shower.
The warm water rained down on us, chasing away the chill from my skin, and I sighed with relief.
“Better?” he asked, applying a liberal amount of shower gel to a washcloth. The clean, lightly spiced fragrance filled the cubicle.
I nodded, and he smiled, pressing the cloth to my shoulder. He began to move it across my torso in slow, circling movements, and I relaxed, my muscles letting go of the strain I hadn’t even realised I’d been under.
“What you asked me. How could I love you?” His free arm curved around my back as he held my gaze steadily. “Loving you is easy. So easy. Everything we did felt so natural and so right, and when I started falling for you, it was effortless. Then that night when we…when you let me inside you, when we both completely let go, I realised that I’d fallen all the way. It was so fucking much—I didn’t know what to do with it because I knew you liked me, but I didn’t think your feelings were as strong as mine, and I was so fucking afraid that I’d scare you away.”
“Ander.” I wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my body into his. The washcloth dropped to the floor as he wound his arms around my waist, his wet skin sliding against mine. I cleared my throat. “Is that why you said you needed space?”
The corners of his lips curved up into a rueful smile. “Uh, no. Yeah. Partly. I thought that if I stayed away, I could get my feelings under control. Make them fade a bit so that we could carry on as we were and then you might love me back someday.”
“Your ideas are really fucking stupid sometimes,” I said affectionately, and he laughed.
“Yeah, I know that now. I saw you in the student union earlier, and I realised that my feelings weren’t going anywhere. You were with that guy from your running club. You were laughing, and you looked really happy, and I thought…I dunno, I thought you weren’t bothered about the fact that I’d been avoiding you.”
I slid my hand up the side of his face and then tapped the side of his head. “Use this brain. What you saw was me compartmentalising. Attempting to feel normal. It was the complete opposite of how I was feeling inside.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you use yours?” He smacked my ass lightly, making me jump and shoot him a half-hearted effort at a glare, although we were both smiling too widely. His smile faded as he continued. “I saw your face when I was with Daisy. I know what you were thinking.”
I shook my head. “No. I know. I didn’t really think there was anything going on between you…it was the fact that I was already upset about everything between us, and I was unprepared to see you. So when I saw you with her, it reminded me that you would move on from me, and I’d be left to pick up the pieces. I panicked, and I ran.”
