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“We are going to Seattle,” Simon says.
I glance up. “Oh, cool. I’ve never been.” I shrug a little and then turn to face him, lightly crossing my arms over my stomach, like I wasn’t dying to know where they were sending us.
“I have, back when I was younger. But not recently.”
“It will be fun to explore,” I say, and he nods.
This stilted conversation is for the birds.
“Well …” I drift off, glancing back at the piles of clothes on my bed.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he says, rapping on the wood with his knuckles.
With another look and silence hanging between us, he turns to leave.
I can’t stand it anymore, and I open my mouth, take a deep breath, and say, “Simon, wait. I think we need to talk about what happened.”
He pauses, his back to me, but he doesn’t turn around. I can tell by the way his shoulders stiffen that this isn’t a conversation he wants to have. It’s a little too late to weasel out of it now though—unless he just walks away. Which is an entirely possible scenario.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I release it as he turns around. He walks the few steps back to my door, and instead of leaning up against it, like he was just a few moments ago, he stuffs his hands in his pockets again. He’s wearing sweatpants that fit him quite nicely, and the motion he just did with his hands makes the waistline dip a little, exposing a sliver of skin. I stare at it, unable to help myself, until he clears his throat.
I quickly look up to find him watching me, no amusement on his face, but his eyes seem to be a little darker, telling me he’s not completely unaffected.
“I, uh … I just think we need to clear the air. I feel like we’ve been avoiding each other since it happened?” I don’t know why I end it in a question. We both know that we’ve been doing exactly that.
“Since what happened?” he asks.
I work quickly to keep my jaw from dropping.
Is he really going to make me say it?
“Since we, uh … you know, outside by the pool—”
“I was kidding. I know what you are talking about,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking up in a slight smirk.
What is even going on right now?
“I’m sorry, are we joking? Are we not? I’m really confused.” I throw my hands up, exasperated at this point. I can’t tell if he’s mocking me or if we are both really bad at talking it out in this situation.
“No, I’m sorry. That was in poor taste. I would rather not be discussing this, and instead of being serious, I went for the awkward joke.”
“What’s so bad about discussing what happened?”
He reaches up to rub the back of his neck with one hand, glancing off to the side, and I think this is probably the most flustered I’ve seen him. Usually, he’s calm, cool, and collected, and I’m the one floundering and turning red.
“I let the situation get out of control. I’m ashamed that I even kissed you in the first place.” He looks up, making eye contact.
I don’t really know how to process his statement. It has my stomach dropping and makes my heart race—not in a good way.
What did he mean, he was ashamed?
“We’d agreed to keep things platonic, and I crossed a line. I’m sorry,” he says.
I gape at him. “I’m the one who crawled onto your lap,” I point out, and we just stare at each other for a few moments. “If anything, I’m the one who should be apologizing that it happened in the first place and where Ivy could have potentially seen it.”
There. I said it.
“We can just agree that we are both at fault and be done with it,” Simon says.
