luck for the night - rl.

33. it's not like we have never kissed before.

The next morning, I woke up with Remington next to me, rolled up in the sheets, and a weird pit in my stomach I could not place. He was on his side, one arm warm and heavy on my belly. I wanted to dislike it, really. Waking up with their arm around you was definitely not something friends did, but it sparked a tingle in my belly I never wanted to stop feeling. So I did not dare move.

But even laying here, in his arms, my brain got sucked into the mess that I had made of things. All of these feelings rushing through my body, confusing me, warming up my insides. What did it mean? And what the fuck was I supposed to do with them?

Once again I felt the great desire to talk to someone, anyone, about all of this. Sadly, my choice of people was rather small. I had pushed away most of my friends with my extreme work schedule, and now, I had pushed even more people away because of my extreme Remington schedule.

Mel was a no-go. I knew that she would only tell me the one thing I did not want to hear. That I was crazy in love with the man next to me, that we should marry and have kids and live happily ever after. I remembered the smug way she had looked at me when we Facetimed after my first night with Remington, when she had said that I had never been good at friends with benefits.

I wasn't in love. It felt more like a best friend, someone I felt comfortable with no matter what, a deep, platonic love that had sprouted and grown in an extremely short amount of time. And the insane attraction I felt for him was something completely different, unrelated. I had felt that before right? For that one girl that I had taken home only a couple of weeks before I met Remington, for the guy before that, and all of the people from the past years...

I knew Phoebe would get that. Between her and Mel, she had always been the more grounded friend, the friend without the rose-tinted glasses. She was direct, a realist. That's what I liked about her in the first place. But well, if I wanted to discuss all of this confusion, this doubt in my heart, with her, I first needed to undergo her explosion of rage when I told her about Remington.

I sighed. All of this silent laying, marinating in my own thoughts, did not really help the nerves. So I calmly got up, making sure I did not wake Remington. I moved his arm to hide the fact that it had been around me, still unsure what he would think of that. I was just his friend, after all.

I walked to the little tea station on the desk, filled the tiny kettle and grabbed a bag of lemongrass ginger tea from my bag, hanging it in one of the mugs next to the kettle. I tried not to look at Remington, but I could not keep my eyes off him. Of course, right when I had left the bed, he had rolled himself up into another Remington burrito.

Now away from the warmth of the bed, and someone else's body, the morning chill really got to me. I was only wearing a hoodie anyway, my black joggers probably tangled up in the bedsheets somewhere: I always took them off in my sleep.

My water hadn't boiled yet, so I made my way to my bag, slung against the wall somewhere, to find a pair of pants. But as I bent over to grab my pair of jeans, A raspy voice erupted from the bed.

"Don't."

My heart beat louder in my chest, heat flaring up in my lower belly immediately. I stood back up, eyes big, face warming up with the second. Remington's eyes were open, and a sleepy, sly smile played around his lips. "I was just admiring the view."

"The view, you say?" I raised a brow, pretending my face was not getting a burnt shade of red, and there was no desire sparking in my chest, skin, stomach... And then I turned around, knowing exactly what view Remington had meant, knowing precisely what he was trying to do. I did not want to give in, though.

I took a few steps through the room, to the bathroom door. "I'm just gonna take a quick shower," I said, throwing my sweetest smile Remington's way.

Internally cussing, I threw off the hoodie, my underwear and socks. He did it so easily. Simply notifying me of the fact that he was looking at my body, liking what he saw, made everything come back, the attraction, the excitement that always seemed to linger in the background.