Life is Liz (LiL, #1)

Chapter 66: Intricate Thoughts

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You think you felt it all

But then it hits

A comet from above

Crashes into your lips

And suddenly you find yourself

Thinking of things you never thought of before

And something in you changes

You can't think of anything else

Apart from the person that left a rose by your door

What is this thing that we call love?

~What is Love? Frances

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Absentmindedly, I broke a piece off the cookie and nibbled the sugary sweetness, my thoughts swirling around in my brain like a tornado.

Could it actually be true? Was Alex indeed feeling something for me? In love with me? No, back on the roof he'd told me about this girl he was infatuated with-

Was that girl...had he been talking about me?

No, there was no possible way that was true. My life wasn't one big cliché. My childhood best friend and the supposed 'player' of my school was not crushing on me. All those high school romances I'd read were seemingly catching up to me. But this was not fictitious, this was reality and these kinds of things just didn't happen in real life.

Alex' exact words had been "I love you too." which would mean that I was in love with him. Which I wasn't, so he could only have meant it in a platonic way. I mean, I knew that I wasn't.

...

But did I really?

We'd already established that I had no clue what it felt like to be in love. The only thing I was sure of was that I'd never experienced the emotion that'd coursed through me when we stood so close I could feel the heat of his skin whispering against mine. When his breath had kissed my lips and I wanted nothing more than to share the same air with him. When his voice, so incredibly raw and soothing, had sung its way into my heart. When the familiarity of his scent had weaved its way through my hair and lingered so possessively on my form that I never wanted to wash it off again. When his words, so unfathomably similar to my own feelings, had glued something deep inside of me back together that I once thought was lost forever. When his tongue had formed the four words everybody wanted to hear from someone that was important to them.

I shook my head and swallowed the bite of cookie. What was I thinking? If I was in love with somebody it obviously must be Sam I should be considering.

"You brought cookies!"

Startled out of my thoughts, my head jerked to the left where Jack was seated next to me on the backseat. My friends had insisted on carpooling so five of us were squeezed into Alex' vehicle while the others rode with Miles in the car right behind ours.

"Ooh, I want one!" Drake exclaimed from my right, reaching for my bag. I pulled it closer to my chest and out of his reach. When I looked up, Alex' eyes found mine in the rearview mirror. I shivered involuntarily.

"Hey, shorty, has nobody ever lectured you about sharing with others?"

"I didn't make them, guys, they were a gift."

Jere turned in the passenger seat and spoke to his childhood friend, "You baked her cookies?"

I saw Alex shrug in response, but when our gazes found each other again there was a smile in the green of his eyes. He had indeed made me cookies as part of his apology which was beyond sweet because they were my favorite. Peanut butter. The gesture touched my heart in ways far from comprehension and was partly the reason-I realized-for my intricate thoughts. When he'd handed me the sweet goodness back at my house, he sheepishly admitted that the first batch had turned out tasting disgusting and hard as granite. Only with the help of his sister, Sophie, had he managed to handle the task. I found him to be beyond adorable that he'd gone through all the trouble and frustration just to right the wrongs between us.