I Don't Wanna Be in Love

She tosses in her sleep against his body while his arm is lightly lying on her side. He’s awake now and watching her sleep, watching her eyelids flutter as she dreams and her body rise and fall as she breathes. An unknowing energy pulls her from her sleep and slowly she breaks consciousness. With closed eyes, Ember isn’t quite sure where she’s at, at first. Were the last few days just a long dream? Was she in bed with Jacoby right now and not Matt? Slowly she lifts her eyelids to see Matt just close his, as if he wasn’t just watching her.

Smiling Ember whispers good morning, snuggling her body against his a little deeper, finding much comfort in his body.

He whispers his good morning reply while stretching his neck out slightly so he can lightly kiss her forehead. Waking up noises almost soundlessly leave her body as she elongates her body against his with a light touch. “Did you sleep okay?” Matt asks, scratching the back of his head, feeling the messiness of his bed hair.

“Yeah, I slept pretty great,” She doesn’t bother coating it softly, she finds herself enjoying this late morning view rather wonderfully. “And you, did you sleep okay?”

“I slept great as well,” His voice falls silent in his sentence as he’s lying there staring at her face, taking in every feature that’s glowing with the sunlight from the windows. They’re both lost in staring at one another and they’re both smiling broadly, any minute now you could sense that they’d break out with some ill timed laughter from the silence and stares. “So, do you work today?” He murmurs a few minutes later, finding his voice and thoughts once more.

“What’s today, Sunday? Nope, no work for me.” She states, rubbing her hand over her face and smearing her already smeared eye makeup. Matt chuckles at the black line Ember has caused to spread across her face and she gets why he’s starting laughing and pokes her tongue out at him.

“Well why don’t we grab some lunch and then I can take you back to your…hotel.”

“Lunch sounds great…” Her sentence drags off as she brings her lips to Matt’s, kissing him cheerfully and sweetly. “I could get use to having this for lunch.” She gushes a few seconds later when they pull their lips apart and then she has one of those ‘I can’t believe I just said that’ moments. Quickly, to try and recover she hides her face against the pillow and his bare chest. “I can’t believe I said that…I’m sorry,” She says embarrassed.

Blushing, Matt says to her, “Why sorry? I was just thinking the same thing,” With his face against her head, he whispered it in her ear. His warm breath dances along her skin and it makes it tingle. She smiles against his chest and he can feel it, so he places a few innocent kisses against her ear.

Lunch consisted of sandwiches, chips and some sodas in Matt’s bed. It was nice and simple; Ember absolutely loved just being in his company. They talked about last night a little bit, and he thanked her for having them walk back to his place, and they shared a few moments of cute, flirting silence.

They took their time walking to Brian’s house to retrieve Matt’s car, not quite ready to be out of each others site. They made a date to go out for movie and have dinner at Matt’s tomorrow night.

_______________________________________________________________________

“Damn, that was your turn,” Matt mumbles to himself. “I’ll get ya’ there though,” Ember laughs quietly at Matt’s little outburst. They come to a stop in front of this little shop at a red light. The two of them are almost like magnets, when Matt turns to look at Ember she turns at the exact moment to look at him, gently his hand reaches for her face to pull her quickly to his lips for a soft peck. “…You should be mine…” He murmurs against her lips before pecking them once more. He pulls away to give his focus back to the car and street just as the light changes to green.

A supple red glow swells along her cheeks after the words break the air and swirl about her head in bewilderment. She licks her lips a few times before opening them to answer. While Matt sits in the drivers seat worrying he said that too soon, but he found that he just couldn’t help himself. “Did I say-“ He starts but she interrupts,

“I thought you wanted to take things slow…” She averts her eyes to the mirror, eyeing the sudden glow to her cheeks.

“Yeah I did, I’m sorry…but it’s just…” As Matt fumbles for his words Ember lets out a tiny set of giggles, barely heard by Matt.

“…To answer your question, yes,” She replies, stopping his messy words and laughing warmly with a huge smile. Why take things any slower when the end result will be the same? They both want this so they should both have it. Ember feels she’s had enough time adjusting and now she’s ready for this…Not that she didn’t feel ready when she had left Jacoby in the first place.

“Really?” He asks after the word yes leaves her mouth, she starts laughing at the unbelievable little look that’s marking up his features.

“Yes really, as long as you’re mine.”

“Well of course. That is the idea you know.” He muses, taking her hand in his and resting them in the center between the two of them.

For the rest of the short little drive to the hotel they remain quiet, basking in the happy silence that sits between them. And when the car pulls into the parking lot and stops in a parking spot their hearts both beat just a little faster and their mouths dry just a little more. Her hand unlocks the door and it pops open after she unlocks her seatbelt. Matt does the same having no intention in staying in the car. “Let me walk you to your door,” He says as she climbs out of the door. In her head she releases this little awe noise at his gentlemanliness.

Matt follows her body as she leads the way to her hotel door, “I had a great time, thank you.” She says when they get there.

“Not a problem, so did I.” He pulls her into a hug that slightly lifts her frame from the ground then lets her go to steal her breath in a goodbye kiss. “I’ll talk you later,” He murmurs against her lips, pulling apart just enough to articulate the words before pecking her lips once more.

“Night, drive carefully,” She whispers in his wake as he leaves. Ember turns in her open door frame and rushes inside the room after no longer seeing Matt’s silhouette. Happily breathless, she quickly grabs her phone and hits the button for her number two contact. The phone rings twice but she’s already impatient as she kicks off her shoes while parking herself on the bed.

“Hello,” Breaks the sounds of the ring, the voice belonging to her younger brother.

“Hey! Oh my god do I have things to tell you!” She screams into the phone while practically tearing her socks off of her feet.

“Ember? Is this you?”

“Yes it’s me, why do you ask?”

“You’re awfully loud and happy.”

“Oh shuddup and listen to what I have to tell you!” It’s been a matter of what…fifteen or twenty minutes since Matt has asked her out and she can’t keep it to herself. She has to go and call her brother, the only person she has to gush to, and tell him all the details. So she recalls her night to him and this morning, smiling like a clown the whole time and bursting with little giggles at little details. She sounds quite mad, but she’s just happy.

“So you broke up with Jacoby? Man, this guy must be good!” He says quite excitedly over the line.

“Hey you’ve got it wrong; it’s not that Jacoby was bad or anything like that…we just weren’t right for each other…” And she knows this by the whole half an hour or so that she’s been Matt’s girlfriend? I think this is going to go terribly, but everyone who isn’t Matt or Ember should just let them figure that out.

“Well I’m happy for ya’, you sound super happy and it’s a good thing to hear. Now don’t wreck it.”

“How could I possibly wreck it?” She asks in a serious tone to his sarcastic statement.

“I was kidding, it was a joke. Laugh.”

“Oh, ha-ha,” She replies with no real gusto.

“It’s great to hear from ya and I’m glad all is going well for ya, but I have to go now, so call me later,”

“Okay, I will. Bye.” She says and after hearing his goodbye she breaks the line and hangs up. She falls back onto her bed and lets out one of those content sighs. The smile on her face could be tens miles wide as she lays there thinking of last night, when he first kissed her and when they met, all the while being filled with this warm, vibrant glee.

Isn’t it great dating someone new? Don’t you just love that feeling? Too bad you can’t feel that way always. Have that bounce to your step, that better sleep at night knowing you belong to someone and someone belongs to you and you’re both happy. Ember couldn’t realize the way she feels now is the way Jacoby still felt when she left him. And right now as she looks back at her short memories with Matt and can lay there warm and happy, Jacoby is doing the same. He’s looking back on the better points of their old relationship and he can’t move on. He’s sitting there letting himself suffer and be swallowed up by the extra pain he’s causing himself because he can’t stop thinking about her, because he can’t let her go. Because he thinks she’s going to come back.