Jeans of a Star

As soon as I passed my clothes to Blake, I turned back to Dave, who was still facing the wall opposite the bed. It didn’t seem like he was going to be moving anytime soon, and I couldn’t decide what would be more awkward: an hour of him staring at the wall or an hour of him staring at me naked. It was a rock and a hard place.

I decided the second I handed Blake my clothes that I wasn’t going to force Dave to turn around if he didn’t want to. Honestly, if he didn’t want to look at me, then I couldn’t make him. It might be better in the end if he didn’t, but unfortunately I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Instead, I decided I’d give him one last chance to get his nose out of the corner before I just sat in silence while he counted the dots on his wall.

“I could get under the covers,” I said, already moving in the direction of the bed. “That way you wouldn’t have to see anything.”

Dave paused for a moment – a moment that was far too long to just be thinking about that, in my opinion – before nodding his head.

“That would work,” he said simply, giving a soft nod of his head.

With that, I moved over to the bed and un-tucked his covers, while the silly thought passed through my mind of wondering whether or not he had made his bed himself. I slipped underneath the top cover, noticing that the blankets smelled just like Dave did. It was that intoxicating mix of spicy and sweet that no other guy could ever seem to match.

“All good,” I called once I had tucked the blanket over my breasts, effectively covering everything but my shoulders. It took a moment for Dave to turn around, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not I was telling the truth.

When he turned around he gave a small nod of his head, almost as though he was congratulating me on a job well done, and I almost laughed at that but luckily my chuckle manifested itself as a smile instead, which he then reciprocated.

“So how have you been?” he asked, tucking his hands in his pockets as he took a few steps away from the wall. I was surprised that we were back at the point of awkward small talk. Couldn’t we talk about how rigged this stupid game was or how much we hated Blake and Anna? Anything but the weather, really.

“I’m good,” I said, not giving him a chance to give some more awkward small talk back. I thought we were passed that point. At least I was. The last thing I wanted was to talk about how we were doing while we both sat awkwardly in his room and waited for Blake to get back. “You can sit on the bed if you’d like.”

Dave shook his head quickly, not even taking a second to think about his answer. “I’m alright here.”

“You’re just going to stand all hour?”

He nodded his head, giving me a soft smile as though that would somehow make me feel better about the situation. Okay, it did, but that was only because Dave’s smile was just so magical.

The more he stood in front of the bed, the more I thought my head was going to explode, and finally it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

Letting out a deep breath, I sat up in the bed, holding the blanket with one hand so I could still keep it over my body. I crawled forward, with Dave’s eyes on me the whole time in shock, and skillfully managed to wrap the blanket around me as I did.

When I got to the edge of the bed, I reached out for Dave’s hand and pulled him down so that he was forced to sit next to me, and it was like just having him finally sit down took the hugest weight off my shoulder.

“See, was that so hard?” I asked, moving both hands up to better wrap the blanket around myself.

Dave chuckled, shrugging his shoulders. His eyes hung on me for a moment, moving down my face and to my neck, before he quickly looked back towards the ground.

Of course, when I realized that he could actually see me, even though everything was pretty much covered, my cheeks grew red in embarrassment. Sure, he had probably seen more of me at the swimming pool, but there was something about how scandalous the whole situation was that just made me feel that much more anxious.

I really, really hoped that Dave would say something, or turn on the TV, or just do anything to take away from the awkward tension I was feeling, because with every passing second it was getting harder and harder to keep myself from fidgeting uncomfortably.

“So,” Dave said, shifting a little on the bed. “What now?”

My eyes flicked over to his, which were still looking somewhere in the room – anywhere but me, probably – and for the first time I just wanted to laugh, because he looked even more uncomfortable than I was, if that was even possible.

“We sit?”

“Right.” He paused, taking in a long breath. “We sit.”

Did I want to sit in silence for an hour? Not really, but Dave and I had run out of things to talk about. It just seemed like every moment we spent together, the friendship that we used to have just flew further and further into the past. I didn’t even know what to say to anymore, and that sucked on an unbelievable level. It was all his fault, too, because he was the one who had left me behind.

After a silence that felt like forever but was probably just a few minutes, Dave turned to me, rustling up the sheets beneath him a bit. I turned to look at him immediately, because it was the first time either of us had moved since he’d sat down on the bed.

“Eleanor?”

I’m sure when he said my name that my eyes got twice their normal size, because I hadn’t heard him say that since before he left for California. It was that sweet, soft way he spoke when he was being serious, and he and I hadn’t had a serious talk in far too long.

To be honest, I was terrified.

“Yes?”

He blinked his eyes gently, while he bit his bottom lip. Was that the look he gave girls to make them fall in love with? Because, wow, he just looked so impossibly sexy to the point where I couldn’t even think well enough to breathe.

There was a silence between the two of us while Dave's gaze flicked between my eyes and my lips, and I could feel the tension mounting with every second that passed.

He leaned over so slowly that I almost didn't notice until he was only a few inches away from me, so close that I could feel his breath leaving his lips in slow gasps. Honestly, I thought I’d faint before his lips ever reached mine, but when they did, damn, that was magic.

There was this explosion that made my head spin and my body slump into him. Luckily, he caught me in his perfect arms, wrapping them around my waist and making sure the blanket stayed securely wrapped around me. Even when he was moving his lips so gently against mine, he still made sure I wasn't too exposed.

I wasn’t sure if it was because I was half naked on his bed or because he was just so Dave, but my body was on fire and I never wanted it to be put out.