Forgetting You, But Not the Time

The abruptness of the kiss seemed to throw my mind into overdrive, completely numbing any sense of logic I ever had to begin with. And with nothing but Billie's soft lips on mine and an empty room left to swarm my incoherent thoughts, I kissed him back. The intensity of the kiss scared me; the way Billie pressed me up against the closed door, his hands grazing parts of my body that Chase had yet to touch and places where most hands should not go... it scared me. The feeling of his tongue running along my bottom lip caused me to shudder in his grasp, and the sensation of it was so much better than what I had once imagined back in August.

He teased my lips apart with his own, bringing his tongue in to meet mine with such passion; passion that I had never shared in a kiss with Chase, or any other boy for that matter. With his body pressing impossibly closer to mine, I gasped and could do nothing more than run my fingers through his smooth, slightly long hair that had been sticking up in odd ends as a result from the gel he used.

But as Billie tried maneuvering me over to the bed, and halfway succeeding by turning me around and backing me up to where the back of my knees touched the edge of the bed, the thought of Chase and mine's relationship crossed my mind ever so briefly. I was still with Chase, I wasn't with Billie. Chase was such a sweet guy, and Billie had been nothing more than a jerk to me these past few weeks. I cared for Chase, as Chase cared for me; and I knew this was wrong. Kissing Billie was so wrong to begin with, even if I hadn't been seeing anyone at the time, it was still wrong.

I shook my head and tore my lips from his, only to feel him tilt his head downward, nipping my neck tenderly, and creating goosebumps along my arms. Words escaped me for a moment as the feeling of Billie's lips, teeth and tongue along my neck overwhelmed me. It only took me a couple of seconds before I was able to finally open my mouth to protest, "N-No... Billie, no... s-stop it... s-stop..." I winced. I was hardly able to form coherent sentences, more or less able to form actual words. For a moment, I didn't want this bliss to end, yet I knew it had to. The idea of it left as quickly as it came, however, and the prime thing I wanted to do was to stop this before something else happened that we—mainly I—would regret.

I added a bit of pressure on Billie's shoulders and gently pushed him off of me. And for once since our lips had made contact, Billie's eyes met with mine; they were the brightest shade of green I had ever seen them, gleaming with something I couldn't exactly read, but his facial expression said it all: he was happy. He was happy.

No, he couldn't be... I must've been thinking unclearly, he had no reason to be in such a good mood. This had to stop.

"Billie, no, this is wrong." I stated firmly, only to have Billie's soft smile and tender lips take the rest of my protest right from me, running his tongue along my bottom lip before tugging it gently. He pulled away not a moment later, but continued to smile. He said nothing, so I continued, "We can't do this, Billie. This is so wrong. I'm with Chase now, I can't be doing this with you. Not here, not now, not ever—" Billie took my breath away for the third time, and I was starting to get annoyed with his newfound talent of getting me to shut up. "Stop," I muttered against his lips, and he obliged, still smiling like some sort of fool. "You have a girlfriend as well, you're cheating again. I'm cheating." I stopped, horrified at my own conclusion. I had just been cheating on Chase, my boyfriend... I cheated. "Oh god..." Billie must've noticed how my skin had paled because he caressed my cheek with the top of his fingers, shaking his head, still smiling softly for comfort.

"You're paranoid, Spence. Don't worry about it, that's not cheating."

I felt as though someone had just smacked me hard across the face. "You don't call that cheating? Well I'd hate to see your definition of it, then." I scoffed, "I need to leave." But Billie, like I had done before, made no indications of moving. "Please, Billie, I really have to go." Billie placed his hands firmly on my shoulders and pushed me down into a sitting position on the bed. He took a seat next to me and sighed, running a nervous hand through his messy hair. I noticed the blonde was slowly starting to fade, a dark auburn gradually starting to show through. When Billie opened his mouth, closed it, opened it and then closed it again, I decided to speak once more, "Billie, you know this is wrong. You've been accused of cheating before, why would you do it again? And with me of all people? I figured you hated me."

"You're wrong," Billie observed, looking over at me simply. His face was blank, but his eyes continued to shine.

"About what?" I questioned, confused.

Billie pulled the hand that wasn't resting on his knees to the back of his neck and scratched nervously. "A lot of things," he finally confessed, reverting his gaze from mine. He inhaled sharply, "I didn't mean to cheat on—" he cut himself short, wincing at how ridiculous that had sounded. "That is to say... I didn't mean for Kristen to get hurt..." Billie trailed off, apparently deep in thought.

I took this moment of silence to ask, "So you're saying that, while you decided to cheat on Kris with some random girl, you didn't think she would mind? You didn't think she'd be hurt by it and would just move on?" I paused, another thought coming to mind in which I quickly voiced, "Or did you just think she wouldn't catch you?" Billie flinched at the coldness of my voice. Typical move for a guy like him; feeling guilty only because they were caught red-handed, not caring in the least that they had hurt the other girl's feelings.

"No, that's not what I meant. God damnit," he cursed to himself, though knowing that I had heard it. "I didn't cheat on her, Spencer. Now I'm either thinking she didn't tell you the whole story, or you're just holding some sort of grudge against me."

"Well," I scowled. "Please enlighten me on your side of the story, then. Because apparently Kris either lied to Carly and myself or just didn't tell us the part where you were innocent."

"That's exactly what she did, I bet," murmured Billie, hoping that I hadn't heard it. He sighed for the umpteenth time before he began, "Kristen and I had gotten in a fight earlier that day. We were just arguing like most couples do; y'know, disagreeing? She wanted me to sit with her at lunch while I wanted to find you guys since I had been a jackass and so on and so forth. Well, one thing led to another and we ended up getting on the topic of our relationship. She started talking shit about how I wasn't devoting enough of my time to her, which was completely untrue—" Even I knew that wasn't true, and I nodded for him to continue, "And then we just sort of went our separate ways after I refused to agree with her. I figured that we had split up since she wouldn't even bother talking to me and ignored all my calls in between classes. So I decided to go out for a smoke during free period and saw this one girl come out and stand beside me, I guess for company. I didn't really pay any attention to her at first. Then, I recognized her from one of my classes and we started talking for a bit. I told her I was going to go in and find Kristen when she pulled me up against her and started fucking kissing me. Well," Billie chuckled lightly. "When a hot girl kisses you, you don't exactly pull away."

I grimaced at that. I really didn't want to hear something like that come from Billie if he was looking to be in a relationship with me. That surely wasn't the way to go if he was trying to score a decent relationship, more so trying to earn my trust. "So I got caught up in the moment for a couple seconds when I thought I heard something off to the side. I realized what I was doing and immediately regretted it, only to look and see Kristen running back inside." He finished, finally building up the courage to look over at me. "See? I bet she didn't tell you the part where we had gotten in a fight."

"You said it yourself, Billie," For some reason, I didn't want to believe him. I wanted to believe Kris because she had befriended us so easily. I didn't want to think that she refused to mention something so vital, like the fight they had, and would have to confront her about it. It seemed so much easier just to avoid Billie rather than Kris, who was now one of my closest friends. Billie, on the other hand, was nothing more than an acquaintance ever since he stopped speaking to us. I figured it'd be much easier to push him away than an actual friend. "You figured that the two of you had split up, but you still weren't sure. So technically, you still could've been cheating on her. Maybe Kris didn't consider the fight you had as a 'break up'."

"She could've at least told me," protested Billie, who was once again getting into that mood where he hated everyone and everything around him. "She could've maybe given me some sort of a sign that told me we were still together. But no, she had to go and ignore me all fucking morning because of a stupid ass fight."

"But that's the gist of a relationship, Billie... you cuddle, you fight, you ignore one another, someone feels guilty, you confront each other, you apologize, you go back to normal and then start all over again until someone gets fed up. That's just how it works."

Billie appeared deep in thought for a moment, and it was then that I realized I couldn't exactly hate him for all that had happened. After all, his story did seem fairly believable; there was no proof for both his and Kris's story, so either one of them could be telling the truth. I took his silence as a good time to leave. I made to get up, but Billie grabbed my arm and eased me back down beside him.

"I didn't tell you what else you were wrong about," He looked at me with another one of his heart-fluttering smiles, one that held all the concern in the world, like I was the most important thing to him at that very moment. I motioned for him to go on, which he did after an intake of breath. "You're wrong about us," he said, gesturing from me to him. "About us being wrong. We're not... there really isn't any problem with it—"

"Billie!" I exclaimed exasperatedly, wanting nothing more than to throw my hands up in the air in frustration. "Do you not remember Chase? You know, that one boy I met at Kris's party that you invited me to? My boyfriend? Yeah, you recall him? He kind of gets in the way of... of—of whatever we would be." You're saying that like he's a fly on the windshield that's annoying and won't come off, a voice said that sounded oddly like me, and I sighed dramatically. "Okay, that's not what I meant." I took a deep breath. "I'm dating Chase. Chase asked me out after taking me to dinner—"

"I can take you to dinner." Billie interrupted, his face lighting up.

I, of course, ignored him, "And then he asked me out. I said yes because he had been a great friend, he was with me when you weren't and I trust him, knowing he wouldn't hurt me." That stabbed Billie really hard in the heart, his eyes losing their intensity all of the sudden as he hung his head. "I know he cares for me, Billie. I know he'd never kiss a girl back just because he thought she was a hot piece of ass. He's proven that to me these past few months, and quite frankly, he got to me before you did."

For a moment there, I thought Billie had given up. After what I had said, I knew I must've hurt his feelings, which caused a pang of guilt to twist in the pit of my stomach. I rubbed my temples tiredly and muttered, "I'm sorry. That came out worse than I intended it to."

"No," Billie shook his head, pressing his hands together. He was still nervous, but much less happier than before, all thanks to me and my big mouth. "No, you're right. I haven't exactly proven myself worthy of commitment after everything that's happened. And I know that he came to you first, and I'm sorry for dumping all this shit on you. I would've asked you sooner or done something that showed you I, well, that I liked you in more ways than just a friend, but I was..." Nervous. He was nervous, he was just too proud to admit it. And instead of answering truthfully, he went on like he hadn't mentioned that in the first place. "But I can prove to you that I'm a trustworthy guy... I know my love life isn't the best, but I really do care for you and you need to understand that!" He ran his hands through his hair again, laughing unbelievably at himself. "Listen to me, I sound desperate." I laughed along with him, but my laugh was more out of nerves and unease. "Would it be so bad if I was?" He asked honestly, looking over at me.

"Don't say that Billie," I scolded him. "You're not desperate." He sighed and looked away. I had lost count of how many times he had broken our eye contact by now.

The room flooded in uncomfortable silence. I picked at the hem of my costume while Billie continued rubbing his hands together in an attempt to calm himself down. He glanced over at me, I noticed, and a brief smile spread across his lips. "You look good, by the way." He said, referring to my costume. I smiled weakly, yet appreciatively. His smile left as soon as it came and he went back to the staring contest he was currently having with the floor.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Billie stand from his spot. At first, I thought that maybe he wanted to leave just as much as I did after the inelegance of the conversation, but then I noticed him walk over to me. I looked up as he grabbed my hand and pulled me up in front of him, keeping his hand confidently laced with my own.

"Do you like Chase more?" His question stung, and it wasn't as much the inquiry of his that startled me, but more so the answer he was looking for that, by the look on my face, he was sure to receive. He knew, I knew, we both knew that I had stronger feelings for Billie than I ever had shared with Chase. I knew that I had liked Billie much longer than I had liked Chase. After all, I had known Billie much longer, causing my feelings for him to strengthen. But was I actually going to admit all of that to Billie? Did I have the courage to tell him the truth? Maybe if I just don't answer the question at all... He gripped my other hand in his, now intertwining both of my soft hands in his somewhat rougher ones.

"I—Well, I don't—" He leaned forward and kissed me, not taking it any farther than that; just lingering his warm lips over mine in a delicate kiss before pulling away.

"Do you like him more?" he asked again. When I couldn't find the right words to form an understandable sentence, he kissed me again. And again. And again.

"Please," I broke away. "Please stop."

"Then answer the question." He said, not raising his voice at all and just remaining calm, pulling my body a bit closer to his to where our chests were touching. I went to pull away, but he wouldn't allow it and pulled me even closer than before as if to punish me for trying to move. "Do you care for him more? Have you liked him longer? Do you even like me at all?"

I groaned inwardly, holding back the urge to smack my forehead. "Billie, don't do this to me... I can't—I can't do this... not here, not now..." Billie grinned, most of his questions being answered right there. He bent his head down and kissed the tip of my nose, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn't suppress the giggle that escaped my throat. Billie's grin widened and nuzzled his face in the crook of my neck, his hot breath racing along my collarbone. He kissed the corner of my mouth before pulling away, yet keeping one hand firmly around my own.

"C'mon," he said, gently pulling me out of the room behind him. The people that still remained at the party were stumbling around one another, knocking over rather value objects on the way and tripping over those who were leaning up against the wall. I instinctively moved a bit closer to Billie and felt his hand give mine a reassuring squeeze.

"Billie, where are you taking me?" I whispered, my mouth close enough to his ear to where he would be able to hear me clearly.

"Away from here." He answered simply and I gasped, stopping in the middle of the hallway and since Billie's hand was still entwined in mine, he had to stop also. Billie looked back at me with a raised eyebrow and walked back over to where I was standing. "What's the matter?"

"I can't go with you, Billie... I need to stay here, I came here with Chase and the others and—" He stole my lips and silenced me with his own, rubbing my side affectionately before pulling away. He smiled softly, putting me a bit at ease after how tense I had gotten upon entering the hallway full of drunken teenagers.

"If he cares about you like you say he does, he'll understand that you wanted to leave early. You don't even have to tell him you left with me if you think that'd be a bad idea. I'm not going to do anything to hurt you. You know that, right?" I nodded. No matter what he had done in the past, I still trusted him even with my life. His smile returned and he pulled me into him, kissing the top of my forehead. "Then follow me." And I did. A bit reluctantly, but I still followed him nonetheless. He was right, after all, like he had been so many other times that night. If Chase cared for me like he often displayed he did, he would understand why I would want to leave this party early. He would also understand that I couldn't have been able to find him even if I tried, considering how many people were actually there.

The staircase was an absolute wreck and I nearly broke my neck trying to get down, passing by a few males who had passed out on the steps. Billie had to shove a guy off of me a few times and had to push the sleeping bodies out of the way before we could reach the first floor. Once we did, making our way to the front door wasn't as much of an issue other than the moshing in the middle of the living room we had to squirm our way through. I thought I had spotted Carly and Mike, but figured I must've been imaging it and continued grasping Billie's hand in a death grip from behind him.

Out front, tons of toilet rolls had been thrown into the trees; a typical Halloween display. Silly string had been scattered all throughout the yard with broken eggs on garage doors and car windshields. Many trick-or-treaters were still out, most of them being younger teenagers, none of which seemed to be younger than 15. I figured most of the littler kids had gone home with their parents by now and were already tucked safely in bed.

When we finally made it to Billie's car, I couldn't have been happier to jump in the passenger seat and out of view of those men around the corner that had been whistling at a few teenage girls along their path. The one thing that scared me the most about Halloween was the freaks who roamed the streets, trying to pick up girls or just getting themselves into trouble with the law. Sometimes I really despised Halloween.

"So, where are you taking me?" I asked a bit nervously, anxiously twirling a torn piece of my skirt around my index finger. Like I said before, I trusted Billie, just not the other people out there.

"Just my house, no one will be there." He looked over at me after pulling out of his space and gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry, nothing bad's going to happen. I promise." So I believed him.

His house wasn't too far away from where John's house was located, which didn't make me feel any better. The closer we got to Billie's house, the more I wanted to run through his front door and lock all the exits. Yes, I was rather paranoid of Halloween, if you didn't get my drift already. "What's gotten you so shaken up?" I heard Billie ask from my left. I must've been twitching or something if he knew I was so scared.

"Oh, I just... I don't really like Halloween that much..." I paused. "Too many freaks out late at night..." I knew that sounded weak and humiliating, but telling the truth had to have been some sort of start. Not that I had agreed to be with him, but I suppose it was good that I wasn't lying to him.

"It's okay, we're just going to my place." said Billie, who minutes later, pulled into his driveway. I unbuckled my seatbelt and hurried myself out of the car. Billie noticed this and quickly made his way to the front door with me close behind him and fiddled with his keys. I saw a few drunken men across the street, wolf-whistling and hollering inappropriate things to me and I felt my knees start to slowly give out beneath me.

"Billie hurry, please." He quickly shoved the key into the lock, turned it and swung open the door, pushing me in front of him before following me in, closing and locking the door. I heaved a sigh of relief, feeling much better than I did before and was glad that I was finally able to breath properly again.

"I'm sorry," said Billie, who pulled me into him, wrapping his arm around my petite waist and started leading me up the stairs. The house was dark, but very warm and I suddenly felt at home. Billie led me down the long hallway and stopped at a closed door at the very end. He opened it and turned on the light before beckoning me in as well. I entered cautiously, not afraid but a bit confused as to why we were in his room when no one else was home to occupy the living room. Billie threw his shoes off, allowing me to do the same, before jumping on his bed and making himself comfortable.

"You can sit down," he said to me as I was standing off to the side, staring down at the bed before me as if it was going to jump up and attack me. Warily, I did so and Billie sat up to where he was sitting next to me. "Alright, I'm just going to say what's on my mind," Billie began a bit hesitantly upon noticing how tense I had become. "And I want you to please just listen to what I have to say before you go and say something in return." He stopped and dipped his head to see my reaction. I lifted my head upward and nodded. "That fair?" Once again, I just nodded. Billie exhaled sharply before nodding to himself. "Okay... first, I just want to apologize; for the way I've been treating you and for dumping all this shit on you at the last minute. I was actually kind of afraid of what you would say if I told you that I... well, that I liked you—" He seemed to be having difficulties in saying that he liked me. "And when you starting going out with Chase, I was just kind of kicking myself for not mentioning anything sooner."

Billie scooted closer to me and kissed me on the cheek, smiling cheekily afterwards before persisting with his confessions, "I really do like you, Spencer. I'm not just shitting you so you'll dump Chase for me, I would never do that, even though you might think I would." I cracked a smile at that, in which Billie returned gladly with putting a tender hand on my knee. "I do care for you, and I want you to believe that. I want you to be able to trust me, because I already know that I trust you. Now, I'm not saying that we should just immediately do something about this, because after what you've said about Chase, I know that you're not going to just end things that easily." Billie paused once again and I wasn't sure if it was just for dramatic effect or if he was really trying to gather his thoughts for this next statement. "So, what I was thinking is... you and me could, I don't want to say 'go out behind Chase's back' because that would obviously be rude and I know you'd never agree to it—" I nodded feverishly at that, to which Billie noticed. "Yeah, exactly. But, I just want you to get to know me better... I want you to be able to trust me and I want you to see what I'm really like. These past few weeks... I haven't exactly been myself, and I know I can't apologize enough for all the shit I've put you through. But I want to try and be with you... without being with you. Does that make sense?"

I thought back on everything that he said, most of which went straight to my heart while others made me think a bit beforehand. "So, you're saying," I began, a bit unsure of what he had actually meant and afraid he'd laugh at me if I was wrong. "That you want us to go steady while I'm still with Chase?" Billie nodded and I immediately shook my head. "No, Billie, that's cheating!"

"No, no, no... Spencer, listen. Okay, maybe "steady" isn't exactly the right word for it." He sighed. "It's not cheating, okay? It's not like we'd be making out while no one else was around, it's not like we'd be having sex every time you come to my house or I come to yours... none of that. I just want—" he sighed, confusing both me and himself. "I don't even think I know what I want." His eyes wandered to his hands where they lingered for a moment before shyly returning to mine. "I just want you to give me a chance. Not right this second, not tomorrow and not next week... but I just want you to take what I said into consideration. And in the meantime, while you're thinking everything over, we can spend more time together. That's what I'm trying to say."

Hm, that seems fair. I thought, thinking everything over once more. He said we wouldn't be doing anything that would fall under the cheating category, which was fine with me since I was fully against cheating in any way, shape or form. He said he simply wanted to hang out with me a little bit more, which I've wanted to do the same with him. And to top it all off, I was still going to be able to continue on with my relationship with Chase.

I nodded, indicating a compromise. "Alright, all of that sounds fair. I guess we can give it a try." And never before had I seen Billie smile so big. His eyes brightened once again, which made butterflies erupt in the pit of my stomach; I really enjoyed seeing him happy. His eyes seemed to shine a bit and he looked up at me innocently and I raised an eyebrow.

"Can I kiss you again?" He asked permission, grinning like a complete idiot. I gave him a look and he quickly held up his hands, like he was admitting defeat. "Just one. Please? Only one more? It can't hurt, right?" I sighed; all of this went against my better judgment. I exhaled and nodded, reminding him that it'll only be one. He agreed, and with that, he leaned forward slowly and pressed his sweet lips against mine, allowing his tongue to graze my own lips before slipping between them to explore my mouth. Everything about him: his taste, how gentle he was, how sweet he could be, the way he made me feel special... all of it made me tremble against him.

And the feeling of him running his fingers through my hair was pure ecstasy, something I didn't want to end anytime soon. He ran his free hand along my bare stomach and tickled it lightly with the tip of his fingers and down to my waistline, resting it there before backing me up against the pillow. Not once had he broken the kiss, so I couldn't say he didn't stick to his word. And upon thinking that, I brought my fingers up to his hair, scratching the top of his head faintly, hearing a growl from deep within his throat in return. He bit my bottom lip softly before gently tugging on it; something I soon came to realize he highly favored doing. I sighed, feeling him inch himself closer to me; I couldn't honestly say that I didn't enjoy the feeling of him up against me. Hesitantly, he pulled away from me, breathing heavily with a faint smile on his lips. He sat his head down tiredly on my shoulder, smothering his face in my neck and I giggled again. Damnit, stop doing that!

I heard Billie chuckle and he glided his hand up my stomach again, stopping at the bottom of my shirt, playing with the hem. He made a trail of butterfly kisses up my neck and stopped at my pulse, constantly brushing his lips against it; chills racing down my spine at strong, swift paces. At last, he brought his lips up to my ear and whispered very lightly before biting playfully right below it,

"I love when you do that, it's so adorable."

I blushed furiously.