All I'll Ever Need

It was the second time I had woken up to see Sidney beside me, but this time, we woke up in pajamas—well, I was in pajamas while Sid was in a pair of athletic shorts—and the lights were out.

Falling asleep together was no accident.

When I opened my eyes, I saw Sidney was half-awake and watching me. The moment he realized my eyes were open, his arms snaked around my waist and pulled me against his chest, a crooked smile on his lips that took my breath away.

The heat from his body surged through mine, and I realized just how cold it was outside of this bed.

It gave me even less reason to move. This day . . . it wasn’t gonna be an easy, or good one, but I had to get through it.

Sidney’s grip tightened as he took a deep breath. “Damn, Mika. Your hair still smells good.”

My eyes fluttered shut as I breathed in the scent of him, a hint of sweat mixed with the mind-boggling after shave he wore. I took long and deep breaths to get more of it.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll get this shampoo again.”

“Mmm. I recommend it.”

As I looked up to Sidney, I saw his eyes closed and a smile on his lips. Those smooth pink lips . . . they looked inviting. I hadn’t meant to stare at them, but that’s just what I did.

I watched as his tongue delicately rubbed across them, which only added to the desire. Soft and moist, my heart thumped in my chest as my lungs nearly collapsed on themselves.

Sidney seemed to sense that I was looking at him and opened one eye. Confirming this, it only made his smile widen. “What?”

It was hard to remember that we hadn’t talked things through yet, that we were just friends, but the facts were, that was where we stood.

Yet I couldn’t stop myself. “Can you . . . do me a favor?”

“Anything, gorgeous,” he said, and his other eye opened as his body turned more towards me so he could hold me better. “What do you need?”

“Kiss me.”

I had to choke the two words out, and I was honestly surprised they even came out. I didn’t wanna look at him as I asked this, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that face.

“No.”

Rejection slapped me right across the face, and it sucked. It felt like someone kicked me right in the stomach, and all I could think about was . . . how many times had I made Sidney feel this way?

I was a horrible person.

“I . . . what?”

Though the smirk that came to Sidney’s face was light-hearted, it didn’t really make me feel any better. “I’m not gonna let you fuck with my emotions like that, missy. Either you want me or you don’t. There’s no in-between. I’m giving you time to make up your mind, but you can’t ask me to kiss you when it’s everything I want.”

The heat in my cheeks began to waver some, and my lungs regained at least some function, but I couldn’t wrap my head around what he said. “That makes no sense.”

“If I kiss you, I don’t wanna go through the day as just your friend,” he murmured.

“You’re not just my friend, Sid.”

“I wanna be more than that, and I’m not kissing you until I am,” he said. “Not until we have time to talk about all of this.”

“We have time now?” But even I knew that we didn’t.

Sidney gave me a tiny smile and put one hand on my cheek. “I wanna make sure you feel this way after all this is said and done. I wanna make sure this is real for you and not just for me.”

That . . . was a hard statement to process, and I wasn’t entirely sure I processed it right. “Well, what if I kiss you?”

“I’d be mad at you.”

My eyebrows rose. “Really?”

He sighed deeply as his eyebrows pulled together. “No. I could never be mad at you, but I would appreciate it if you didn’t.”

“So . . . not until we’re gonna be more?” I asked. “After all of this has passed and you know it’s real?”

He nodded. “Correct.”

My lips pressed together. “What if I told you that it’s not just with all this stuff going on?”

“How would you know?” he asked. “Ever since I came into your life, bad things have happened. You lost your best friend—”

“Who has now come back,” I reminded him.

He licked his lips again and took a deep breath. “Your dad died—”

“Which isn’t a bad thing.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Um . . . your stalker ex-boyfriend showed up?”

“And because of you, I have somewhere to hide from him,” I said. “So, please. Tell me how you do anything except fix the bad?”

He sighed. “Look, I just . . . wanna be sure, okay? I know you wouldn’t say anything if you realized down the road that it was just the emotions of everything going on. I wanna know that this is as real for you as it is for me.”

I had to think about it for a minute. Why wasn’t my word good enough? I mean, I suppose I understood where he was coming from, but I knew this was real. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind.

But if that’s what it took to prove it to Sidney, waiting a little longer . . . I could do that.

My, how the tables have turned.

Sidney sat up in the bed much faster than I was prepared for, and in one fluid motion, his feet hit the ground while he rubbed the rest of the sleep out of his eyes. From where I was laying, it was hard to imagine anything more pleasing to the eye.

The bed hair, the shirtless torso with those chiseled muscles as he stretched his arms out to wake the rest of his body up, too . . . I couldn’t stop myself from breathing heavily.

Sid didn’t even notice. He stood from the bed and walked into his large closet while I just laid on the bed and wallowed in desire and self pity.

Dear goodness, I was one lucky bitch.

“So what’s one of your guilty pleasures?”

I hadn’t expected him to say anything, much less ask such an out of the blue question, but it was a simple answer I didn’t have to put any thought into. “I don’t have any.”

Trust me, I didn’t feel guilty at all for my Sidney pleasure.

“What?” he laughed, and he walked back out of the closet with a Team Canada t-shirt pulled over his head. “Everyone has a guilty pleasure.”

I shook my head. “Not me. I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. I think it’s ridiculous, the whole concept. Why should you be ashamed of something you like? Because it’s not cool? Why the fuck not? If I like it, that means it’s a part of who I am, damn it. The concept of guilty pleasures is a load of shit.”

And he just laughed again. It had been a while since I heard him laugh so fully, so happily, so my heart was racing in my chest as a huge smile pulled across my lips. “You think about things that no one else does . . . and get angry about strange things as well.”

“I’m not like anyone else, Sid,” I reminded him.

“I know.” He flashed me a dazzling smile that took my breath away—took my mind away, really. “You’re interesting.”

When he laid back down beside me, one arm wrapped around my shoulders as he relaxed against his bed, I got my thought process back and smiled. “I think that’s one of the best compliments you can give a person. I mean, everyone’s beautiful. Anyone can be nice, funny, and good, but not everyone can capture your attention, keep it, and be endlessly fascinating. Not saying that’s what you were saying because trust me, I get boring easily, but that in itself is the best compliment.”

“If you get boring so easily, why have I never seen that?” he asked.

“Maybe you see more in me than what actually exists?” I suggested, but it was hard to think anything but positive things with Sidney holding me as he was.

He shook his head. “Or maybe I see more in you than you ever will, things that exist that you’ll never realize.”

My nose curled, but I knew I had to say something positive. Aside from the fact that there wasn’t much negative or realistic coming to mind, I wanted to keep the mood light and happy. “Picture or it didn’t happen.”

There was something comforting about the way he laughed at me, or I suppose the way he laughed with me.

I realized, as we laughed and held onto each other like any normal couple would, that with Sidney, I could get through this day.

I could get through anything.