Chapter 18

18

I was clicking through the photos I took on our week away on my laptop the next morning. I hadn't touched them since I got back, and I finally decided to look through them and see which ones to keep and store on my computer, what I wanted to print out and frame, and which ones to delete.

I had been there for an hour, hunched over and tapping away when my phone buzzed with an incoming text. I read the contact and my stomach instantly flipped before I had even read the message.

Reece:

Look out your window

I was at odds with myself after yesterday.

Yesterday, there were other things on our mind. He was having a hard day, and I wanted to help him through it. I didn't even think about anything else, I just knew he needed me. But in the back of my mind, I still wondered how we could go back to how things were after what happened on my birthday. How could I forget the way he had touched me and pretend we were just friends? I didn't think it was possible. Maybe he was just here to see Nate, though he had just left not long ago.

I stood from my desk almost immediately after reading his text and peered through the window that sat above my bed. I spotted Reece in the driveway with his wide grin, the one shadow of a dimple indented in his right cheek, while he leaned against the hood of my car, arms crossed against his chest.

I didn't hold back my eye roll, which made his smile grow as I popped one ear out of my headphones and opened the window.

I rested my chin against my palm as I leaned against the window sill and sighed. "You just can't get enough of me, can you?"

"Nothing is ever enough when it comes to you, Kody," he replied, a hint of both amusement and sincerity in his tone that had my heart picking up pace.

I shook my head. "What are you doing here, Reece? Nate left like an hour ago."

He stood up straighter, tucking his hands into the pockets of his pants. "I was out for a run, thought I would drop by." He shrugged. "Nate isn't who I'm looking for, though. I'm here for you. You going to invite me up now, or will I have to resort to scaling the wall up to that window you seem so intent on hiding behind?" He quirked a brow.

I hummed as I tapped a finger against my chin. "You know, that could be quite entertaining…"

He narrowed his eyes, and his voice was full of warning. "Kody."

I raised my hands as I conceded. "Okay, okay. I'll be right down."

I closed the window, and I couldn't help the small smile that grew on my face as I stepped out of view from Reece.

He came to see me. I tried to smother down the feeling of the butterflies roaring to life.

I was still a little pissed at him after my birthday and the words he left me with, but it was hard to be mad at him after what he shared with me about his relationship with his dad. It was like that kiss obliterated any sense of logical thinking from my teenage brain because I brushed off his comment a little too easily. Even with what he shared with me, I should have sent him away. I should have let him know how not okay I was with that comment. But in my teenage brain, there obviously wasn't much except raging hormones.

It was hard though, because during that kiss, every bone in my body had screamed finally .

Since I met him, I have had this small crush on him. He was attractive at first sight, with the slight curl of his hair, the sharp cut of his jaw, and the crisp green of his eyes. It grew the more I got to know him, but I smothered it because I had still been with Liam. He was a friendly stranger I needed in the quiet nights, nothing more. But everything collapsed between us the moment Liam introduced us.

With Liam, it was safe. But in the deepest part of me, I knew I wouldn't be content with safe. I wanted something that lit that fire within me. I realised that after I had met Reece.

I couldn't help how much Reece and I seemed to click. There was this understanding that morphed into comfort and I felt I could truly be myself.

And then, as if the world had it against me and my happiness, my brother had taken it upon himself to take him under his wing, and they were inseparable. Nate acted like a big brother to Reece. I didn't know what happened between them for Nate to act so protective over him. But Reece never talked to me after finding out who I was to Liam.

I shook my thoughts quickly as I reached the front door and creaked it open, revealing Reece casually leaning his shoulder against the doorframe as he waited for the door to open. His gaze trailed the length of my body in a slow sweep. When his eyes met mine, I leaned against the door, holding it open further for him to sneak through. But he didn't move.

"You don't want to come in now?" I arched a brow.

"What happened to hi, hello? How are you?" He tilted his head.

"You're the one who showed up here unannounced," I said, poking him in the chest.

He feigned being wounded as he clutched the spot I poked him but grinned nonetheless. "Okay, then. Hi, hello. How are you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Get in here," I said exasperatedly before I wrapped my hand around his bicep and pulled him into the house, closing the door behind me.

Now that he was in the house, the quiet stretched around us. It made me very much aware that we were alone. In my house. Where no one could disturb us.

Nate was out doing god knows what. The only thing he told me was that he wouldn't be home until late afternoon. It was only ten in the morning. Dad was at work and usually came home around four or five o'clock.

That meant there were about six hours this house would be ours.

Reece broke the silence as he cleared his voice and faced me. His eyes swirled with nervous energy, making my stomach dip. At least I wasn't in this alone.

"So, what were you up to before I interrupted?"

I smiled at that. "I was actually going through all the photos I took at Airlie Beach. Editing and deleting some."

His eyebrows jumped. "Yeah?" he started, then swept his arm towards the stairs, "Then, let's go. I want to see you in action."

My lips widened, excited and a little nervous to show him the photos I already finished and saved. I was no professional, but I was happy with how they turned out.

I made my way up the stairs and into my room with him following close behind. I sent a little praise to myself for cleaning my room while I texted him the night before. It gave me something to do so I didn't look at my phone every second waiting for his text.

I stood in the middle of my room, chewing on the skin around my thumbnail as I turned to look at him. He stood just inside the door frame, eyes taking in every inch of the room. From the photo frames on top of my wardrobe on the left side of the doorway, to the bookshelf standing tall next to my bed right in front of him. His eyes skimmed my unmade bed, the pale pink sheets crumpled, and the white curtains billowing above it. His eyes then flicked to the desk to the right of the room, where my laptop sat with the album I had started to make open on it.

His eyes flicked to mine as he raised an eyebrow. "Well? Show me what you've got so far."

My hands had suddenly become clammy, and I tried to discreetly wipe them down my pants as I took a seat on my desk chair. Reece sat at the foot of my bed, close to the desk.

The first photo I clicked on was of him playing volleyball on the beach poised to serve the ball. It was the photo I was just editing and my cheeks flushed.

"I didn't know you took this photo," he chimed behind me, and when I turned to face him, a smirk twisted his lips, and his eyes sparkled with smugness. It almost made me want to delete it just to remove that look from his face. But he had already seen it and knew I had taken a photo of him. There wasn't any way to get rid of the ideas rolling around his head.

"Whatever, Fischer. It was a good photo. I can delete it if you'd like?" I turned back to the laptop, my mouse hovering over the delete button.

He made a noise at the back of his throat like a mix between a hum and a laugh. "I don't think you could, Kody. I mean, look at me. I wouldn't blame you if you saved it as your wallpaper to look at it every day."

I scoffed. "Get real, Fischer. It's bad enough that I have to look at your face in real life, never mind in a photo."

I felt him lean closer and my shoulder muscles stiffened before I felt the brush of his lips against the shell of my ear, amusement peeking through the gravel in his voice. "Now, I don't think even you believe that, Kody."

I turned my head just a fraction to meet his eyes. They were a shade of molten green, dark and intense. The overwhelming feeling that had been hanging over my head since he stepped through the front door blared in my mind. I wanted to kiss him. To pull him closer by the collar of his shirt and be just as lost in the moment as I was the night of my birthday party and drown in the feeling he brought to me.

His lip twitched into a smirk as he leaned closer. "I think you're pretty fond of my face. Especially when I'm kissing you." Then his eyes dipped to my lips. "Mostly when it's between your thighs."

I tried to pretend like his words didn't have their intended reaction on me. Like it didn't spread the flickering fire through every fibre of my being.

But the breathy way I said his name betrayed my strength.

"Reece."

His eyes flickered with the roll of his name off my lips, and his lips stretched wide.

"Yes, Dakota ?"

I needed to backtrack fast because there was no way my name should sound that good in his innocent voice as he blinked at me with mischief in his eyes.

My heart beat a little faster with every second he looked at me like that, but this time, instead of pulling me in, my fears had worked a little harder, and I swallowed down every instinct I had to lean closer.

"You shouldn't be saying things like that."

He twisted his lips before nodding and pulling away slightly.

"Yeah, you're right," he whispered and I watched the bob of his Adam's apple as he worked a swallow.

He wasn't wrong, though. I'm definitely very fond of his face. And after the night of my birthday party, locked in the confines of that bathroom, when his heated eyes flicked up to mine while his face was between my thighs, it may haunt my dreams forever.

The night flickered through my mind as a flush rose to my cheeks, and Reece's attention flew straight to it.

When his eyes met mine again, his inquisitive gaze burned into me and those early fears fizzled to ash by the fire in his eyes.

I wanted to know how much it had plagued him like it had me. If it seared into his memory like a fever dream he never wished to wake from.

My mouth took on a mind of its own.

"Do you think about it a lot?" I said softly.

He chuckled. "Define a lot." His fingers skimmed the top of my knee as he leaned against his thighs, his eyes latched onto mine. "It consumes my every thought and my every dream. I haven't escaped it since the moment I tasted you." His fingers rose higher along my thigh as my breath hitched. "I'm sure I can still taste you now, weeks later."

I swallowed and looked away from the fire he was burning and consuming me with.

"This thing is way too messy for either of us to know how to handle. We're friends, and that was already too complicated." I sighed when I felt his hand press into my skin, resting on the side of my thigh.

"And what about you? Do you think about it?" He threw my question back at me.

Of course, I had thought about it. It felt like it was non-stop replaying in my head, reminding me how good it felt to have him against me and how stupid and reckless it was when Nate had only been in the other room. But just as much as I replayed that kiss, his words that came after and how they struck me like a lightning bolt through my heart was also been on repeat.

With a deep breath, I turned my gaze back to him, letting myself be absorbed in his fire with all my restraint burning along with it.

"All the damn time," I breathed.

He reached up and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear before he whispered in the space between us. "I can't risk Nate or Liam finding out about this. But you. God, you make me want to be selfish and take the only thing that's ever made me feel alive. You've been the only person who has made me feel that way. You make me feel whole."

If there was any bit of restraint in me holding to the ledge between friendship and this here with him, well, it just disintegrated at my feet.

"Then take me," I whispered, the space between us disappearing by the minute as I leaned closer.

He leaned his forehead against mine as his eyes fluttered closed, his hands coming to rest on either side of my hips. "I don't know how to be anything close to good for you. But I'm too selfish now to let you go."

"You are, though," I told him, combing my fingers through his hair, and his eyes fluttered open to connect with mine. "You are good enough for anything in this world. What makes you think you're not good for me?"

A bolt of pain shot through his eyes before he closed his eyes again, squeezing them. I lifted my hands to cup his face, and he leaned further into them.

"I just need you," he whispered. "Like this or how we were before. I don't care. But I'll let you make that decision. I won't do anything unless you really want to."

He's giving me the option. To turn back now or give each other what we both want and need.

Like it was even an option before to turn back. Because the moment his head was between my thighs, we shattered whatever line that was between us that we called just friendship. I tossed every warning I'd told myself out the window and said fuck it .

I kissed him.

My arms wrapped around his neck as I spun around out of the chair and stood between his legs, his hands wrapping around my thighs to pull me into his lap, thighs straddling his. His groan only spurred me on at the sudden contact of our lips.

He met my kiss just as fiercely as I gave back. We were completely caught up with each other, breathing in each other's lust and need. I untangled my hands from behind his neck to hold either side of his jaw as he slid up from my thighs to my back, holding me closer like I couldn't be close enough.

His lips parted from mine just for a moment, just for him to whisper my name against my lips before coming back to take them between his teeth, sucking it before letting it go with a pop.

Just as his hands gripped my hips to grind me against him, I heard my name being shouted from downstairs.

"Yo, Dakota. Where are you? Come downstairs. I have something to show you."

My eyes shot wide at the same time Reece did at the sound of my brother's voice.

I tossed myself immediately out of his lap and almost tripped over my desk chair.

"I thought you said he was out for the day?" Reece whispered to me as I grabbed his phone from the floor and shoved it into his chest.

He stood from the bed as I spoke in a hushed panic. "Yeah, that's what he told me, but apparently not."

He swore under his breath as he looked around in a panic, looking for how to escape without my brother knowing he was there.

I pushed him towards the window. "Go out the window."

He looked at me wide-eyed, like I was crazy. "We're two stories up. Are you crazy?"

"Do you have another choice?" I said, footsteps sounding as Nate ascended the stairs.

"Dakota, are you here?" Nate yelled.

Reece swore again before I yelled back. "Yeah, just a minute, I'm getting dressed."

Reece headed for the window and popped out the old frame as quietly as he could before turning back to me, leaning in to kiss me with so much yearning, I wanted to hold on and savour it.

He smiled as he pulled back, swiping a thumb along my chin before handing me the screen. "I'll text you."

Then he climbed out the window and landed with a soft thud just as Nate knocked on my door.

"It's like midday. Why are you only getting dressed now?" he murmured from the other side of the door, making my heart leap into my throat at how close he was.

I opened my door, hoping I masked the panic I felt in my bones enough, as Nate leaned against the door frame with damp hair and a sunburn tinging his nose and cheeks red. My eyes caught sight of the bandage on his right forearm with a small patch of blood seeping through it.

"What the hell have you been doing?" I queried, frowning when I peered back up at him.

He waved a hand through the air. "Nothing serious, just rock jumping. Come on, I brought something home for you."

I followed him down the stairs. "It better not be like your last surprise because I will fight you."

Nate chuckled. "Oh, come on, Dakota. It was a hot day. We did you a favour hosing you down."

I scoffed. "But did I ask? I was perfectly content laying in my air-conditioned room, thank you."

He tutted, grabbing a bag from the kitchen island and holding it out for me. "Yeah, but that's not fun."

I grabbed the bag from him, lips pressed in a thin line as I watched him for a moment before pulling out a box. I frowned at the contents printed on it.

It was a brand new camera, a pretty expensive one too. One with different settings and lenses.

I looked up at him, swallowing the lump growing in my throat. "Nate, what is… why did you get me this?"

He shrugged and looked away. "We went to the shops after the beach, and I saw this and thought of you. You mentioned how you enjoyed taking photos on your week in Airlie Beach and it just looked like you found something that sparked something in you. You told me you didn't want to go to university and well, I don't think you need to go to Uni for photography. So I thought this might help with that."

He said it so nonchalantly, but with every word, tears formed in my eyes and I threw my arms around him. He tentatively wrapped his arms around my shoulders and patted my back awkwardly.

"It's nothing, Dakota."

I pulled away from him and nudged his arm. "It's not nothing, Nate, it's everything. Thank you."

He shrugged. "Well, don't say I don't do anything for you."

Then, he turned and trudged back upstairs.

I smoothed a hand over the box as I took in all the details of what was included.

And I thought I didn't deserve the family I had.

Not when I lied and hid things right in front of their faces while they came back with presents like this to make me happy.