Page 20 of Fame & Chaos

Her smile softened slightly, then she looked nervous all of a sudden. “There’s something I wanted to try.”

I frowned. “Okay…”

My idiot brain immediately went off on a stupid tangent.

“What? Like sushi or one of those weird healthy cereals Mum keeps buying?”

She rolled her eyes. “No.”

“Then what?”

She bit the inside of her cheek and looked away from me, and the air between us changed.

Not dramatically.

Just enough that I felt it instantly.

“Indi,” I said more quietly. “Talk to me.”

She looked down at our hands resting beside each other on the mattress before slowly threading her fingers through mine.

Every nerve ending in my body lit up.

Spending so much time together over those six months had changed things between us, whether either of us admitted it out loud or not. Even in silence, something existed there now.

A tension.

A pull.

And God, I felt it constantly.

I was seventeen, completely gone for her, and trying desperately not to be an asshole about it because she was grieving and vulnerable, and the last thing I wanted was to take advantage of that.

But Christ… some nights it was torture.

I thought about her constantly… the way she smiled. The way she looked while listening to me play guitar. The way her body curled against mine during movies when she fell asleep. And sometimes those thoughts followed me into the shower, where I’d spend way too long imagining things I shouldn’t.

I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anything…

But I also loved her too much to ruin what we had.

That was the problem.

I could never tell what she felt.

Until now.

Because sitting beside me on that bed with her fingers tangled through mine, her breathing had changed.

Quicker.

Shallower.

And when I looked at her, really looked at her, I realized she was nervous too.

Nervous because of me.

The realization hit me like a freight train.