Chapter 17: Kissing Is Kind Of A Two Person Thing

“Are you absolutely positive that you don’t mind?” I ask my boyfriend, glancing over at him with a small sigh.

“I don’t mind,” He assures me. “If he tries anything, just tell me when you get back and I’ll kick  his ass,” He bluntly retorts.

“Well, I don’t think that he’ll try anything at all, but if he does, I’ll tell you,” I reply, reluctantly getting up out of my bed for the first time all day and going over to my closet. It’s been about a week since my and Bradley’s little semi-date thingy where we watched Dirty Dancing and swam and all of that good stuff, so the end of July is upon us, which means that we’re going back home in a few weeks. Well, like, three, I guess, but that’s still close-ish, I guess.

Today though, Drew and I are hanging out. Like, together. Just the two of us. With no one else. No Bradley, no Walker, no Tanner, no Mikey, no Jaime, no Elena, no no one aside from the two of us. For obvious reasons, this concept scares the crap out of me. I mean, the last time that Drew and I were alone together, we ended up practically making out in an airport. Well, that wasn’t the last time we were together but that was the last time we were together that I didn’t want to bash his face in with a brick.

It’s a pretty weird thing though, just the two of us hanging out together without any of our friends because I don’t even remember how long it’s been since that happened. Even prior to my and Bradley’s breakup and prior to me knowing that Drew liked/loved me or whatever he’s calling it, we didn’t hang out together alone. I’m not quite sure why though. Granted, I never hang out with the boys alone. I mean, sometimes Walker, but that’s about it.

Honestly though, I don’t even know why we’re hanging out today, Drew and me. Sure, I’m not even mad at him anymore—  well, let me rephrase that; I’m not that mad at him anymore. I think that a tiny piece of me will always (or at least for a little while longer) be bitter at him for what he did. Though I can’t just put all the blame on Drew, because that’s just not right at all. I never told Bradley this, but I did kiss Drew back, after all. I didn’t just stand there in that airport with my lips glued to his, all immobile. That would have been just stupid and weird beyond belief.

I’m slightly positive that Drew still likes me or loves me or whatever he’s claiming his affection for me as, which only makes this whole thing a little bit more awkward than it already is and will be. Nothing’s going to happen though, I already know that. I have my lovely boyfriend back now and there’s not one person on this planet that will make me do something so stupid to put our relationship in jeopardy because that time that we were broken up was really disgusting and awful. I honestly think I’ve never been more depressed in my life than I was at that point in time. Well, I was pretty depressed about my parent’s divorce a few years ago.

“Yeah, you better,” Bradley responds, but I can tell he’s only teasing me.

“So, would you like, feel more comfortable with this if I wore a once piece?” I ask him, pulling my closet open and rifling through it for something to wear over my bathing suit that I’m apparently going to be wearing today. Drew wants to go to a water park or something like that, so I obviously need a bathing suit for that. I would have much rather have gone to see a movie or something but when I pitched that idea to him, he declined it immediately.

He claims it was just because the movie would be in Italian and since neither of us speak the language fluently enough to follow an entire movie of it, we should just go to the water park. This makes me sound a little pretentious and self-confident, I think, but I honestly do believe that Drew just wants to see me in a bikini.

“Sydney,” Bradley sighs with a small laugh. “You’re the only one that’s paranoid about this whole thing—  if you want to wear a bikini, go for it. I’m pretty sure that Drew enjoys having fingers and a dick and he knows that if he touches you, I’ll incapacitate him, so don’t even worry about it—  he’ll keep his hands to himself, I’m sure of it. And if you’re really so uncomfortable with it, just go and tell him that you don’t want to hang out with him,” Bradley suggests, shrugging. 

“I’m not uncomfortable with it, I’m just thinking that you’re gonna be uncomfortable with it,” I admit, with a heavy groan.  

“Sydney, do you like Drew? Like, do you have feelings for him?” Bradley wonders randomly, sitting up in my unmade bed.

“What?” I ask, giving him an incredulous look. “That’s such a stupid question—  of course I don’t have feelings for Drew. I have feelings for you and only you, you big idiot,” I inform him, taking out a really sleeveless black t-shirt and a pair of short stark-white shorts from my closet. I then close the closet and move over to my dresser drawer, pulling the top one open slightly and beginning to rifle through it for a bathing suit.

“It wasn’t a stupid question,” Bradley defends. “I already knew you’d say no and you said it with no hesitation, so I’m not worried and you shouldn’t be either. Besides, you two lost a lot of time together since he decided to be a giant dick but now that you’re friends again, I think you should hang out; this will be good for you two, I think.”

“Well, you can come along too, if you want?” I subtly offer, praying that he says yes so I don’t have to be alone with Drew.

“I’m gonna have to pass on that.” He laughs. “I’m just gonna lay around and be lazy today. Plus I gotta call my parents and discuss college and where I wanna go and all that stupid stuff like that.” He informs me, grabbing my remote and turning on the television.

“Okay then,” I respond, pushing a lock of my hair behind my ear. I got it cut again a few days ago back to the length that it was when I first got it cut because like I said, it was starting grow back to its original length. Plus I kind of like having short hair, it’s a lot less bothersome, that’s for sure. Though you can’t really consider it short. At first it was like, really long and now I guess it’d be considered medium-length. “Speaking of which, are you gonna go to that London school still?” I ask him, trying to be nonchalant about the question and then proceeding to pull a cute, seafoam green colored bikini out of my dresser drawer and pushing it closed.

I only have about three one piece bathing suits and they’re all pretty fancy with sequins and slits and cut outs and stuff so I think that by wearing just a normal old bikini, Drew won’t think I’m trying to look exceptionally good just because we’re hanging out, because I’m definitely not trying to do that.

“I told you from the beginning that I wasn’t going to that school,” Bradley reminds me. “I don’t think that I could live in London anyway. Apparently the sun like, never comes out and do you know that they eat crumpets there? I mean, I don’t even know what that is but it sounds really weird,” Bradley tells me, flicking through the channels on the TV, trying to find the English-speaking channels. There’s a lot of those which is really amazing because I think without them, I would have died here by now. We’ve been in Italy for a little over a month now and I’m no closer now to understanding the language than I was when we got here in June.

“I think that everyone knows that they eat crumpets in England, sweetie,” I reply, giggling lightly at my adorable boyfriend. “But if you’re not gonna go there, where are you gonna go then? Time’s running out to decide, you know,” I remind him as I slip his big red t-shirt over my head and toss it into my dirty clothes hamper, which leaves me standing there in nothing but my lacy red panties. I stole the shirt from him this morning though because Francesca keeps it unreasonably cold in this house and his shirts are really warm and cozy. Besides,  it’s not like he was wearing it anyway because Bradley’s never wearing shirts and I think that that’s just because he thinks he’s sexy (which he is) and likes to show off his body (which I don’t mind at all).

“You know, it’s things like that that make me call you a tease,” Bradley groans, disregarding my question about his choice of which college he’s going to be enrolling in this fall as he rolls over in my bed so that he’s sitting up, looking over at me with wide eyes.

“I am not a tease,” I scoff, shaking my head at the utter un-trueness of that statement. Because I’m not as bold as Bradley thinks that I am, I whirl around so that my back is to him before slipping my underwear off and throwing them in the hamper. I’m aware that I’m exposing my tush to him, but I’d rather him see that than the alternative. I quickly pull the bikini bottoms up, tying the little strings at the side. I also get the top part of it over my head, but not tied in the back before I feel a pair of arms wrap around my midsection from behind.

“Yeah, you kind of are,” Bradley counters, pressing his bare chest into my back and putting his lips near my ear, kissing just below it. “But that’s okay because I have you all to myself tonight, right?” He wonders, his minty breath fanning over my face, which makes me blush because I’m just stupid and blush at anything that can be regarded as sexual in the slightest.

“Yep,” I confirm with a giggle, nodding my head. “Here, tie me up,” I reply, holding the strings to the my bikini top in my fingers.

“Do you even get how much I love you?” Bradley asks quietly as he laces the strings up loosely yet firmly enough that it won’t come undone while I’m at the waterpark with Drew. Because that would be really, really, really embarrassing and I’d probably die.

“A lot, obviously,” I giggle, spinning around in his arms after he ties my bikini and looping my arms around his neck. “You did buy a junk car and watch Dirty Dancing with me.” I remind him with a goofy grin. I didn’t really understand why he felt the need to get the old beaten up car just so that we could watch my favorite movie in the entire world, but he explained to me that in like, the old days and around the time the movie was made, those are the kinds of cars they had and he wanted it to be like a drive-in movie thing which is really adorable and so Bradley-like, what with him being a cheese ball and whatnot. Granted, I love him and his cheese ball-y-ness. “But I love you more,” I chime, going up on my tip-toes so that I can kiss him on his cheek. I think that Bradley must have grown a few inches because at first, I could stand flat on my feet and kiss him but now I have to stand up on my tip-toes or be wearing high heels which he thinks is amusing, but really it’s just extremely annoying.

“That’s not possible,” He tells me seriously before pushing his lips to mine for a quick make-out session before I have to leave. Bradley wraps his arms around my waist tightly, pulling my body up against his as I weave my fingers through his hair and invite his tongue into my mouth because I mean, it’s been a few hours since we made out and I’m gonna be gone with Drew for a good three hours at least, so I kind of need this right now.

“Jesus, guys, do you really have to do that?” Drew asks with a sigh, walking into the room all unannounced, which annoys me.

“Well, we are dating, you know, of course we’re gonna make-out,” Bradley informs Drew with a huff, obviously annoyed with him for just walking in and interrupting before our make-out could get too hot and heavy. While they’re talking, I slip my white shorts on and clasp the button before tugging the black sleeveless shirt on as well and doing my hair up in a bun.

My shirt really is adorable and I don’t know why I don’t wear it more often, because I just love it. It has a little flower headband thing around it in a circle and in the circle it says, ‘I’d rather wear flowers in my hair, than diamonds around my neck’. I’m not quite sure that’s true for me because I can truthfully say I’ve never worn a flower in my hair, but it’s really an adorable shirt nonetheless.

I don’t really care what Drew and Bradley talk about, so I don’t listen. I just put on a pair of black gladiator sandals and grab my iPhone from my bedside table, pushing it down into the pocket of my shorts. Crossing the room, I grab my purse and push a towel down in there so that I can dry off after we’re done at the waterpark. Once I have everything I think I’m gonna need, I walk back over to my chattering friends and stand beside Bradley. Well, as Bradley pointed out, he’s not my friend, but I still count him as my friend—  my special friend.

“You ready to go?” Drew wonders, looking over at me as I stand beside Bradley with my arm weaved through his.

“Yep, ready like Freddy,” I chirp, mentally slapping myself because that was a really stupid simile I made up just now.

“Who’s Freddy?” Drew queries, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side, giving me a confused expression. Hopefully we’ll find a really cute girl that I hook Drew up with. Because I really need him to stop goggling me. I mean, sure I’m flattered that he likes/loves me or whatever but honestly, the feelings just aren’t reciprocated.

Maybe if he’d told me before Bradley did, then they would be. He did tell me that he liked me ever since Jake Rosenthal’s party and that was quite some time before Bradley admitted his feelings for me. So, really, it’s Drew’s own fault that we’re not together. Not that I care about that though because being with Bradley is amazingly wonderful and perfect.

Like I was saying though, Drew needs some other girl to like because I feel slightly bad about his unrequited love for me. Take Walker for example. That one girl who’s phone number he got at that café thing? They’re going on a date this weekend. I’m like, totally the Queen of Matchmaking, no?

“Freddy’s no one,” I sigh, pushing a stray lock of my hair behind my ear. “Okay, let’s go,” I suggest, with a small forced smile.

“Okay then,” Drew laughs, running his fingers through his messy blonde hair. He really does need to get a haircut sometime soon.

“Have fun you guys,” Bradley says as I kiss him on his lips lightly and briefly before following Drew out of the bedroom.

“See you later, Bradford!” I call over my shoulder, giving him a small wave. Drew and I walk together down the hallway of the house and down the stairs, which is impeccably quiet today. The house, I mean. Obviously not the stairs. Then again, it’s not like they’re loud or anything, so you could say they’re quiet too, I guess. Walker is hanging out with that girl, Annabelle is her name, today (I’m so proud of my baby Walk for doing that because dating is pretty serious to him), Tanner and Elena are holed up in his room and I think Mikey is sick with a cold or something and Jaime is taking care of him. So that’s why it’s so quiet today, I guess.

“How are we getting to this waterpark?” I ask Drew curiously as we walk out of the front door of the house, closing it behind us.

“Elena said that we can use the Vespa’s,” He explains, gesturing to the two Vespa’s parked along the sidewalk in front of us.

“I don’t like the Vespa’s,” I groan. “They’re too fast and scary,” I wail, rolling my eyes.

“If you wanna be a baby about it, you can ride with me and just hang on,” Drew offers.

“Yeah, no thanks,” I respond, rolling my eyes playfully and going up to the pink Vespa, climbing onto it. I’d ride with Drew, I really would, but I don’t want to hold on to him because like I said, things are a little bit awkward with us right now. And that’s the whole reason we’re hanging out, I guess, to make things non awkward and we can go back to being the same Sydney and Drew we were before he ever told me how he felt about me.

__________________________

“You’re an asshole, Drew!” I exclaim with a stream of giggles a while later after we’ve arrived at the waterpark.

“I am not an asshole,” Drew laughs, swimming over to me in the infinity pool, effectively cornering me. “You started it, you know.”

“What? No, I didn’t! You splashed me first, so obviously you started it, you stupid head,” I say, rolling my eyes at my dumb friend.

“Okay, whatever you say, Sydney,” Drew appeases me with a chuckle as he pushes himself closer to me. I think he’s trying to be subtle, but it’s not working at all because I can literally feel his legs brushing against mine underneath the water. We got here about an hour ago and this place is like, huge.

There’s a really big infinity pool, which we’re in now, a lazy river that floats around the infinity pool and a bunch of water rides and stuff. We went on a few rides together, but not that many because most of them dealt with you holding on to your partner and I’m trying to avoid physical contact with Drew. Call me paranoid, but I’m just trying to be sure I don’t lead him on or do anything to make him think that I want him because I don’t.

Because I’m a weirdo and because I have a tendency to freak out over small stuff, I bring my hands up from underneath the water, bringing along a small wave of water with me, giving Drew a huge splash to the face as I swim away from him in the infinity pool. Okay, if you don’t know what an infinity pool is, you seriously need to discover it because they’re so beautiful and just amazing and if they weren’t so utterly expensive, I’d beg my mother to get one for our house. I’m moving out soon to go to college anyway, but still, it’d be a nice thing to have at home. My dad might go for it, but he’s pretty stubborn, so I don’t know.

“That wasn’t very nice, now was it?” Drew asks, narrowing his eyes at me as I reach the opposite side of the pool. There’s also next to no one here in the water, which is nice because I hate swimming in public pools if other’s are in here with me. Other people I don’t know, anyway. It’s just weird and not natural at all, that’s why they have private pools and I thank God every day that my house in Michigan has its own private pool. Our pool guy is a bum though—  not literally, of course—  so I usual swim in Bradley’s.

“Well, you were cornering me and that wasn’t very nice either, now was it?” I giggle, sticking my tongue out at him.

“You’re ridiculous,” Drew laughs, rolling his eyes at me. “What, can I not be close to you? Are you worried I can’t control myself?”

“A little bit, yeah,” I admit with a shrug, the playful smile slipping from my face.

“Syd,” Drew sighs heavily, swimming over to me but not getting as close as he did last time.

“We really don’t have to talk about this,” I inform him. “In fact, let’s not talk about this,” I suggest, turning around, about to lift myself out of the pool. “I’m starving, let’s go over there and get hot dogs and frozen lemonade,” I ramble, not letting Drew talk.

“You really need to calm down,” He tells me, grabbing my arm lightly and pulling me back into the pool. He backs me up, cornering me again and because I’m slightly claustrophobic, I nearly start hyperventilating, but I fight it. Drew puts his arms on either side of the edges of the pool that are surrounding me so that his arms are like, right beside me.

“Erm, what— ”

“I don’t like this,” He bluntly informs me.

“You don’t like what?” I ask, furrowing my eyebrows in confusion.

“Why do you act like you don’t trust me know or something? You seriously make me feel like a repeat sex offender,” He laughs.

“Well, I’m sorry that I make you feel like a repeat sex offender,” I reply with a sigh. “But I just don’t want anything bad to happen.”

“What do you mean?” Drew wonders, cocking his head and raising his eyebrows, staring intently at me.

“I mean, I know you still like me and stuff and I just think that if we’re alone, I feel like something’s gonna happen,” I murmur.

“I thought you didn’t like me though?” He asks, still staring at me intently and it’s kind of freaking me out a little bit.

“Well, don’t say it like that—  I love you, dummy, I just don’t…like you romantically, I guess,” I explain with an apologetic shrug.

“Well, I love you too, Sydney,” Drew informs me. “But obviously it is in a romantic way,” He mumbles.

“Yeah, you’ve made that rather clear,” I tell him, rolling my eyes.

“But I know you’re with Bradley and I’m not gonna screw it up this time,” He promises, pushing a stray piece of hair behind my ear.

“It’s not all on you,” I mutter. “Kissing is kind of a two person thing,” I remind him with a huff.

“Speaking of that, am I a good kisser?” Drew wonders with a lopsided boyish grin.

“I’m not answering that,” I reply, rolling my eyes at my idiot best friend yet again with a frown.

“Then I’m gonna take it as a yes,” He warns.

“Take it as you please,“ I giggle, shrugging my shoulders carelessly.

“Well, you’re a good kisser,” Drew tells me matter-of-factly as if that’s no big deal.

“Gee, thanks,” I murmur, my face going red almost immediately as I look down away from Drew.

“You’re welcome,” He replies chirpily as I look back up and notice his gaze flicker down to my lips.

“Don’t look at my lips,” I warn him, giving Drew a scolding look.

“Sydney, you really do worry too much—  I have some degree of self-control, you know.”

“Oh yeah? Because you could have fooled me,” I scoff, raising my eyebrows.

“You’re terrible,” He laughs, running his fingers through his wet hair. He leans in to me and I’m worried that he’s going to try to kiss me again and he does, but not on my lips. He kisses my cheek, near the corner of my lips but our lips don’t actually touch, which is good. It’s not cheating if you don’t actually kiss the person, right? “I really do love you so much, you know,” Drew tells me, letting his arms drop as he wraps them around my midsection, pulling me in for a hug. It feels a little weird since I’m in a bikini and he’s in no shirt, but I don’t pull away because things with Drew and I are just so terrible right now in case you couldn’t tell and it sucks so hard and hugging him is really nice.

“Yeah, I know Drewy,” I sigh, pulling away from him. “Now come on, let’s eat because I’m starving,” I mutter, climbing out.              

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Author's Note: Guess who's still sick? Me! It's pretty awful, actually. :/ So if this sucks, I blame it on me being sick. Anyways, thoughts on this chapter? Predictions for the next? The picture is Sydney's outfit and the song is just really adorable and lovely, so yeah. Don't forget to comment and vote, por favor! Also, I posted a new story teaser yesterday and it'd be super cool if you read that and let me know what you thought! So I'll put that link in the external link! Um, I guess that's all I need to say! So, yeah, I'll see you lovely people next week! <3