"Not a single one."

As we're driving back home, I see a rental sign in front of an apartment block and get Jake to stop so I can take a look around.

By now I've saved up enough money for security and first months rent. The location is good, it's close enough to campus I can catch a bus and soon I'll hopefully have a car. The apartment itself is pretty awful but with some furniture and decent decorating I might be able to make it my home. It makes Jake's house look like a 5 star hotel.

We ended up leaving early in the morning to go to the cemetery, then spent most of the day at Jake's parents. The two hour drive there, and then back, has us beat, so as soon as we get home we crash in bed.

We've spent every night in Jake's bed since the frat party. He still won't kiss me and I don't know why. When I get out of the bathroom he's sitting up in bed, shirtless, blankets bunched at his waist.

I get in under the covers, head on my pillow, and look up at him.

He looks down at me and smiles. But it's a sad smile.

I try to smile back, but there's hurt in his eyes that I'm trying to decipher. So I just stare at him and he stares back. It seems like the longest time, us trying to communicate without talking.

I don't know what he's thinking.

I know it's not good.

And I almost don't want to know.

Because the longer I stare at him, the sadder he looks, until eventually, tears start filling his eyes and he has to look away.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

I don't want to talk.

I don't want to ask him what's wrong.

Because I'm s.h.i.t scared now. That this is the time when it all ends. That he tells me he doesn't want me here.

Or want me at all.

There's a pain in the back of my eyes and my throat and behind my nose from trying to hold in the tears and the sob that's bursting to get through.

But I refuse to listen to his next words. I don't want to hear them, because the second they come out it will all be over and I will have nothing left, not one f.u.c.king thing.

He clears his throat once, and I close my eyes. Wishing all the wishes in the entire fricken world that this is not happening.

"What are we doing?" He says it so quietly, I almost don't hear him.

I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding.

"What?" I squeak out.

"I'm sorry, Kayla," he says, and I move to get out of the bed, too embarra.s.sed to be so intimate with him when he tells me that we, what ever it is we are, are done.

"Woah, where are you going?" he says, holding onto me. "We need to talk about this."

I panic and get out of his grasp. "I can't." My eyes are still closed because I don't want to see his beautiful face. "I don't want to hear it Jake, please. I just don't want to." I'm begging, as I run to my room across the hall.

He follows.

"What's going on?" Worry laces his voice but I can't look at him.

"I'm just... I'm sorry okay. I know what you're going to say and I don't want to hear it. I just don't... I can't. Not today, Jake, please." I'm almost hyperventilating.

"What are you talking about, Kayla?" His hands are on my face, pulling me up, making me face him but my eyes are shut tight and I refuse to look.

"Kayla! What do you think is happening here?"

"Jake, please..." I surrender to the pain and fall to my knees and he follows me. "I don't want to be that desperate broken girl that needs you, that's why I needed to find somewhere else to live, but I waited too long and now you don't want me here and I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

I'm a sobbing mess, tears are flowing so quickly I don't have time to wipe them away. There's a pounding in my head and my heart hurts so f.u.c.king much, I'm sure it's going to break through my chest and fall to the floor. I'm sitting with my knees up and my chin resting on them, hands around my head just hoping the outside world would leave me alone for just one G.o.dd.a.m.n minute so I can gather the strength to get up and face it.

I sit and I cry, and sit, and cry some more until I don't even know how long I've been sitting there crying, and then silence has finally taken over and the tears have dried up and I finally get the courage to look up. And he's there, watching me, waiting. For this stupid little girl to calm the f.u.c.k down so he can get this s.h.i.t over with. And then I start to cry again.

"Stop!" he says, forcefully enough that I listen and do it.

"What the f.u.c.k have I ever done to make you feel like I don't want you here? Or that I don't want you at all?" he asks. Hurt and confusion in his tone.

"G.o.d, Kayla." he starts. "I kept my mouth shut because I knew it was important to you. You, being out on your own or whatever, but it's not what I wanted. Not for a f.u.c.king second. And you should know that, without me saying a G.o.dd.a.m.n word, you should feel that. Have I not shown you how I feel about you? Have I not been clear in the way I act towards you? I don't know how much more I could have said or done without actually coming out and saying the words."

He moves to position us so I'm straddling him and his arms are around me and we can't get any closer together.

"Mikayla, it was you that wanted to leave here, not me. You're the one that wanted to find somewhere else. It was never me."

I don't know how to explain this to him. So that he understands that it's not about him.

I close my eyes and breath out a steady breath. When I open them, I look straight into his deep blue ones. "I want to make sure that I'm strong enough on my own, without you. Because since that night, it's been you, only you. You're my entire world and I need to learn to stand on my own and be my own person, and I can't do that here."

"Why not?" It's a plea. His face is so close to mine, our mouths almost touching. I want to kiss him. I look at his lips, then back to his eyes, and he must know what I'm thinking because he licks his lips just a tiny bit.

But I close my eyes so I'm not tempted because this is not how I want our first kiss.

"Just try. Please?" He pleads, his voice breaking.

And I look at him.

Really, truly, look at him.

And I fall in love all over again.

"Please, Mikayla. Just give it until the new year. Promise me?"

I nod.

He picks us up off the floor and carries me back to his bed where he holds me and I hold him.

"G.o.d Jake, I so much more than a lot like you."

"Mikayla, I pa.s.sed that stage a long, long time ago."

Chapter 44.

*Jake*

It's been a week since we went to Emily's grave and a week since that night we... I don't know what that night was, but it did bring us closer, so I guess we needed to have it out.

Also, Kayla is a little girl when it comes to insects and rodents.

She saw a mouse and a c.o.c.kroach and demanded our house be fumigated and pest controlled, or whatever it's called.

Apparently we have to be gone for two nights so she suggested heading back home for the weekend. But I, being the gentleman that I am, booked us a weekend at a hotel. It's nothing sw.a.n.ky but it's something different and I think we need it.

"I hope you're not planning on getting lucky tonight," she elbows me as I take our bags out of my truck.

"I ordered extra pillows just in case," I say smugly.

She faces me, eyes bugging out of her head, mouth wide open in shock, a legit gasp escaping her mouth.

I laugh so hard at her reaction, I have to stop to catch my breath.

Once we're in the hotel room, I'm kicking myself because I didn't bring any alcohol. I know we don't need any to have a good time but it sure as s.h.i.t doesn't hurt. I tell Kayla that I'm gonna go down to the bar to see if I can charm them with my good looks and panty dropping' smile. Her words. Definitely not mine.

She says she's gonna hop in the bath.

I say I'm staying.

She pushes me out the door.

15 minutes later, after I talk to the bar tender, who happens to be a baseball fan, and meeting behind some sketchy back alley, I'm back in our room.

She's still in the bath when I walk into the bathroom.

"Having fun?" I ask her, trying to sneak a peek. She has bubbles so high in the bath that I can't see s.h.i.t anyway.

"Mmhmmm" she hums, eyes closed. "We should totally get a hot tub for your house."

"That can totally be arranged." I smirk at her. "Can I get in?"

"Yep," she pops the p'. "I'm getting out now anyway."

And she does.

Completely naked and dripping wet and I sit there frozen with my jaw on the floor, my eyes outside of my head, and my mouth foaming.

Holy s.h.i.t.

Instant. Hard. On.

By the time my brain catches up to my d.i.c.k, she's already drying off and putting a robe on.

"Wait." I'm 12. Literally acting like I've never seen a naked girl before. But truthfully, it was never like the way it is with Kayla.

I have to clear my throat a thousand f.u.c.king times so something, anything, comes out.

"What are you doing?" I almost yell at her because I'm pathetic and have no control over anything at the moment. "Take that off. Get back naked. Hurry!" What the f.u.c.k did I just say?

She chuckles at me, then pushes me out the bathroom door and locks it behind me.

f.u.c.k.

I stand there, with my head resting against the bathroom door, waiting for her to open it and come out so I can tell her to get naked again, like the creeper that I am. I need to see her again.

She opens it, still wearing the robe and I'm practically ripping it off her, or at least trying to. But my brain and body don't work because all the blood has rushed to my d.i.c.k and she's laughing at me.

Fricken laughing at me.

Until she manages to push me away and I calm down a bit, but in my head, I'm that 6 year old kid that didn't get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figure I wanted, and I'm going to ask and plead for it every f.u.c.king hour until I get what I d.a.m.n well want. Because I'm a brat, and I need to see her naked.

Once I've settled down a bit, we open the champagne and fill the gla.s.ses with ice, the way she likes, and start drinking.

It's not long until were slightly buzzed and talking s.h.i.t.

"Did you have a pet Kangaroo in Australia?"

I spit out my drink, because it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

"What?" she laughs. "What's so funny? Did you?" she asks through a giggle.

"No," I state flatly. "We did not have pet kangaroos. They do not roam the streets or back yards like everyone thinks. In fact, the only time I saw kangaroos were at the Zoo."

"Oh," she says, still giggling. "Then why would everyone think that? It doesn't make sense."

"No s.h.i.t."