The night after the fair, I heard a gentle tap on my door around four in the morning. I slowly sat up and listened carefully to make sure that I wasn’t just hearing things.

“Addie,” a whisper barely made its way through my door followed by the same gentle tap that I heard moments earlier.

I slid out of bed and carefully opened my door, already knowing who was on the other side. “What?” I asked just as I barely pulled open the door.

Alan pushed the door open the rest of the way and looked straight into my eyes. “Get your shoes on,” he said in a hushed tone. “We’re going for a walk.”

“But…Alan I’m in-“

“Meet me out front in ten minutes,” he said before turning around and silently disappearing into the darkness of the hallway.

Instead of disagreeing, or just climbing back into bed, I actually went and slipped on a sweatshirt and some vans that were in the back of my closet – they were old and battered from my high school years, but surprisingly enough still fit and would still come in handy when I needed sneakers instead of my usual flats, sandals, boots, or heels.

I locked my door behind me in case Jane woke up and tried to get in. Even though I wouldn’t have to owe her an explanation – I was a grown woman and could leave the house at four in the morning if I wanted to. Just…leaving with her boyfriend would be a bit suspicious.

“Where are we going?” I asked once I locked the front door and shoved my keys into the pocket of my hoodie.

“Just for a walk,” Alan shrugged as he began to walk down the front steps and toward the sidewalk.

We walked in a tense silence for a long time until we eventually ended up a park at the end of the street. Alan walked straight up to it and I groaned at how cliché this entire situation was. And how immature it was. We snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, walked down the street, and landed at a park. I was expecting him to wake me up and try to have sex – since that seemed to be all our “relationship” was as of late. Sneaking sex behind his girlfriend’s – my pregnant sister’s – back.

I sat down on the swings and he quickly jumped up on the see-saw, pretending to surf on it as he pulled a cigarette up to his lips. He used one hand to block the wind and the other to pull his lighter up to spark the end. Once his cigarette was lit, he took in a long drag and then jumped from the see-saw, exhaling his smoke as soon as his feet touched the ground.

He ran over to me at full speed and I let out a squeal in fear. He grabbed onto the chains of the swing and I let go to avoid contact with him – causing me to fall backwards and land on the squishy rubber beneath the swing-set. My legs were still looped around the seat, my knees pulled up to the edge where my butt was once resting.

“Hey, what are you doing down there? I think you’re doing it wrong,” Alan said with a smirk.

I couldn’t help but giggle and hold my hands out and wave them around so he could help me up. “Help me up!” I demanded after he just stood there and stared at me.

“I don’t know, this position is kind of turning me on,” Alan said as he lifted his hand that was holding the cigarette to his lips, leaving the stick in his mouth and then resting his hand beneath his chin, gently rubbing at his stubble as if in thought. He continued to stare down at me through hooded eyes as his free hand gently began to caress where my pajama pants had ridden up to expose my shin.

I couldn’t lie and say that this didn’t turn me on either, because it did. Watching him stand over me, his expression serious and the cigarette smoke swirling in the air as he let out heavy breaths. This was what I wanted, after all. I wanted him to wake me up in the middle of the night for sex, and that’s what I was going to get. Alan was killing me in this whole situation by the way he was always the one to come on to me and initiate things. It was my turn to make this hard on him.

I slowly traced my hands over my breasts and down the sides of my torso, immediately grabbing Alan’s attention. I slowly curled my fingers – one by one – under the hem of my sweatshirt and t-shirt at the same time, just barely pulling it up to expose a tiny bit of skin.

Alan immediately spit his cigarette to the rubber beneath us and stomped it out. Both of his hands were touching my legs now, pushing my pajama pants even higher up until they reached my knees and then eventually fell all the way down to bunch up at my hips. I was certain that he could see my underwear from through the pant-holes since these bottoms were oversized.

I lifted my sweatshirt and t-shirt up all the way to expose my bare chest – I wasn’t wearing a bra because I was sleeping, and I had a feeling that Alan already expected me to be bra-less. I moved one hand down my torso just as I had done while the sweatshirt was still on – over my breast and down my side, but then I repeated this action and kept my hand on my breast for a bit longer to tease him. My other hand continued to hold up my clothing as Alan’s hands reached up higher and higher with every rub.

He reached out to replace my hands, but I quickly released my clothing and let them fall back over my chest. Alan groaned and mumbled something about me teasing him before he reached through the swing’s chains and grabbed onto my hands before pulling me up rather quickly, causing me to stumble forward. My body was up against his and he wrapped his arms around me to prevent me from stumbling any more.

His lips gently hit mine and I couldn’t help but let out a sigh at the feeling. I missed the taste of Alan’s lips – even after a cigarette they were always so sweet. Things became heated rather quickly as Alan turned us around so he could sit down on the swing that I was once on. Our kiss broke since I was still standing, and before I could say anything or even register what was happening, Alan had grabbed onto the elastic of my bottoms and pulled them down, taking my underwear with them. I gasped at the feeling of the cool air against my exposed body and watched as Alan quickly unbuckled his belt and pulled his pants and boxers down just enough to free himself.

“How is this going to work?” I asked as I watched him gently take himself into his left hand.

Alan sighed and thought for a moment before quickly reaching out and spinning me around so I was turned away from the swings. He grabbed onto my hips and pulled me back so he was just below my entrance. He slowly lowered me down onto him all the way so I was sitting completely on his lap – moans quickly flying from my mouth as he hit deep inside of me.

“Raise your hips,” Alan said while gently nibbling on my ear lobe. I slowly lifted myself off of him, my hands flying back and gripping onto the chains of the swing for support. I gently lowered myself back down onto him and Alan let out a long groan. “Faster, please,” he moaned against my neck. I kept my feet planted on the rubber beneath us, using my legs to push myself up and down as I took control of the situation.

After a while, Alan repositioned us so I was bending over in front of the swing, holding on to the chains as Alan stood behind me and thrust.

Our moans filled the air and mixed with the clanking of the chains on the swing. It was rough and dirty, just how I wanted it. We each finished with loud curse words flying from our lips and our foreheads now covered with a small layer of sweat despite the cold air.

I pulled the pants back on and Alan did the same. He tried to reach out and pull me into his arms, but I quickly ran off and over to the jungle gym. I didn’t want to sit and cuddle because I knew it would leave me to my thoughts and then the guilt would start setting in. I just wanted to enjoy these moments with Alan by having fun. I wanted to pretend that he was my boyfriend for the moments that I could.

He climbed onto the jungle-gym with a huge grin. I reached the top and sat on the center, my legs dangling down through the bars. I looked down and saw that the dirt was a lot closer than I remembered when I was younger. The fall from a jungle-gym always used to look so endless and painful.

“You’re fucking fast,” Alan panted a bit as he finally reached the top and sat across from me, letting his legs dangle like mine. “But I still caught up to you.”

“I don’t think so,” I laughed as I pulled my left leg over so it was dangling through the same square as my right leg. I slowly let myself sink down, using my arms to support myself so I wouldn’t plop down onto the ground. I hung onto the top of the jungle gym, dangling in the inside. I let go and it was only a foot before my feet hit the dirt and I landed. “What now, bitch?” I laughed as I puffed up my chest and held my arms out as if to say come at me, bro.

Alan repeated my actions, but ended up falling over and landing in the dirt. As he was falling down, he grabbed onto my waist, pulling me on top of him. The fall was less than graceful and kind of hurt my chest when we hit the ground. We laid under the jungle gym laughing for a bit and just staring at each other.

It was dark where we were, but the moonlight and the yellow glow of a nearby street lamp were reaching us, separated in a crisscrossed pattern from the bars of the jungle gym. The dirt was slightly damp from the moisture in the night fog, but we didn’t care. I stared down into Alan’s eyes as I continued to lay on top of him and laugh. Eventually I leaned down and placed a gentle kiss onto his lips and pulled away with a sigh of mixed emotions – I was happy, but I was also angry. The guilt was starting to settle in.

“Addie, I’m so sorry things had to be this way,” he said softly. “I know this whole thing is so fucked up and I really wish things could be different.”

I sighed and sat up, rolling myself away from him and placing my bottom into the sand. I pulled my knees up to my chest and stared through the holes of the jungle gym and into the bushes beside the sidewalk. I could feel the tears stinging my eyes – I was never much of a crier until Alan had to show up at the diner on the day I came back to Long Beach. I was never one to care so much about the men that were in my life. I was usually the one who loved less and now I had the feeling that I was loving Alan too much.

“Ugh,” I groaned. “Alan, what are you doing to me?”

Not only had he turned me into an emotional mess, but he also turned me into a heartless bitch. I was sleeping with my sister’s boyfriend – as if being in love with him wasn’t enough. I had to go and get sex involved. I know I said it a lot, but my sister was pregnant, and yet here I was with her boyfriend in the middle of the night.

Alan sat up and tucked a piece of hair behind my ear before gently cupping my face. “I know you don’t want me to say it, but I need you to know. I l…I lo…”

He paused. He furrowed his eyebrows and seemed to think for a minute. I knew what he was trying to say, and even though I told him not to say it on the first night we had sex since my return, I had been silently hoping that he would tell me anyway. He hadn’t told me since we were in England, and I hadn’t said it to him either, but I was pretty certain that he already knew how I felt.

“I care about you a lot, Addie,” he finally said.

I felt a horrible pain burning in my heart and I couldn’t help but subconsciously reach up and claw at my hoodie just over my heart as if the squeezing would ease the pain. He couldn’t tell me. He didn’t love me anymore. I thought that maybe there was a chance that this could work. That somehow I could still get him to be mine. But he couldn’t even tell me that he loved me.

I didn’t respond, instead we both stood up, brushed ourselves off and headed back over to my house. On the way, Alan locked his fingers with mine and for a moment I felt like I actually was his girlfriend. He was holding my hand in public – even though nobody was around to see. We walked up to the end of the steps and I turned to face him. We both stood there for a moment, unsure of what to say or do, but we both knew that this was the end of this. There had been some sort of silent, mutual understanding that we had come across as we sat under that jungle gym. This was it, for real this time. I could see the pain in Alan’s eyes when I finally looked up to meet his gaze.

He reached out and pulled my face to his by holding onto my jaw. Our lips hit and the intensity was still there. The passion was still there, but now I didn’t know if it was love, or if it was just the idea of loving him.

We pulled apart and I let out a sigh. No tears fell from my eyes, no words fell from my lips, and I was actually surprised that I was able to be so strong.

I let us back into the house and we walked down the hallway. He paused by my door as I unlocked it.

“Goodnight, Addie, sleep well,” he said softly.

“You, too, Alan,” I said. “Goodnight.”

And then we went our separate ways for good. He went down the hall to crawl in bed with Jane, and I locked myself into my bedroom and collapsed onto the cold and lonely pillows.

Maybe Alan and I were never meant to work? He was just the bad boy that I had been attracted to while out of the country and I was just his girlfriend for the week. Was it really possible to fall in love with someone only after a week? Yes, it certainly was. I tried to think of things that could make me hate him, thinking that it would make this whole situation easier…but there was nothing. I couldn’t even hate him for cheating on my sister. I couldn’t hate him for getting her pregnant. I couldn’t even hate him for falling out of love with me.

-

“Adelina,” I stuck my hand out and he gently grabbed it while he sat down across from me at the table I was sitting at. Instead of shaking my hand he caressed the top of it and then placed a gentle kiss where his fingers touched. My breathing hitched in my throat at the contact.

“Alan,” he said softly as he released my hand. His red hair was an organized mess – clean and shiny, but spiked and laying in all sorts of different directions, except for his bangs, of course. His bangs swept across his forehead and somehow remained in place. “So, Adelina, no British accent?” he inquired. “Where are you from?”

“Call me Addie,” I said before answering. “And I’m from the US, actually. I’m going to school here, though.”

“Me, too,” he smiled. “Well, except for the school part.”

“Vacationing?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

He shrugged with a smug smile. “Something like that.” He looked at the book in front of me and then over to my right hand that was idly wrapped around my coffee cup. “Homework?” he asked.

I shook my head with a slight blush. “No, actually. I’m just a nerd with no friends,” I frowned a bit and closed my book after carefully folding the corner of the page down so I wouldn’t lose my spot.

“The Odyssey?” Alan read the title. “Don’t you read that in High School?”

“Oh um,” I paused and blushed even harder. “I’m actually reading it in…Greek…”

Alan’s eyebrows shot up and his mouth fell open in shock before he lifted his jaw up to form an impressed smirk – his eyebrows still raised and his eyes still focused on the front cover. “Wow, that’s impressive, Addie.”

“Thank you,” I breathed out, unsure of how to respond.

“Alan! Let’s go!” A tall man with a full sleeve up tattoos and brown hair waved his arm dramatically in the air. He smiled widely and when his nose crinkled I could see the sparkle of a silver hoop in his nostril. I looked back to Alan and then seemed to slowly notice the tattoos on his arms and knuckles and the hoop that he had in his nose. Who were these guys? It wasn’t all that often that you saw heavily tattooed Americans walking around this part of England…

Alan frowned and waved his friend away. They seemed to share some sort of argument through facial expressions and hand gestures. While they did this, a sudden burst of courage shot through me and I pulled my pen out of my purse and opened up the book I was reading to the publishing page. I circled the address to Penguin Books Publishing Company and wrote: “7:30 sharp – Xoxo, The Impressive Addie”.

Alan looked back over to me just as I clicked the end of my pen on the book, pulling the tip back inside the barrel. I closed the cover and pushed the book across the table and over to him. “See you later, Alan,” I said as I stood up, leaving him staring at the book. I gave his friend a shy smile as I slipped past him and out of the coffee shop. As I passed by the front window I saw Alan staring down at the open book with a smile spread across his face.

I awoke in a fit of tears – my body convulsing as I clawed at the pain and confusion in my chest. My chest heaved and I could hear my attempts of breathing bouncing off of the plain walls of my bedroom. It took me an hour to get my breathing under control and my tears to stop. I picked up the water I had on my nightstand and gulped it down.

It was the third morning in a row that I had woken up like this – always around the same time, too: 6:52am. And always after my mind would torture me with memories of Alan in England. I laid back against my pillows and closed my eyes, hoping that I could maybe try to sleep in a bit longer, but of course, Jane’s screaming and crying from the other room woke me up.

I groaned as I kicked my blankets off and headed out into the kitchen to see what the fuss was about. Jane was pulling things out of the refrigerator, sniffing them, screaming, and then throwing them either into the trash, or back into the fridge.

“What the hell?” I asked. “Jane, what are you doing?”

She turned to look at me while holding a bag of unopened, shredded lettuce in her left hand. She sniffed it and then angrily threw it into the trashcan that was beside her – letting out a frustrated grunt as tears were streaming down her face.

“Jane!” I said again, a bit aggressive this time.

“This kitchen fucking reeks! I’m going through the food because it’s all rotten!”

I walked over to the trash and pulled out the lettuce she had just thrown in. I pulled it up to my nose and inhaled the coldness of the produce. There was no odor, if anything it smelled refreshing. I looked at the expiration date. It still had another week before it hit the date. “Jane, this is perfectly fresh! Don’t throw this away,” I said as I reached around her and put it back in the fridge.

“Ugh! Stop it!” she groaned as she swat my hands away. “I can smell it – take it out!”

“No!” I said. “You’re pregnant, remember? That’s why you can smell everything. That doesn’t make it rotten. Stop wasting our food!”

“No, this is my food,” Jane said roughly. “I will throw it away if I want to. This is my house.”

I took a step back, a bit hurt by her words. Surely I deserved to be kicked out of her house for what I had done behind her back, but she didn’t know that. That means her words were coming from somewhere else, and I was really hoping it was just her hormones talking. I expected her to apologize almost right away after realizing what she had said, but instead she reached back into the fridge, pulled out the lettuce, and threw it in the trash while staring into my eyes.

“Jane…” I said quietly.

“What?” she snapped immediately. “What do you want? All you do is mope around and act all depressed for no fucking reason and then you just lock yourself away in your room or leave to go hang out with Natalie!”

So that’s what this was about. She didn’t like my friendship with Natalie.

“Why’d you say her name like that?” I asked.

Jane just shook her head and mumbled something under her breath.

“What?” I asked.

“I said,” Jane stood up a bit taller, looking me straight in the eyes, “I wish you never came back from England.”

I bowed my head immediately, no longer able to stare her in the eyes. “Yeah,” I said, “me, too.”

I quickly walked out of the kitchen and back into my room, shutting and locking the door behind me. I didn’t know what to do – where to go. I clearly wasn’t wanted here anymore, and I didn’t have any money to try and get my own place, so I had to either go back to my dad, or try and stay with somebody else for a while. I decided to give Natalie a call – she would be the only person that I would really feel comfortable with staying with, and I had already been practically living with her on some nights.

Her phone rang a couple of times before her voicemail picked up. I tried texting her and calling again – still no answer. “Fuck,” I muttered. I had forgotten that Natalie was going to visit her mom in Anaheim, and wouldn’t be back for a week.

I couldn’t go to Alan’s for reasons that were obvious, and I didn’t know any of the other girls to ask them. I decided to call Adam and see where he was staying and if I could crash there, too.

“Hey Ads!” Adam answered happily.

I sighed. “Hey, um, I kind of need a place to stay…”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s evident that Jane doesn’t want me here…I just…I don’t feel welcome here anymore.”

Adam was silent for a minute. “Well, I’ve been staying at Austin’s. Let me ask him if it’s okay. It’s just that…I’m using his only other bedroom so we’d have to share the room…I can sleep on the couch or whatever if you’re not comfortable with that…”

“Adam,” I laughed a bit to cut off his nervous rambling. “I don’t mind sharing a room with you. Or a bed.”

Adam sighed and let out a nervous chuckle. “Okay, I just didn’t know if it would be too soon for that or what…I mean I know that we’ve been on a couple dates and what-not but sleeping in a bed to-“

“Adam, as much as your nervous rambling is cute…please stop and go ask Austin,” I said with a slight laugh.

“Oh, right. Okay, one second.”

-

I was sitting on Austin’s couch with my knees pulled to my chest and my head resting on my knees. My hair was falling all around my face, covering it from the people in the room. Aaron, Austin, and Adam were sitting around – talking, drinking, listening to music, and just having a good time. I felt extremely out of place and too much like an intruder.

“Ads, why you so quiet over there? Are you drunk?” Aaron laughed. I was thankful that he was trying to bring me into the conversation, but it still couldn’t ease the tension I felt.

I shook my head with a smile and reached over to the coffee table and picked up my beer to shake it around, showing him that it was still full. “I’ve only had a couple of sips, actually,” I admitted.

“You want something else to drink? I think we have something other than Corona, if you want it,” Austin offered, immediately setting his beer down and getting ready to stand up.

“No, no!” I said quickly before he could stand. “I’m fine with a Corona, thank you. Just a lot on my mind right now, that’s all.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” Adam asked. He moved a bit closer to me on the couch and placed an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him just a bit, finding comfort in his touch.

“You guys are cute,” Aaron said as he scrunched up his nose. “So are you liked a couple, or what?”

“Um, we’re just dating, I guess,” Adam said, unsure of what to label us as. I could hear the hope in his voice break his statement off at the end, making it sound like more of a question. He wanted me to correct him and say that he was my boyfriend, but the truth is that he wasn’t, and I wasn’t sure if I even wanted him to be. I liked Adam, I really did. He was great – adorable, funny, and comforting. But my heart still belonged to Alan, and that wouldn’t be fair to Adam.

“Yeah, we’re just dating,” I said as I kissed the side of his bald head.

“And fucking, or what?” Austin wiggled his eyebrows and I felt Adam laugh from beside me, but I couldn’t help but tense up. My face had to of been terrified, because Austin quickly spoke up again. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding!” He waved his hands out in front of him, one of them moving to cover the grin on his face as he laughed.

I didn’t even think about that. Last week, at Jane’s party I was so ready to have sex with Adam – I was basically throwing myself at him all night and was more than willing to let him do what he wanted with me when we had our heated make-out in my room that night. The truth was, though, now that I was sober and thinking rationally – sex with Adam wouldn’t be the best idea, especially not after having sex with Alan two times since I had first kissed Adam. It felt weird and unfair, but I didn’t know who it was unfair to – Alan or Adam? Alan shouldn’t matter anymore. Nothing should be holding me back from my relationship with Adam, but I just couldn’t let go of my feelings for Alan. Not yet, at least.

“Well, Natalie should be back from her mom’s house tomorrow, actually, so you can talk to her then,” Austin said. He took a quick sip of his beer bottle, then pointed it in my direction. “Well, after I’m done with her, that is,” he added with a wink and a sly smirk.

Adam cringed and made a few disgusted grunts. Austin couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” I laughed at Adam’s reaction. “Why is that so gross?”

“I don’t wanna know about what they do! That’s nasty!”

I didn’t quite understand. Adam laughed when Austin asked about us having sex, so why would someone else talking about it be any different? “Why?” I laughed. I decided to reach down and take a drink of my beer. I was starting to feel more comfortable now.

“Because, that’s my little sister!”

I choked on my beer, nearly spitting it out all over myself, but I was lucky enough to catch the small amount of it that leaked from my mouth on my shirt. I wiped at it as I set my beer down and swallowed – coughs immediately taking over my body as I tried to rid myself of the burning sensation from choking on the beer.

“What?!” I managed to get out. “I had no idea!”

“Yeah,” Aaron smiled and laughed. “He also used to date your sister.”

My jaw had to of dislocated from how quickly and how far it dropped. “You what?” I was no longer amused. I was no longer laughing or shocked. I was actually…angry.

“Yeah,” Adam said with a sigh. “We uh…had a thing right before she got with Alan.”

“Don’t sugar-coat it,” Austin said sternly. He turned his attention over to me. “She cheated on Adam with Alan and then ultimately left Adam for him.”

It all made sense now. “Is that why Natalie doesn’t like my sister?”

Adam and Austin both nodded.

“Yeah, and that’s also why she doesn’t really get along with any of the other girls either. They all sided with Jane after Natalie tried confronting her about it at Anouk’s birthday party. A huge scene broke out because Jane flipped shit and they all just kind of shunned Natalie after that,” Aaron explained. “It’s not fair, and we’ve tried to get them to make amends, but they’re all so hard-headed and poor Natalie was just trying to stick up for her brother.”

This was all a lot of information to take in. Jane and Adam were dating…and it sounds like they were pretty serious since so much drama occurred. Then Jane cheated on Adam and left him for Alan.

I felt bile starting to rise up from my stomach, but I used my beer to quickly swish it back down. I felt sick with myself – disgusted by my actions because poor Adam was second best, yet again, to Alan. I was a shitty person for doing this to Adam, and now I was hurting Jane even more. I had been fucking her boyfriend and dating her ex at the same time. Adam and I weren’t serious, and we never vowed ourselves to being faithful to each other, but I still felt like shit for what I was doing.

And now what about Natalie? If she ever found out that I had fucked Alan while still dating her brother, surely she would hate me just like she hated my sister. I let out a loud groan and stood up. “I think…I’m going to head to bed.”

“It’s only six,” Adam pouted.

I sat back down, suddenly feeling stupid for not realizing the time. It had been such a long and emotional day – it must have felt a lot longer than it was since I had spent most of it just sitting on Austin’s couch, lost in my own thoughts.

“Oh,” I laughed a bit. A yawn escaped my lips. I hadn’t been sleeping very well at night because of my memories that had turned to nightmares – haunting me in my sleep and causing me to wake up at ungodly hours. I was tired and could have probably gone to bed, but I decided not to. I didn’t want to be too suspicious, especially after the conversation we had just gone through.

I settled back into the couch, but this time didn’t snuggle too closely to Adam. I felt horrible and most of all confused about my entire life. It was all turning out to be just one big cluster fuck. Jane was dating my ex, and I was dating hers. I guess Jane and I weren’t so different after all.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and my eyes fluttered open. The room was dimly lit and dead silent – the only sound in the room being the humming of the appliances in the kitchen beside the living room. I looked around, confused, until my eyes found Adam’s staring softly back at me.

“Did I fall asleep?” I asked, my voice tired and soft. I let out a yawn and rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry for being such a party pooper,” I said through my yawn.

Adam chuckled. “It’s okay. Come on, I’ll carry you to bed,” he offered. He snaked his arms underneath my sitting body and scooped me up, carrying me bridal-style toward the bedroom that Adam had been staying in.

He set me down on the bed and I curled up into a ball despite the uncomfortable feeling of my clothes. My jean shorts were digging into my skin and my bra was restricting my arms from fully curling up beneath my head. I groaned rolled onto my back. I unbuttoned my shorts and shimmied out of them, not really caring if Adam saw me in my underwear. He had seen it before. Plus, I wasn’t wearing anything sexy so it really didn’t matter to me. I then sat up and reached beneath the t-shirt I had been wearing that day and quickly removed my bra, pulling it out from one of my sleeves. I tossed it on the floor next to my shorts and curled back into the bed.

“Oh, um, wow,” Adam chuckled a bit as he pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms.

“Oh,” I blushed a bit. “Um…does that make you uncomfortable? I can put it back on…” I said, referring to my bra. I really didn’t want to put it back on since it was so uncomfortable to sleep in, but I didn’t want to put Adam in any kind of situation that might make this even more awkward that it was probably going to me.

“No, it’s okay,” he said as he shook his head. He slowly crawled into the bed behind me.

Would he try to cuddle to me? Should we cuddle? Were we even close enough to do that? Would it be too weird for him?

I felt Adam come closer to my and very slowly wrap an arm around me, testing his limits. I gently pushed myself toward him, allowing him to fully grasp me in a tight and comfortable hold. It wasn’t as awkward as I thought, and I felt more comfortable than I had in a long time.

I slowly let my eyes begin to close again, and I had the feeling that this was going to be the first night in a while that I would be able to sleep without Alan coming into my mind.

Notes

Woops, I am so sorry it took me forever to upload this! It's been done and I just forgot to post it! Ack! I suck. I'll try to update again before the weekend is over. And this is a longer chapter, so hopefully it'll make up for the 6 days I made you guys wait :(

So even MORE drama introduced in this chapter. A lot has been going on, yes? ahah.
What do you think about Alan and Addie officially ending this? What about Jane lashing out at Addie? What about Jane and Adam's past? Did I surprise you guys with that? These sisters man, they really have a similar taste in men, don't they? hehe.

I love to hear your thoughts and reactions! Keep commenting guys. I love it :)