Chapter Thirteen

I trotted carefully through the familiar path as I used my phone's flashlight to guide me through the dark.

I wasn’t sure if this was my best idea, but I knew I didn’t want to see anyone else and there couldn’t be a better place to meet him, even if it's in the dark of the night on a trail behind an old farmhouse, in the middle of what seemed like nowhere.

Relief dawned on me when I saw the outline of a muscular silhouette sitting on a rock in front of the surprisingly sparkling water. The moon danced on its crystal feature as the  crickets sang loudly.

The sound of my feet caused him to look behind him, and he smiled welcomingly at me as I joined him.

That smile alone  was enough to soothe my whole world.

"Hey," he greeted softly, gently bumping my shoulder with his.

"Hey,"  I returned, feeling a bit embarrassed that I led him all the way out here because I was feeling flushed.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as he offered me a side hug, no doubt after seeing my gloomy state.

I sighed. "I guess. How about you?"

"I'm okay." He shrugged. "Date over with your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend!" I snapped.

"Okay, okay, chill." He chuckled as he raised his hands defenselessly. "I was just teasing. You seemed pretty upset on the phone."

"Hhmm. Well, that's because..." I trailed. How do I put this? "I haven’t told you this before, but before I met you, Colton was literally everything that I ever dreamt to have. Now that I'm hanging out with you, it seems like...I don’t know." I admitted. I didn’t know what to think anymore.

He shrugged again. "That's just how guys are. You've been best friends for what? Five years?"

"Four," I corrected.

"Same difference. My point is, he's been so comfortable all these years and now that it's too late, he's trying to redeem himself."

I froze. "What do you mean by it's too late?"

He smirked at me as he gently held my hand. "What if I want you all to myself, Skates?" My heartrate picked up. Was he serious? Was this finally it?

"Fabian," I said as I looked him straight in the eye. "What are your intentions towards me?" I needed to know. This was why I called him to meet me here in the first place, right?

I wanted to know if he felt the same way I felt so that I could know what to do about  Colton.

"Everything pure, Paris. Trust me."

"What do you want, Fabian?" I grew frustrated. He didn’t need to speak in parables to me. I needed to hear him say it straight, as I was not good with context clues.

He smirked even wider as he leaned towards my ear. "I want...to turn you into a bad girl, Paris." My breath hitched as his warm breath fanned my ear, sending a shiver through my spine.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"I want to show you a world that you've never seen before. That Colton or anyone else could never show you." He placed a kiss to my cheek, then one to my neck, and my body was already in a tingling mess as he seduced me under the bright moonlight.

"Fabian?"

"Paris?"

"Please," I breathed out. I didn't know what I wanted, but this maddening thing he was doing was making my thoughts all hazy.

"Do you want to?" he asked, his voice deep and huskier than I ever heard, and his fingers pulled maddeningly over my palm.

"Do I want to what?" I asked, not entirely sure if I would refuse anything from him at that moment, simply by the way he was making me feel.

Suddenly, he pulled away and gazed at me in pure innocence as if he hadn’t just turned my whole world upside down. "Do you want to go on a date with me, of course," he said softly, and I was in a contradicting mess of either swooning or cursing.

He knew what he did to me and he was sure as hell enjoying it!

"That's what you meant?"

"What else would I mean Paris?" He winked, his brown eyes twinkling under the moonlight.  "Take your mind out of the gutter."

I groaned, seeing that he was just as good at giving me mixed thoughts as Colton.

"No but for real." His tone dropped to a sincere one as he took my hand again.

My gaze fell to our intertwined fingers before lifting it back to his. His lips held a small simper as he regarded me as if I was the only girl in the universe.

"Will you? Will you go on a date with me?"

I couldn’t explain the level of happiness I felt. Only a month of knowing him, and I was already going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs for him.

"I'd love to," I told him truthfully with a smile of my own.

He pulled me into a short hug, before he placed a kiss on my forehead. "But I want you to know that this is not because I feel threatened by Colton or anything. This has actually been going through my mind for a while. And I figured when you asked me to meet you here, what better time could it be?"

I caught a hint of a blush climbing up his neck despite the darkness that sat between us, and it was my time to tease.

"Is Fabian Smith blushing?" I taunted, causing his ears to burn even brighter.

It was the cutest thing, and if the moment hadn’t been so special, I would've snapped a picture.

"You know, you made me realize something tonight." I added as I took his other hand in mine.

"Yea?"

"I'm not Coltonual," I blurted out, remembering my stupid theory weeks ago. Fabian's face scrunched into confusion as he chuckled a little.

"What?"

"You know, some people are homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual. There was a time I thought I was Coltonual," I expounded, and we both burst out in a series of chuckles.

This was really nice. Sitting at my new favorite place, under the twinkling stars, laughing with the boy that was slowly stealing my heart away.

He actually asked me on a date. It still seemed so surreal.

Despite the fact that we always hung out together, and went to numerous places that could easily be passed as 'dates', we could finally put the name to it and see where this thing goes? I mean, we acted like a couple, and I still needed to know for sure that I am over Colton, so what better time than now.

"Are you okay with how this will play out with your friend?" Fabian's voice invaded my  thoughts as he asked.

I shrugged, actually feeling nervous. How will Colton see this? After he was acting up on the phone with Fabian, I left and then the next day he hears that we're dating?

I knew I didn’t need his consent, but he still is my best friend and even though he really pissed me off this evening, I couldn’t imagine being happy exploring my feelings for Fabian knowing we weren’t on speaking terms. Besides, I told him today that I wasn’t replacing him, and I didn’t intend to. He is still my best friend. Nothing will change that. Not even an alleged jealousy he might have towards Fabian.

"Tell you what?" Fabian spoke again when he was met with my silence. "What if before our date, we arrange a hang out where Colton and I can meet officially? Get to know each other a bit," he suggested, but for some reason the idea didn’t sit well with me.

"I don’t know..." I trailed as I fiddled with his fingers.

"Look." He paused as he lifted my face to meet his gaze. "I know Colton is an important person in your life, and as much as  I want to be selfish and take you for myself, I don’t want to have a piece of you here while the other is lost in the thoughts of Colton. Like now."

I felt guilt rising up in my chest, never even realizing that my Colton filled thoughts were so obvious.

"All I'm saying is, I wouldn’t want to be the reason why you lose someone you really care about. If we meet each other, maybe he would feel more at ease with us hanging out and even dating, you know?" I nodded, seeing where he was coming from.

"I suppose that could work. I can call him later and arrange it."

"Great," he mumbled as he pulled me to his lap, an action that we've oddly gotten accustomed to. Definitely something people dating would do. "Now that that's settled, I want to show you how very happy I am that you agreed to our date."

My lips involuntarily pulled into a smile as he leaned closer to me, but I quickly held my finger against his lips before they could connect with mine.

"As much as I've been dying to kiss you, I must know. Did you happen to ride your bike here?" I gulped, remembering that I took a train to town and then charted a taxi down here.

I felt his lips pulling into his infamous smirk against my fingers. "Why yes I did."

"No," I whined. "I swear I'm calling back a taxi because I am not going on that death machine."

"Don’t be dramatic, Paris. As long as you hold on tight, you won't be going anywhere." He ended as he finally managed to catch my lips between his teeth, initiating a kiss that inner me had been dying for from the moment I saw him.

But for some odd reason, the way he spoke about 'holding on' didn’t only sink to me as only his bike, but whatever relationship we would spiral into from this day onward. I knew that there was still so much to know about him. So much in his past that I hadn’t seen or heard of, which shaped him into the guys he is today.

Still, just like the hell of a bike ride I'd have to endure later on, I was willing to hold on tightly to him, as I would never imagine letting him go, and falling to my own demise.

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