Surrounded by oversized art installations, Hannah was yelling at me. “You’re so full of shit!” She shook her head, laughing loudly. She finally caught on to the game I was playing. I feigned confusion, but I couldn’t help but laugh along with her. “I can’t believe I thought you were being serious!”
“Hey, Leonardo Da Vinci and Vincent Van Gogh could’ve really been BFFs, we’ll never know for sure!” I defended myself. I dodged the brochure she tried to swat me with. We were standing in front of blown-up replicas of ‘The Mona Lisa’ and ‘The Starry Night.’
By the entrance to the pop-up mixed art exhibit we were in, there were audio tour headsets available. I’d dissuaded Hannah from picking one up by telling her that I was well-versed in the world of art. It may have been a lie, but it was a trivial, inconsequential, little one for the greater good. If she’d put on a pair of headphones, then I wouldn’t have been able to talk to her until we finished seeing everything…
And being around her without being allowed to talk to her seemed like a horrible way to spend a Sunday afternoon. So, I’d led her through a few of the areas earlier. Pointing at random art pieces, giving them fabricated origin stories that may or may not have been more interesting than the truth-I had no idea.
“No, we do know for sure.” She lifted the pamphlet again. “It says here Da Vinci was born in 1452, while Van Gogh was born in 1853! They never even met.”
“Oh?” I grinned. “So those two had a bit of an age gap, kinda like us.”
“Yeah, exactly like us,” she replied sarcastically. “You and I were born three years apart, while Da Vinci was like 401 years older than Van Gogh. Completely the same thing.”
“It’s so hot when you do quick math.”
I may have been teasing her, but I really did find it attractive. She never pulled out her phone to calculate anything, but she always knew exactly how much we were supposed to tip or how much our total was in a convenience store. Numbers had given me a hard time for as long as I could remember, so I just saw it as another reason why we fit so well together.
“You’re so annoying!” She rolled her eyes. She was trying and failing to shake off her smile.
“Yeah, maybe, but you find me cute, right?”
“Maybe. A little bit,” she conceded. “Still annoying though.”
“Mm… I think you find me super cute.” I stepped closer to her. It was subtle, but I knew my closer proximity was having an effect on her. “Like so cute, you wanna kiss me right now,” I challenged and her dark eyes darted to my lips.
I thought she was just going to tell me to quit it as usual, but instead, she planted a lightning-fast kiss on my lips.
It was so quick, so light, but it still set my senses on fire. It’d been so long since the last time her lips had touched mine. So, the kiss sent a jolt of nostalgia combined with pleasure right through me. I let her drag me around the other parts of the exhibit after that. Honestly, after such an intense reaction to such a chaste kiss, my body would’ve let her drag me to anywhere in the world.
. . .
After our teeny, tiny kiss in the art exhibit, things had escalated quickly. Hannah and I still weren’t having sex, but we were kissing-we were kissing a lot. Every time we saw each other, we ended up making out in my place or hers for at least an hour.
By the grace of the gods, I was always able to stop myself from tearing off her clothes during our extensive make out sessions. That didn’t mean I kept my hands to myself though. I squeezed her ass and played with her boobs through her clothes as often as I could. We were like two teenagers exploring our urges. Despite always wanting more in the end, I was thoroughly enjoying this new stage in our relationship.
I already knew Hannah was a good kisser, I just wasn’t aware of how phenomenal she was at it. The way her wet tongue moved in-sync against mine, the way her teeth tugged on my lower lip, the way her fingers threaded through my hair to firmly keep my mouth where she wanted. Kissing her had so many intricacies that I’d previously glossed over because my brain was already picturing sex. I’d always thought it was hyperbolic when someone said that a kiss took their breath away, but I was wrong… So wrong.
Kissing Hannah didn’t just take my breath away, it set my lungs on fire.
All of the deep kissing was just incredibly intimate. In a way that made it so powerfully addictive. My whole adult life, making out had always been just a prelude to sex. Like a pit stop on the way to the final destination.
But I was kissing Hannah just to kiss her… I was kissing her as a way to wordlessly express that I loved her. Although it would’ve made for a better storyline if there was a climactic event that made me certain that I was in love with her, nothing momentous had really happened.
It was just all of the little things about her, about us together, that told me the new feeling I was experiencing for the first time ever-that was love. Any doubt I may have originally had was completely gone. The months I’d spent getting to know her better and allowing her to really get to know me proved to me that being in love was, in fact, something I was capable of.
And I was very, very much in love with Hannah. I loved her. I loved her so much. I loved her more than I thought was humanly possible.
The love I had for her made me hate myself even more for how I’d reacted when she told me she loved me. If anyone told me now that I wasn’t really in love with her, I would’ve been ready for a fight (maybe even for a war). I still couldn’t wrap my head around the things I did, the bullshit I said when I was trying to prevent her from falling in love with me.
At times, the feelings of regret and remorse were so powerful, it felt as if they were destroying my insides. On the very worst days, I always asked her to spend the night with me. I was perpetually afraid that at some point, she’d want to leave me because of all the hurt I’d caused her. I would’ve deserved it because I was truly a self-centered asshole in the past. But I couldn’t even imagine living in a world without her by my side anymore.
It was definitely one of those anxiety-ridden nights where I needed to be around Hannah-badly. But she was out for a friend’s birthday and she didn’t ask me to go with her. She met most of my friends already at various social events I’d brought her to. She didn’t correct me in front of any of them when I’d proudly introduced her as my girlfriend, but she laughingly reminded me later on that she wasn’t my girlfriend. And even if I knew it was just one of her go-to jokes, it still got under my skin.
All of my friends loved her. So, I wondered non-stop if her friends would even like me. Would they know what I did? Probably, they were her friends.
Was that why I’d yet to meet any of them? Did they already have set opinions on me? I wouldn’t have been very keen to meet someone who’d messed with one of my friends the way that I did with Hannah. I thought back to when she’d asked me to be her date to a wedding… I’d turned her down so quickly, so casually. Who knew there’d come a time I’d be wishing she took me with her everywhere?
The shame spiral was in full force. I needed to talk to her or I would’ve driven myself insane. I called her phone. It was just going to be a quick conversation. I just really needed to hear her voice.
“Ellie?” She picked up almost immediately. I could hear the sound of music and heavy bass in the background. “Give me a sec…” She was probably moving to a quieter place to hear me better-smoking area or restroom? I didn’t even know where she was. “Hi, what’s up?”
“Sorry to bother you,” I began lamely. “I just wanted to check in. See how your night was going.”
“It’s good. Always fun to see the gang. Yours?”
“I miss you,” I admitted, not really answering her question. I wasn’t going to ruin her night just because I was feeling insecure and small.
“I miss you, too,” she replied without hesitation. Which made me feel a lot better. “Is something wrong?”
“No, I just really called to tell you I miss you.” She giggled cutely and the sound made me smile. “Okay, I’ll let you get back to your friends now. Good night, babe.” I held back the ‘I love you’ that I wanted to tack on at the end. “See you tomorrow?”
“Good night, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The call ended and her promise of tomorrow was enough for me to emerge from my ghastly, grim, gruesome angst trench.
. . .
I was on top of Hannah on her sofa and I was so turned on. I was delirious with need. I couldn’t stop grinding myself against her denim-covered thigh. I wondered if I was crossing any lines by basically dry humping her. She was gripping my hips, keeping me where I was though.
“Is this okay?” I still asked, breathless. She nodded before hiking my short dress up even higher, so I could move more freely. The delicious friction became more intense as I repeatedly dragged my soaked lace underwear against her. I squeezed my eyes shut when she took over, guiding my frantic movements, increasing the pace. She kissed me deeply and I came apart. I looked down to see a darker spot on her light-wash skinny jeans.
“Holy shit,” I whispered out, gasping.
“Good?”
“Amazing. Everything about you turns me on so much,” I confessed in a dopey state. The unexpected rush of orgasm chemicals in my brain was making me even more lovesick. “Seriously, I feel like I’m on fire whenever you touch me.” She looked surprised by my choice of words, so I quickly elaborated. “In like a good way though! It’s hard to explain, but whenever you touch me, I feel flames.” I attempted, but it was too difficult to describe what I was trying to say. “Never mind, I just mean I love it when you touch me, babe. It makes me super-hot.”