I knew exactly what I was doing when I slipped out of bed at two-thirty in the morning. The whole house was silent, the kind of deep quiet that only comes after Christmas when everyone has eaten too much, drunk too much, and passed out hard. My parents were upstairs in their room, my older brother Ethan was snoring like a chainsaw in his, and his best friend Jake—Jake who I had been crushing on since I was sixteen—was sleeping in the basement guest room.
Jake.
Twenty-four, six-foot-three, broad shoulders, thick arms covered in dark ink, messy black hair that always fell into his eyes, and a jawline that could cut glass. He had been coming over for years, crashing after game nights or holidays, and every single time I found excuses to be near him. Short shorts in summer. Low-cut tops when
