Hayden

Jacob and Kaia were friends again, and about fucking time. Ada was bugging me about doing something last night, not that it was annoying. Not at all. We were in her room well past midnight and she had crawled on top of me, teasing me with almost kisses until I gave in. She was the devil and the angel in a single beautiful girl, one for whom I was falling hard.

I was texting her from the moment Jacob dropped me home until she had 'gone to bed', which is when she said she would come over. I tried to argue that I had no problems with going to her house, but being the stubborn girl she was, she wouldn't accept my offer. Besides, it was a twenty minute jog from her house to mine, cut in half by skateboard and thirds by bicycle. At 11pm, I didn't want her out by herself. We lived in a safe town, but there were always exceptions to generalisations.

She texted saying she would be a bit late because she had to sneak around her sister, so I just lay back on my bed and waited for her to say she was on her way. The alarm clock on my bedside table read 10:55pm, the piece of furniture as plain and boring as every other item in my bedroom; and the rest of the house.

Having a mayor as a mother had its perks, but for the most part it sucked balls. She was never home, always out at meetings or dinner parties or at the office until ungodly hours of the morning where I would hear her sneak in the front door. She would be gone before I woke up. What's worse is that it had been that way since I was ten, with no dad and no siblings to keep me company.

But for the first time in my life, I was grateful that my mother was who she was. Had the job she did. The gang was back together so we could hang out here as much as we liked, and our house was a safe space for Ada and I to be us.

"Whatcha thinking?"

The small voice from the door made me jump, cursing as I hit my head on the headboard. I sat up and frowned in the direction of the doorway, but my face instantly softened when I saw her. She was just in running shorts and a singlet, but just like every other day, she was beautiful.

"I'm thinking that you need to stop looking so gorgeous," I winked, and stood to meet her at the edge of my bed. I didn't hesitate in pulling her into me, her head on my chest and her arms around my middle. A small sigh escaped her lips, sending a million feelings rushing through me at the thought of making her happy.

It seemed that was what I lived for now; like my soul purpose on earth was to bring that smile to Ada Beck's face. I wouldn't want it any other way, and I didn't think she would have either.

"I hope you know you react like a six year old," she said, pulling back only to twine her fingers with mine and press a kiss to my jaw. My weakness; something that made my will crumble to dust. "A six year old girl." She waited until I dipped my head to touch her lips to mine, the feeling that came with it one that couldn't be matched. Her lips parted and our tongues danced, and before long she was lying back on my bed, myself hovering over her and doing what was constantly stuck in my mind, like a song on repeat.

Ada hummed but I knew that meant she was about to stop me. In three. Two. One.

"Hayden..." She put her hand to my chest and I instantly pulled away, hating the way she covered her face with her hands because she was embarrassed.

I sat beside her and gently clasped my hands around her fragile wrists, pulling them away. "Please don't be embarrassed," I whispered, resisting the urge to kiss her blazing cheeks. "Please please please."

She couldn't meet my gaze, and I knew exactly what she was thinking. That she was too young for me; that we wanted different things. She thought I wanted sex and she knew she wasn't ready for it, but she didn't know that the only thing I wanted was her. I didn't care about anything else. She was my first and only priority, and seeing her ashamed because of her knowing what she did and didn't want shattered me.

"Please," I begged.

She bit her lip and leaned into me, but I needed to talk about it. She needed to talk about it, even if she didn't know it yet.

"You're making me feel bad," I teased, but it fell flat. Her eyes just looked up at me with more regret than I could have imagined a fourteen year olds to hold, and I had to backpedal. "Come on, baby. You've got to stop thinking that."

"Why?" She asked, her voice taking on an accusing tone. "Why do I have to stop thinking the truth? I'm stopping you from what you want, and I don't want to do that. I care about you Hayden, but-"

"No," I interrupted, not liking where this was going. Too many times in our short relationship had there been talk of ending things. I didn't want her to even say it. I admired how strong she was in her decisions, and loved that she knew what she was and wasn't ready for. I couldn't have cared about any of it, but she was hell bent on making me. "You don't get to make my choices for me."

"What?" She was confused, with her lips turned down and an infuriatingly adorable crease in between her eyebrows.

"What I want is you, Ada. That's it. I don't care about anything except for you, and your happiness, and your comfort. It's not up to you to decide what choices I make because you'll do what you think is best, but what you think is best isn't best for me."

She didn't say anything. I waited, and waited, and waited. And waited some more. I could tell she was processing the information but I needed to do something. I was starting to feel hot, uncomfortably so that I needed to switch the fan on. Or have a shower. Or both. We needed space, so I decided to take the latter and stood, grabbing the towel off the hook on my door and closing it behind me.

The bathroom was just down the hall, and I felt almost sick until I was under the cool water of the tap. It's where I had to face the inevitability of what my girlfriend was thinking.

Ada was going to break up with me.

The thought alone halted my breathing, my heart, my world as it was. Ada was the first girl I had ever liked this much, although I wasn't sure that's what I could say adequately described my feelings towards her. We happened so fast, and I couldn't bear to think it would be over as quick.

"Fuck," I groaned, my eyes pricking with a weird sensation I hadn't felt since I was a kid. Fuck no; I was not about to cry.

A knock sounded on the door; tentative and almost like it didn't want to occur. I stood behind the shower curtain and squeezed my eyes shut, taking a deep breath before answering, "Yeah?"

The hinges complained as the door was pushed open, and I heard Ada's breathing over the patter of water on the bottom of the bath.

I didn't say anything, although I'm not sure I could have with how hard my heart was pounding, and I was almost certain the door was about to close again when I heard her quiet voice.

"Why are you in the shower?"

Leave it to Ada to not get straight to the problem, despite her question having a certain amount of reason and logic.

"My room was too stuffy for me to think."

"And you do that in the shower?" Her voice was almost playful, but there was still a current of hesitancy running under everything she said.

I sighed, wanting so badly to see her face. But I was kind of naked and my towel was on the back of the door behind her, so I wouldn't be able to get to it with her still in here. So I just stood still, in what should have been the most awkward conversation of my life. Surprisingly, it didn't make the top fifty.

"What do you-" I started to say, but her hushed voice cut me off.

"I want you too."

My heart jumped, and I cursed myself for reacting like a damn girl. Worse, I was reacting like Zavier. Eugh.

"So we're okay?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "Sorry for almost making your decisions for you."

"Sorry for being an idiot."

"For once, you were the non-idiot," she laughed; the sound was music to my ears. I wanted to be out of the damned shower and back in my room cuddling with her and watching movies or talking until she fell asleep, but I needed to get dressed and she needed to leave.

"Don't worry, I'll reclaim that title soon enough," I promised. "But I kinda need to get some clothes on..."

"Oh. Right. Yeah, um. I'll just..." And then the door closed.

To say I was lucky would be the biggest understatement of the millennium. Ada was perfect, in every way I could have ever dreamed of. Witty, smart, insanely beautiful. She was my friend, and now she's my girlfriend, and in that moment I imagined her becoming my wife. The image didn't sit uncomfortably like it should have being only seventeen, and then, I knew I was a goner.

I threw on my shorts with my shirt in the wash basket and raced back to my room, stopping at the door when I saw Ada curled up in my bed. She caught sight of me and gave me a sleepy grin, and I was beside her the next second.

"Didn't you say you had to tell me something about my brother and Kaia?" She mumbled, her arm across my stomach as if holding me in place. Every so often her fingers would trace the contours of my bare skin only to send shivers down my spine. It was so distracting, I had a hard time focusing on the conversation. But this was important to Ada, so I did my best.

"I don't really know what happened but after one game of hide and seek, they're friends again. Simple as that."

"I bet they'll be together by Jay Jay's birthday." Her speech had slowed to the point I knew she would fall asleep within a few minutes.

"You're betting mid-March?" I asked, shaking my head slightly. I was starting to feel my eyelids droop too, feeling thankful I'd remembered to set my alarm for when Ada had to leave. "No way. Jacob'll take his time. End of March."

"What do I get for winning?"

I kissed her forehead and pulled the blankets up over us, flicking my lamp off so we were left in the darkness. "We can figure it out in the morning. Go to sleep."

"Mmkay," she muttered, but she was already gone.