Rosie's POV:

After comparing notes, I had to give it to him. He was after all called the big D on campus for a reason.

As I was lying between his arms after the countless highs he helped me reach, I traced the lines on his chest with my fingers and he did the same to my shoulders.

"So, I have to tell you something," I started wanting to be completely honest with him if we made this thing between us work.

"Okay, what is it?" He chuckled, "Don't say you're in some kind of dominatrix shit."

I playfully bumped him in his chest and rolled my eyes, "No, geez."

"Don't roll those pretty eyes at me, Rosie." He chuckled knowing me all too well, "You can roll them only when you want me to do things to you."

"Okay, fine." I shrugged, "Now, you'll never know what I wanted to tell you."

"Oh, no Rosie. Don't provoke me. I know you're ticklish," he started tickling me, and I didn't even have time to react.

I surrendered before my fight even began, "No, no. You win. I'll tell you."

"I thought so," he chuckled while hugging me closer to him.

I looked up and studied those features of his before I confessed, "So you know, how I said that I knew of you before we met in the gallery?"

"Mhm, everybody knew of me," he rolled his eyes before I poked at him again.

"Well, that wasn't completely the case. Last year while I was getting through a breakup, Nicole proposed that I should get myself a crush. She made the whole list of them."

"Oh my god, was I on the list?"

I nodded, "Not only that, but you've won, you were at the top. Aileen and Nicole made a whole list of characteristics that my crush should have, and you were a clear winner."

He chuckled, "I got your heart from the start."

"So, you're not mad or feeling kind of played?" I asked embarrassment rushing to my cheeks in the form of a blush. 

"No," he shook his head before then the realisation hit him. "Wait. Did you play me? So you could get me in your bed?"

"No, I didn't. It just..." I started stuttering, "It happened that way."

He laughed, "I got you. You so believed me."

"Ha ha ha. Very funny," I hit him with a fist on his bicep.

"Okay, do you also want to know a secret of mine?" he continued while rubbing the spot where my hand was just a few seconds ago.

"Yes," my eyes lit up at the thought of something from him. 

"You weren't the only one with a crush. Do you remember when you had a quarrel with Dylan and you came looking for me at the graveyard?"

"Mhm."

"Well, after I came home I explicitly told Dylan to stop bossing you around. So he actually said, that he will be releasing you from your duties as my babysitter. And then I thought to myself, that that would mean I would be spending less time with you. And go figure I wasn't happy about it. It was starting to dawn on me, that maybe I liked you more than a friend," he concluded with a sigh. 

"I was so stupid from the start. I should have told you. I should have made a move or something."

I was speechless that was more than half a year ago. "When did you like officially know, that you liked me more than a friend?" I murmured.

"When the thing with your assault happened," he whispered, "I was so worried and so angry with myself that I couldn't help you. And while you slept that night I realised I liked you way more than I was prepared to admit it."

I was surprised, I didn't know he liked me for that long. Everybody around us might have insinuated something, but I didn't let myself believe it, because I was too afraid that I was imagining things. "Then why didn't you say anything?" I asked.

"Because it never seemed like a good time. We were at my party and I wanted to say something, but I knew it was way too early for it. Then at the beach house, all of that with the social media happened. And I decided on the second best thing, fake dating," he sighed.

"What about after the night in the hotel?" I inquired further.

"Well, then I knew why you didn't like parties and why you were so apprehensive about starting a relationship. And since I run in the popular circles and I would be on TV, it just didn't seem right for me to pull you in that world."

"How come you said it now?"

"Well, now I didn't have anything more to lose. If I didn't say it, you wouldn't even have stayed friends with me. And the idea of a world where we wouldn't have out talks is the idea of a world I don't want to be a part of."

"Oh," his response took me by surprise. So many times we could had been where we were now. So many times we were on the brink of admitting to ourselves and each other our true feelings and we didn't. "We were so stupid."

He laughed under me, "That we were."

At that moment the door in my room burst open and on the doorstep, Aileen was standing, "Hey, I saw what happened and thought you would be home. Will you get down for..."

She stopped mid-sentence noticing the scenery before her, me and Alex intertwined and our bedsheets covering us. Now there wasn't anymore pretending that we were just friends. It was full-blown on, you've disturbed us at something.

"Oh, sorry. I didn't think that....," she stuttered and then closed the door and all I could hear were her steps downstairs.

"I should go talk to her," I said as I started getting dressed and Alex did as well. But before he could finish, I stopped him, "No, you just wait here, I need to talk to her alone."

He nodded, he might not understood it yet, but he knew. He knew that some things you can only say to your friends in private.

I made my way downstairs and saw Aileen preparing tea, "Hey, can we talk? I am sorry that you had to see that."

Aileen turned and I could see tears forming in her eyes, "No, it's not a problem. I just thought that you two are fake dating. And I didn't know that the charade continued in your bed."

It was like a slap in the face the cold voice coming from Aileen's mouth.

"Don't say it like that," I tried smiling and remembering what I and Alex talked about. 

"We've talked about it. It turned out we both liked each other a little too much to be just friends. We're official official now."

She shrugged, "It's not my problem. It's just that... When I saw the video of Laura confronting you, I thought you needed a shoulder to cry on. So I rushed from Noemi's."

"Oh, Aileen," I hugged her from behind, "you really are the best best friend that a girl could ask for."

Aileen giggled and gestured between us, "Don't think you will get on my good side by kissing my ass with all those sweet little words."

"Oh, I know I won't," I hugged her even tighter.

"I am just worried, he will break your heart if he really is the player that everybody says he is," she turned towards me.

"He isn't like that." I smiled, "He's a nice guy and he knows about Neal, everything."

"Everything?" her eyebrows raised.

I nodded, "Really Aileen, it isn't as you think. I am happy. He makes me happy and calm. With him, I can be as vulnerable as I need to and he won't judge. I guess I found someone else that I can welcome into my bubble and be myself with. I had trouble with that in the past. With letting the wrong people in. But Alex seems like the right one."

I remembered all the times in the past when I gave people the benefit of the doubt and they let me down. With Alex it was different. I have never given him the benefit of the doubt. I always wondered when he was going to put a knife in my back. Yet he still managed to impress me every single time by saying all the right things I needed to hear at all the right times. He impressed me because he fit into my life as a puzzle piece without me needing to bend around his edges. And that was the biggest surprise life could have given me, someone who loved me for me. 

Aileen noticed the change in the atmosphere when it came to Alex. "Okay, as long as you're happy and he treats you right," she smiled and offered me a cup of tea.

Alex came into the kitchen fully dressed now, "Everything okay?"

"Everything okay," I nodded in his direction.

"Everything okay, but for future reference I just wouldn't like to see your naked butt around the apartment," Aileen smirked at Alex, who was still a little bit perplexed about the whole situation. 

Aileen had a way to shake people off.

"Scouts honour," Alex stood tall and put his hand over his chest trying to be funny.

"Oh, don't be stupid," Aileen rolled her eyes, "I don't see your butt, I am happy. You don't hurt my Rosie, I am happy. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal," Alex put out his hand and Aileen shook it.

"I am going to my room, this book is killing me and after all, I need my beauty sleep," she waved us goodbye before going into her room with her cup of tea.

"She likes you," I smiled at Alex.

"Likes me?" he asked, "How is she when she doesn't like people?"

"Worse," I chuckled, "but believe me, she likes you."

"Likes me or likes me likes me?" he wrapped his hands around my waist again and spun me on the barstool so I was looking at him.

"Just likes you," I giggled.

"Oh, but I could swear I remember a girl not long ago in this very kitchen telling me she likes me, likes me."

"Really, I don't have the slightest idea, who that could be?" I feigned innocence.

"Oh, you don't?" He put loose hair behind my ear, "That's too bad."

"Why is that?" I sipped my tea.

"Because I would really like to know what 'likes you likes you' means?" he whispered in my ear.

"Well, maybe I could show you." I shrugged my shoulders, "After all, I am a girl, and I am in a kitchen."

"That would be perfect," he said before picking me up and carrying me to my room, where we spent the rest of the night showing each other what 'likes you, likes you,' meant to us.