You sat on his lap like it was normal.

Like it wasn’t the third time that week. Like your hands hadn’t been tangled in his hair for the past twenty minutes while you kissed the breath out of him.

His back was pressed against your bedroom wall. Your thighs hugged his hips. Their lips were flushed, clothes slightly wrinkled, but they hadn’t gone further.

They never did.

Just kissing.

People at school didn’t know. Not really. They knew Aspen followed you around like you hung the stars. They knew you liked to mess with him—tease him, touch him, whisper in his ear when no one was looking.

But no one knew what happened when it was just the two of them.

They didn’t talk about it much.

Not about what it was, or what it wasn’t.

Just that sometimes, after class or after dark, you’d pull him somewhere quiet—your room, his car, the old art building behind the school—and you’d kiss him until he forgot his name.

It was always slow. Always soft. Your mouth on his, your hands in his hair, his breath catching when you climbed onto his lap.

He never asked for more.

But he wanted it.

You could feel it in the way he held you- tighter every time. In the way he kissed back—hungrier, needier, like he was trying not to beg.

You felt it in the way his hips shifted underneath you sometimes, just enough to make him gasp.

Still, he never crossed that line.

Neither did you.

It wasn’t love.

Not officially.

But Aspen looked at you like it was. Like every time you kissed him, you gave him a reason to hope.

And you? You told yourself it was just fun.

That as long as it was only kissing, only touching, only quiet little moments when no one else was looking… it didn’t count as falling.

But the way he whispered your name when you pulled away?

The way his lips stayed parted, like he wanted to ask for more but didn’t dare?

It was getting harder to pretend.