"Kiss me like that again and I'm going to think you're in love with me.” I said it with a charming smile, the same easy grin I always used to hide everything else. My heart was beating way too fast for someone who was supposed to be joking. Damn. If anything, I was the one dangerously close to falling for her. And that was exactly what I couldn't afford.

It hadn't started like this. At first we were just friends—real friends. Study sessions that turned into late-night conversations, coffee runs between classes, random messages at two in the morning about nothing important. She was easy to be around, the kind of person who made silence comfortable. I never planned for it to become something more.

Then one night it did.

One stupid, reckless night when we were both tired, a little lonely, and standing way too close to each other. One kiss that should've been a mistake, something we laughed about the next morning. Instead, it turned into another night. And then another. Somehow, without ever really talking about it, we slipped into this strange arrangement—friends with benefits.

At first it felt simple. No expectations, no promises, no messy feelings. Just two people who liked each other’s company a little too much. But lately it didn't feel simple anymore.

Like right now. Her lips were still warm from the kiss she had just given me, softer than they had any right to be, and she was looking at me like she was trying to read something behind my joke. That was the dangerous part about her—she paid attention.

I leaned back slightly, still smiling like everything was under control. I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep pretending this was just a game. And if she ever found out the truth—that somewhere along the way I stopped seeing her as just a friend—