I Am Jack's Life Ch. 15

"Everything is cool," she said. Though to herself or to me, I'm not sure.

I nodded in agreement and climbed in to the bed. It creaked loudly.

I got as far over next to the wall as I could and laid down facing it. There was one pillow. I tried not to use more than a corner of it.

She looked down at the bed and just shook her head. "European adventure." She said under her breath. She flicked off the light switch and climbed into bed.

She settled down with her back to me, which was cold, and her butt brushed the small of my back, and it was colder, and then her feet brushed mine, and they were icicles I hissed.

"My feet are cold, sorry," she said.

"Cold implies some where between freezing and cool. Your feet require the same handling equipment as liquid hydrogen," I gasped.

She giggled and of course stuck them fully up against the back of my leg.

Good god.

I cowboyed up though, and took it like a man. "Good night Abbs," I said.

"Night Jack," she replied.

An hour later, I was still awake, and trying to roll off my aching side somewhere that wouldn't end up with me facing her back and putting my crotch against her ass, or pushing her entirely off the bed.

After a few minutes, I felt her adjust her head slightly on the pillow

A few minutes later I tugged the blanket down over my foot, which had become exposed.

A couple of minutes later, she coughed lightly and tugged the blanket up on her shoulder; which exposed my foot again.

A few minutes later I was wondering I had to pee, or was just really cold. I readjusted my head on the pillow.

"Oh this is fucking stupid," she said and sat up.

I leaned back to look over my shoulder at her.

"Lay on your back," she said. I did, but I took up most of the bed.

"Stretch out your arm under the pillow," she said, and pulled my arm out so it would extend to the edge of the bed. She lay back down and nestled herself up against me in a cuddling position, resting her head on my shoulder. She curled her leg up on top of mine and flopped her hand on my chest.

"Better?" she asked.

It really was a lot more comfortable.

"Yes dear," I said with a smirk on my lips and in my voice.

She flicked my nose lightly with her finger and snuggled in close.

She was cold still, but soft against me. I put my other arm around her.

After a minute I could feel her start to relax, and so did I.

"You're warm," she said sleepily.

I just nodded. Anna had constantly complained I made her sweat when she'd sleep next to me in her dorm or mine. She was drunk or hungover half the time though.

We fell asleep pretty quickly after that.

The next night, when we slept in a much larger hotel room, with a much larger queen sized bed, she curled up and cuddled with me at bedtime too. Neither of us said anything about it.

Or the next night.

Then we stopped asking for separate beds.

Still no sex though, neither of us even made a move. I think who ever had probably would have been successful, but I was gun shy.

I don't know what her reason was.

#

We spent a few days in Denmark, which was pretty cool; neat castles, then took a train to Budapest We shared a bed in the sleeper car too, that was easily smaller than the hotel in Germany had been, neither of us minded. I know I didn't.

I don't know if it was the nightly cuddling, or just weeks with no one else to talk to but each other, but we became about as intimate of friends you can be without becoming lovers. We shared food, which is a normal friend thing, but usually not feeding bites to each other; Abby loved to feed me bites of whatever she was eating with her fingers. We would huddle when it was cold; she would snuggle up and slip her arms up inside my jacket, or I would put my arms around her from behind and hold her back up against my chest with my arms draped over her shoulders or around her stomach and up against the bottom of her breasts. We touched more, held hands often, and pretty much did everything lovers do besides kiss and have sex. It was a strange place, but also a comfortable one. She really was my best friend and I loved all the time we were spending together. We flirted too, but we'd always flirted lightly. She started responding more to my flirts though, giggling like a school girl, which was uncharacteristic of her normal behavior. It was fun, so I did it with increasing frequency.

When we got to the Mediterranean we figured out that we'd be able to celebrate my birthday on a beach, just as we'd been doing for years, and that was a pretty neat idea. We'd been on the road for four weeks, and I'd be lying if I said travel fatigue wasn't setting in. I was thinking two weeks of moving along the med, then flying out from Spain after a couple of days in Barcelona.

We had my birthday dinner in a little place right on the beach in Greece, and watched the sunset over the Aegean sea. We had little candles on our table sheltered from the very slight breeze in glass bowls, and the oldest named sea in recorded western history spread out before us; playing the reds and purples of the sky against the waves. The sound of the surf mingled with the sounds of the restaurant's other patrons and staff.

Abby was looking out over the sea, thoughtfully leaned back in her chair. She was wearing the little black dress she'd brought for when we'd hit the occasional night club; which we'd done a few times in London, Paris, and Copenhagen. She looked amazing. Her tan had deepened and the frequent sun had brought out some red highlights in her auburn hair. It was a little dark out, but I stared at her eyes and knew there would be flecks of green and gold. Her eyes were more green than hazel, but sometimes you could find gold in them.

"I should have brought a camera," she said with a wistful sigh.

"I don't need one," I said softly.

She looked back at me and bit her lower lip as the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile. She leaned forward on the table and gave me a fantastic display of her cleavage, which I'm positive was intentional. "Jack Wallington, are you coming onto me?" she said with a playful, yet sultry lilt to her voice. We were flirting a lot heavier these days.

I just smiled and didn't bite on the playful tone. I shook my head, "No. Just saying I don't need a camera to remember this," I said simply.

She studying my face for a minute and I held her gaze unwavering. I wasn't afraid of girls anymore. Not this one anyway.

She broke away first and blushed, "God, I can never tell when you're teasing me or not anymore," she said in a very girlish display of embarrassed uncertainty, but also of playful delight.

I just kept smiling.

She looked back out of her corner of her eye, I was still making eye contact with her. She looked away again and blushed deeper, she hid her face in her hands and giggled, "Stop!" she protested in embarrassment.

"What?" I said softly.

"Looking at me like that," she bit her lip again.

"Like what?" I said evenly, not changing my expression.

"That," she said softly, "All sexy and self confident. Like you know a secret about me,"

I twisted my lips into a half smirk.

She hid her face again and then was saved further torment by the waiter coming up with our food.

We ate in silence, I caught her eyes as the waiter came back a little to pour us each more wine. Her eyes sparkled; literally fucking sparkled. It was probably the flickering candles on the table.

We returned to our normal chatting over the rest of dinner but the eye contact was intense. We only had the single bottle of wine, because it was expensive and we were still on a budget. She'd wanted another, but I waved off, saying I wanted to be able walk back to our room upright.

Which we did, arm in arm.

She sighed, "Dammit," as we approached the hotel.

I looked down at her, she was frowning, I thought she might have forgot something, so I glanced back in the direction of the restaurant

"What?" I asked.

She sighed again, "This... This isn't supposed to be happening."

"What's not?" I asked, looking around to see if I was missing something.

She turned and looked up at me, she was clearly troubled, it wasn't a fake flirty look. I began to get honestly concerned.

"I'm... I'm not supposed to be falling for you," she blurted out.

Erm?

"Huh?"

Yeah, sometimes that's all you got.

"It was never going to be me. I knew that right from the start. It was going to be Beth, or Kimmy. I knew never Anna, but never me either. I was never going to fall for you, and I never did! All the way through eight years of school, I was always fine with whoever you were with, I never wanted to be anything but friends with you," she said.

"Abby, we're not... it was just flirting earlier, I didn't..." I started to say.

"I know! Dammit, don't you think I don't know that?! But fuck, here we are, it's so fucking stupidly romantic, and your so stupidly fucking sexy and amazing. Here I am wondering how I am going to get through another night next to you without having the most wild kind of passionate sex either of could possibly imagine, thinking it could only be topped by just..."

I shut her up.

I wrapped my arms right around her and kissed Abby for the first time.

The world stopped. The Moon and The Sun and The Stars swirled around us, and this moment was hung on - well, you know.

She wrapped her arms around my neck and I held her up against me by her slender waist, and we collided like heavenly bodies drawn together at the speed of light.

James. Motherfucking. Bond.