I woke up the next day with Deacon lying next to me; he was still sleeping, and he looked so sweet and vulnerable. I kissed him on the forehead, and he let out a low moan and rolled over. He also pulled the covers over his head so that he wouldn’t be disturbed. I slowly climbed out of the bed in a way that wouldn’t wake him up and walked down the stairs. Sadie was already downstairs eating a bowl of cereal when I turned the corner into the kitchen. She saw me and immediately perked up.

“Would you wanna hang out together today? I was thinking maybe we should go get our nails done and what not,” she said as though she was trying to figure out what the ‘what not’ could have possibly been. She then confirmed, “I’m still trying to figure out what we can do after we go get our nails done, but we’ll figure that out when we cross that bridge.” She laughed at herself.

“You know what Sadie, I really don’t HAVE to spend the whole summer with Deacon, so why don’t we go hang out today,” I said. Shortly after, I looked at her puzzled and asked, “should we see if the other Jessie and Claire want to go with us?” Sadie’s eyes widened and she shook her head slowly. Clearly Sadie had her own plan to get me on my own and interrogate me about Deacon one-on-one.

“I think it would be best if we gave you a break from so many people, it’s kind of been hectic the last couple of days, so I think just getting pampered by ourselves should be plenty,” she said as though she had this whole excuse planned out. She then followed up with, “plus, we already talked about us taking you out for the day, and I won.” She sounded a little too happy with that statement as she grabbed her purse and tossed me the keys to my car.

We got settled in the car, put on some tunes, then backed out of the driveway. We headed towards our favorite nail salon, which wasn’t too far - only a few minutes down the road from the neighborhood. We sang along to the radio the whole way there and laughed with each other, because we hadn’t spent a whole lot of time alone together lately. Mostly because of studies and our own different work schedules, but it felt nice to be spending so much time with her again alone.

We pulled up to the salon then hopped out of the car. We walked through the door and were met with excited applause. Our friend group spent a lot of money at this salon, so they were very thankful. We also donated a lot through tips so that they could stay open, so they really like us. We sat down in our favorite seats and one of the ladies brought us mimosas to sip on while we picked out our colors. “It’s so nice to see you girls are back in town, and I heard you, of all people, are talking to someone. What a surprise! Shaking things up I see,” a girl named Mimi said from her chair across the room.

I cracked a small smile and went back to sipping on my drink. I looked over at Sadie, who, unbeknownst to me, was smirking at me the whole time. I could tell she had something to tell me, and that she had been waiting until we got to the salon and got a few sips in me before saying anything. “So,” was all she could manage before I held my hand up and stopped her.

“Now, you didn’t drag me here to get me alone to talk about Deacon, did you,” I asked, sounding a little more concerned than I had intended to.

“Actually, I wanted to play ‘Devil’s Advocate’ this time,” she rebutted. My eyebrows scrunched, making a puzzled face, because I certainly didn’t know what she had in store for me. She reached her freshly tattooed hand over to my arm - she must have had it done while Deacon took me on our derailed date. “I know you really like Deacon, but what if there’s something better out there for you? I know when you do decide to date someone, you give your whole self to them, but why don’t you keep an open mind, just in case something just as good, or better comes along,” she said reassuringly to me.

I sat there contemplating to myself about what she just brought to my attention, then the nail techs walked over to us and started on our toes, while a second set of techs came and started on our manicures. They pulled me from my thoughts and I tried to enjoy the pampering, but every once and a while when they weren’t talking to us, I kept thinking about the possibility of liking another person besides Deacon. It was a hard thing to fathom, especially since I was really falling for Deacon.

~

After a full two hours of enjoying ourselves, catching up, and of course talking about Deacon, we drove back home. The girls were nowhere to be found, but Deacon was sitting on the couch flipping through streaming apps. “Perfect, you guys are back, your mom took Jessie and Claire out to eat, so I am looking for something to watch,” he said, clearly happy that we were back. I sat next to him, and slowly sprawled out on the couch, then laid my head in his lap.

He rested his arm on my waist and we were finally able to pick out a movie to watch. It was more background noise, as Sadie wouldn’t stop talking, but after a while she looked around and saw my annoyed face. She flicked her long blonde hair behind her shoulders, stood up and walked up to her room. Deacon finally let out the breath I didn’t know that he was holding in, and sighed.

He asked me what kind of trouble I had gotten myself into today with her, then talked about how much he missed my presence throughout the day. He continued telling me sweet nothings, which made me melt into him, and I could feel myself getting flustered around him again. As I was tripping over my words trying to respond to him, he caressed my face and pulled me up to him. He went in for a sultry kiss, which caused a small moan to escape my lips.

His body reacted to the moan, and his kisses became more ferocious. I felt as though I hadn’t kissed him in ages and that it was the cure for any ailments that may have been haunting me. I never wanted the barrage of kisses to end. Once again, he pulled me into his lap and wrapped his arms around me. I could feel the strength in his arms, the urgency. Neither one of us could help ourselves at this point; our bodies began grinding into each other.

In the heat of the moment, the front door swung open. We quickly tried to separate ourselves from each other, which put me on one end of the couch and him on the other. I felt like I was back in high school, trying to hide my extracurriculars from my parents. Except this time it was my closest friends and my mom. They stopped when they got inside the door. Seeing our elevated breathing, they burst out into laughter, knowing full well what had occurred before they walked through the door.

Busted?