I undid each of the buttons on his shirt, as quickly as my fingers could manage. I gave up after three buttons, and decided to just rip it open, never taking my lips off of his. One of his hands had a tight grasp on my hip, and the other was slithering up my back under my shirt.

I couldn't tell how long we had been here, minutes or hours. His tongue down my throat, my legs on either side of his torso, our bodies pressed together. The position was so familiar, we had been here a thousand times before.

Suddenly, he had stopped kissing me. In fact, he was pulling away from me. And then, he pushed me off of him.

"No," he said, deep in thought. "No, we can't do this."

"I'm sorry?"

He looked at me, his head tilted to the side.

He leaned in and kissed me. But not like before. This one was short, and closed-mouthed, and he pulled away almost as quickly as he had come on.

"I'm not having sex with you again."

"And why not?"

"I'm taking you on a date first."

I choked on my saliva. I couldn't imagine Carson being the "date" type. In fact, he isn't really the "boyfriend" type either, yet here we are having feelings for each other.

"You're being serious?"

He nodded his head, "If we just sleep together now, it's just as meaningless as it was a few weeks ago. You mean more to me than just sex, Madeline."

"Carson, I don't need-"

"I'd do anything if it was for you."

"But I don't need to be taken on dates. You're enough."

He stared at me in silence. I sighed, but flipped myself around so that I was laying between his legs, leaning back against him. His arms came around me, settling in my lap.

"A date?" I asked.

"A date," He repeated.

"A date?"

"You're really ruining this for me right now."

"When?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Where?"

"You'll find out."

I started playing with his fingers absentmindedly, thinking about this 'date' and how absolutely terrifying it sounded.

"Does it have to be our first date, though?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, what?"

I rolled my eyes, "First dates are so boring and awkward. And then it's like 'oh should I kiss him?' and 'oh, did he like me?' I don't want to go on a first date."

"So, what do you suppose we do?"

"We can just pretend we went on our first date already, duh."

"Oh yeah?" He laughed. "Okay, what did we do on our first date?"

I looked up at him, studying the way his face looked from his angle. God must've been proud of himself when he sculpted out that jawline. And then there were his eyelashes, so thick and long, and such a waste on him. The fluttered all innocent over his bright green eyes that pierced into you if you looked for too long. Eventually, I managed to get back to his question, thinking about it for a moment before responding:

"Well, you came to pick me up at 6."

"We're living in the same house, idiot," He responded.

"Okay, whatever, I met you at your car at 6."

"And then I complimented what you were wearing and opened the car door for you, like the charming, chivalrous man I am."

"Right, and then we went to this really nice Italian restaurant and had a waiter named Beau," I continued.

"Yes, and we had the Chicken-"

"No, you moron, we shared a plate of spaghetti, so we could live out our Lady and the Tramp fantasy."

"Yeah, but I'm not a big fan of spaghett-"

"We had the spaghetti," I interrupted him. "Anyways, you held my hand on the table for the entire dinner while we talked about how our days were."

"And of course, when the check came, I insisted on paying it."

"Mhm, and I of course said 'No, let me pay half' and we argued about it for a few moments before I let you pick it up, which was really my plan all along."

"Yes, yes, and after dinner, we went for ice cream."

"Ooh, what flavors did we get?"

"Well, I got the chocolate fudge brownie," He replied.

"And, I got the Strawberry-"

"Wow, basic," He said, yawning.

"It's a good thing you didn't say that to me on the date, otherwise I wouldn't have agreed to a second one."

"Oh, we're going on a second date?"

"Yes, you asked me if I wanted to when you dropped me off at home later that night."

"Did I kiss you goodnight?" He asked, his tone going softer, and his hands finding their way to my face.

"Well, of course you did. You've been wanting to kiss me all night."

"Was it a good kiss?"

"Oh, the best."

"Well, I had such a great time on our date. I can't wait to see you again," Carson said.

"I know. And I'm so glad we got the first one out of the way."

I felt him laugh as a smile spread across his face. I turned around again, eagerly, placing my hands on his shoulders.

"So, now that we've been on our first date, can you fuck me?"

He rolled his eyes and laughed as he leaned in, pressing our mouths together. I started kissing him back, excitedly, playing with the hem of his shirt, ready to tug it off. He rested his hand over mine, and pulled away.

"No," He responded, placing a final kiss on my forehead. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight?"

"It's almost 4 in the morning, babe."

"Oh." I made a face, as he picked me up off of his lap, and placed me on the bed next to him.

He tossed off his shirt, and flicked off the nightstand lamp, making the room go dark. I remained frozen sitting up in the bed.

"Maddie?"

"I still can't believe you said no to sex. With me."

"God, and you say I'm an egomaniac."

"Please? I'll even beg for it, if you want. You love that."

He groaned and rolled off the mattress, "Since you can't behave yourself-"

"Oh, yes, I like where this is going," I smiled.

"I'm gonna go sleep in your room," he finished.

"Not the answer I was hoping for," I frowned. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down on the bed with me.

I placed my hands on either side of his face, "Please stay. I'll be good, I'll go to sleep, I promise. I won't even try to suck you off while you're trying to sleep."

He shook his head, but the smirk was still on his face. He pulled me down to the pillow with him and brought me into his chest.

"Goodnight, Maddie."

"Goodnight, cock block."

* * *

"Carson, how am I supposed to get dressed later tonight if you won't tell me where it is we're going?"

This conversation had been going on for a large part of the early afternoon. You see, I like to look good, sorry if that's a crime. And in order for me to look good, I need to know what occasion I'm dressing for.

Anyways, whatever Carson had planned, he wanted to keep as this big "surprise" which honestly terrified me even more. I'm not big on surprises.

He shrugged, "It's not that serious, just wear anything."

"I've literally never wanted to punch you more."

"You're being a brat, and I don't really have time to deal with you right now, so get out of my room."

"But what do I wear?" I whined.

He shrugged, "Something... warm. Bring layers."

"Carson, it's 80 degrees outside."

He shrugged his shoulders, but refused to give any further explanation.

"I gotta go now, but I'll see you later," He said, making his way to me to kiss my cheek before exiting the room.

As soon as I heard the front door open and close, I allowed myself to fall back on his bed. I stared up at the ceiling like the main character in all those cliché coming of age movies after the girl goes through something tragic or has to contemplate a big decision. Honestly, this was kind of a therapeutic position; I should give those movies more credit.

Anyways, now that Carson wasn't around, I could free the teeny tiny part inside of me that was panicking. The last real relationship I had was Freshman year, and that went to shit. The summer before Sophomore year was not something I'd like to make a repeat of, and that's what absolutely terrified me.

Commitment. Commitment terrified me.

I'm not sure how long I spent in this position, lying on my back staring up at the ceiling; I just noticed the room gradually growing darker. Even with all my efforts to calm myself, by listing everything out that could go wrong to prepare myself in case they did, my nerves were still really hyped.

I closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths, trying to console myself by reminding myself that it was just Carson, because I knew that if I was with him, I would never get hurt.

"Please tell me you have not been lying there since I left," I heard a voice, a very unamused voice, coming from the door. Although I didn't need to in order to know who it was, I opened one eye to find Carson standing the doorway, leaning his weight against the frame.

"Okay," I responded. "I will not tell you I've been laying here since you left."

"You're not even dressed!" He exclaimed, walking over to me.

"You said I could go in anything. Technically, this is anything."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, "God, why do I tolerate you?"

I smiled up at him deviously, "Because you looooove me."

"Yeah, I'm starting to reconsider that one," He responded rolling his eyes. I stuck my tongue out at him as he gave me his hands to help me up.

"Go get dressed," He said. "I'll meet you downstairs."

"Why not out at the car?"

"I can't repeat what we did on our first date! Plus, now that this is getting serious, I should probably come in and meet your parents."

I laughed as Carson shooed me out of his room so that he could get changed into "something warmer" as well.

In my own room, I pulled on a pair of mom jeans (that make my butt look really good) and layered a sweater over a black turtleneck. Since I was already starting to sweat, I decided to wait to put on the coat and other winter garments until we got to our location.

Growing sick of his impatient calls for me to hurry up from down the stairs, I finally joined him. He stood near the door, quite bundled up himself.

He looked up, "You ready?"

"Yeah. Yeah I am."

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