Page 47 of The Cheerleader is Off Limits

And we got along so well, I had no reason to end it.

But I needed to end it.

There was no way I could continue a relationship with him while I was in high school.

That night, the room was dark except for the bit of the moonlight streaming through his curtains and cutting across the foot of the bed. River’s arm is draped over my waist, andI can hear his breathing slowing as he drifts off to sleep. The only thing making me think he’s not completely asleep yet is the way his thumb moved gently across my naked torso every few moments.

This is the time to tell him.

While it’s quiet and still and the tension from our intimacy still lingers.

Tell him.

Not yet. One more night.

Tomorrow.

His arm tightens around my waist. "You, okay?” he asks, his voice raspy, like he’d been close to sleep.

"Yeah."

He kisses the back of my shoulder, and I want to melt. “You sure?”

“Just thinking about… the future,” I tell him honestly.

He’s silent for a moment before he tightens his grip around me and squeezes gently. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No… I mean, I’m okay. I just… do you ever worry about the future?”

“Pretty sure you know I do based on our first interaction.”

A faint smile finds my lips as I remember the conversation in the airport. All the more reason to tell him that things can’t go further than this. He eventually wants a serious relationship.

A wife.

Kids.

All things I’m not ready for.

“I am fuuuucked,” I tell Delaney the second I fall next to her on her bed. It was the first time in three nights that I wasn’t sleeping over at River’s place. But I started school in less than a week, and I had no idea what to do about my situation.

Delaney, who’s sitting on the floor next to her bed, painting her toenails a vibrant red, looks up at me. “I am so confused. Aren’t men at thirty-eight who fuck girls in their early twenties supposed to only be after one thing? Does he want to like… date? Even though you’re supposed to leave for college? I was under the impression this was just a fun little fling on both sides? Wasn’t he all ‘I should settle down and stop fucking around and I want kids?’” She stares at me with wide eyes before craning her neck to make an obvious show that she’s looking at my stomach. “You are too young for kids!”

“Iknow, Delaney! I am not pregnant, relax. And I think if we were to take things to a more serious level, he wouldn’t pressure me into popping them out right now. He knows I’m young.” I swallow, briefly thinking about what it would be like to have a child with him. “I just don’t want to hurt him. I like him… a lot.”

“Are you sure you don’t just like the mind-blowing sex you’ve been having with the hot older man? You sure you’re not justdickmatized?” She chuckles.

“No… I likehim. I can’t stop thinking about him. I know he’s a lot older than me, but we just click, D. And I mean okay, I know I haven’t done a lot of dating…”

“Right, and you are not in the position to make him your first official boyfriend.”

“What if I just… didn’t tell him?”

She raises an eyebrow at me before bringing her toes up, closer to her face to inspect her work. “Well, no… I’m not suggesting you tell him you’re in high school. But you do need to break it off,” she says before letting her foot back down.

“What if I just ‘came home on the weekends’?” I know how ridiculous that sounds, but I’m desperate at this point. I like this guy, and there’s no way I can keep seeing him after Monday, and I hate it. I knowingly got into this situation with an expiration date, and now I’m trying to figure out how to extend it even though it’s impossible.

“Do you know how hard it would be to keep up that ruse? He’d have questions about school, probably want to see pictures of your dorm or the campus, and as things got more serious, he’d want to come visit! Sloane, be serious. He’s already asked,” she says, followed by a deadpanned expression. “And I mean, if you like him as much as you say you do, you need to be honest with him. You can’t build a relationship based on a lie.”