Will

I felt like I was living in a dream that I didn't want to wake up from. After years of hiding my feelings from Tessa, we were finally together. What amazed me was how natural it felt. When we moved into the living room to watch TV with James, she just curled into my side on the couch without thinking twice. Every once in a while, I would kiss the top of her head and revel in how right it felt.

It was after midnight when I looked down and noticed that Tessa had fallen asleep. Since the Lewis house was almost thirty minutes away, it wasn't uncommon for us to sleep at each other's houses, especially on the weekends when we knew we had to be up early the next day to train.

James turned the TV off after I told him that we should probably go to bed. I tried to wake Tess up, but that girl could sleep through the apocalypse. Instead, I scooped her up into my arms and carried her up the stairs to the guest bedroom. She had changed into some of the clothes she left here earlier, so I didn't have to worry about her sleeping in that dress she was wearing. Man, she looked good in a dress. It wasn't very often that she wore them, but when she did, my heart stopped for a second. She was beautiful and she was finally mine.

I laid her gently down on the bed and pulled the blankets up over her. Brushing a strand of hair from her face, I leaned down and kissed her forehead. I closed the door quietly and headed to my own room.

After I changed into my pajama pants, I got into bed and lay awake staring at the ceiling. I was afraid to fall asleep and wake up realizing that this was all just a dream. Instead of sleeping, like I should have because I had to be up in a few hours to go to the gym, I grabbed my copy of A Tale of Two Cities from my bedside table and turned on my reading lamp to read. I had read that book hundreds of times, but each time I did, I found something new.

When I had read a few chapters, I felt my eyes start to get heavy and knew that I needed to go to sleep. Just as I was turning my reading lamp off, I heard my door open. Tessa was peeking in the door with a hesitant look on her face as if she were waiting for permission to enter. I gave her a nod, giving her permission and she entered my room closing the door behind her. Without a word, Tessa climbed into my bed and curled into my side.

"What are you doing," I whispered into her hair as I wrapped my arms around her. She was wearing the type of clothes she would wear to the gym, a tank top and shorts, not leaving much to the imagination.

"It's weird not sleeping with you," she whispered back and snuggled deeper into my chest. She was right, though. Our entire lives, we had slept in the same bed when we spent the night at each other's houses. It wasn't weird, it was just what we did, until a few years ago when we decided we probably shouldn't do it anymore, but even then, one of us would sneak into the other's bed. It was always completely platonic, but we just needed each other to sleep, like a security blanket.

"I know." I kissed her hair and inhaled her sweet scent. "You know, we're breaking all of the rules right now and we've only been together for six hours."

"Since when do you pay attention to the rules?" She chuckled and I squeezed her side.

"Since I don't want to get in trouble and risk not being able to be alone at all or lose sleep over privileges."

"Don't worry, I'll go back to my room before your parents wake up. We have to be at the gym early anyway."

"Okay." She pushed herself up so she was resting on her elbow and she could see my face.

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No, of course, I don't want you to leave, but what if my dad comes in in the middle of the night and sees you in here? We would get in so much trouble."

"Live a little, Herondale." She rested her head back on my shoulder and I figured the discussion was over. She was staying in my room for the night and that was that.

About thirty seconds after we stopped talking, I was finally able to fall asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I reached across the bed to find it cold, so I knew Tessa must have made it out of my room before my dad came to wake me up. After I put on my gym clothes, I made my way downstairs to the kitchen where Mom was making breakfast. Tessa was sitting at the counter with her plate of eggs and bacon in front of her. I walked up to the chair next to her and kissed her temple in greeting. She smiled at me and I couldn't help but take a mental picture to save that image forever.

We quickly ate our breakfast after Mom informed us that Dad had already headed to the gym, so I was going to ride with Tessa. The drive to the gym usually took about an hour. Once we were on the road, with me driving Tessa's car after a tiny argument, I reached across the console and held her hand before lifting it to my lips and kissing the back of it.

"I take it you got out of my room okay this morning," I said glancing over to Tessa and saw he cheeks turn red. "Tessa Lewis, are you blushing?"

"No," she said lowering her head into her hands to hide her face. I had never in my life seen Tessa blush and it was adorable. "Shut up."

"Hey, don't hide from me." She turned her head so I could see her face and that beautiful smile she was wearing.

"I don't understand what's happening with me. Before last night, I was never nervous around you and I sure as hell never blushed." I ran my thumb along her knuckles.

"Well, I've always been nervous around you, but I've just been really good at hiding it." She leaned over the console and kissed my cheek.

"You're cute."

"You're not so bad yourself." That adorable smile was back and I made it my mission to make her smile as much as possible. I pulled up to the gym and turned the car off. "Okay, so we're going to just go in there and train like we normally do. It's just another day, but we happen to be dating now."

"Will, why are you freaking out all of a sudden." She cupped my cheek and ran her thumb over my cheekbone, instantly calming me.

"Your dad is in there."

"And?"

"And, he's not just Uncle Simon anymore, he's my girlfriend's dad and that is scary as shit." She busted up laughing. "Why are you laughing? It's not funny, Tess."

"Oh, honey, my dad loves you like you're his son. You have nothing to worry about." She leaned over and kissed me full on the mouth.

"Yeah, and that was before I was making out with his daughter. I'm fully expecting him to drag me into the office and give me some speech threatening to kill me if I ever hurt you, which I wouldn't, by the way." Once again, Tessa leaned over and kissed me. "Are you trying to distract me by kissing me?" She nodded and I smiled against her lips before deepening the kiss and pulling her closer to me. We were interrupted, however by my dad banging on the hood of the car, so we pulled apart abruptly and nodded indicating we would be in shortly.

I got out of the car before running around to the passenger side and opening Tessa's door for her. We interlocked our hands and I carried her bag for her, you know, normal stuff. As we entered the gym, my cousin/uncle/we're not really related, but we call him our cousin or uncle, Max eyed our hands that were entwined. I led Tessa to the girl's locker room and kissed her quickly before making my way to the other side of the gym.

"Holy shit," I heard Max say from the mats. "You two finally got together?"

Max was twenty-six and was as much a part of our family as James and I were. His dad, Hodge, had trained my dad when he first went into MMA when he was sixteen and practically saved my dad's life. Dad basically helped raise Max and he worked at the gym and trained, since he was fulfilling his dream of being a mixed martial artist. He was like our older brother and we wouldn't have gotten away with half the thing we did if it weren't for him.

"Yes, we did," I said proudly as I put my bag down on a bench and took my shoes off. "Please, don't make a big deal about this. We're still the same people here for the same reason as always. We don't need anybody making a big deal out of it."

"Yeah, you're still the same people, but you make out now, right?"

"Why do you do this to me?" He smiled as Tessa came out of the locker room ready to train. I stood when she came close and didn't miss the smirk Max threw my way.

"All right, line up, we're starting with sprints," Max said and we all lined up at one end of the mats with a groan and started sprinting to the other end.

After the sprints to warm us up, we broke off into pairs to grapple on the ground. As usual, Tessa and I paired up. If I thought anything was going to be awkward between us, it would be this. For the first time in my life, I was worried about hurting her, which was ridiculous because she was just as good as me, but this was different.

The entire time we were rolling around on the mat, something was different and I couldn't tell what it was. Neither of us was going all out and that was the problem. We didn't want to beat each other. When Max told us to take a break, I pulled Tessa off to the side.

"What was that all about," I asked her with an accusing look.

"What do you mean," she asked. She knew exactly what I meant because I was doing the same thing.

"You know exactly what I mean, Tess. Why weren't you going all out?"

"You were doing the exact same thing, Will. Why don't we make a deal not to go easy on each other? I don't know why I was doing it in the first place, I mean it's not like we ever have before."

"Exactly, so can we please go back to normal?" She reached up and kissed my cheek.

"Just know that you're going to get your ass kicked." I chuckled as we made our way back to the mats for another workout.

Before I made it to the mats, Dad poked his head out of the office and asked me to come in. I closed the door behind me and sat down in the chair in front of his desk. Glancing around the room, I recognized all of the photographs as my mom's with some of James' thrown in as well. Dad loved to display their photos all over the place.

"What's up, Dad," I asked when he didn't speak for a minute. I was starting to get nervous and worried that something was wrong.

"How did you sleep last night," he asked and I knew what was happening. He knew Tessa had slept in my bed the night before.

"Fine." I was going to try and act innocent. "How did you sleep?" Dad smirked and I immediately regretted the question. "Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to know."

"I'm not stupid, Will. I checked on you all last night, so I know Tessa slept in your bed."

"We didn't do anything, I swear." I changed my tactic to defensiveness.

"I know, don't worry. I'm not going to tell your mother, but it can't happen again. I know that you're young and Tessa is your girlfriend, which we are so happy about. I think we have been more than gracious with the rules, but we could just as easily not let you sleep at each other's houses."

"Okay, I promise it won't happen again." Dad nodded agreeing that it wouldn't and dismissed me.

As I walked back out to the main floor, I couldn't help but think how much everything had changed in the past twenty-four hours. I had a girlfriend, who was also my best friend. Everything had changed, but it was for the better.

Thanks for reading! I hope you're enjoying the story! Let me know what you think and leave a review! :)