Leakage: A Friends-to-Lovers Romance

by Harley, Karen

  She slowed her thrusts, focused on keeping tune with his orgasm. As long as he was coming, it was easy and instinctive. But when it was over and he pulled away, staring at her with a stunned expression, she realized his shock was a hundred percent mutual.

  What have I done?

  She sprang out of bed, ran to the bathroom, and frantically started washing her hands with about half a cup of soap. She had never done anything like that in her life. Not that he'd believe her. He already thought she was basically a slut. Now he probably thought she was some kind of actual professional—

  "Sara." He appeared in the doorway.

  Panic time. He was about to start lecturing her. She turned to him beseechingly. "Harrison, I'm so sorry. That was so inappropriate. I know you won't believe me, but I didn't even know I knew how to do that. I mean I've read all the sex manuals and I do work at an MT's, and some things you can't avoid learning, I mean with all the charts and books and stuff, but it never even occurred to me to actually try anything like that out with a guy, ever, I swear it, but there you were and I was touching you and you liked it so much and I just wanted to see what would happen if I—"

  She paused to take a breath.

  And saw that he was looking at her as if she'd gone crazy again.

  Best to just shut up. And try not to cry. It had been going so well until she'd pushed it too far, as usual….

  "Sara, are you saying you've never given a guy a blow job before?"

  "What? No. Of course not. I've given lots of guys blow jobs. I have lots of experience. Did it seem like I—"

  He rolled his eyes. "Thanks, that's enough, I don't want to know any more."

  "No, I mean—it's not like I go around blowing a new guy every—actually, there haven't been that many—damn you, Harrison, are you being this way on purpose?"

  "You're the one having a cow. I'm just trying to figure out why."

  "Because you already think I'm slutty. And then I go and—I put my—I put it up your—"

  His eyes widened. Mouth parted. "You mean when you put your finger up my ass. Yeah, that was pretty intense." He flushed. "It was a first for me, too. Nobody's ever—uh, yeah."

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it."

  "Why not? Oh." He looked at her hands, with water still running over them. Quickly she turned off the tap and dried her hands. "Yeah, it's not exactly a sanitary thing, is it? There are ways around that, though. I mean, people do it all the time."

  "Harrison, do you mean to tell me you're not even a little shocked by what I did?"

  "Oh, well, yeah, I'm shocked. It just wasn't something I was expecting." He searched her eyes. "What did you mean about my thinking you're slutty?"

  "Well, you do, don't you?" She walked out of the room and plopped down on the sofa.

  "I do not think you're slutty," he said clearly, trailing her after another beat. "You're indiscriminate. That's not the same thing."

  "You think I sleep with every guy I go with!" she accused.

  He started to reply, then stopped. "You don't?"

  "Do you sleep with every girl you go with?" she said exasperatedly.

  "Of course n—" He frowned. "Uh…"

  She harrumphed. "Well, I don't. Just a number of them," she allowed.

  He sighed. "Look. I don't care. I really don't. Not about sluttishness. Like you said, it's not like I abstain, either. I assume we all have our fair share of sex. Jasmine has her guys. And Matt's, uh—"

  "Matt," she completed.

  "Yeah. As long as you take reasonable care not to catch anything nasty, it's fine with me."

  "I always use a condom and I'm totally free of STDs," she assured him.

  "Yeah, well, me, too. I just…don't think it's good for you emotionally to go from one guy to another. And you don't, either," he reminded her.

  "That's true." She paused.

  In the silence that followed, she refrained from saying what was uppermost in her mind. If you don't want me going from guy to guy, then that means you want me to stay with one guy. Well, who should be that guy?

  You?

  But she didn't say it, and he didn't bring it up. So it was obviously not in his mind.

  "You know what I need?" He answered himself. "A drink."

  "You know where it is," she said.

  Their easiness with each other seemed to have disappeared, Sara thought dismally. She tensed, listening to his sounds as he busied himself in the kitchen, hearing him say something to Pencil.

  She slumped in the cushions with her arms wrapped around her legs. A dash of movement warned her before Pencil leaped onto the sofa and straight onto her lap. She looked up, a little startled, when Harrison pushed a glass into her hand. "For me?"

  "Water," he said gruffly, hovering over her with his own glass.

  "Thanks. You want to sit down?"

  "No. Sara, it's almost midnight."

  Sara almost choked on her water. She stared up at him, wide-eyed.

  "Yeah." His expression was grim. "I almost wish I hadn't looked at the clock."

  Sara felt a leap of hope. "So I guess…it's over."

  "Mm-hm."

  Something in the way he said that made her ask carefully, "Do you think we'll be able to go back to normal tomorrow?"

  "We'll have to." His voice was determined. "If we don't, the Challenge is over. We're to stop it if it starts to affect our friendship, remember?"

  "I do remember."

  "But it's not midnight yet." He took her glass and his, set them down, sat down next to her and put his hand on the back of her head.

  As Pencil wagged his tail approvingly, Harrison kissed Sara sweetly, again and again and again.

  POST-COITUM—SARA AND HARRISON

  Pencil was almost frantic the next morning, pulling on the lead like a puppy as Sara went down the stairs. She couldn't blame him. He'd been locked in the kitchen last night, then this morning, he'd practically had to pry her out of bed. Guiltily, she decided to give him a long walk, even though it was the last thing she felt like doing.

  At the bottom flight, she heard the door open on the third floor. She paused. Pencil yelped in protest. Looked up the two flights to see Harrison walking around the banister, his swimming gear on his shoulder. He glanced down, saw her, and stopped.

  If we don't go back to normal, the Challenge is over.

  Normal you want? Normal you got, my friend.

  She raised her hand and turned it into one of her big waves. "Morning'!"

  Slowly, he raised his own hand and called down, "Hey."

  And that was it.

  "Come on, Pencil," she said heartily. "We're going all the way around today. It's such a sunny morning, even if it is shivery cold."

  And she bustled out and started the day.

  POST-COITUM—JASMINE AND MATT

  Jasmine woke up in her bed Saturday morning with the strange sense of being alive and dead. Her dreams had been filled with tigers and babies. Nightmares. She lay in bed for a while, thinking about it.

  The Challenge.

  Matt.

  Somehow she was going to have to see him again. Without seeing him again.

  She stirred. A piece of paper crinkled next to her.

  The printout. She'd taken it into bed with her and read it in its entirety last night. Thus the nightmares. Reading it alone in the dead of the night had been a mistake.

  She picked it up again now.

  I met you today.

  We were tigers. The cubs pranced around you, but something told them you wouldn't give them the milk. Maybe the way you tore at the ground, your claws sinking into the heart of the earth.

  The mountain we were on was below the clouds. We shouldn't have been able to live there. Too cold for you. Too rocky for me. I kept slipping.

  The cubs went for your teats; they were hungry. Now you were tired; now you lay, heaving on your side, almost ice.

  You had no choice. My claws were in your back. You turned. They suckled.

  The
first day.

  Why had he written it?

  Why had he given it to her?

  It was beautiful and scary and threatening all at once. She'd had no idea he wrote things like that.

  Well, it didn't matter. It was over.

  Matt, the lover, had given her that.

  But Matt, the lover, was gone.

  They'd gotten through the first day of the Challenge. Now it was business as usual.

  She'd probably see him today, casually. Well, good. She wanted to see him. He was her friend. Of course she wanted to see her friends.

  When she could finally get her leaden limbs to obey her, she put on her Tai Chi clothes with a double layer of socks, boots, and a parka. Her breath puffed out in condensation clouds as she strolled down the hill to Green Lake Park and along the path to her favorite spot for practicing the short form. The wind was strong enough to blow her hair across her eyes, and she could barely see across the small lake in the late-dawning light.

  She headed for the grassy slope down past the playhouse. Even with the wind shield provided by the trees, the set was challenging in the bone-penetrating cold. Especially today. But she needed it.

  She saw him coming around the path as she was moving from Single Whip to Cloud Hands. No surprise here, she told herself. They all went to Green Lake, Matt most frequently of all. He was wearing a wool hat and a scarf in addition to the usual sweats.

  Though she didn't think he saw her down by the water's edge, he waved as he passed, then kept running the lap without stopping.

  Good.

  She moved through the second half of the set with extra focus, but still almost twisted her ankle on a clump of grass at Snake Creeps Through the Grass.

  She had just closed the set and was headed up to the path when she saw Matt again, rounding a thick wall of trees.

  This time he slowed down. Naturally. The end of his run.

  They met right as she hit the path.

  "Cold?" He puffed into his hands, easing to a brisk walk.

  She shrugged and picked up her pace to keep up as they continued together down the path. "Not too bad. What about you?"

  "Oh, yeah, I'm cold. You want to warm me up?"

  Jasmine halted.

  "What's wrong?" he asked innocently, turning back and trotting in place.

  She searched his face.

  There was nothing on it to show that last night had happened. No intimacy. Not even any special blankness. Just casual nonchalance. Same old, same old.

  He wasn't talking to the woman he'd taken to bed last night. He was talking to Jasmine, cool, unapproachable, well-defended Jasmine.

  He was flirting. Just business as usual.

  He was the same old Matt.

  Thank God.

  A breath of pure relief expelled from her mouth.

  She started walking again and gave an ostentatious yawn. "When hell freezes over, Matt."

  He gestured widely. "Here we are, sweetheart. Look around."

  Sweetheart. He'd never called her that before last night. Her step broke for a moment. Did he mean…?

  Then he turned to her, walking backwards, quirking one brow. "Hey. Did I ever tell you your Cloud Hands is pathetic? You wave your arms all over like a witch from Macbeth." He mimicked the motion.

  She let out a deep breath. "Really? And since when did you become a Tai Chi expert?"

  "Since I watched you screw it up and decided to find out how it's really done."

  She tossed her head. "I'll believe it when I see it. The day you spend hours at a time doing the same set over and over is the day I take up jogging. You are not designed for perseverance, Matt."

  The repartee continued as they covered the rest of the distance.

  "There's Sara and Pencil. You go on ahead, Jas." Matt lagged behind. "I'm stopping for coffee."

  She saw her roommate rounding a path in the other direction. The women waved to each other. "Okay. See you later."

  "Later," Matt called. He was already halfway across the street.

  Jasmine headed across the street at a different angle back toward the apartment building. The damp, cold air blew through her clothes, penetrating each layer, and she was shivering by the time she swung open the outer door.

  Back in the apartment, Jasmine showered, got dressed, and gathered up everything she'd need for work. Her parents were coming back home from vacation today. Soon she wouldn't need to work the long hours and extra days if she didn't want to.

  Then again, she might do it anyway. Something told her the relief she was now feeling was temporary.

  Yes. Best to keep going at this pace. Otherwise, the courage driving her forward would falter and run out of steam long before next Friday.

  Next Challenge night. With Harrison instead of Matt.

  And Matt would be with Sara.

  Her mind skipped over that uneasily.

  Work. Focus on work.

  The cold he felt after parting from Jasmine was more than physical. Even so, once he'd waited in line inside the busy coffee shop for a few minutes, the heated air and the smell of coffee thawed Matt sufficiently that he stopped shivering and loosened his scarf. His hands were still cold, though, now that the blood-pumping effects of the run were gone.

  "One soy mocha coming up." The barista with the confetti-sparkling glasses spotted Matt as she turned to fill the order in front of him. "Let me guess," she said to him cheerfully, using the shorthand she reserved for long-time regulars. "Venti drip, no sleeve."

  "Thanks, Tina." Matt took off his hat and swirled it around his hands to warm them.

  The petite blonde waiting at the counter for her mocha turned her head and smiled at him. "Brr, huh?" she said.

  Thirtyish, he thought. She was vaguely familiar, holding a bicycle helmet. It took a split second for him to sort through his mental files and establish that he hadn't already fucked/dated/met her.

  "Isn't it, though?" He gave her the ready, wandering smile that said he wasn't available. She took the message without heat, letting her eyes linger long enough to convey well, maybe another time before her focus returned to the barista preparing her beverage.

  So easy to communicate with strangers, he thought ironically. Say little, risk less. First guesses usually sufficed to figure out what was meant, and there was little danger in second guessing or wild imaginings. Nobody was hurt.

  Unlike in love and friendship, slips of the tongue didn't cause leakage and the need for a fast recovery.

  Sweetheart.

  Yeah, the run had made him sloppy.

  Strangers already had walls set up; they didn't need to make them stronger with personal remarks.

  You are not designed for perseverance, Matt.

  Or cause slashing wounds.

  If only you knew, Jas.

  If a miscommunication did occur with a stranger—if you got served an espresso, say—the gamble was small, the loss minor. Also low risk to burn your bridges with a girl unlikely ever to chase away the cold for longer than a night, like the blonde.

  Fuck a woman you want like air, though, and the stakes got ridiculously high.

  He could still see the fear in Jasmine's eyes. That inevitably stopped him when nothing else would. But she'd consented to the Challenge. He'd managed—barely—to soothe her fears, both last night and now this morning. He just might have another chance if he played things right.

  Sara, you were positively inspired that night, you beautiful girl.

  Except for one small detail. What happens next Friday when I'm supposed to take you to bed and neither one of us is into it?

  Sara hadn't said anything to him about what she wanted out of the Challenge, but Sara was transparent to him, even when she tried to be duplicitous. She couldn't hide her thoughts half as well as Jasmine.

  Jasmine, who'd flee the moment he asked for a change of terms or to stop the Challenge. But if he didn't…shit. She'd go to bed with Harrison.

  Don't think about it. One day at a time.

 
; "Grande mocha for you," said the barista to the blonde, who chirped, "Thanks so much!" and shot one more flirtatious smile at Matt before she left.

  "And one venti black drip for you," the barista continued with a wink at Matt that was devoid of any real flirtation. He'd chatted with her before on the slow, rainy days. She had two degrees, three kids, and a husband who was chronically sick.

  Sorry your job sucks, Tina. "Perfect, thanks."

  The wool hat and scarf did a better job of letting his sweat evaporate in the moist Seattle air than of providing insulation. They were especially inferior weapons on days like today. Today, when the extreme wet, cold blows of the Pacific Northwest cut through all his clothing layers as he strolled across the street, wrapping his hands around the hot cup. The warmth emanating from his hands failed to penetrate deep inside, where the winter never really melted.

  Except last night. With Jasmine. Letting her leave had hurt bad.

  Casual encounters were easy for Matt. It was easy to read people. Easy to convey what he wanted. Easy to get it.

  But when it came to Jasmine, nothing was casual.

  She was so damn scared of him. And justified in being so. The second she gave him permission, he'd take her. And her dragons would become his. But then his would become hers, too.

  So she was right to be scared.

  EPISODE 3

  SECOND FRIDAY—SARA AND MATT

  It had rained all Friday. Not just the usual light, steady rain Seattle was famous for, but a real windy downpour, leaving large puddles and garbage cans knocked over.

  Maybe that's why the four people who met on the third-floor landing that night in the Green Lake apartment building were not the brightest of bunnies.

  "At least it's warmed up after the storm," Sara remarked, crossing her arms over her chest. She caught Harrison's gaze. That was a mistake. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. She smiled weakly, reading his mind.

  Here we are again. Week two of the Challenge.

  Friday, 8:00.

  Zero hour.

  It was extra awkward because they had barely seen each other all week. Sara didn't know whether to put that down to being busy or if they were all actively trying to avoid each other. For her part, she'd been in a strange state, filled with hope, dread, and anticipation.