Between the Boys (The Basin Lake Series Book 1)

by Stephanie Vercier

  “Hey, Garrett,” I say, having to leave a voicemail. “I wanted to let you know that I’m in Spokane. Grandma has been sick, but she’s finally feeling better, so I don’t know if you can get away, but if you can, maybe we can see each other before I fly back?”

  I haven’t even finished leaving my message when he’s calling me back.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Sorry, just missed your call. How are you?”

  I repeat everything I’d said on my voicemail and wait for his response.

  “How long have you been here?” he asks.

  “Since Monday evening.”

  “Monday?” It’s now Thursday, and I get why he’d feel miffed.

  “I’m sorry, Garrett. I just didn’t want to pull you away from practice until I knew what was going to happen.”

  “So, is she doing better now? Or worse?”

  “Better,” I say.

  “I would have been there for you.” I can tell by the firm sound of his voice that he’s not happy. “I should be with you when stuff like this happens.”

  “I know… I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll drive up now. I can skip practice. My coach will understand.”

  “Garrett, you don’t have to.” I’m gripped by a sudden panic that as soon as I see him, he’ll magically know that Evan kissed me at the airport, that Evan and I cuddled practically naked one night, and then he’ll realize I’m harboring feelings for Evan that, if known, would devastate him.

  “I know I don’t have to,” Garrett says, “but I’m going to.”

  “Of course. Thank you.” Accepting that he won’t take no for an answer, I rattle off Grandma’s room number and tell him to text me if he gets lost.

  I let everyone know that he’s coming, and waiting for him is almost as nerve wracking as the last few days worrying about Grandma have been. But when Garrett arrives, when he walks through the door of my Grandma’s room in his jeans, button up plaid shirt and boots, I actually feel relief. No matter what’s going on with my feelings for Evan, Garrett is still my beloved friend, and it’s great seeing him again.

  “Hey, baby,” he says, pulling me into his embrace and kissing my forehead.

  I mumble some kind of greeting and let myself fall into the comfort of his arms. I take in the now familiar smell of his soap while I lean into his strong, muscular body.

  “It was nice of you to drive up,” Mom says. When I let go of him, she’s the next to hug him, followed by Claire and Kate who’ve both been entertaining themselves on their phones in the corner of the hospital room. The hug Kate offers him is a lingering one. She still has such a giant crush on him, and I knew if she had to pick between him and Evan, there’d be no contest.

  “Is that Garrett Hevener?” Grandma asks, halfway through her hospital meal and watching the local news.

  “Hi Mrs. Stevens,” he says to Grandma, my mom’s last name before she married my dad. “Sounds like you’re feeling better?”

  “I am,” Grandma says, taking his hand and patting it. “Paige showed me those pictures of you two at prom again. Such a handsome couple.”

  I swallow hard, hoping she won’t betray the fact that I had to scroll through pictures of Evan to get to them.

  “Thanks,” he says, and then turns to look at me. “Your granddaughter will always be the prettiest girl I’ll ever know.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Kate has yet to return to the alcove with Claire, and she looks positively bemused by what he’s just said.

  “She always has been,” Grandma says, “but you boys didn’t see it until that Mike fellow managed to snag her. Now, where is Evan?” She twists around in her bed, as if looking for him. “Shouldn’t he be here too?”

  Garrett’s smile fades into a frown at the mention of Evan, and Kate saunters off toward Claire.

  “He’s back at school in North Carolina,” I say, rushing in. “He had a big test the other day, but he sends his love.”

  Garrett looks at me with suspicion, like why should I know Evan had a big test, and am I still so close to him that I’ll deliver a message that he sends his love to my grandmother?

  “Well, that’s sweet of him,” Grandma says. “I think I might take a nap soon, boys and girls. Why don’t you all go do something more exciting for a little while?”

  “Are you sure?” Mom asks her. “We could play some cards if you’d like.”

  “No, no, I’ll catch up on my shows and maybe take a nap, if that’s all right?”

  “Of course,” Mom says.

  Mom, the girls and I all kiss Grandma goodbye while Garrett is more comfortable in shaking her hand. We disperse out of the room, and Mom offers to take all of us to dinner. Kate looks absolutely enthralled at the idea of dining with Garrett, but he declines the offer.

  “I’d really like to take Paige out on my own if there aren’t any objections?”

  I look to Mom. “Do you need me for anything?” Part of me wants to stay within the confines of my family so as not to allow for anything too intimate between Garrett and I, but the other part of me owes him some alone time.

  “No, it’s all right,” Mom says, putting her arm around Claire. Kate stands by, sulking. “Just keep me posted on what you’re up to, but go and have some fun. You’ve earned it.”

  Garrett can’t get me out of the hospital quickly enough, helping me into the cab of his truck and driving us toward a diner downtown that he’d been to with his parents. “I wish you would have told me sooner. I would have been here for you.”

  “I’ll know for next time,” hoping, of course, that nobody will be in the hospital again for a very long while.

  “Please do.” He sighs and puts an arm around me, pulling me as close to him as my seat belt will allow.

  I’m a ball of anxiety when we sit down for dinner, but as time passes, I relax more, and our conversation comes easier. He tells me football camp is going at full speed and lets it slip that his coach wasn’t as understanding about him taking a day or two off as he’d led me to believe. I encourage him to get back as soon as he can, but he insists he misspoke and then asks about life in Well’s Creek.

  There is something in Garrett’s eyes, the way his brows lift ever so slightly and perhaps the tightness of his lips, that tells me he wants to know everything except anything to do with Evan, and so I steer clear. It’s tragic really, that best friends shouldn’t want to know what’s going on with the other’s life, but it’s a new reality that I’ve come to accept, at least for now.

  When I’m done telling Garrett about Natalie, my classes, the finals I’m preparing for, the job I’ve got at Appalachian Roasters, and the humidity down South, there doesn’t seem a lot left to say unless I want to disclose that I’m living with Evan.

  “It’s so nice being with you again,” Garrett says after we’ve finished our meal. “Do you think your mom would be upset with me if we got a hotel tonight?”

  I swallow hard. I’d planned to spend my last night here with Mom and the girls at one of Mom’s old friend’s house in Spokane, but I’d prepared for the possibility Garrett might bring up spending the night together, deciding I’d say yes, deciding I should at least try to be in the same bed with him and see how it would feel.

  “I think she’d be okay with that,” I say, “but I’ll have to call her of course and let her know.”

  “I understand,” Garrett says, “and no pressure. I just want to talk is all.”

  The nervous energy I can almost feel reverberating off of him says otherwise.

  I watch Garrett counting out twenty-dollar bills in the hotel lobby, paying for a room that I think is several levels above what he can safely afford. I pull out my own wallet, offering to help, but he shakes his head, refusing to take a dime. After checking in, he takes my hand, and a middle-aged woman practically beams at us in the elevator.

  “Such a nice looking couple,” she says to us as we get off on our floor and head toward our room.

  Mom hadn�
�t been all that happy about my dinner with Garrett turning into an overnight stay at a hotel. She launched into a five-minute discussion about sex and being safe and more importantly being ready and that if I wasn’t, I should just say so. I tried to assure her that Garrett and I weren’t going to have sex—we were just spending time together. She didn’t sound sold, but she relented and gave her blessing, though part of me wished she hadn’t.

  Garrett turns on the lights, and we look around the room, consisting of a flat screen TV, a small table and two chairs, a large closet with a mirror, a bathroom with a big tub and one bed. I have a glass of water at the sink in the alcove next to the hotel door and prepare myself for Garrett’s expectations. I’ve thought of this scenario at least a hundred times before, the one where Garrett and I would be alone again and it would be abundantly clear that he was ready to take our relationship to the next level.

  After setting the now empty glass down, I turn the corner into the part of the room with the bed in it, a bed that Garrett sits on and watches me from.

  I offer a smile before sitting next to him, silently hoping he’ll only want to talk. But when he says, “I’ve missed you so damn much, Paige,” he starts to massage the back of my neck, and before I can even formulate a reply, his lips are on mine.

  I return his kiss at first because I think I owe it to him, but I soon find myself melding into him, so much easier to experience his warm lips and the tingling sensation that accompanies the weight of his hand on my thigh than to remind myself of why this isn’t right.

  When his tongue slides into my mouth, and the hand on my neck moves down and around toward my breasts, it’s apparent he’s just gotten started. I should set the brakes before he can go further, but I don’t. I just close my eyes and see someone I shouldn’t… Evan.

  I’m in a daze when he pulls his lips from mine, and I’m tempted to say the name that is not Garrett’s, to say Evan aloud, to make myself believe that I’m with him because for as much as I’ve worried about cheating on Garrett and breaking his heart, it’s now Evan I believe I might be betraying.

  He looks at me with such intensity as I open my eyes. He unbuttons his shirt with determination, and when he pulls the fabric away from his body, it’s difficult not to become mesmerized by the tan skin and the broad, muscular chest and a stomach that has gotten even harder from football training.

  “I want to see you,” he says, rubbing his thumb against the opening in my blouse.

  I hesitate. How couldn’t I? I feel trapped in between two best friends, and I don’t know the best way out without turning my back on both of them. But I propel myself onward, undoing the buttons of my blouse and pulling it up and over my head and then quickly undoing the clasp of my bra so that my breasts are his to see, breasts that were safely tucked into my bra when Evan and I cuddled that night not so very long ago.

  Garrett doesn’t waste a moment in cupping them and bringing his mouth to them and sending me into a pleasurable freefall that flushes warmth through my body, settling just below my abdomen.

  Organically and with one piece of clothing at a time, we end up completely naked and with the comforter torn back from the bed. Unlike Evan, the most naked I’d ever seen Garrett was in his underwear. But I’d certainly had an idea from our time at the lake of how well endowed he would be, something that is even more obvious now as he’s fully erect. And I know without a doubt that he’ll want to dispose of my virginity tonight.

  It would be a lie to say I wasn’t tempted, that I didn’t want to continue pressing our bodies together until he’d slide himself inside of me. I’m sure it would hurt at first, but he’d be gentle, wouldn’t he? I don’t doubt that it could be amazing and might even bond us closer and allow my feelings for Evan to be usurped.

  But the answer to the question of whether or not I believe Garrett could dilute my feelings for Evan is a resoundingly simple one.

  No.

  “I want to feel you,” Garrett says, holding my head in his hands, his eyes heavy, intense.

  I smile at him, not wanting to disappoint. As if trying to get out of a full confession by offering just a tidbit, I take hold of his member. Garrett makes a noise, a low, moaning-like sound I’ve never heard come out of his mouth before. He contracts in my hand, and I feel somehow obligated to help him release his burdens. Garrett would never make me—I know that—but he’s my friend, my dear friend, one of the two boys who’d been such a force in my life. I want some happiness for him because lord knows I won’t be able to give him what he really needs… what he really wants. I can never give him all of my heart, not all of me. And so, in lieu of allowing him to part my legs and take away something that is still precious to me, I ease my body down until my eyes are right above the girth I’m holding tight to.

  “Paige,” he says, as if he’s about to protest.

  But before he can, I bring my lips around him and know by the soft moans that follow that I’m doing something right. I think I have an idea of what I’m supposed to do and keep on doing it while Garrett alternately tangles his fingers through my hair or draws them along my naked back. Once I’ve finished my part and taken him to the edge, I pull away and allow him to take over. I avert my eyes and ease my body back up toward his, just catching the tortured expression on his face before he finally relieves himself.

  “Can I do you?” he asks once he’s composed, once he’s recaptured his breath and has wrapped his big arms around me.

  I shake my head, and he doesn’t argue.

  “Thank you. I love you, Paige,” he says and kisses me gently on the lips. There is an uneasiness in his voice, and I know he wanted more—he wanted for our bodies to connect as equals, not as me being subservient to him—no, I’m sure it was all wrong in his mind, and yet he accepts it and holds me even closer.

  “I love you too,” I reply. There will always be an “I love you” with Garrett because I will always mean it in friendship, if nothing more. That was the easy part to say, but I’m finding it difficult to say much else as we lie side my side. I pretend to sleep while feelings of guilt seize me, guilt for being intimate with Garrett and guilt for the feelings I have for Evan, colliding in a circle that I’m no closer to escaping from.

  Other than a deep, long kiss, Garrett doesn’t ask for anything else as we wake in one another’s arms. My flight is this afternoon, and so I hurry out of bed and shower, telling him I need to spend time with my family before I go. He’s understanding, but I can tell that our relationship is on very thin ice, and if I weren’t flying back to North Carolina today, there might just be enough time for it to crack.

  After dropping by the hospital to see my much-improved grandmother again and saying tearful farewells to Mom and my little sisters, Garrett drives me to the airport for my afternoon flight.

  “I wish we had more time,” he says as we stand outside the security gates. “Being with you… man, Paige… it makes me so excited to see you again. I love you so much.”

  “It won’t be long,” I say. “Just a few more months until winter break, and it’s going to go so fast.”

  “If you say so.” He touches my forehead with his and plays with my hair. “But I’m going to miss you every day. I’ll miss trying to find you in the stands, even if WSU’s stadium is a lot bigger than Basin Lake’s.”

  “Garrett… I’ll miss you too.” I wonder if he can hear the uncertainty in my voice or can read my thoughts, the ones where I’m praying that somehow I’ll have resolved my feelings by winter break, more than they are now. There is a moment when I consider just telling him the truth, that I’m in love with Evan and not him—I hadn’t wanted to do it on the phone or through an email or text, but in person, and here he is, right in front of me.

  But I can’t.

  I’m weak. I can’t see the hurt look on his face or imagine him storming off without being able to be there for him, to talk him through it, to assure him I’ll always be in his life. No, I keep quiet because maybe there is still a chance—m
aybe Evan will prove to me upon my return that he and I are just a fantasy and that Garrett is that guy in a romance novel that you don’t realize you are meant to be with until the end.

  I’m not sure where the “end” is, but all I know is that as I board the plane by myself, I can’t help but feel relieved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  PAIGE

  North Carolina — August

  “So, your Grandma’s better now?” Natalie asks, having picked me up from the airport and now merging her red VW into traffic.

  “Much,” I say. “They took her out of ICU the day I left, so now she’ll be in rehab for a week or so. And thanks so much for picking me up, by the way—I never would have expected you to drive this far.”

  This is now the second time I’ve flown into Charlotte, and while it still isn’t home, it’s starting to feel more familiar to me, possibly because of people like Natalie. Given time, I might even get used to the humidity and a day like today where it’s cloudy but hotter and muggier than I think anyone should have to endure.

  “It gave me an excuse to see my family,” she says like it’s no big deal. “Mom and Dad had been complaining about missing me, so this takes the pressure off for a while.”

  “How are all your siblings?” I ask, slipping my runners off and allowing the air conditioning to blow fresh air over my feet.

  “Oh, you know… same old same old… except for the fact my brother is officially engaged.” Natalie flashes a grin.

  “Oh, that’s amazing. Is it Brandon?”

  She nods. “Yep, you can imagine my parents are having a hard time considering his fiancé is a guy and all, but they’ll come around eventually.”

  “They will.” I’ve never met them but can’t imagine any parent wouldn’t want their child to be happy.

  “And in other news…” She turns to look at me like she’s about ready to unload a giant heap of gossip she’s been holding back for days.

  “What?” I ask, my heart thumping and wondering if she’s about to spill something about Evan.