by Emma Hart
“All right, so I wanna give you a little more, you fuckin’ smartass.”
My lips twitched into a smile, and I looked at him. “Bite me, old man. Go on.”
“I’d bite you if I thought these gnashers could do any damage.” He chuckled. “All right, here goes.”
“Sounds like you’re about to send me on a rollercoaster.”
“You’re ‘bouta send yourself on one, son,” Dec retorted. “Here’s the one thing you need to know before you take this further. And let me tell you, it ain’t easy being married. It ain’t easy being single. Not much in life is easy, that’s for sure.”
I fidgeted. I knew that already. Nothing about being best friends with Aspen had ever been easy—never mind the last week.
“But one thing is for sure,” he continued. “Love is easy. Deceptively so. Loving someone is one of the easiest things you can do in your life, but putting that love into action? That’s the hard part. Telling someone you love them is terrifying. Reminding them you love them can be an uphill trek. Proving you love them can be something else altogether.”
“You’re not selling me on relationships here, Dec.”
He patted me on the shoulder, standing up. “Love is easy. Relationships are hard. But, if you love someone enough, nothing is ever too hard to fight for.”
“I don’t love Aspen.”
“Ah, that’s right. You kids these days kiss for fun. Back in my day, kisses meant something.”
Yeah, well, that kiss meant something.
It meant I’d potentially just fucked up twenty years of friendship.
Dec slapped me on the back and stood up. “You’ll figure it out, kid. You’ve got too much between you to let it slip away. Be honest, and you can’t ever do wrong.”
With that, he left me alone on the patio.
I couldn’t help but think he was wrong.
Aspen’s drunken truths were why we were here in this situation.
Sometimes, the truth did nobody any damn good.
***
I bit into the taco that was in front of me. My apartment felt tiny tonight. Abuelita had sent me home with tacos after I’d stopped in at my parents’ after work, but there was something about tonight that felt hollow.
I knew what it was.
I spoke to Aspen every single day.
Today, I hadn’t.
You could call it what the fuck you wanted, but it’d been radio silence since I’d kissed her yesterday.
She’d been radio silence for days, truth be told. We wouldn’t have spoken if I hadn’t gone to see her at work. We’d be stuck in a worse fucking limbo than we already were.
I pushed the taco away from me. I wasn’t hungry. Honestly, I felt sick.
Why had I pushed it? Why had I pushed her into talking about it? She’d clearly forgotten that she’d admitted she remembered.
If I’d just left it. If I’d just shut my big fucking mouth.
It would be fine.
I stood, grabbing the plate from the table and taking it into the kitchen. I tossed the leftover taco into the trash and dumped the plate in the sink. I didn’t really know what to do with myself right now, so I just kind of stood there.
Until there was a knock at the door.
“Luke, let me in!” Blaire’s voice crept through the cracks.
I dropped my head back. No. Blaire was the very last person I wanted to see right now. She was way too fucking bubbly for my mood.
“Go away,” I yelled back at her.
“Open this door, or I’ll kick it in!”
Sadly, I knew she wasn’t lying. At the very least, she’d give it a good old fucking try until I ultimately opened it.
With a sigh, I went to the sofa. “It’s open.”
The door swung open, and Blaire marched in right as my ass hit the sofa. “You kissed her?” she demanded, standing by the door, clutching the handle.
I stared at her. “I kissed her.”
“Thank fuck for that.” She shoved the door shut and came over to me. “One of you had to do somethin’.”
“You think it’s a good thing?” I shook my head. “You’re an idiot.”
“Nah, you’re the idiot. You’re both idiots. It’s like wrangling cats into a bath.” She jumped onto the sofa and grabbed the open bag of chips from the table. “She’s ignoring you. Did you know that?”
“No, really? I thought she’d gone on an expedition to the Arctic and that was why she hasn’t spoken to me since.”
“You don’t need to be cocky with me, Luke. Believe it or not, I’m here to help you.”
“Is that by eating all my food?”
“I hardly think a packet of chips constitutes as all your good.” She paused, hand deep in the bag. “Then again, this is you, so it probably is.”
I snatched the bag from her and shoved my hand in it. “Fuck off.”
“You either want my help or you don’t.”
“I don’t remember asking for your help.”
“Fine.” She held up her hands and got up. “You figure out how to handle this by yourself.”
“Woah, woah—I didn’t say I didn’t want it.”
Blaire stopped, putting her hands on her hips and pinning me with a hard stare. “Okay, but you’re going to listen to me, and you’re not going to argue with me.”
“Eesh. I don’t know if I can do both of those things.”
“Fine. You’ll listen to me, but I will accept occasional, mild arguments.”
I nodded. “That works. Sit down.”
“All right.” She pulled a hairband off her wrist, snapped it, and shoved her hair up into a ponytail before sitting down. “You need to speak to her. Now.”
“I tried.” I put the bag of chips onto the coffee table and brushed the crumbs off my fingers. “I called her this afternoon, but she sent it to voicemail.”
“She was working this afternoon. They have a wedding party at the weekend, and Dec gave her tonight off if she’d go in and help him organize stuff.”
“She at work now?”
Blaire shook her head.
“Then she could have called me.” I shrugged. “There are only so many more times I can call or chase her down at work before someone thinks I’m a crazy stalker and I get arrested.”
She leaned back, sighing. “She’s too stubborn for her own good, but Luke? She’s just afraid. She’s embarrassed because of what happened, and she doesn’t know what to say to you after what you said to her.”
“I told her how I felt. I had to be honest with her. If we’d been honest with each other in the first place, we probably wouldn’t even be in this situation.”
“No, you probably would.” Blaire paused when I glared at her. “What? You think the level of attraction you feel toward another person is based on honesty? If that were the case, we’d all be attracted to our moms.”
“Nah, they lie. Santa. Tooth Fairy.”
“All right, fine, we’d all be attracted to our palms and vibrators.” Another pause. “Although…”
“Don’t need to know about your vibrator,” I said quickly. “Where are you going with this?”
“Okay.” She tucked her feet under her butt and, with her elbow on the back of my sofa, propped up her head. “You need to just do it. Go to her place and pin her to the wall until she talks. If all else fails, you can fuck it out of her.”
“I’m almost entirely certain I need her consent for that final part.”
“Yeah, well, she’ll give it. She told me how you kissed her. I’m pretty sure she described it as a fairytale.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“So, you need to sweep into her apartment, grab hold of her, and demand she tells you the truth about how she feels.”
“Jesus, Blaire, you watch too many movies.” I got up and walked into the kitchen to get a beer.
“Yeah, except I don’t want that romance shit. I prefer it when people die.” She snorted, looking over her shoulder. “Did you know that Tom and
I broke up six months ago?”
“You look pretty together to me,” I said dryly.
“We are. It didn’t last long. You know what he did when I told him to fuck off and stormed out of his apartment? He followed me to my car, then pushed me against it and kissed the hell out of me until I forgave him.”
“Blaire, that’s not a breakup. That’s you having a bitch fit.”
“I told him to die and go to hell.”
“Again, that’s you having a bitch fit.”
“Not the point. The point is, he came after me. He wasn’t willing to let me go.”
“A severe lack in judgment, given that you’d just willed him to burn in hell.”
She shrugged. “Still. Listen to me. He wanted me. He came after me. If you really want to change your situation with Aspen, sitting on your ass waiting for her stubborn one to come to you isn’t going to change a thing. All it’s going to do is make you lose her. You have to take control of this situation.”
I took a long drink from my beer and leaned against the kitchen counter. I knew what she was saying. I knew, deep down, that she was right. I had to go after her again and sort this out for real, but it was hard.
I was afraid.
I didn’t want to lose my best friend.
“Luke.” Blaire got up and walked over to me, grabbing my upper arms. “I know you’re scared, too. But what are you more scared of? Walking over there and finding out you’re the only one who feels this way? Or are you afraid of losing her from your life forever?”
I didn’t answer.
“All right.” She stepped back and took a deep breath. “As both y’all’s best friend, I did my job here.” She held up her hands and grabbed her purse from the table. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She left with a wave, and I stared after her.
She was right.
I hated it when Blaire was right.
I put the bottle on the counter and stalked to the door where my sneakers were. I shoved my feet into them and grabbed my keys from the side, barely pausing to lock the door behind me.
I ran down the stairs faster than I ever had in my life. My truck was only a few feet from the door, and I climbed in and started the engine before I’d even shut the door.
Two knocks sounded at my window.
I rolled it down.
Blaire had one eyebrow raised. “What are you doing?”
“If this goes wrong, I’m taking your ass down with me,” I warned her, putting the truck into reverse.
She laughed, stepping clear of my path. “And we’ll go down swinging. Totally okay with that.”
I grinned at her, rolled the window back up, and backed out of the space, ready to go.
“Wait! I have an idea!” She ran back to me and pulled open the passenger side door. “She won’t answer the door if she knows it’s you.”
“What about your car?”
“I walked. Her place is closer to mine than yours is. Think about it as you giving me half a ride home in exchange for me getting you into her apartment.”
“I’m not climbing through a window.”
“Nothing that dumb,” Blaire said. “Although, I’ve climbed out of a couple after bad dates. But no, I’m going to knock and tell her it’s me, then run.”
“And leave me to face her wrath?”
“Hey, if this goes to plan, you could get laid by the end of the night.”
“And if it goes wrong, I could be castrated.”
“Orgasms can come at a price. Aspen’s is gonna be expensive after the stunt you pulled.” She tapped twice on the dash. “Let’s go!”
I was regretting this already.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – ASPEN
Ice-Cream Does Not Cure All
I stared at the tub of Ben and Jerry’s in front of me.
They’d done me well, these two. They’d been my friends through countless periods, bad dates, and breakups.
But, tonight, today, they just weren’t cutting it.
Apparently, there was no cure-all for having bad sex with your best friend, then getting drunk and admitting it, then him kissing you.
Not that I was surprised. That was a loaded situation.
I put the lid back on the tub and, with a sigh, got up to put it back in my freezer.
Knock knock.
“There’s nobody home,” I shouted, putting the tub back on its spot on the shelf and shutting the freezer door.
“Yeah, that’ll deter an ax murderer,” Blaire shouted from the other side. “Let me in, Asp. I just came from Luke’s.”
“I don’t want to talk about him.”
“You don’t have to. Promise.”
I sighed again and unlocked the door, opening it.
That was not Blaire.
That was Luke.
I blinked at him.
“For the record,” he said, holding up his hands. “Not my idea.”
“I’m gonna kill her.” I let go of the door and walked back inside. When he didn’t move, I said, “Are you gonna come in or not? I figure you didn’t come here to stand in the hallway all night.”
Luke walked into my apartment and shut the door behind him. “We really have to talk about this.”
“Want a drink?” I pulled the tequila bottle from the corner of the counter and grabbed a shot glass.
“Based on recent history, I’m going to go with no.”
“Suit yourself.” I poured a shot and tossed it back. “I figure it can’t get much worse at this point.”
“Aspen…”
I took a second shot and instantly regretted it. It burned. “No, look. Listen to me. We got drunk and had bad sex that, apparently, both of us remembered despite thinking otherwise—”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I still come off worse after that night.”
“Then, I get dirty dreams about you because, apparently, you look really good naked, and my subconscious had a bet with my awake brain that you were better in bed than copious amounts of tequila led me to believe.”
“I agree with your subconscious.”
“Then, I get drunk and tell you I remember just how bad it was, how you were a pretty little tap-tap-squirt, but, Luke? Don’t tell Luke!” I gripped the neck of the tequila bottle tightly. “Then, you show up at my work, tell me you want me, and kiss me like it’s the end of a fucking Disney movie.”
“Probably the best compliment I’ve had in a long time about my kissing.”
“Luke!”
“What?” He threw his arms to the side. “What do you want me to say to you, Aspen? Ever since Sunday, you’ve been hiding and ignoring me. You want me to stand here and tell you I’m sorry I was honest with you? That I’m sorry I kissed you? Because I’m not, and I’m not. All I want to do is figure out what the fuck we do now, but I can’t do that because you’re hiding away like a child!”
My eyebrows shot up. “I’m not a child!”
“Then, for fuck’s sake, act like it!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “You’re my best friend. You think I like this situation? I don’t, but I want to fix it.”
I glared at him.
“Even now, standing in front of me, you can’t talk to me. Why can’t you just be honest?”
“Because,” I said, dropping my eyes. “I’m afraid that being honest means losing you, one way or another.”
“Now, we’re getting somewhere.” He leaned on the other side of the island, pressing his hands flat against the top of it. “Why?”
“Because you’re my best friend,” I replied softly, bringing my gaze up to meet his bright blue one. “And I don’t see any way out of this situation where we go back to normal.”
“There isn’t a way,” Luke said, his gaze never leaving mine. “There is no way we can go back to before we had sex, Aspen. Not unless one of us suddenly acquires a time machine. You got one of those?”
“If I did, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” I put the cap back on the tequila bottle and replaced it on th
e other counter.
His lips tugged to one side, lighting his eyes up. “Same. We just can’t ignore this. I know what I want to do, but I need you to tell me where you want to go from here.”
I bit the inside of my lower lip, darting my gaze away from him.
Truth be told, I hadn’t stopped thinking about kissing him since he’d kissed me. I wanted to do it again, but the implications of it terrified me.
We had an easy relationship. We took each other to family weddings. We hung out all the time. We bailed each other out of bad dates. Twenty years of being friends had put us in a status quo that was comfortable.
Kissing again would be a twist that I didn’t know if we could unravel from.
“Well?”
I wrung my fingers in front of me. “I don’t…want things to change,” I said slowly and quietly. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel like it is changing.”
“It is changing. I mean, three weeks ago you were still the little chubby-cheeked kid who I protected from boys.”
I smiled.
“Now…” He sighed and dropped his chin.
Yup. That just about summed it up.
“Maybe it’s just an itch.” I bit my lip. “Maybe it’s just curiosity on our part. I mean, what we really did wasn’t sex. It didn’t really have a satisfying conclusion.”
“Not for you,” he pointed out.
“Really? You think that was satisfying?”
He held his hands up. “Never mind. Carry on.”
“Thank you.” I crossed to the fridge and got a bottle of water. “It’s a loose end. We didn’t tie it up. Like… most times when you have sex, you’re either in a relationship, or it’s clearly a one-night-stand.”
Slowly, Luke nodded. “It makes sense.”
“Ours was a drunken hook-up that, honestly, barely even qualifies as that.”
“What are you saying?”
What was I saying? Excellent question. I wasn’t quite sure.
“I, um, I don’t know.” I shifted to the side a little. “But I think I’m saying we either draw a line under what happened or we…don’t.”
He quirked one eyebrow, his lips tugging up with it. “Are you suggesting we have sex?”
Boy, this was awkward.
“Maybe. A little bit.” I grimaced and fiddled with the hem of my shirt. “Look, I think the way we feel is pure curiosity and the only way to stop this…” I waved between us. “Is to either say it’ll never happen or just do it.”