by Lisa Suzanne
Dax and I were making out on my couch, and he’d just buried his face in my neck and traced a line up to my ear with his lips when he’d whispered those words.
Did I want him to take me right there on my couch? Definitely.
Would it be sort of wrong? Probably.
But I didn’t think it would be any less wrong to have sex with him the next night. After my date with another man.
I pushed him away, but only slightly. Just enough so I could look into those gorgeous blue eyes. “I need to tell you something.”
He looked alarmed.
I took a deep breath, glad I’d had a few glasses of wine. I wasn’t drunk, exactly, but my inhibitions were lowered enough that I knew I could tell him what I’d been holding back.
He sat back on the couch and I took his hand in mine.
“Something you said tonight got me thinking about how whatever this is,” I motioned between the two of us, “well, it’s definitely a thing.”
He nodded, the alarm in his eyes sliding down a level to worry. His brows crinkled in confusion. “What did I say?”
“You told that blonde girl you weren’t planning to go out for a while.”
He shrugged defensively. “That could mean anything, Piper.”
I felt stupid for a half a second, but my psychology background told me he was lashing out as a defense mechanism.
“Dax, tell me what you meant by it,” I said gently. I was trying my hardest to be soothing, to show him through my words that what he’d really meant had been clear to me and I wanted the same thing.
He sighed and looked away from me. “Why don’t you say whatever it is you need to tell me first.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I tightened my grip on his hand. “You know my thesis project?”
His eyes snapped back to mine in surprise. Clearly he hadn’t expected me to shift topics. “Yeah?”
“It’s about more than just stereotypes in novels.”
He looked confused, and I felt bad. I truly had no intentions of deceiving him or misleading him, but I didn’t think I’d get so close to someone fitting the requirements of my list so quickly.
“What is it about?” he asked, his voice thick.
I took a deep breath. “It’s about male leading men and how they create unrealistic expectations for real life relationships.” I said it in a rush.
“Male leading men?” He was still confused where I was going with this, but a sudden light dawned. “Wait a minute. Was I part of your experiment?”
I looked up at him guiltily.
His eyes widened a little, and then he stood. He paced in front of me for a minute, anger starting to permeate.
“What else should I know?” He gritted out his words between a clenched jaw.
He looked so sexy when he was angry.
I closed my eyes for a second, mostly because I wanted to remember how gorgeous he was. I wasn’t sure if I’d just messed everything up and this was the end for us, and I needed to remember how beautiful he looked standing in my living room before he walked out my door.
I stood and hobbled over to him. I did my best to wrap my arms around him. He didn’t wrap his arms around me back, but he didn’t push me away, either.
“Here’s what you need to know, Dax. I made a list of different types of leading men. I was the constant in a social experiment, and the different leading men were the variables. My experiment included dating each of my favorite types of men from the books to see what happened. And you know what? Nothing happened with any of the others. I found the one I want to be with when I met you.”
“So the rock star wins?” He made air quotes around the words “rock star.”
“It’s not a win or lose type of thing.”
“Have you been dating other men the whole time we’ve been seeing each other?”
“I wouldn’t call it dating, exactl—”
He cut me off. “Sleeping with?”
I backed away like he’d slapped me. “Dax!”
“Sorry,” he muttered, not sounding all that sorry.
But if he’d had to ask me that question, I sort of felt like he didn’t know me at all. I sat back down, mostly because I wanted to stay off of my ankle. I hoped he’d follow suit, but he didn’t.
“I didn’t sleep with any of them. I only kissed one of them, and it was before I met you.”
“And how many more are lined up?”
I sighed. Two, if you counted my stepbrother. But I wasn’t about to admit that to Dax as he seethed with anger.
“I have a date tomorrow, but I already know nothing is going to happen.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. I know because I won’t let it. I want to be with you. Just you.”
An image of Scott flashed in my brain, and tears welled in my eyes.
It was a tiny lie, but it was what he needed to hear. I’d get over my crush—or whatever it was—on Scott eventually. I really liked Dax. I wanted to explore a future with him.
“You have no idea what I’ve given up for you in the few weeks I’ve known you. Goddammit, I’m so stupid.”
“No, Dax. You’re not stupid. I am for not being honest about my project from the beginning.”
He glared over at me. “You won’t get an argument from me. I need to get out of here.”
“Wait.” I stood to move toward him, but he held up his hand. I stood rooted in place. “Will you just tell me one thing?”
“What?” His keys were in his hand. He fidgeted with one of the keychains.
“Why are you so mad?”
He walked to my door. He spoke with his hand on the doorknob. “Because I trusted you, and you lied to me. Because I’m an idiot who thought this was going somewhere. Because I finally put my ex behind me when I met you only to find out I’m just a lab rat in your experiment.”
And then he twisted the handle to my doorknob and walked out.
I sat down on my couch in stunned silence before the tears hit. And when they hit, they hit hard.
I cared a lot about Dax. While we hadn’t known each other long, we shared a connection I’d never had so quickly with anybody else. It wasn’t just his good looks or his hard body. We had fun together. We connected. I liked spending time with him, and if we had enough time together, I could see myself falling in love with him.
I could see him in the same way Conrad Greene, CEO of Greene Apps, saw his job.
I already thought about Dax all the time. It was strange how important he’d become in such a short time, but he was part of the landscape of my life as if he’d been there all along.
And the tears fell harder as the guilt consumed me. I’d hurt him. I’d broken his trust.
And I had no idea how to get that back.
I couldn’t call Shannon because she was with stool-guy. I dialed Austin, but the call went straight to voicemail. My only remaining option was Scott.
I dialed because I needed someone. I dialed because I needed my best friend.
“Piper?” he answered. His voice was groggy, as if I’d woken him.
“Hey,” I managed, my voice laced with the tears that hadn’t stopped falling.
“Are you crying?”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t get out more than one word at a time.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Give me ten minutes, okay?” His voice was gentle. It was Scott. My Scott. My best friend I’d been missing so much.
“Okay,” I said.
“Do you want to stay on the line with me while I get dressed?”
He was being so sweet, and I wasn’t sure I deserved it. But I felt so bad and I was so sad and I just didn’t want to be alone. I just wanted to hear his voice. It was comforting.
“Okay.”
“I’m going to put you on speakerphone for a second, okay?”
“Yeah.”
I waited, and then his voice came through the line again. I could tell I was on speaker.
&nbs
p; “Piper?”
“I’m here.”
A a quick moment of awkward silence followed, and then Scott filled it. “When do you, uh, go home for Thanksgiving?” I heard some rustling, like he was getting out of bed and getting dressed.
“Monday.”
“After Stats?”
“Yeah.”
“I decided not to go home to Illinois for the holiday since I’m going for Christmas. But Austin invited me to his family’s Thanksgiving, so that should be fun.”
More awkward silence. I hated the awkward silence. I wanted it filled with Scott. His voice, his warmth, his friendship. Maybe more.
And just thinking about that word, more, hit me with a fresh wave of tears for what could never be between us.
“Did someone hurt you, Piper?” he asked, his voice quiet but louder in my ear. He’d taken me off of speaker.
“No,” I choked out. “It was me.”
“It couldn’t have been you. You’re too good. You’re sweet and kind. You’re gentle and loving. You’d never hurt anybody, not intentionally.”
“That’s the problem,” I wailed. “It wasn’t intentional.”
I thought I heard him mutter, “Never is,” but I couldn’t have been sure. It wouldn’t have made sense in the context of our conversation.
“What’s your favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving?” he asked, changing the subject.
I cleared Dax from my mind for a minute to focus on answering his question.
“Um…” I thought about it. “Sweet potatoes.”
“I like stuffing. My mom makes this incredible stuffing from scratch. I’m so disappointed I’m missing it this year.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
“It starts with toast and bacon. One of my greatest memories from my childhood was tasting a piece of toast doused in bacon grease on Thanksgiving morning. It was fantastic.”
I made a noise to show I was listening.
“I wonder if Austin’s mom makes the boxed stuff.”
I chuckled. It wasn’t a full laugh, or even a small giggle, but it was a short puff of breath—something other than tears. And it felt good.
“What if she does?” I asked, and then I sniffled.
“Then I’ll just sit there with a smile and eat it because I’m a guest in their home.”
“That’s sweet of you.”
I pictured him shrugging, deflecting my compliment. “I hope she makes green bean casserole, too. I love that stuff.”
“Me too.”
“But you know what’s even better than that?”
“What?” I wiped away a stray tear from my cheek.
“Pumpkin pie.”
“Yuck.” I spared no love for the disgusting texture of pumpkin. It ruined a perfectly good pie in my opinion.
“Yuck?”
“Pumpkin pie is gross.” I sniffled again.
“Are you even American? It’s a staple of Thanksgiving.”
“It’s disgusting.”
Scott laughed the laugh I’d missed so much. More than I’d realized, even. It felt like I didn’t know I’d missed it so much until I’d heard it again. It filled a little bit of the empty ache in my heart.
“Why is it disgusting? It’s pie, for one. That makes it delicious all by itself.”
“I like pie. Pumpkin’s just gross.”
“That’s why you smother it with cool whip.”
“We use the squirt stuff.”
“Reddi-Whip?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re doing it wrong. That’s why you don’t like pumpkin pie. Someday I’ll show you the right way to do it.”
“Okay.” I liked when he talked about a future that included the two of us. Maybe my fight with Dax had to happen for me to rely on my old friend again. Or maybe Dax and I would figure things out. I had to hope he’d forgive me.
“Stop thinking about whatever happened for a minute, Piper.”
I sighed, not realizing we’d been silent for a while. Scott knew me so well. Better than I knew myself sometimes.
“Sorry.”
“You can tell me all about it when I get there. Focus on Thanksgiving food for now.”
“How far away are you?”
I heard a knock at my door, and I stood and hobbled over to open it.
“I’d say pretty close,” Scott said through the phone and in front of me. He grinned. “Want me to stuff your turkey?”
I burst into the hysterical tears where I was crying just at the sight of my friend and laughing at his perfectly timed pick-up line. He pulled me immediately into his arms for comfort.
It felt so nice and warm there.
“Let’s get you off that ankle,” he said gently, and I nodded. He helped me over to the couch, and we both tossed our phones on the coffee table and sat. I wanted to cuddle into his side, but after the past few weeks of weirdness between us, I wasn’t sure if it would be okay.
He set a book on my table, but I was too upset to notice what it was. “So what happened?” he asked, his brows knitting together in concern once my tears slowed enough to allow me to talk.
“I told Dax about my thesis project and he overreacted.”
He nodded slowly, as if it all made sense now. “What do you mean by ‘overreacted’?”
I did it even if it wasn’t okay. I lifted his arm and put it around my shoulders, and then I cuddled into his side. I felt comforted there close to him, and his grip around my shoulders tightened.
“He called me a liar and stormed out. He’s hurt I wasn’t truthful about my project from the beginning.”
“What did you tell him?”
I rested my head on his shoulder. “It was about stereotypes in novels.”
“That’s not a lie.”
“No, but it’s not the whole truth, either.”
“No, I guess not.” Scott shifted slightly, and I moved with him.
“I get where he’s coming from. He’s this guy in the spotlight every woman wants and he gave it all up because he likes me. And then he found out I’ve been dating these other guys the whole time.”
“Did you ever talk about being exclusive with him?”
I shook my head. “We’ve spent a lot of time together over the past couple of days. If we weren’t together, we were often talking or texting. I think he just feels deceived.”
“Do you think he’ll…” He trailed off, searching for the right words. “Forgive you?”
“I don’t know. That’s what scares me. I really like him, Scott. I really think this could be something big. Something important. Something long term. And I’m terrified I messed it all up.” I felt like I was overcompensating for the fact that I felt warmer just in Scott’s arms by telling him how much I really liked Dax.
I did really like Dax.
But Scott and I never really talked about our dating lives. I thought about asking him if he had anyone in his life who he felt that way about, but I didn’t really want to know the answer.
We sat in silence a while, but it wasn’t the awkward silence that had filled our conversations the past couple of weeks. This felt a little more normal.
And then my heart got involved.
He turned his head and his lips met my temple in a soothing, friendly way meant to comfort me. I closed my eyes, and my heart started racing as I realized just how close I was to Scott. I just had to lift my mouth a few inches and we’d be kissing.
But it was all wrong. He came to comfort me strictly as a friend. Whatever had been going on with him had been left behind when he realized I needed him, and I appreciated knowing he’d do anything for me. We were back to where we’d always been, except now my feelings were involved in the equation in a new and strange way.
I was so confused.
I wanted Dax to be on my mind, and he was…but only to a degree.
Scott was in there, too. And he had no right to be.
“Maybe it’s not meant to be with him,” Scott said softly.
My eyes shifted up to him. I didn’t answer, because it was possible he was right.
And just as that realization hit me, another knock sounded at my door.
Only one person would come to my door this late at night. And I had a feeling he wouldn’t be too pleased to find another man comforting me on my couch.
“Oh, fuck,” I muttered.
Scott turned toward the door. “Want me to get it?”
“I should probably handle it.”
“I should probably go.”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said vaguely. I sighed. “Probably. Thanks for coming on such short notice.”
He sighed. “Piper…” He looked at me thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Haven’t you realized yet that I’d do anything for you?”
Tears filled my eyes again at his sweet sentiment, and then we both stood. He glanced at the table where he’d set the book earlier.
“Oh, I keep meaning to show you this.” I glanced at the cover. Psychological Statistics in the Modern Era. “It breaks down the vocabulary from class into really simple terms. You can borrow it if you want.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Scott’s movements were slow and stilted, and I couldn’t place why he trudged toward the door like it was doomsday. He opened it, and Dax stood on the other side.
“Jesus,” Dax muttered, looking from Scott back to me. “Another one from your list of book men?”
It was a cheap shot, but one I deserved. I had it coming.
“Nope. Just a friend consoling a distraught friend. And I was just leaving. Treat her right, man.” Scott clapped Dax on the shoulder as he passed him. “She deserves it.”
I watched Scott walk away, scared to look at Dax to see what he was thinking. But he was here. That was a step in the right direction.
So why did it hurt to watch Scott walk away?
Dax closed the door behind him. He locked it.
Locking it was a good thing. Right? It meant he planned to stay. Or he planned to keep other people out.
He sighed and rubbed his forehead like he had a headache.
“Seriously? Another guy?”
I looked up at him guiltily. “Shannon went home with some guy. I tried Austin but it went to voicemail. Scott is my study partner. He’s a school friend. That’s all.”