Green: a friends to lovers romantic comedy

by Kayley Loring

  I ended the call before she could protest.

  That felt good.

  This would keep her busy so she wouldn’t have time to find another apartment to move into, because that was a dumb idea. More importantly, it would put both of us in a new place so we could feel free to be this new version of ourselves with each other. And even more importantly—vacation sex.

  If she wasn’t ready and waiting for me the next morning, I would eat my swim shorts.

  17

  Gemma

  There is no way I’m going on vacation with him. No. Way. My brain had broken just from kissing him and my body temperature had risen so much just from hearing him talk about us going to town on each other—if we actually did it, I was sure I’d instantly burst into flames and melt, like the Nazi at the end of Indiana Jones.

  Still, I found myself hopping into the shower as soon as I got back to Chloe and Ethan’s, with a brand new loofah to exfoliate myself from my shoulders down to my toes, until I was so smooth he would probably just slide around on top of me and then smash into the headboard. There’s an innovative form of birth control! My skin was red and raw when I was finished with the loofah. I was so distracted while shaving, by the time I was out of the shower, my lady parts looked like one of those hairless cats.

  And there’s another clever form of birth control, right there. Let’s hope there are no light sources where he’s taking me.

  When I’d emerged from the steamy bathroom, I read the email itinerary that Theo had sent, and laughed. I laughed so hard I had tears in my eyes.

  Was it ironic that he had chosen a Canadian destination for our “real honeymoon” and the place where we were meant to consummate our green card marriage?

  Yes.

  Yes, it was.

  Was it funny to me that his definition of paradise was an off-season alpine mountain resort town?

  Nope.

  Not at first.

  I nearly hurled my phone across the room.

  But when I read that his favorite family memory from before his parents divorced was visiting Green Lake at Whistler, British Columbia on a vacation, and that he wanted to be there with me—I may have fallen just a tiny bit more in love with him.

  At that point, he could have told me he was taking me fishing in a swamp, because if it was that important to him, I would have gone anywhere.

  And I would consummate our marriage anywhere.

  On a mountain. On an old rowboat in the middle of a swamp. Anywhere.

  As Chloe had said in a text to me earlier that day when I was starting to panic: Enough! Less nut job, more blow job.

  It felt by then like I had finally gotten all of that built-up angst out of my system. My horny hormones had been making me crazy and I was ready to trade them in for the happy calm hormones that flood your brain after you’ve been sexually satisfied. I was so ready for that. I was beyond ready for it. What’s the thing that comes after being ready? I was that. Times ten. I just hoped that I wouldn’t try to mount him on the plane.

  “I’ll be referring to you as my girlfriend, FYI,” he told me, as we parked at LAX. “Feel free to refer to me as your boyfriend.” I smiled as I thought of all the conversations I’d had with single girls in LA who had been dating a guy for months and were stressing out because he said he was “not a fan of labels.” I thought about how confused I had been for a while, about who Theo and I were to each other. And he just laid it out for us as if it were part of our itinerary. Boom. Just like that.

  This was my first time flying first class. First time in a club lounge at LAX. First time at LAX with a boyfriend who couldn’t keep his hands off of me. First time on my way to a honeymoon with a man who must be out of his mind, wanting to stay married to me when he could have anyone. He was the one who should be dating a senator or a rock star.

  But there he was, holding my hand as we lounged together in the club lounge, reading emails on his phone, looking over at me every now and then, smirking like he was thinking about me—something dirty. For the first time, instead of worrying about what could go wrong, I focused on just how right this felt, and how lucky I was.

  I glanced over at him and saw that he was staring at me, very serious.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to have to give you a new nickname. Grandma doesn’t quite work anymore.”

  “Oh yeah, right. How about Sexy Grandma? Sexy Secret Tax Break?”

  “I was thinking Tits Magee.”

  I nearly choked on my orange juice. “Think again, sir.”

  “Now I can’t stop thinking about them.” His eyes slowly made their way down from my bulging eyeballs to my bulging bra, which was flirtatiously hidden beneath an innocent-looking light summer blouse. “You’re killing me,” he muttered.

  I was the one who was dying inside. I looked down at the hand that was holding mine, gently stroked his thumb with mine. His fingers outstretched, and I ran my fingertip up along his index finger. He groaned, pulled his hand away and placed his messenger bag on his lap.

  “Unless you’re ready for a quickie in the men’s room, I better keep my hands to myself now. Gemma.”

  I sat on my hands and batted my eyelashes at him.

  “No nickname. Gemma.” He said my name with such reverence, like the word meant so much to him. It was all I ever needed to hear.

  I leaned over and gave him a quick, totally non-provocative kiss on his cheek.

  The flight attendant for our cabin was a very friendly, not at all gay man in his thirties, who winked at me when he handed me my mimosa. It was much appreciated by me, and it did not go unnoticed by Theo, who also may have caught him quickly checking out my bare legs when we embarked the plane. Theo straight-up glared at him when he took his coffee, and said a very curt “Thanks bro,” which for a polite guy from Canada, was practically a punch in the face.

  If Theo were a character in a movie I was working on, I’d design a set for him that was mostly shades of green. For the green card, for the green-eyed monster of jealousy, with pops of fire red to hint at possible outbursts of passion. If I were decorating his house now, I’d take away all of the hot colors (not that there were ever many hot colors in that house). I’d add masculine greys and faded lavenders to calm him and remind him of his masculine strength and confidence. And then I’d throw a pillow at him, because he was being ridiculous.

  But I had been ridiculous for more than a minute, and he put up with me, so I let it slide.

  Once we’d reached a cruising altitude of 39,000 feet and the flight attendants were absent from our cabin, I also let him slide his hand up my skirt.

  He had lifted up the armrest that divided our wide seats, dropped his napkin onto the floor, reached down and then stealthily skimmed his hand along up my calf. I turned my head towards him, ever so slightly. Really? Ostensibly, he was lazily leaning in my direction, completely absorbed in reading the New York Times. Secretly, the fingers of his right hand were reaching between my knees and he was about to find out just how much slippery body fluid my undergarment had absorbed. My knees automatically snapped shut, blocking him. His hand remained there, waiting for a green light.

  I checked to make sure that the man and woman across the aisle from us weren’t paying attention. They most definitely were not. I reached down for the jacket that I’d stashed under the seat in front of me, and spread it across my lap, because this was first class, not the back of a Greyhound bus. I took a deep breath and relaxed my legs apart, just an inch.

  He moved slowly, and it was torture. I rested my head back against my seat and watched his impressive poker face, but once his fingers slipped past my panties and he felt the warm wetness that was just for him, his eyes closed and his jaw tightened and I took great pleasure in knowing that the wait had been as painful for him as it had been for me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. As soon as he started to apply pressure to my clit, it felt like the plane had suddenly dropped 10,000 feet. I began trembling.

  On
e would think, from the way I was clinging to the armrest, that we were experiencing terrifying turbulence. I don’t know if it’s true that it kills brain cells if you hold in a sneeze, and I don’t know if it’s also true that you kill brain cells when you try to hold in an orgasm, but if it is true then it would explain a lot. I certainly wasn’t on track to solve that P versus NP computer science problem, the way things were going.

  I had always known that being smart made Theo extra sexy, but now I knew that he was smart about sex too. He knew that I was so amped-up it meant he barely had to do a thing. Just his touch and small movements were all I needed to release that year of frustration. I just didn’t know if I was ready to release it in the window seat of row 2.

  He watched me quaking for a moment—savoring it (the bastard)—then leaned over to say into my ear: “Don’t hold back, Gemma.”

  The warmth of his breath on my skin, the way he said my name, was enough to make my lower body respond by rocking back and forth, just the tiniest bit, on his hand.

  I suddenly reached under the jacket and grabbed his wrist. I had to touch him. I pressed myself up and back into my seat, tensing up everything, delaying the inevitable. And then his fluttering fingertips sent a shockwave through my body and I gasped.

  “Shhhh.”

  I saw him look over to quietly shush me, but could barely hear him over the deep hum of the plane engine. He was smirking, but his eyes were hooded and it seemed cruel and unfair—both to him and to me—that we weren’t even kissing.

  Then, somehow, when his gaze held mine, I felt closer to him, it felt more private and intimate, and it pushed me over the edge. I suppose it’s physically impossible to sneeze or come with your eyes open, but I stayed with him for as long as I could before finally letting myself give in to a quiet storm inside that seemed to last forever.

  Pretty much everything that happened in the next couple of hours after that were a blur. Except I did notice the male flight attendant give Theo a slow “nice going, bro” wink as we disembarked, so maybe we weren’t as discreet as we thought we were. Theo rented a car and drove us from the Vancouver airport, north up to Whistler in the Coast Mountains. Everything was gorgeous.

  I don’t want to be that American tourist who’s all “Canada’s so clean and everyone’s so polite!” but…It was so clean and everyone was so polite.

  Though Whistler is known for its Olympic-class skiing, it was not at all slow in the off-season. Whistler Village is a big, picturesque, European-style pedestrian village filled with resorts, condos, restaurants and shops.

  The luxury chalet-themed resort where we were staying didn’t have a honeymoon suite, Theo explained, but he did get us a deluxe executive suite that had a separate bedroom and living room, a fireplace, a view of the surrounding mountains, and a bathroom that I wanted to move into.

  I also wanted to take a very unsexy nap, before we did anything else, and Theo didn’t even make fun of me. He ordered us some late lunch room service and said it was important for me to rest up, because we’d be up all night fucking like newlyweds. So. I don’t know how I managed to sleep with my heart racing and an insane amount of pressure between my legs, but I did.

  18

  Gemma

  We ate an exquisite Pacific Northwest cuisine dinner at a trendy restaurant in the village. Theo looked so hot in his indigo blue jeans that hugged his butt magnificently, and a grey Henley shirt that subtly screamed out “Hey, there are pecs under here!” He smelled like a sexy lumberjack who’d been out chopping wood in an alpine forest all day and was ready to bang some lucky lady in a glamorous cabin all night.

  I had consumed only half of my glass of wine because, as Theo pointed out, the high altitude was already making me lightheaded. I pointed out that it was his unparalleled hotness that was making me lightheaded, and while that made him smirk, it wasn’t enough to calm my stupid nerves. Despite being more than ready to do the deed, I was still too in my head about how I’d compare to all the other women he’d been with. As always, Theo was well attuned to my foolish inner dialogue, and suggested that we stop in for a drink somewhere on our way back to the hotel.

  If his intentions were to make me so lightheaded that I was no longer in my head, I was fine with that. But, I quickly realized, as he led me into a nightclub, that his intentions did not involve copious amounts of alcohol. He was a genius in so many ways…

  I only feel truly confident in two situations—when I’m doing my job, and when I’m singing and dancing around the house. I may have looked like an idiot when he caught me Swiffering to Justin Bieber, but I was a very confident idiot who danced like no one was watching, as long as I thought no one was watching. Or if I’d been drinking.

  After half of my first-ever bottle of Moosehead lager, and five seconds of the intro to Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack I was ready to hit the very crowded dance floor and I didn’t even care that most of the people there looked eighteen years old. I hadn’t truly felt like a young twenty-five year old in ages, and I was bringing my sexy back with the sexiest millionaire with dual citizenship on the west coast.

  My hips did not lie, and they were telling Theo that they wanted to rock his world. Unfortunately, they may have been broadcasting it to more than just their intended audience. There were a number of drunk dudes around, hooting and hollering. But I was only interested in Theo, and what he was doing with his body. I had never been in a situation where I could see him dance before, and he was in no way disappointing, but he was being such a cool guy, moving as little as possible, that it just made me want to undulate more and dry-hump his thigh. When I kept feeling someone else’s body pushing up against my back, I thought surely he was just accidentally bumping into me because it was so crowded.

  Theo, however, thought otherwise. He was glaring at the person behind me, and I’ve never seen him look so intimidating. I didn’t look back, but whoever was there must have moved away because I couldn’t feel anyone else around me anymore. I tried to hold Theo’s attention by running my hands all over the front of his shirt. It wasn’t enough to keep him from staring down the guy behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the twentysomething drunk dude, then did a double-take because he looked a lot like Andrew. It wasn’t Andrew. But the guy must have misunderstood my double-take, because when the song transitioned to a slow-jam, Drunk Dude was right behind me again, his hands on my waist, yelling in my ear, asking me to dance.

  “Fuck off,” is what Theo said, to my horror. His tone was not casual. He meant business.

  “You fuck off, I’m talking to her.”

  And that was all it took to incite Theo to move me aside so he could shove that guy. He stumbled back a couple of feet, until one of his buddies caught him, and then they both came lunging towards Theo. I somehow managed to get in front of Theo, between him and those guys.

  “Sorry sorry! We’re leaving! Sorry!” Theo’s arm immediately went around my waist, maneuvering me away from the angry drunk dudes, who looked like they were ready to head-butt whoever was in their way. I’m not even sure who was pulling who off the dance floor and out of the club, but I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  I pulled my hand away from his as soon as we were outside, and I stomped off ahead of him.

  “Wrong way,” he muttered.

  I huffed, then followed him back, in the direction of the resort.

  “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Me? He was rubbing up against your ass, Gemma.”

  “It was a crowded dance floor!”

  “You didn’t see the way he was looking at you.”

  “Oh my God, who cares.”

  “I do.”

  “Well get over it!”

  He started to speak, but I held up my hand as I strutted past him up the promenade. “I don’t want to hear it, let’s just get back to the hotel.”

  He clenched his jaw, and we were silent except for our heavy breaths, until we got into the hotel elevator. I wasn’t sure who I was more
mad at—him for behaving like a jungle beast, or me for being so aroused by it. As soon as the elevator doors shut, I let loose.

  “If you’re feeling jealous that is your problem to deal with but you don’t get to act like an asshole—to anyone.”

  He stepped in, facing me, staring down at me. “We’re on our honeymoon. You’re here with me.” His hands, God help me, were on my hips.

  I stared up at him, defiantly. “Right now I’m not sure who I’m here with because I don’t recognize you at all.”

  “I thought that was what you wanted,” he said, pushing me up against the back of the elevator. “I thought you wanted to strip everything away and see what’s left. This is what’s left.” He licked my neck, from my collarbone all the way up to my earlobe, and whispered into my ear, “All that’s left of me is this need to have you. I want you all to myself. Is that such a bad thing?” His breath was so hot on my skin.

  “That’s not a fair question when you’re asking my neck with your tongue.”

  “My tongue will be giving you some pretty clear answers somewhere else in a little bit.”

  My hands went to his chest and pushed him back. “We’ll see about that.”

  His eyes flashed with admiration for a split second and then the lust took over. “I knew it. I knew you’d be a firecracker.”