by Fall, Lucy
I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to pressure her, but I also know that deep down, that small and scared kid who still lives in a tiny corner of my chest is afraid of being hurt beyond repair. Making Lauren come on my mouth, on my cock, on my fingers is far, far easier than ripping my chest open and handing her my heart.
Sometimes I can still hear my mom’s fearful voice after she busted me trying to ride a skateboard in elementary school: “One day you’re going to take a risk, and I won’t be there to save you when you fall.”
My lungs clench at the memory. Too late, Mom. I fell for Lauren a long time ago. I just haven’t hit ground yet. If I’m lucky, I never will.
We cross the border of the parking lot and step across spring grass. The park is empty, and the moon is full and hanging low, casting a pale white glow everywhere.
“Where do kids go nowadays when they want to escape their houses?” I muse out loud.
She laughs. “Things aren’t what they were when you and I were growing up. Hanging at a playground isn’t cool.”
“It wasn’t cool when we were growing up either,” I point out.
“That’s fair. We were usually alone here. And I’m okay with that, because we were uncool together.”
Me and Lauren against the world. Fuck, I missed her so much. I stop our forward progress and pull her against me for a quick moment, wrapping my free arm around her, just to remind myself I’m really here with her, that she’s real and alive and I can touch her.
Her breasts press against my chest, and I feel the faint stirrings of my dick at the reminder of our two sexual encounters. We’re not here for that today, I warn myself. If I jump on her every time I feel horny, she’s going to be freaked out. I don’t actually want her to think that’s all I want from her; plus, if I’m trying to convince her we can have it all—be sexual and romantic and friends—I can’t do that if I’m always stripping her down every time I see her.
Still, as I pull away, I’m reminded how very, very quiet it is at this playground, with only the bright moon and the gentle wind to keep us company. The school is set back away from houses, and the playground is even farther behind it still, framed on the other sides by a small wooded area of trees and a large fence.
If I ate Lauren’s pussy on the merry-go-round, no one would see. No one would hear her cries of pleasure.
I reflexively squeeze the neck of the wine bottle and grab her hand, tugging her toward the swing set. We each plop down on a swing, and I open the bottle and hand the screw top to her.
“Would the lady like to smell the cap?” I say in a faux British accent.
She takes it from me and gives a delicate whiff. “Aged to perfection, with delicate notes of honeysuckle and cedar,” she drawls. “Yes, I do believe this will do.” With a laugh, she grabs the bottle and has a big swig. “God, I feel like I’m right back in high school again. How many times did we used to do this?”
“At least once a week,” I say. I waited until Mom went to bed—usually early, since her morning shift at work was at six—and snuck out to meet Lauren here more times than I can remember. Honestly, I’m not sure if Dad knew I was doing so, but he never said anything to me. Probably thought I was sneaking out to bang a girl. Little did he know.
Not that I didn’t desperately want to have sex with Lauren, oh, fifty times a day.
I take the bottle from her and swallow a large gulp. The sweet drink slides down my throat. An unpleasant thought niggles at the back of my head, one I don’t want to think about right now. That the only reason Lauren’s even into me is because I look different, more muscled than I ever used to be.
That we’ll never have anything beyond sexual because she doesn’t see me as serious boyfriend—or husband—material.
“So what happened?” Lauren asks me, kicking her legs out as she clings to the thick metal chain of the swing. She rocks back and forth, stretching back until her body is a plank and she’s staring at the star-speckled sky. “With your dad, I mean.”
I’m glad for the distraction, even if I kinda don’t want to think about or talk about my dad. I dig my heels into the sand and keep my feet on the ground as I rock in the swing. “He was fucking loaded on the phone. I’ve never heard him like that. Drunk and…sad. He was rambling and didn’t make a lot of sense, but I can see he misses my mom.”
She’s silent for a moment. “Has he thought about talking to someone about this? Like a counselor?”
“I can’t even get him to come home, or tell me where he is.” I take another drink. It’s gonna take several chugs for this light wine to even get me on the road to buzzed, but I’m not here to get drunk, so that’s fine.
Lauren straightens and stops swinging, her feet stomping to the ground. She reaches over and cups my fingers over the chain. “God, I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this all has been on you.” Her face is so sad as she stares at me, the moonlight glinting off the whites of her eyes. She squeezes my hand.
“I’m not worried about me,” I say. “I’m worried about him.”
“Then I’ll worry about you, because someone needs to.” Her voice is near tears now, her words sounding like she’s pushing them past a tight throat. “Cole, I’ve been so concerned the last few years. Knowing you were thousands of miles away from me, and I couldn’t do a thing to help you feel better. It was awful.”
I get out of the swing, dropping the almost-full bottle onto the sand, and kneel between her legs, peer up into her face, and cup her cool cheeks. “You’re kidding, right? You don’t think you helped me?”
She sucks in a breath. “Can I ask you a question?” she says, and she’s so quiet I almost don’t hear the whispered words.
“What?” I shift my knees so they’re resting more comfortably in the sand.
“Why didn’t you…” Lauren clears her throat and her gaze skitters away from mine. “Why did you decide to live somewhere else after you left the army instead of coming back here?”
I slide my hands down to hers, which are now clenched in her lap, and debate what to tell her. She’s never asked me this question before. What’s making her wonder it right now? Does it relate to the topic of her being there for me?
She doesn’t know that I debated the move for months, wondering if I should go home and try to pursue her, or spend more time on my own becoming the man I want to be. Not just for her, but for myself. The army taught me many lessons about strength and endurance, but sometimes I think I still need to be more, be better, to be worthy of her.
I was afraid if I came back here right after serving, I’d lose the ground I gained. So I made the hard decision to go to Charleston and sort shit out there. Though it killed me to know I was stateside and yet still so far from her side, where I desperately wanted to be.
“It was never meant to be a permanent situation,” I say slowly, weighing my words. “But…I needed time to figure everything out.” A generic answer, but she’s not ready for me to be brutally honest.
A long moment of silence passes. Her lips thin, and she gives a quick nod. “Yeah, I get it. It’s fine.”
“Kitten—”
“It isn’t my business,” she interrupts in a brisk tone. “I was just being nosy. I’m sure you have your reasons.” Lauren moves the swing back, breaking the moment between us, then reaches down and grabs for the bottle. “Anyway, you’re here now, and that’s good. I’ve missed our friendship. I’m glad we’re able to resume being friends again.”
I don’t miss the two deliberate references to friends in her statement. Okay then. Message received, Lauren. My stinging pride forces me to lift my chin and smooth the emotion from my face.
She unscrews the top and drinks, then thrusts it at me, one brow raised in challenge. There’s no hint of the vulnerability or emotion that was there just a minute ago.
What the fuck just happened? There’s a wall between us now. Frustration tightens my chest. I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. Lauren can’t handle the truth, to echo
an old movie quote. If I tell her I wasn’t ready to come home and see her, she’ll be so offended and hurt it might create a massive wedge between us.
But she can tell I’m keeping things from her, and that just created a wedge too.
I stand and brush the sand off my knees.
“I’m tired of swinging,” she declares, and moves to the merry-go-round. “Let’s spin so fast we throw up.” Her voice is light, her mood shifting like a storm. I can barely keep up.
I follow Lauren to the multicolored metal disc and force myself to sound just as jovial. “Hang on,” I tell her when she situates herself against one of the handrails. Then I spin as hard as I can and hop on, trying to ignore the bittersweet pinch in my heart at the genuine peal of laughter she tosses into the night.
Lauren
I sink neck-deep into the steaming bathtub, releasing the heavy sigh that’s been sitting in my chest for days now. My hair is piled in a messy bun on top of my head. The glass of cucumber ice water on the side table has condensation running down the side. I was tempted to have wine, but I need to get into the office early tomorrow morning to catch up on work.
For some strange reason, I’ve been distracted.
I snort and close my eyes, breathing the steam in. The source of my distraction isn’t strange at all, and has been on my mind almost constantly. I can’t focus on my designs the way I should. Poor Emme has been picking up the slack like a champ, reminding me of appointments, making sure I contact clients with appropriate invoices, and the like. I should tell Dane she needs a raise.
I try to get my brain into a Zen state. Breathe in the dampness of the bathwater’s fragrant air, breathe out thoughts of Cole. But I can’t stop thinking about Saturday night at the playground a few nights ago. When I slipped and asked him a question that’s been plaguing me for a while now.
Normally I wouldn’t feel guilty about that kind of thing. We’re friends, after all, and we usually never hold back on each other. But that question, when I asked it, wasn’t just about being friends. It was about me trying to sort out more of his feelings toward me, when they started, despite my head screaming to not think about him as anything other than my bestie.
If he’s wanted me for a while now, why wouldn’t he have come right home after the army? Why did he wait until he came back to Boston to confess these feelings and make a move? And how do I proceed with him when I know my sister wants him too?
It was hard to keep myself in the friend zone that night, but I did, though it kind of killed me to do so. He was cupping my face with such gentleness I wanted to yell, to kiss him, to run away, to hurl myself into his arms. I almost told him about Christina’s feelings for him so he’d know why I’ve been so hot and cold lately, but that might not be my secret to tell.
Has he guessed that she likes him? Maybe I should tell him, if only to give him a heads-up. It’s what friends would do, right? When did I become such an indecisive mess—well, more so than usual?
Gah, I hate all this angsting. I sip my water and then chew on a thin slice of cucumber bobbing at the top. Just because he and I had sex doesn’t mean there’s something deeper here. We hung out Saturday night without it going beyond that brief kiss in the car. The night even ended with some hard, genuine laughs as we had monkey bar competitions—who could hustle across the bars the fastest (he won by an avalanche), who could do the best penny drop (I did; still got game, baby). Surely we can slide right back into being only friends.
The thought of not kissing him ever again makes my stomach sink.
My phone vibrates. I glance to see who’s texting me. It’s Darlene, an undergrad buddy whom I occasionally hang out with. I dry off my hand and grab my phone.
What’s up, lady? Long time, no hear. I know it’s last minute, but want to get a drink 2nite? If not, let’s meet up soon, k?
It’s sweet of her to ask, but I don’t want to leave the house. I’m not very good company right now. Feeling too emotional and ridiculous, and I’m sure I’d be no fun at all, dumping all this shit on her shoulders when all she wanted to do was scope hot guys in the bar and throw back a couple of cocktails. Not to mention I planned on early bedtime so I could arrive in the office ready to work tomorrow.
Rain check this time, but yes, let’s hang!! Next week maybe? I hit send, then plop the phone back on the table.
Out of nowhere, it strikes me then—I’m making a lot of assumptions about how Cole feels toward me but not asking him about it. Just skirting the issue, trying to uncover the depth of his feelings without outright saying, “What is this thing happening between us? And what do you want it to be?”
Okay, if I’m honest, I know the reason why I’m doing it this way. It’s easier to stay in the murky middle ground of not defining who or what we are if I don’t ask him. Easier to justify things in regards to my sister, as well.
God, I suck. I need to put on my big-girl panties and deal with this shit sometime—talking with Cole, yes, but first with Christina. It can’t keep going like this, straddling the line and hoping I won’t fall off. Because I’m totally going to crash hard; I feel it coming like that eerie crackle in the air before a storm.
That’s it. I’m going to text her and ask if we can hang out this coming Sunday, maybe do lunch. We’ll get it out in the open once and for all. That buys me a few days to figure out how the hell I’m going to tell her I had sex with the guy she’s crushing on, in a way that won’t drive her away from me for good.
It would kill me to lose her again, especially if it was something I could have prevented. But was this really preventable? My first encounter with Cole was before I even knew her feelings.
The devilish guilt in me whispers, that encounter last Friday night wasn’t though. I tried to resist him but I couldn’t. Yet I did resist temptation at the playground—nothing happened between us, not really. Just a tiny kiss. Surely that balances the scales, right?
My phone vibrates again. I dry my hand off, expecting a reply from Darlene, but see it’s Cole instead.
What are you up to?
I bite my lip. Before last week, I would have told him I was bathing, without pausing to consider it. Now I’m wondering if that’s too sexual an admission, if it will lead to us moving out of the friend zone in this conversation. I hate that I’m stressing over what to say to my best friend. This is stupid. It’s a bath. I’m not masturbating or anything.
I think about slipping my finger between my folds while Cole’s sexy voice whispers in my ear over the phone, and I feel myself growing wet. Shit. Nope, stop that right now, I order myself. That is decidedly unfriendly behavior.
Soaking away the day’s stress, I write. That’s generic enough without any sexual undertone. You?
A moment later the phone buzzes, and I peek over at the screen to see what he wrote. Making plans for this weekend. You busy Saturday? I have a fun idea for us.
I pause. It would be awesome to spend more time with Cole. Awesome and torturous at the same time. What’s the right thing to do? Should I wait to see him until after I’ve sorted it out with Christina?
I let the phone sit on the table for minutes as I debate what I should do. I lather soap on my skin, trying to not remember his fingers curling inside my walls, stroking me until I came all over his hand. His tongue flicking and gliding on my nipples. God, why does he have to be so damn sexy and compelling?
Why did my perception of him change? Would this have happened if he didn’t move back to Boston? If Emme didn’t point out how hot he is? I guess there’s no reason to play the what-if game. It is what it is.
I’m devastatingly attracted to Cole. I can’t deny that.
I rinse my hand, dry it off. My fingers shake a little as I text, I don’t know. I’ll get back to you. I just need more time to figure out what to do. And I know he’s going to see right through that text and figure out I’m running from him. But what else can I do?
My phone buzzes again. I’m a little nervous to glance at the screen. But it’s
Darlene, replying to my message.
No prob! Let’s talk soon. We’ll make dinner plans that aren’t last minute. ;-)
I shoot back a smiley face and then focus on enjoying my bath.
Minutes tick by. No response from Cole. There’s a knot in my chest, one I can’t seem to soak away. Guilt. My friend wants to hang out with me, and because I’m too crazy right now, I’m ditching him, and I’ve probably hurt his feelings.
I debate for several more minutes if I should text him back and see if he’s upset with me. If he is, he’ll tell me, right?
I down the rest of my cucumber water and eat the other slice of cucumber. Drain the tub and wrap up in the towel. Pad to my room and get in my pajamas. Still no response. Dammit. This is stupid.
I grab my phone and start to pound out a text asking him if he’s upset when a message from him buzzes in.
Okay then.
That’s it. Two curt words. I’ve definitely hurt his feelings. A sour taste slides up my throat, and I swallow it down. I’m the world’s worst friend and the world’s worst sister. If I’m really going to go back into the friend zone with him, I actually have to be a friend to him.
I delete what I was going to write and type out, I would love to hang out. Sorry, I’ve had a stressful day. Let me know details. XO
I fire it off and then, while I’m at it, send a message to Christina asking if she can do lunch Sunday. She works overnights at the hospital for the next few days, so she probably won’t see it until the morning. But at least I sent it and I can’t chicken out now.
As weird as it sounds, given the situation, I actually feel a bit better. I’m doing the right thing. I keep chanting that to myself as I settle into bed with a mystery I started reading a couple of weeks ago.
My phone buzzes. It’s a reply from Cole.
Okay, if you’re sure. It’s fine if you have other plans.
He’s giving me an out. My heart squeezes. Even when I’m being a douche, he’s being thoughtful. Raw, unadulterated feelings for him make my eyes water a bit. Times like this, I don’t deserve his friendship, and I need to work harder at being there for him. I blink and write back, Absolutely sure. I’m an ass. You’re awesome. Saturday I’m free all day and ready to hang out.