by Lexi Banks
“A moment?” Buster’s ear pricked up with excitement at the word. “How do you mean?”
Already I regretted it; I shouldn’t have said anything at all. “Oh, I don’t know. A moment. A moment where everything felt different. Like, she was looking at me, and I could feel something there. A sizzle, I guess.”
“Oh, fucking hell, a sizzle? Please for the love of God tell me that you acted on it.”
I wanted to. God, at the time I really wanted to. As I looked at her gorgeous face, and I drank in the stunning appearance of her plump lips, I had the intense urge to kiss her hard. It was something that I had never felt before, not to that extent, and I suppose that was the only thing that made me hesitate. Maybe if the situation had been different, I would have caved to that deep pull, but I didn’t. I paused, frozen, and then Maddie freaked.
“I didn’t because there isn’t really anything there between us.” I shook my head. “And even if there was, she was so keen to kick me out the door that it’s obvious she doesn’t feel the same way.”
“Oh, you two.” Buster looked disappointed. “It’s ridiculous. There’s so clearly something there between you two; I don’t know how you’ve managed to go this long without acting on it. That was your moment; you should have made a move. I cannot believe that you didn’t again. This is crazy. I don’t know what to say to you.”
I pursed my lips, not wanting him to say anything. I didn’t really need his advice at all, not since it was too hard to follow. I guess I would have to cope with these mental, churning sensations all by myself. I just hoped desperately that I hadn’t screwed things up with Maddie forever. I wasn’t sure where I wanted things to go between us, but I didn’t want to lose her forever. She was the most important person to me.
But why is she so important? My brain unhelpfully asked. Because secretly you love her?
“Dude, this game is going nowhere,” Buster finally admitted, defeated. “Your head is somewhere else entirely. Why don’t we leave it for the day and come back at another time when you’re less distracted?”
I nodded, grateful. “Yeah sure, that might be a good idea. Sorry about my brain today.”
“I can tell that you aren’t yourself because your cell phone has been ringing for ages and you haven’t yet heard it.” Buster pointed to my pocket which made me feel it vibrating. “Whoever it is really wants to speak to you.”
I slid my cell phone out of my pocket and felt my whole body jolt as I spotted Maddie’s name on the screen. I had the horrible feeling that she wouldn’t speak to me for a while so we could both recover from all the weirdness. Thank God she had made the first move and contacted me.
“Hello?” I answered desperately while moving away from Buster. I didn’t want him to know who it was.
“Hey, Parker.” She sounded really sheepish. “Are you able to talk?”
“Erm sure.” I glanced behind me, but Buster was staring at his own cell phone screen, not paying any attention to me at all. Either he knew that it was Maddie, or he didn’t care. “I can talk; is everything alright, Maddie?”
“Yeah, yeah all good.” She let out a deep sigh that seemed to come from the pit of her stomach. “I just wanted to speak to you, to apologize for being so weird the other day. Do you want to go to dinner tomorrow?”
Dinner was something that we did all the time; there was nothing unusual about it at all. But I couldn’t shake off the feeling that this dinner would be different. Monumental. It made me gulp desperately.
“Yeah sure,” I answered a little hollowly. “Sounds good. Dinner tomorrow. I can pick you up?”
“Sure, sounds great.” Her bubbly tone was back. I much preferred her in that way. “I’ll send you a text. Usual sort of time?” I nodded but didn’t need to answer verbally because she knew I would agree. “Great. See ya then.”
Once I hung up the phone, I stared at it for a while, wondering what all of that meant. There was definitely an edge to Maddie’s voice when she spoke then. Clearly the feelings on that night were reciprocated. I knew that it fizzled between us, I could feel it, I could see it on her face, and now it seemed that we were going to explore it.
“Who was that?” Buster asked me in a much too innocent tone of voice. “Madison, I presume?”
“Hmm? Yeah.” I was too distracted to hide it from him. He obviously could tell anyway, so there wasn’t any point. “Yeah, it was. She wants to meet up for dinner tomorrow night. Just, you know, the usual stuff.”
“Right, sure.” Buster laughed at me. “The fact that you felt the need to qualify that suggests to me that you know as well as I do how much that is bullshit. Just do me a favor, mate, if you get the opportunity to kiss her again, don’t fuck it up. The last thing I want is to hear you whining about it forever.”
Urgh, this was getting increasingly complex by the minute. I needed a time out, a break from life while I tried to work out what I wanted to do next. But as always, life steamrolled on; I had no control over it. I guess I would just have to wait and see.
Chapter 10 - Madison
Monday
“So, so, so?” Tina asked me in a rapid fire motion the moment I hung up the phone. “What did he say?”
“What do you mean?” I could feel the heat burning in my cheeks. “He said he would be happy for dinner.”
Tina nudged into my side and smirked at me. “Sure, he did, huh? Did he say it in a way that suggested he wanted to be with you for the rest of his life? Was there a marriage proposal between the lines?”
I hated the way that her words made me feel. It was almost sickening because it twisted me up like crazy. Ever since that almost moment, I didn’t know what to feel. Everything was intensified, magnified to the point where it was all distorted. The more I tried to work it out, the less I understood about it all. I needed to work it out soon though, or my friendship with the most important person in my life was going to disintegrate into nothingness.
“No, of course not,” I snapped back. “It isn’t like that; you know it isn’t. It’s just a friendship thing.”
“Oh right, sure.” Tina wasn’t about to be put off by my mood. “Because you didn’t almost kiss.”
“I’m starting to regret telling you that,” I admitted. “Because it might not have been an almost kiss after all. Maybe I just saw it that way because I was all weirded out by my date with Zac. I don’t know.”
“You really believe that?” Tina wasn’t convinced. “Or do you think you might finally be realizing just how seriously you are falling for him? It’s probably feelings that have always been there, and they’re just coming to light now. I just don’t see that you can keep on being just friends with him since there’s clearly more.”
My head fell into my hands. “Oh, I don’t know,” I moaned. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I mean, I kicked him out, didn’t I? I told him to go because I needed to go to work. I messed it all up, didn’t I?”
Tina’s hand gently touched my arm in a reassuring manner. “Sweetie, I really don’t think that’s the case. I’m pretty sure that Parker absolutely adores you and you’ll never mess it up completely.”
I turned my head up to look at her through my eyelashes, and I gave her a desperate look. “How do you mean, though? Do you think we’ll always be friends, or do you think there’s more to it?”
“What do you want there to be?” Tina asked me outright. “Do you just want friendship?”
“Honestly? I really don’t know.” It felt good to open up just a little bit. “I mean, I know for sure that things are different now between us and I’m sure it isn’t just a one-sided thing, but what if it’s just a passing phase? What if in a few weeks all this weirdness is over and I have potentially made it really awkward between us?”
“But what if it isn’t?” Tina asked me in a kind, quiet voice. “What if this could be the best relationship of your life? What if Parker is ‘the one’ and you’re only just realizing it now? You don’t want to turn your back on that.”
“Why? Are you afraid of true love? Are you scared that it truly might be amazing?”
I didn’t know how to answer that, so I shrugged instead. I felt silly; this was nuts. When I first met the one long-term boyfriend that I’d ever had, Lawrence, I went for it gung-ho. I was happy to flirt with him, to let my feelings be well known, I wanted him to ask me out on a date to see where things went. This wasn’t anything like that; this was slow burning, it filled me up and actually scared me. Much as things blew up in an explosive way with Lawrence, I wasn’t sure if this would turn out to be better. Losing Lawrence was hard but losing Parker would absolutely destroy me. I wasn’t sure that I could go on without him. My life would be a mess.
“You should at least try him out,” Tina continued, as if she couldn’t see my inner turmoil at all. “You’ve been friends forever and not even kissed. You don’t know how intense your chemistry could be.”
“But what if it’s nothing?” I moaned. “What if the chemistry isn’t there?”
“Don’t you think that you and he are close enough to overcome that? You have been friends for ages. Surely, you should be able to have a little hookup and continue being friends if it doesn’t work out?”
God, she made it sound so simple. It was almost as if that was the obvious answer and I should have thought of that sooner, but it couldn’t be that easy. Feelings were complex; our friendship could be made much too complicated. It almost wasn’t worth even considering it, even if I really wanted to. And I did want to.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Parker; he pretty much consumed me. He had always been there in my mind, darting around in my thoughts, but now he was bigger in there, he was more, he was everything. If I let my mind drift, it went back to that night where he was in that incredible suit, and I was the one who won the bid. I kept thinking of him and me having an awesome night out and it ending up somewhere that it hadn’t ever ended before. Not my apartment or his home, we often ended up there after a night out, but in the bedroom...
I kept thinking about his gorgeous fingers, touching my skin all over, his hands knotting up into my hair, his lips against mine, sending me to heaven and back, and the feel of his body as our clothes shed...
Those were thoughts that made me uncomfortable and turned me on in equal measure, and I didn’t know which side of me would win out in the end. I guess the dinner the following night would help me to see more.
“Well, if you aren’t sure,” Tina said as she stood up, effectively ending our break. “Then we should go and get you something nice to wear after work today, just in case things go a certain way. Don’t you think?”
I parted my lips, ready to protest, but in the end, I nodded and agreed with her. I suppose it would be better to have something nice on if the time came that I did want to try things out with Parker.
Oh God, that’s almost too much. I gulped down a massive ball of fear. It’s scary.
“You never know, this dinner could be the start of your new life,” Tina said just as she swished out the door. “It might be a day that you remember forever. You absolutely have to look good for that, don’t you think?”
I was silenced, I felt stiffened by her words, but I had to consider them strongly. She might have been right. I wanted to nod, to say something, to act out, but I felt removed from the situation, like I wasn’t really there. If I had just made a reservation for a life changing event, then that was scary. What would happen next, no one knew. I suppose it was best to look my utmost nicest for it. Just in case...
I STARED AROUND THE shop, unsure of what the hell I was supposed to pick. What could I wear that let Parker know that my feelings had changed without making it too awkward? There wasn’t a specific guide for that. The little black dresses seemed too dressy; the skater dresses too casual; there wasn’t anything in the middle.
“I think we need to have a montage,” Tina laughed. “Of you trying on everything.”
I rolled my eyes and forced out a laugh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, do you? This whole thing is just a mess. I don’t want to be here at all. Can we forget about it and go back home? I have wine...”
“No way.” Tina grabbed onto my arm firmly and gave me a look. “I still think this is going to be super important and I don’t intend to be the bad friend who let you go through it without a nice dress on.”
Because she was trying her hardest to be super kind to me, I let Tina drag me along, and I went with it. I was merely on autopilot as she shoved a whole bunch of outfits in my arms. Just a bystander, allowing my friend to take control. I actually wished that she could come on the date with me, to make it alright.
Date, is this really a date? I asked myself curiously. Am I actually thinking of things in this way?
It felt like a dream to consider Parker in that way. I kept thinking of all the time we’d spent as just friends. As kids, as teenagers, as adults. Was all that about to come to an end? Even now, looking back on all of those memories, there seemed to be a more romantic sheen to it all. It was almost as if there were rose tinted glasses affecting the way that I saw things. Every touch, every laugh, even meaningful look, it all felt different now.
What if I had always been deep down in love with Parker and that was why none of my other relationships had worked out? It chilled me to the bone to consider that I had been experiencing those feelings forever and I hadn’t realized it. I had to admit it really freaked me out. A tight knot of panic coiled around in my body, like an ice-cold snake filling up all of my veins and making my whole body feel odd.
“I don’t know if I can do this,” I suddenly gushed to Tina. “This is a mistake, isn’t it? Going on any sort of date with Parker. It’s going to mess everything up; I don’t think it’s wise at all. I need to back out.”
Tina grabbed onto my shoulders, and she gave me an intense look. “This is really messing with you, isn’t it?” she asked me curiously. “This means more to you than I realized.” For a moment, I thought that she was about to let me off the hook and suggest that maybe I should call Parker and cancel so I could continue to bury my head in the sand for a little while longer, but it seemed I wasn’t about to get that lucky after all. “We’re going to have to make sure that you look really good. Whatever you wear needs to make an impact.”
As she turned from me, a sense of acceptance overcame me. I couldn’t get away with not going to dinner, especially not when it was my idea, so I needed to simply embrace it, just go with it and simply see what happened. Surely there had to be something in this pile of clothing that I could wear like armor. Tina was right about that much; the right outfit would go a long way. A lovely dress that made me look good could save me.
“Help me,” I called out, a little playfully to Tina. “Make sure I don’t look like a complete idiot when I make a fool out of myself.” God, even the thought of taking action with these feelings was intense.
“Honey, I will make you look the shit,” she reassured me. “Then even if you do end up a fool, not that I think you will, then you can look incredible doing it making him regret it all.”
The word ‘regret’ felt all too relevant, but I tried my hardest not to focus on that part...
Chapter 11 – Parker
Tuesday
Nerves cascaded and swam through my body as I pulled up outside of Madison’s apartment. I had been here a million and one times before, this really shouldn’t be any different, but I could feel it deep in my core. This wasn’t just me and Maddie hanging out as friends like we did all the time, this was us testing the waters to see if it could become something new. Because of that fact alone, I nearly pulled out lots. I was so damn scared of ruining our friendship, but intrigue kept me going, the desire to know what could be if we allowed it.
I hoped If this thing tanked, then our friendship would be strong enough to survive it, but I guess now we couldn’t risk not knowing...
just in case it all turned out to be as amazing as I suspected it might be very deep down.
Just do this, I told myself through the labored breaths. Don’t be a pussy, go and see her already.
Just as I was about to open my car door to go out and greet her, Maddie exited her apartment building in one swift movement. I smirked to myself, wondering if impatience had pushed her forward or if she was experiencing the same level of nerves as me, she had just decided to deal with it differently. I spent so long pondering what her mindset might have been that it took me probably longer than it should’ve to spot what she was wearing.
Wow... I felt blown away, like all the air had been completely sucked from my lungs. Maddie looked stunning in a figure-hugging black dress that showed off each and every one of her curves. Saliva filled my mouth as I thought about what lay underneath. She was gorgeous, the best looking woman that I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t believe that it had taken so long for the light bulb to switch on. What the hell was wrong with me? How did I not see...?
“Hey,” she said a little shyly as she reached the car door. Her cheeks flamed an adorable shade of red as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. I could tell that all of this was a bit much for her too. “Nice ride.”
“Oh, this old thing.” I played along with her joke since she’d seen this car lots of times. “Nice dress.”
“This old thing?” She swayed her hips in a way that was probably far sexier than she knew. “Thanks.” She ran her eyes up and down my suit clad body, almost as if she couldn’t take her gaze off me too. I breathed out a sigh of relief, thank Christ this wasn’t just a one sided change. That made it so much easier! “You look good too.”
I held the car door open, watching intently as she slid in, then I took my seat once more. As I did, it became very apparent that there was a new tension in the air, the same sizzling feelings I got when we were at that event. It buzzed like a honey bee, darting around us like there was no tomorrow. I tried my hardest to keep my eyes on the road as I drove, but it was like a magnet pulling me back in the whole time. I just wanted to stare at Maddie. I loved it when she looked casual, that was the way I was most used to seeing her, but this change was awesome too.