In Tandem

by Christina C Jones

  “It totally is,” Britt insisted, taking her cup from my hands. “And so is my weirdo latte,” she drawled. “I'll grab us some forks.”

  She didn’t exactly have a table – there were barstools arranged around the big island that anchored the kitchen space. I took a seat there, watching as she took a sip from her cup before she came back with the forks, reaching across the island to hand me one before she sat too.

  The box remained closed though.

  I was looking at her, and she was looking at me, and after several minutes had passed, her face broke into a grin.

  “What?” I asked, when she reached for the box, offering no explanation for her smile.

  She shook her head, looking up once she’d revealed the cinnamon bun. The air between us permeated with the aroma of sugar, cinnamon and butter, and… contentment.

  “It’s just… it’s kinda surreal, you know?” she said, breaking a piece of the warm pastry off with her fork. “Sitting here with you, having breakfast like it’s nothing. But it is something. It’s everything. But it feels hella normal.”

  I raised an eyebrow as she chewed. “You calling me basic?”

  “Yes,” she answered around her full mouth. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  I chuckled, then reached out with my own fork to indulge in the type of thing I hadn’t been able to for a long while. I had to eat a lot to fuel the kind of training I did to dominate in cycling, but it was all carefully controlled and monitored.

  Had been.

  Now, I took great pleasure overwhelming my taste buds with the sticky sweetness of the treat, knowing there was no price for enjoying myself anymore. At least… not one I wouldn’t gladly pay.

  “Damn,” I grunted. “This is good,” I told her, once my mouth was empty again.

  “Told ya,” she quipped. “Why do you think my ass still spends so much time on the bike? I have to balance these out somehow. Ooh – speaking of cycling, you know what you have to do, right?”

  I swallowed the mouthful I’d been working on while she spoke. “What’s that?”

  “We should do a long ride together. Like… a real ride.”

  To stall before I answered, I picked up my coffee and took a long sip, ignoring that it was still hot as hell. I’d take a little light scalding to give myself time to come up with a reason to not do what she was asking of me.

  “I know you don’t have a bike with you, but… I have a whole shop full of them, and we can get you fitted. Cleats, shorts, everything.”

  I finally put my cup down, and nodded. “Wow… you’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

  She shot me a dazzling smile from across the counter. “Sure have. Even location! There’s this cute little town, Sugar Valley – a couple hours by car, so it would be a perfect option for a long ride. There’s a hotel we can stop at halfway, stay there overnight, then finish out the ride the next day. Stay in Sugar Valley a couple of days, maybe do some mountain biking… I mean, if you’re up to it. I know you kinda… had a rough recovery.”

  “I’m good,” I assured her – probably too enthusiastically to be believable, based on the way her eyebrow shot up at me. I couldn’t have her thinking I wasn’t good though – at least physically. So all my urge to talk my way out of the ride was replaced with, “It sounds great to me, B. When are we doing it?”

  Her whole face lit up with a smile, and… damn if that didn’t make my reservations worth it. She was damn near giddy, bouncing on her barstool as she grinned at me. “As soon as possible! You still haven’t told me how long you’re staying, so… I gotta get in where I fit in. I’ve actually kinda been thinking about this ride for a while. I just didn’t want to do it alone.”

  “Yeah, that’s a long time to be alone on the bike… how many miles is it?”

  She bit her lip, cringing a little. “Um… just under a hundred?”

  “How many under a hundred?”

  “Like… two. But it’s broken up over two days!” she insisted, though she had to know it didn’t make that big of a difference for me. “I’ll make sure we have all the supplies and stuff we need, and it’s only a few days total so we wouldn’t need many clothes or anything.”

  “You don’t have to do any more convincing, B. I’m in. Not gonna lie though, I’m surprised you’re in… I’m glad you’re expanding your boundaries though.”

  She smirked. “Fine. You got me there – my hesitation to be in a new place, with new people… it fed into me not wanting to make this trip alone. But I don’t know anybody else I can bike ninety-eight miles with, so… tag, you’re it.”

  “I told you, I’m game,” I confirmed, glad for a more noble reason to go along on the trip than merely proving I could do it. If Britt needed me for something, I had no issues showing up for her, even if it meant pushing myself through a self-imposed mental barrier.

  I had no desire to get back on a bike.

  But I’d do it happily for her.

  “You wanna do it today?” I asked, picking up my coffee again. She shook her head though.

  “I can’t for a few days. Vaughn is having this party that I have to crash Friday, but before that… I kinda have a photoshoot today?”

  My eyes bugged wide. “A photoshoot?” I repeated back to her. “You weren’t gonna tell me you decided to become a model?”

  She blushed, dropping her face into her hands to blow out a sigh before she returned her big brown eyes to mine. “I haven’t decided. I… feel like the world’s biggest hypocrite, actually.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she shrugged. “I’m always talking shit about not wanting people to stare at me, not wanting to be treated like a sideshow… and here I am, getting ready to do a lingerie shoot.”

  I choked on my coffee. “Lingerie? B… this isn’t some internet shit, is it? Some dusty dude with his cousin’s camera trying to have you naked on some train tracks or something?”

  B let out a shout of laughter. “No,” she assured me. “It’s for… well, you don’t know Fallon, but she opened a lingerie store on the next block. She married Sean Keahi?”

  “Oh,” I said. “I haven’t met her yet, but I do know who you’re talking about.”

  “And Jules is taking the pictures – she has a photography studio here, and she’s one of my tenants. And the shoot is happening here, so…”

  My eyebrows went up. “Oh, damn. Does that mean I need to find somewhere else to be during that time, or…?”

  “Or not,” Britt frowned. “I need you right here, front and center, for moral support. You being here actually makes me slightly less nervous about this whole thing now.”

  “And what would you have done if I wasn’t here?” I asked.

  She laughed. “Um… back out, probably, and have Fallon hate me forever.”

  “You wouldn’t have.”

  B sucked her teeth as she dug her fork back into the cinnamon bun we’d been neglecting. “I see absence has made you doubt the strength of my insecurities, but trust me… I’ve made people madder over much less.”

  I opened my mouth for a rebuttal, but swallowed the urge to tell her she had nothing to be insecure about. She’d dragged my ass about that enough times for me to understand that wasn’t something for me to decide – her feelings about her appearance were her own to manage, and not for me to bulldoze with my desire for her to see herself the way I did.

  I didn’t want to be another person tossing meaningless words of “support” her way.

  “That’s not happening this time though,” I said, following the facts instead of inserting my opinion. “I’ll be here to make sure.”

  Britt smiled, giving me a little nod to go along with it. “Thank you,” she said, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. “I…” she started and stopped, her eyes suddenly glossy with unshed tears. “I’m… really glad you’re here.”

  I reached across the counter for her hand, to squeeze.

  “So am I.”

  Chapter
Four

  “Something… isn’t curling over.”

  Internally I cringed, but tried not to react too much to the way Fallon’s words of critique hit me, adding more fuel to the fire of uncertainty that already had me on the verge of breaking into a sweat.

  If nothing else, I would come away from this experience with confirmation: I was not meant to be a model, no matter what anybody else said about it.

  I was friggin’ awkward.

  Or maybe this was just awkward, being in such sexy lingerie with a camera pointed in my direction. Sure, doing the shoot in my apartment meant I could feel the comfort of being in my own space, but the room full of people made it a little different.

  Fallon and her executive assistant, makeup and hair, Jules and her assistant, plus a male model I had exactly zero chemistry with. And of course, Raf, who was doing his very best to be invisible.

  “Let’s just take a little break,” Fallon suggested, after looking up from whatever Jules had shown her on the computer.

  The shots she’d gotten so far.

  Nothing about Fallon’s expression – or Jules’ for that matter – intimated that the camera was picking up what they needed it to pick up.

  Meaning, I wasn’t delivering.

  I let out a sigh as one of the assistants approached me, with that feathery blue robe. I accepted her help putting it on and tying it closed, then headed to where Raf had tucked himself off to the side.

  “Wow,” he said, looking up from his phone as I approached. “So… is this the moment I finally get my answer about this robe?”

  At first, my eyes narrowed in confusion, then I remembered – I’d been wearing the robe when he called a few days ago.

  “I was taking it on a test run,” I explained, with a bit of a laugh. “I threw this on when you called, to cover up… everything that was happening underneath.”

  He lifted an eyebrow. “But you’re baring it all in person,” he mused.

  My head cocked. “Baring it all?” I repeated back. “That your way of calling me a hoe or something?”

  “I didn’t call you—”

  “Of course you didn’t call me that,” I interrupted. “But you think I look like one, with the lace, and…. Boobs. The ass.”

  Raf’s expression was inscrutable, his eyes not quite connecting with mine as he shook his head. “No, B… not at all. That’s not it… at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “What is what?” he asked, his features shifting from impassive to confused.

  I huffed. “The problem.”

  “I never said there was a problem.”

  “But there obviously is a problem. Not with you,” I explained. “But with… all this.” I gestured around me, at the people, the cameras, the light filtering screens. “I’m fucking this up, and I don’t even understand how.”

  Unsurprisingly, Raf brushed it off. “Nah. You… just need to relax.”

  “So I look uptight? Wow. Who gets in high-end lingerie like this and manages to look like an uptight bitch in it? Me. I do.”

  “Goddamn,” Raf chuckled. “Can you… not?” he asked. “I’m not saying you look uptight, but you… definitely look like you got asked to do this. Not like you’re… this girl. If that makes sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense, because… I’m not this girl.”

  “How are not this girl when you answered the phone in the same shit a few days ago?!”

  “It was a test run!”

  “Okay, and?” Raf shrugged. “How did you feel on the test run? How did it feel to you, being in your room with this stuff on?”

  I blinked, and swallowed. “Um… it felt… good. I felt good. I felt… sexy.”

  “Awkward?”

  “A little,” I admitted. “But still mostly good.”

  “Okay so… run with that feeling,” he suggested. “Think about that day, and… shit, what if I wasn’t… me. What if I was your man calling on video chat, and there you are with some sexy shit on, you know?”

  “Oh I like that!” Raf and I looked up to find Fallon standing nearby, obviously listening in. “My bad,” she apologized. “I was coming to get you back on set, and overheard you talking… and I love the idea of that, of the video chat thing. Maybe we can try that?”

  “I will try anything that gets you the shots you need,” I told her. “I really don’t want to have wasted everybody’s time.”

  Immediately, Fallon shook her head. “Nobody thinks that,” she assured me. “We just want you to be comfortable, so it can translate to the shots. So… let’s get everybody out of here,” she told her assistant. “Nobody but Brittany, Jules, and us. Brit, you grab your phone, and we’re ready when you are.”

  “Um… can Raf stay?” I asked, immediately grabbing his hand before he could slink off. “Moral support.”

  Fallon’s gaze lingered on my face for a moment before going to Raf’s, sweeping him with a curious look before she nodded. “Sure. As a matter of fact, you get your phone ready too, loverboy. This idea will probably work better if the boyfriend really is on the other end of the line.”

  “Oh nooo,” I quickly insisted, releasing my hold on Rafael’s hand, since it had obviously given Fallon the wrong idea. “Raf isn’t my boyfriend, we’re just longtime friends,” I explained, as Fallon’s assistant Ayden walked up to join us.

  Neither of them looked convinced.

  “Just get the phones,” Fallon said, then turned to head in Jules’ direction to explain the new concept for the shoot.

  Ayden turned to us with a smirk. “You two are really just friends?” she asked, directing the question to Raf, who just chuckled about it.

  “Really,” I answered, since he’d decided to be a goofball instead.

  Her eyebrows went up. “Right. I… guess you’ll be doing some acting then.”

  She left too, giving me an opportunity to round on Rafael, turning my frustrating onto him.

  “What the hell have you gotten me into now?” I hissed. “Pretending we’re… together? How the hell is this supposed to work?”

  His eyes went big. “Damn, am I ugly or something?” he asked, laughing. “Bad breath? You’re acting like…”

  “Like you are my oldest friend, and it’s probably gonna feel weird as hell to think of you as anything other than that?” I filled in for him, and he nodded.

  “Aiight… I guess I see your point, but… being friends with somebody and dating somebody really isn’t that different, is it? Just add sex.”

  I opened my mouth to rebuttal those words, but when I really thought about it… I guess he was kinda right. The only significant difference was sex – the romantic attraction element that made you want to take it somewhere other than platonic. And hell… I’d faked my way through enough mediocre sex with people I barely liked.

  Surely I could play along with this little photoshoot scenario.

  “Fine,” I sighed, running my fingers through the big, beachy waves the stylist had pampered my hair into.

  Raf laughed. “Enough with the heavy sighs and all that… you’re good. You’re fine as hell, the lingerie looks good on you, Jules knows what she’s doing with the camera. It’s gonna work out, B.”

  Instead of agreeing, because the anxiety wouldn’t allow it, I just squared my shoulders. “Let’s get this done.”

  And… so we did.

  With the shift in the vision for the shoot, I was alone in my room now, following Raf’s suggestion. The robe was tossed across the bed while I admired myself in the mirror, trying to pretend I was alone in the room. Fallon had offered a suggestion of music in my wireless earbuds, since my massive hair was hiding my ears anyway.

  It helped.

  I zoned out, until the chime in my ears alerted me that my phone was ringing. I turned for my bed, donning the robe before I actually looked at the phone, all while the camera clicked away.

  I knew it was going to be Raf calling, but I smiled anyway.

  That was just my natural re
action to seeing his name, his face, on my screen. I hoped it didn’t ruin the vibe of the shots, but I couldn’t help that goofy-ass reaction, especially once I answered.

  The fool had taken off his shirt.

  He had to have locked himself in the bathroom, out of view of anyone else in the studio, including me.

  “What’s up, baby?” he asked, exaggerated as hell. “With your fine ass. What are you doing in all those feathers?”

  An involuntary giggle broke from my lips. “Um… I was just um… trying on some lingerie. Practicing for when you get home.”

  “Oh damn,” he said. “I’m just here… oiling my abs for you, you know. Something for you to look at too. I’m feeling inadequate now though, like I need some hot blue feathers too.”

  I shook my head. “Raf…”

  “What, B?” he asked, biting his lip as he looked into the camera. “With your pretty ass. Damn I’m a lucky man.”

  “This is how you talk to your girlfriends? Seriously?”

  “Nah, this is how I talk to my woman. Singular. The one. The beginning and the end.”

  I giggled. “You are a damn fool.”

  “A damn fool in love with you girl. Now come on, show me what’s under the robe. Practice modeling, like you said.”

  I took a breath. “Sure, I guess.”

  “Nah, don’t guess B. Come on, do it like you mean it. Make me wish I was there.”

  I had to blink a few times at that.

  Make him wish he was there.

  Okay.

  Fine.

  Nevermind that the reality of our friendship had been me… wishing I could make him wish he was here, with me, in the Heights. But like he’d said – we were just friends, and when it came to that dichotomy between romantic and platonic… sex was the thing that made the difference.

  With Raf, it had been talking up the Heights, and showing him bikes, telling him about races, etc, etc, none of which were really compelling reasons to return home, but they were all I had, because he was “just” my friend. We could easily just be friends from a distance, because most of what made a friendship didn’t require actual proximity.

  But – for me, at least – romance required touch. I wanted to kiss, and taste, and feel. I wanted to fuck. And if Raf was my man, not my friend… he would want that too.