by Laura Carter
What was I saying? Right, basically, I’m fucking proud to look around the table and see my brother and Brooks. Me. Jess. We didn’t come from anything and now, we’re sitting here drinking tequila cocktails in one of the finest parts of the world.
Yeah, I’m pretty damn content. I’m not thinking about what Emily and I were, what we ought to be or whether that kiss meant anything. Yes, I want to understand what’s different between my friendship with Emily and the one I have with Jess, but I don’t need to know tonight. I’m just…peaceful.
“What are you smiling at, sweet cheeks?” Jess leans in, nudging me in the side on our two-seat sofa.
I lift my arm, encouraging her under it. “What’s not to smile about?” I press my lips to her head and she falls deeper into my side.
“Amelie, how do you like your new place?” I ask, remembering that she and Edmond moved to the suburbs not long ago.
“I adore it,” she says, resting her cocktail on the low table in the middle of our group. “It needed some work but we are almost finished with the reconstruction. Edmond had the kitchen designed to look…”
I lose her next words when I see Emily walk into the bar. She has on capris pants and a loose lemon-colored blouse. Her hair is drawn back into a braid. I wait for some kind of feelings to come. Something to help me make sense of what happened on the beach last night. But I feel nothing; I’m happy to see her and that’s all. I’m about to call her over when a guy I know too well walks into the place and over to the bar where she’s waiting to be served.
My legs force me to stand without waiting for my brain to tell them to stay the hell down. My old roommate and college buddy. The one who screwed Emily, knowing how I felt about her. The one who listened to me tell him how my feelings for her were changing. How I didn’t want to leave college without her, without us being together. And the whole goddamn time he was screwing her.
“That son of a fucking bitch.”
Every muscle in my body goes rigid and I roll my jaw as my fists clench at my sides. It’s about time I taught this guy a life lesson.
Brandon slides his arm up Emily’s back and leans in to kiss her. Her eyes flick to me and I see the same shock on her face that I’m feeling right now.
“She’s still fucking him?”
“Jake, sit down.” I hear Drew’s voice but can’t take my eyes off of the scene in front of me. The scene that’s taking me back three years. The one that tore my fucking heart open.
“Jake, we gonna have trouble, man?” Brooks asks.
I can’t respond because my legs are moving me forward. Emily says something to the bastard and he turns to see me. His eyes widen. Yeah, buddy, you better be fucking afraid. I’ve waited three years for this.
From nowhere, my vision is blocked by someone stepping in front of me. That same person takes firm hold of my cheeks in her palms and crashes her mouth against mine.
I don’t kiss Jess back. Too stunned and confused to think. “Kiss me, Jake. Kiss me,” she whispers.
I look into her eyes. She’s sober. I’m sober. I’m also fucking raging, and yet desperate for her to kiss me like that again. Rage, testosterone, and sheer burning desire for this woman crash together and I press my lips against hers, closing my eyes to drown in her taste. To lose myself in the touch of her tongue against mine when I part her lips. She groans into my mouth and I reply with my own.
There’s no one else in the bar except us and my loud thoughts about what I want to do to her. My desperation. My need to take her. That’s all I can hear.
I push my fingers into her long hair and find her nape, pulling her to me, needing more of her.
Whistles and the sound of cheering force us apart. We stand on the spot, facing each other, both breathing hard. Then she asks, “Are you good?”
I have no idea what the meaning of that question is, so I can’t answer. She nods anyway and says, “Yeah, so good. You’re good. I’m good. Everybody’s good.”
I’m still rooted to the spot as she pats me on the arm, like a coach telling his pitcher to have a good game, and she goes back to our table.
I glance to the bar and see Emily and Brandon have disappeared. I adjust my cap, run a hand along my stubble-covered jaw, and turn to join the others.
Clearing my suddenly dry throat, I sit on the sofa next to Jess, resting my forearms on my knees and needlessly fiddling with the peak of my cap.
Sarah finally starts up a conversation, breaking the silence around the table. I turn my head to look at Jess and ask for her ears only. “What the hell was that?”
“I was saving you from yourself. Thank me or forget about it,” she snaps, in a way that’s not like her.
I narrow my eyes, trying to read her tone, her body language, her mind. I can’t make sense of anything anymore.
She turns on a smile and briefly takes part in the conversation. I sit back in my seat and watch her. That kiss was… Fuck, what was that kiss?
After a few minutes, Jess flutters her hand in front of her cheek. “Gosh, I’m a little warm. I’m going to see if I can catch some breeze for a few minutes.”
It’s as if she is saying the words to herself because she looks at no one, just gets up, grabs her cocktail and walks toward the end of the deck, even though there’s plenty of breeze where we are. She rests her forearms on the fencing and looks out to sea. Her shoulders seem to deflate. I’m about to stand and go to her, when Sarah beats me to it.
“I think I’ll join her,” she says, giving me a look that makes me feel like I’m not invited. She drops a hand to Drew’s shoulder in a way that says, I’ve got this. I’m glad someone understands what the hell is going on.
“Help me get more drinks?” Drew asks. I know he wants to talk. Usually, it wouldn’t be my thing but right now, if someone wants to even point me in the right direction, I’ll follow willingly.
Drew puts in the order and I lean back on the bar, looking out to where Jess and Sarah stand, shoulder to shoulder, in the gray light of dusk.
While the server mixes up twelve margaritas, Drew rests an arm on the bar, facing me. “Should we start with the truth of what happened between you and Emily or what’s going on with you and Jess?”
“If I told you before this week I thought I had one old best friend and one new best friend, would that satisfy your curiosity?”
He shrugs. “What exactly do you have now?”
I shake my head slowly. “If I could answer that question, I probably wouldn’t have watched both women run away from me just now.”
“Was that Brandon who walked in here with Emily? Your old college roommate?”
I nod. Too furious to talk about him yet. “Yeah, that’s the dickhead I used to live with.”
“He’s with Emily?”
“What did it look like?” I snap.
He holds up a hand. “All right. Let’s park that one for now until you calm down. Why don’t we talk about what’s got you in a mess with the Brit?”
I take off my cap and replace it, grumbling in the process. “Nothing. I guess. We’re friends. She was trying to stop me from being a jackass in the middle of a bar and, I don’t know, maybe in front of Emily.”
“Jesus, I thought I got women mixed up sometimes. Kid, that kiss might have started out as a way to stop you from brawling in a bar but it wasn’t all she was doing. That was a possessive kiss if ever I saw one. Jess was marking her territory, buddy. You’re blind if you can’t see what this is about for her.”
“You’ve got her wrong, Drew. She’s here because I asked her to come. I knew seeing Emily would dredge up a shitload of stuff I haven’t dealt with and probably should have in the last three years. I trust Jess, implicitly. I wanted her to stop me from doing something stupid. That’s what she was doing. She was being a good friend.”
Drew shakes his head but lets it lie, carrying four of
our drinks back toward the table. I stay put, watching as Sarah leans her temple against Jess’s. She’s upset. And I’m no idiot. There was more to that kiss than being a good friend. There had to have been more because I felt it. I felt it like a wave crashing over me. Hitting me with such ferocity it turned me inside out.
Jess has more walls around her than a fort. And I…I don’t know what the hell I want. I only know I can’t lose her.
So, maybe, we do what she says. I act grateful that she intervened before my fist met Brandon’s jaw in a public place, and I forget everything I just felt in that kiss. I don’t dwell on the fact I felt more in those thirty seconds than I felt when Emily kissed me on the beach, or even when I made love to her all those years ago.
It was only a kiss.
We’re friends.
And I will not lose my best friend again.
Chapter 11
Jake
We walk back along the beach. Once our eyes adjust to the darkness after the lights of the bar, the moon is enough to show us the way home. I can tell you something for nothing: it’s not only the soft sand that’s making our footsteps a little wobbly. No, some of the malcoordination definitely has to do with the lethal combination of Tequila Sunrise, margaritas, mojitos, daiquiris and…fuck it, I can’t think beyond that.
Whatever we had, we’re all happily drunk. Jess chilled out and we brushed over that kiss. Now, she walks under my arm as we slur and laugh our way back. But I can comprehend enough to know I’m holding her up, not the other way around, and that kiss is still lingering on my lips, like a fire that smolders long after the flames have gone out. And the alcohol fog is doing nothing to stop my thoughts roaming. In fact, it’s making my need to take Jess all night long worse than ever.
Unfortunately for me, I’m certain the brunette beauty under my arm is going to pass out as soon as I help her out of her denim shorts and into those sexy silks.
Unless…maybe she doesn’t pass out. Maybe I get her home quickly and she fucks me the way I know she can. The way no one else can because Jess knows exactly how I like it. My cock grows at the thought of licking through her sweet pussy, warm, wet, ready for me.
I drop my arm to her stomach and lift her over my shoulder. She squeals as I run from the others. When I think they’re out of ear shot, I spank her ass so hard she screams again. “I’ve waited days for this fine ass, Jess. I’m taking you to my bed and I’m going to make you—”
Running onto the decking in front of the pool, I almost crash into Emily. She sits on the steps coming down from the pool side, still in her clothes from the bar, her arms wrapped around her knees.
I bring Jess down to the decking, my thoughts suddenly jumping from taking Jess to bed to wondering what the hell Emily is doing here.
“I, erm, I’m drunk. I’m just going to…” Jess waves a hand in the general direction of the house and offers Emily a soft smile as she slides past her and heads up the stairs. She glances back to me and I feel like I’m at another crossroads. I want nothing more than to follow Jess to bed. To go at her all night, then hold her in my arms until the sun comes up.
But here’s Emily. Our past. My lifelong best friend.
“Can we talk?” Emily asks, stealing my attention.
Jess takes steps toward the house. I watch her go. “You know, Emily, I don’t think we can. There’s a great girl up there, who I fucking love being around. Who’s never lied to me and who doesn’t deserve to be caught up in our shit. And, frankly, I’m over it. I’m over our past and our whole damn story.”
“Jake, please.” She steps toward me, placing her hand over my forearm. “Two minutes.”
“Why, Ems? So you can lie to me some more?”
“No, I just…” She pauses as the others come around the bushes and into view. Their boisterous conversation stops. This is their vacation too and I’m not about to ruin it.
“Fine. Two minutes.” I nod to the beach and Emily follows me.
We stand at the water’s edge, water lapping our feet, the way it was when she kissed me last night. “Go ahead. Talk. Tell me why you didn’t tell me that you’re still seeing that dick.”
“Quit it, Jake. You’re better than this.”
“Am I? I don’t feel better. When he walked into that bar with you tonight, I wanted to rip to his damn head off.”
“Jake, we can’t help that we fell for each other!”
“Fell for each other? You kissed me last night!”
“Yeah, I did, Jake. But you kissed me back. And tonight you’re kissing Jess!”
“Leave Jess the hell out of this.”
“Why? Because you’ve fallen for your best friend, again?”
“Goddamn you, Emily. What Jess and I have is not what you and I had.”
She softens her tone. “But you have fallen for her. You’ve fallen for someone you weren’t supposed to. See, it happens, Jake. We fall in love when we least expect it and sometimes with the people we don’t mean to.”
“I’m not talking about Jess and me. I’m talking about you and Brandon, going behind my back. And don’t blame love or the damn Cupid effect, Ems. You were the two people I trusted most. My closest friends. You went behind my back and you…” Ripped my damn heart out. “Don’t blame love for what happened last night. You kissed me. What the hell kind of love is that?”
She nods and settles her gaze on her bare toes in the sand. “I know. I did kiss you.” She takes a deep breath and turns to look out to sea. “I do love him. But I love you too. I always have. I think it’s possible that he’s the man I’m supposed to be with but that you’re my soulmate, Jake. I want to love him with all of me, I do. But then I saw you here and I thought maybe it was a sign. Like I’d found you again and…”
“Stop it, Emily. I won’t let you put me in a spin again.”
“I’m not trying to do that. I…I just don’t think I can live without you, Jake. I need you in my life. I don’t think I can love Brandon unless we’re okay. And…if…if I can only have you by us being together or me not being with him…”
I pull off my cap and drag a hand through my hair, exhaling loud enough to be heard above the sound of the waves. “I want you in my life too,” I admit to her, and myself. I turn to stand by her side, both of us looking out to the same dark horizon. “But not like that. I don’t want to give you an ultimatum.”
Would she really give him up, the man she says she loves, for me?
The thought weighs heavily on my shoulders and I’m suddenly exhausted. By us. Our whole story. “Go home, Emily.”
I don’t look back as I walk to the house. The lights are out inside but I hear voices as I come up the path to the patio. Under the light of outdoor lanterns, I see Drew and Brooks sitting in two garden chairs. Brooks’s guitar rests against his seat.
Then it hits me, the distinct, sweet smell of weed. I sniff as I get closer. I see the joint Brooks passes to my brother as he leans his head back and exhales white smoke. Ah, how I’d enjoy the heady fog of marijuana right now.
“You boys smoking without me?”
“Here he is. Casanova,” Brooks says, chuckling in a way that’s not much like him. A way that tells me he’s already getting high.
I hook my finger, telling Drew to hand over the joint. I take it from him and sit on the deck, one knee pulled up to my chest. It’s been a while since I smoked weed. None of us have ever been big on it but… I take my first drag on the joint, taking it back, feeling it fill my lungs and disperse into my body. I hand the joint to Brooks and finally get my thoughts out loud. “You two sitting up, putting the world to rights, while everyone else is in bed. Smoking weed. Something you only do when you have something to celebrate. So, boys, what are we celebrating?”
Brooks pulls on the joint, turning the end orange. “Not my call, man,” he says.
I look to my brother. His lip cur
ls at one side, giving me that smile I learned from him. Cool as fuck. “I’ll tell you, kid. But first, it’s about time you leveled about what shit went down with you and Emily.”
I reach out and take the smoke from Brooks, cocking my head to one side as I take another hit, knowing full well that the glint in my eye is a match for my brother’s. Exhaling a plume of smoke, feeling my head get a little lighter, I tell him, “All right, big bro. I’ll tell you about Emily. Once I’m through, you can admit that we’re sitting out here getting stoned because you’re going to propose to Becky.”
I lean up and hand Drew the joint. He meets my eye, then takes it from me with that slick smirk. “You always were too smart for your own good.”
“Yeah, well, that’s thanks to you, huh?”
His eyes narrow as he sobers and stares at me.
“Come on, man, I know you paid for me to go to college. I’m not stupid. I just want you to say it so I can thank my brother for the best fucking thing anyone has ever done for me.”
He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple pulling the skin of his neck taut. “Mom doesn’t ever need to know you know, Jake.”
I nod. “I’m with you.” I stand and move in front of my brother, holding out my hand. He stands, taking hold of my forearm with his free hand. I pull him into me and wrap my arm around him. “I fucking love you, Drew.”
“I’d do anything for you, kid. You know that.”
“Yeah, I do. And the same goes.” I pull back from him and slap a hand against his cheek, letting it linger. “As for you for marrying Becky, I couldn’t be happier for you, man, seriously. She’s great.”