For Keeps. For Always.

by Haley Jenner

  Have his eyes always been so pretty? So bright they’re more azure than a generic blue.

  Has his smile always ticked at the side before spreading across the rest of his face? The gesture roguish and cheeky all in one, hinting at a brazen flirtation I’ve never felt from him before.

  Has my heart always beat erratically around him? Nerves tickling under my skin in expectation?

  “You’re still staring.”

  I shake my head, annoyed at the warmth that crawls onto my cheeks. “Sorry.”

  “Now you’re blushing.”

  I push him. “I am not.”

  Quiet cloaks us potently, uncertainty dancing around us. I feel his eyes on my profile as we walk, the constant turn of his head to watch me candidly. I used to be one-hundred-percent at ease in Brooks’s company. Now my comfort has morphed into an open vulnerability. I want him to watch me, but I can’t understand why, or maybe, I’m just afraid to admit it to myself.

  I love Brooks. I’ve done so for as long as we've been friends. But my love was never clouded by lust. It was absolute. It was clear cut. He was, is, my best friend. Nothing more, but more importantly, nothing less. Now, more seems within reach, and I can’t decide if I’ve breathed life into feelings that aren’t authentic to make us feel more connected, or more frightening, if they’re real.

  My saving grace is that he seems to be dabbling with the same conundrum.

  His eyes read me differently. They no longer track over my face in an easy appreciation of friendship. They pause, a heat and longing I’ve never experienced digging inside me with promise.

  He touches me more. Gone are the easy embraces of affability. His hands linger in the same way his eyes do. A chill spreads over my skin with each brush of his fingers.

  All of this rained down on us within hours of being reunited. Are we just so relieved to be together again that our true feelings are being blurred? Excitement being mistaken for a thirst to be loved. Relief being overshadowed by a fervor of indistinguishable teenage hormones.

  All I know is that everything coursing through me when we’re together is overwhelming yet welcome.

  “Your freckles have faded.”

  My fingers run along the bridge of my nose. “They have?”

  “Mm,” he confirms. “I hate it.”

  I frown. “Why?”

  “Because a part of you is fading away from me. Your kisses from the sun are being dulled out by the rain and clouds.”

  He breathes in heavily, his chest expanding significantly before he exhales powerfully. “It’s like your bright parts are being extinguished. Like my Henley is being replaced by someone who I may not know one day.”

  My Henley.

  “That’s silly.”

  “Is it?” he asks forcefully. “I hate being so far away from you, Henley. I fucking hate it.”

  I swallow his emotion, replacing it with my own, ignoring the sting of tears in my eyes.

  “We need each other more than the snippets we’ve been granted.”

  I get it. His anger. His animosity. Life isn’t fair. We’re old enough to vocalize what we want, what we’re certain we need, but still young enough to be overruled.

  “I miss you, too,” I whisper, saying the only words I can think of at that second.

  Feet paused, he pulls me into a hug tight enough that I can scarcely breathe. I squeeze him back just as hard, and there we stand, on the side of the road, tangled up in one another, finding peace while striking a light of mayhem in our hearts.

  The next thirty-six hours pass by in a blur of late-night conversations, hours wasted in silence at our rock, and every excuse we could conjure to touch.

  Brooks and Henley, tethered together but guarded enough that fear has stopped us from acting on what seems inevitable.

  I can’t sleep knowing he’s next to me. I lie awake at night listening to the heavy rhythm of his breath. I can’t make him out in the dark, but every last detail of his face is etched into my memory.

  The dramatic pout of his lips as he sleeps, the intermittent flare of his nostrils as he dreams timed perfectly with the flutter of black lashes against his cheeks.

  I miss the sound of his voice when he sleeps. The deep rumble from low in his throat. The way the tail of my name drops off when he’s tired, the burst of excitement when he calls me Hen, or the affection in his words when he calls me Squirrel.

  He wakes before me, and both mornings, I’ve found him drinking coffee watching me as I sleep. I don’t question him. Who am I to judge? I do the same to him in the dark.

  I didn’t just love my best friend. I’d fallen in love with him from across an ocean. My heart had decided it was his with almost four thousand miles separating us. And now that I was here with him, I didn’t know how I would ever let him go.

  12

  BROOKS

  We’re fully dressed. Laid upon my comforter in the clothes we buried my grandmother in. Shoes and all. Bodies resting in an unnatural stillness. Statuesque; the only exception, the short shallow breaths of our grief.

  Gran’s wake was held here at her home ,following the service. A collection of the town accosting me at every opportunity, wanting to share stories of how they knew my beloved grandmother. Their grief was potent, but mine was more so. How did they not see that? My reluctance to entertain their company was palpable, but they chose to ignore it out of discomfort. My mother wasn’t much more hospitable, her graciousness at being a host lost to the grief at having just buried her mother-in-law.

  Mom and Dad left the house the moment the wake wrapped up, needing space from everyone who wanted to help. Dad invited us along, but politely accepted my silence as the rejection I intended it to be. My fear of speaking aloud had been obvious enough over the past days, my voice weakened by the heavy lump in my throat.

  Even at this moment, I can’t bring myself to mumble a single word. My stomach feels hollow. My eyes are scratched raw, and I feel a selfish need to forget it all. To bury myself away into something greater than sadness.

  But I can’t move. I can’t save myself from the abyss I’m floating aimlessly within.

  Henley does it for me when her palm slides across my comforter in search of my hand. I'm jolted by her touch, but my fingers wrap around hers immediately. The warmth of her hand was a balm to my soul I didn’t realize existed.

  It’s only then that I can fully appreciate the immensity in the way I’ve missed her. Eighteen months is a long time. For us, it was the difference between our early adolescence and our current journey into adulthood. I knew I missed her, but having her here, this close, close enough to be able to touch her, has overwhelmed me.

  I roll to my side, needing to see her. It’s been a whirlwind since her arrival, and now is the first breath we’ve been able to take, together, through this clusterfuck of a day.

  She follows my movement, her cheeks pressed against my pillow. Her face is smooth, lacking any emotion. A blank canvas. I feel much the same. My heart is struggling to decide which emotion is strong enough to keep me alive.

  Denial.

  Anger.

  Regret.

  Sadness.

  All horribly morose feelings I’d do anything to erase.

  “It was a nice service,” she murmurs eventually, but I can’t find it in me to respond because as selfish as it seems, the moment our eyes meet, that void I was praying for finds me. Everything fades away, and she is all I see. All I can concentrate on.

  The heartache of my world all but falls away. Henley is the center of everything. My best friend consumes me in a way I never considered she would.

  My eyes fixate on her lips of their own accord. She speaks, but her words are lost as I track the defined line of her upper lip. The prominent bow that begs to be caressed by my teeth. Her tongue darts out, dampening the deep red cushions I'd give anything to feel against my own.

  "Are you listening?"

  I glance up at her eyes. "Of course."

  "You're a liar."
/>
  I smile, my eyes once again dropping to her lips.

  “Do you feel the change?” I ask her, knowing I likely shouldn’t. “In us?” But I need to know my feelings are shared. That the tsunami of lust and need and want coursing through me isn’t one-sided. That she feels just as drowned by it all as I do.

  My eyes zero in on the thick roll of her throat. The deep swallow that echoes between us. I long to reach out and touch it, to feel the nervous flutter of her pulse.

  “Yes.” The word is but a whisper, barely audible, but enough to quicken the beat of my heart.

  I exhale in relief, my breath gliding over her face in salvation. “What do you think changed it?”

  “Distance?” she guesses without thinking.

  She’s thought about it already, like I have. Working to understand how we went from friends to being caught in a cloud of something more.

  “The longing for a friendship we both needed exaggerating itself into something deeper.”

  “Does it scare you?” I shift closer, our hands still entwined between us.

  Her head shakes. “Not in the way it should.”

  “Is it real?”

  She nods this time. “Yes. It’s too overwhelming to be anything else.”

  Our eyes connect, her big brown pools set on mine in something I’ve yet to recognize.

  “Will you stay?” There’s a plea in my words. A desperation that forces her teeth into her bottom lip. “Here in Lake Geneva.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she confesses regretfully, the power in her voice non-existent as her eyebrows pull together.

  “We could run away,” I tell her. “You and me. We’ll go far away and start our life.”

  A single blink, one that she holds to shut me away from her thoughts. One that forces a tear to leak from her eyes and onto my pillow. “I would never ask you to do that, Brooks. Your family would never forgive me, and I don’t think you would either. They’re too important to you.”

  “You’re important to me,” I implore.

  “And I’ll always be here.”

  I let my gaze drop to her lips. Perfect pink cushions begging to be tasted. Could my touch convince her she belongs here? With me?

  As if hearing my thoughts, her mouth opens, the soft touch of her tongue dragging across her lips, making them glisten.

  My body acts of its own accord as my free hand finds the front of her dress, and I pull her to me, needing her closer. Leaning in, I press my lips against hers in a gentle touch. A tender experiment to gauge her reaction.

  She emulates the movement and her lips push forward in a brush even more delicate than mine.

  We pull back at the same time, a longing anchoring our gaze just as our lips meet again.

  This time, I deepen the kiss, needing more connection. Craving an actual taste.

  My tongue strokes ardently against hers. A caress of our mouths, a reunion neither one of us could have expected. As the seconds pass, our mouths begin moving in unison, and I couldn’t imagine being addicted to anything more.

  The supple swell of her lips, the ethereal graze of her tongue; I’m in a dream. I’m floating. Lost in a clouded bliss of lust and wonder.

  A soft whimper escapes her mouth, and I can’t swallow it quick enough. Pushing her back into my mattress, I climb over her, salivating at the feel of her body beneath mine. I savor every one of her quiet sounds. Tender moans that send blood straight to my cock and a storm of butterflies to my stomach.

  Legs moving out from underneath me, she circles them around my waist. I fall on top of her heavily at her insistence, groaning as I go.

  Our kiss is simple and complex and suggestive and indispensable all at once. I need more and nothing else and everything, and I don’t know how or what to think. My mind is consumed by us.

  Her hands find my jaw, her thumbs stroking my cheeks affectionately. It causes me to pull back from our kiss. I look at her, her eyes wild with a desire so strong, I scarcely know what to do with it.

  My hand moves without instruction, rubbing against the zipper at her chest, teasing it down in a painfully slow trance.

  She lets me undress her, and I feel her stare burning along my face, tracking my reaction. But I can’t pull my gaze from my hand. I’m unwrapping her like a gift I never knew I wanted. Every inch of creamy skin exposed cutting off my ability to breathe.

  She is more beautiful than I ever could’ve imagined. More beautiful than any woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. And she’s mine. At this free and open moment, she’s mine.

  Fully exposed, except for the lace bra covering her small but full tits, and a simple pair of black cotton briefs, she holds my chin, lifting my eyes to hers.

  “I’ve never done this.”

  I swallow. “Neither have I.”

  Confusion swarms in her eyes. “But—”

  “It never felt right. It never felt like this.” I gulp. “I’ve never wanted it as bad as I do right now.”

  She sits up, and I move with her.

  Slipping off the remnants of her dress, she looks at me expectantly. I can’t pull my eyes from hers as I rip at my jacket and toss it to the ground. Her gaze falls along each individual button of my shirt as I flick at it. She doesn’t speak a single word as I yank at my belt, letting it meet the same fate as my shirt and jacket.

  Using the toe of one shoe, she kicks her heel off, then uses her toes to repeat the action on the other foot.

  I discard my shoes and socks without fanfare, leaving myself only in my boxers.

  Sex in the movies is all about passion, about tearing at one another’s clothes in the need to fuck. There’s something more intimate about watching your partner undress, or so it seems at this moment. Having Henley watch as I shed my clothing for her is a foreplay I never knew existed.

  I’ve thought about sex. A lot. I thought about what my first time would be like. Would it be rushed? A quick fumble to rid myself of my virginity?

  I couldn’t think of anything worse right now. Being forced to rush through this with Henley would be the greatest torture.

  No. I want to spend hours exploring her body. I want to lick and kiss and taste every inch of her. I want to explore all the ways her body finds pleasure and have her do the same for me. I want to hear her moan my name.

  This isn’t a quick fuck. This isn’t two teenagers stumbling through a moment they both want to get over and done with.

  I want it to last. I want it to feel as good for her as it will for me. A moment we’ll remember for eternity. Whether we’re connected or not, no matter where the world takes us, I want to make certain that no one will ever be able to erase this night for us.

  “You fascinate me, Henley,” I breathe. “From the first moment I saw you, I knew I needed you in my life.”

  “Brooks.”

  “I want to tell you that you’re beautiful,” I continue, my voice pained with love. “I want to tell you that I’ve never seen anything prettier in my life, but you’re so much more than that. Know that I feel all that, though. Everything about you is a dream. My dream.”

  She blinks, shedding the wetness pooling in her eyes. “Come here.”

  I go without delay, and she pulls me into a kiss. The salt of her tears teases my taste buds, and I want more. My lips move over her closed lids and across her temple in soft kisses. I drag them across her jawline and down her neck, letting myself enjoy the steady drum of her pulse in her throat as I go.

  She arches into me, her breathing quickening under my touch.

  My lips latch onto her clavicle, sucking softly.

  “Brooks,” she moans.

  I move down toward her bra, and she whimpers unexpectedly.

  “Bra,” she tells me, bending awkwardly to unfasten it. “Off.”

  Discarding the lacy bra over the side of the bed, she lets me see the curve of her tits, the dusty pink nipples hard and wanting, begging for attention. I take her right nipple in my mouth, sucking on it hungrily.

  Hen
ley exhales fiercely, the sound she makes a twisted cry of shock and a zealous moan of pleasure.

  “Oh. Wow.”

  My cock surges at her open show of lust.

  As I pay the same attention to her left nipple, her hands find my hair, pushing me into her chest harder.

  I growl, knowing that if I buried my cock inside her right now, I’d blow without warning.

  Dragging my tongue down the line of her stomach, it hollows out, her skin pebbling in anticipation.

  I stare up her body as my fingers find the waistband of her underwear. Caught in the moment, she doesn’t look back. Her teeth are pinching at her lip, ripping along the soft pink skin in restraint.

  The black material glides over her creamy skin like silk.

  And then she’s naked.

  Her entire body is bare for me.

  “Brooks,” she begs, coming up on her elbows.

  “Baby.”

  Cupping the back of her knees, I pull her to the end of my bed, needing as much access to her as possible. With her legs resting over my shoulders, her pussy is a breath away from my face. Sliding my thumbs along her soft lips, I part her, exposing her completely.

  I blow softly against her to test her sensitivity.

  She shivers, and I can’t help but smile.

  Tipping my tongue out, I let it glide across her tight bud. Her entire body locks up, her breathing stuttering out.

  “Again,” she begs.

  “You’re so soft,” I tell her, my tongue pressing against her harder.

  “So soft,” she echoes.

  As I tease my tongue side to side, she chokes on her breath. “Br-oo-k-s.”

  “Good?” I smile against her.

  “So good.”

  Opening her wider, I tongue her hole, gliding my tongue over and in to taste the sweetness making her glisten. She shudders every time I dip into her, and I can’t help myself as I push my tongue inside.

  Hands to my hair, she arches her back. “Fuck. Oh, my God.”

  I slide my tongue in and out of her body, a tender fuck of my mouth and her pussy that makes her throb against my lips.