Love Machine

by Kendall Ryan

  She stills above me, her eyes half-lidded and hazy on mine. “Did you finish?”

  I shake my head. Honestly, my only goal was to make her feel good. After the couple of days she’s had, it was the least I could do. “Do you want me to?”

  “Of course I do.” She lifts her hips again, this time with trembling thighs.

  I toss her an amused smile and shake my head. “Let me drive.”

  I help Keaton from her spot, and she lies down next to me. Then I move between her legs and hitch one slim calf around my hip as my cock, still straining and rigid, finds her warm center. She’s tighter after she comes, and when I work myself inside again, the exquisite feeling steals my breath.

  “Fuuuck.” I growl, pumping harder as Keaton moans softly. It’s the look in her warm gaze as she watches me take my pleasure that finally undoes my self-control. Soon I’m pinning her hips to the bed with mine and filling a condom with hot semen that jets out of me almost violently.

  For a moment we just lie there together, panting, the sweat of our exertions cooling us off, still riding the high of incredible sex.

  When I disentangle and lie beside her, she rolls over bonelessly and pillows her head on my shoulder. “Mmm, you’re warm,” she mumbles into my chest.

  I smirk at her, even though she can’t see it from her angle. “You falling asleep on me?”

  “Not yet.” She cuddles closer, pressing her naked body flush against my side, and drapes her arm over my waist.

  It’s crazy how normal this feels. How right. How perfect.

  I caress her shoulder, then down over her side and the curve of her hip. She gives a soft murmur of bliss, so I do it again, and again, and again.

  Gradually, the post-orgasmic euphoria mellows into a happy peace. I could keep up this slow, steady petting for hours, just to hear those soft sounds of her contentment. I sigh deeply and catch the lavender scent of her hair. As I look down at her serene face, her long, sooty eyelashes resting on her cheeks, the corners of her mouth upturned ever so slightly, I can’t help smiling.

  Dammit. I really do have feelings for her, don’t I?

  My worries from earlier creep back to the front of my mind. I can’t procrastinate on this decision forever. I can either tell her about my feelings . . . or quash them and hope they eventually go away on their own. The latter idea is unbearable, and the former drives me crazy imagining all the ways everything could go wrong.

  Then again, I’m not an oracle. I can’t actually predict for sure how anything will turn out. There’s no point in trying to look into the future and plan every step I take, because we never know what tomorrow will bring. That’s why my attitude has always been to just live in the moment.

  Hell, if I look at this situation a different way, that philosophy is even more reason to be honest with Keaton. What if one of us got hit by a bus or something before I could fess up? The future isn’t guaranteed—what happened to Dad taught me that.

  So maybe I should try to chill out and approach this one step at a time. Don’t overthink it. Just lay it all out in the open, and whatever happens . . . will happen.

  Even if my feelings turn out to be totally unrequited, romantic rejection isn’t the end of the world. We’re a couple of mature adults who can figure out how to get over this temporary awkwardness and stay friends. Besides, I’ve always known Keaton to be kind and sensitive; I trust her to let me down gently. She isn’t like Tanya. She won’t twist the knife.

  Now I just have to muster up the balls to do it.

  I take a deep breath. “Hey, Keaton?”

  “Hey, Slate?” she echoes teasingly. Her tone is playful, sleepy, a little husky. A bedroom voice that brings back every moment of the incredible evening we just had. When I don’t answer right away, she props herself up on her elbow to look at me. “Yeah?”

  God, she’s so beautiful. How do I do this? Why is talking about feelings so damn hard? Just get it over with. Open your stupid mouth. Come on, Slate, pull it together and say it!

  “I know this isn’t what we talked about—” The words spill out in a nervous rush. I clam up again, trying to slow my suddenly clumsy tongue, but my hammering heart makes that feat hopeless.

  “Huh?” She looks like she can’t decide whether to laugh.

  “Well, uh, I think I might be starting to . . .” Stop waffling and spit it out. “Fall for you.”

  Her gentle smile fades to a blank stare. “What?”

  Holy shit, I didn’t think this could get any more stressful. What does she mean, what? How else can I say it?

  “I mean . . . I’m falling in love with you.”

  She blinks. Then silently, she sits up. My side feels cold where her body was pressed against it.

  “Keaton?”

  No answer. She just stares off into space, her brow creased in an expression I can’t read. Upset? Scared? Angry?

  “Say something,” I say, trying not to sound like I’m panicking.

  She turns her face away. “Oh, Slate . . .” Her voice quavers. “No, you aren’t.”

  Now it’s my turn to gape at her. “What?” I knew there was the possibility that she’d reject me, but what the fuck is this? She’s telling me that what I’m feeling isn’t what I’m feeling . . . who the fuck does that?

  Her hand twists tight in the bedsheets. “You don’t love me.”

  My mouth opens and closes a few times, speechless. “I . . . you . . . h-how can you say that? How can you tell someone else how they feel?”

  “Because I know you, Slate!” Her voice threatens to crack. “And love isn’t you. It’s not at all what you’re about. Especially not loving me. We’re friends. Friends who have had some great sex, but friends. That’s it.”

  I grab her shoulder, trying to turn her, to see her face, to grasp at even the smallest hint of what’s going on in her head, and I feel sick when she flinches. “What are you talking about? I’m me and you’re you, and I just told you I love you. So—”

  She shakes her head rapidly. “I mean you’re not the kind of guy who settles down with a steady girlfriend. This is just the first time you’ve had sex with someone you actually care about. And that’s great, I feel so much for you too, but let’s not confuse this for something it’s not.”

  My stomach tightens. “Something it’s not? So, what is it, then? Because I know how friendship feels, and I can tell this is way more than that—and we both know it. You can’t put me back in the friend zone when we’ve already blown way past those boundary lines, Keat.”

  There it is. All out in the open, just like I intended. But it doesn’t feel like a weight off my shoulders. It feels like I’ve puked in front of her. Like an ugly mess I’ve thrown down between us, pushing us apart, when all along we promised that what we were doing wouldn’t dim the brilliance of our friendship.

  “Now who’s telling whom what they feel?” She presses her lips together in a thin, tight line, frantically blinking back tears. “Dammit . . . I didn’t want things to turn out this way.”

  “Well, neither did I,” I can’t help snapping.

  “I never meant to lead you on, Slate. I didn’t want sex to change us. I just . . . I want my friend back.” She sounds just as small and miserable as I feel.

  I can’t take this awkward feeling between us anymore. I get up and start yanking my clothes back on. “I have to go.”

  Behind me, I hear a stifled sob.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

  “I can’t. I just . . . I can’t.” I don’t look back at her pleading eyes because I don’t want to see what might be reflected in them.

  As soon as I’m dressed, I’m out the door, feeling like absolute shit.

  I barely remember driving back home. Numb, I get myself ready for bed like I’m piloting an unwieldy robot.

  I trusted Keaton. I thought I knew how she’d react. Her denial—not rejection, her denial that I even have real feelings for her at all—totally blindsided me.

  How the hell did th
is happen? Have I been fooling myself all along? Was I just imagining the powerful connection I thought we had?

  Keaton’s words keep spiraling around my mind so fast I feel sick. Not the kind of guy who settles down with a steady girlfriend. I mean, it’s true that I’ve only had one girlfriend, and she was over ten years ago. But just because I’m not very experienced in that department doesn’t mean I’m incapable of functional relationships.

  Right?

  Maybe Tanya wasn’t totally wrong about everything, whispers a nasty voice in the back of my mind. Maybe you really are stupid, unlovable, unworthy . . .

  I hurriedly try to quash the memories of her cruel accusations. It’s been a long time, and I can’t let myself backslide to that dark place Tanya put me in. I can’t let her back into my head.

  But I can’t stop thinking either. I toss and turn all night, tangling the sheets into a snarled mess before I finally fall asleep a few hours before dawn.

  My ringtone wakes me. Part of me hopes it’s Keaton, and the other part hopes it’s anyone but her. I fumble for my phone on the nightstand and see it’s Mom calling.

  Huh? I check the time and realize I’ve slept much later than I thought.

  I sit up and answer the phone. “Hi, Mom.”

  “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?”

  The immediate interrogation catches me off guard. “Uh . . . nothing.”

  “No, not nothing. I can hear it in your voice. Tell me why you sound so depressed.”

  I suppress a groan. “Mom, please. It’s nothing. I just woke up.”

  “Are you sure? I’m always here to help if you need advice.”

  That’s actually not a terrible idea, if I can censor the story enough. I really don’t feel like spilling all the dirty details of our hookups to my mother.

  I release a heavy sigh and swing my legs over the side of the bed. Groggily, I stand and head to the kitchen toward my coffee maker. “Well . . . I have this friend. Who’s a girl.”

  “Ohhh,” Mom says, as if she already understands everything.

  “We . . . hung out a lot.” Fucked like rabbits. “And eventually, I realized I was developing feelings for her. So last night, I told her how I felt, and she said, ‘No, you don’t.’”

  “You mean she didn’t want to date you?”

  “No. She said I didn’t have feelings for her.”

  “What?” Mom sounds three parts bewildered and one part pissed off. At least I’m not the only one who’s confused here.

  “Yeah, I don’t get it either.” I sigh. “What the hell is wrong with me that she wouldn’t even believe I’m capable of real feelings.” I grab a mug from the cupboard and lean against the counter as I wait for my coffee to brew.

  “Nothing is wrong with you, honey. The Lord just works in mysterious ways. When we lost your father . . .” Mom sighs into the receiver with a rush of static. “I’ve never seen such a terrible blizzard before or since. Ten-car pileup, and he was the only one who didn’t walk away. I don’t know why God chose him, but—”

  “I remember it fine, Mom,” I say, more tersely than I intended. “I was in high school, not preschool.” And I’m really not in the mood to hear this story for the millionth time.

  “There’s no need for that tone.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap . . . just didn’t sleep well.”

  And it’s the truth. Even though her fate-and-destiny tangents annoy me sometimes, I get it—Mom had her way of moving on from Dad’s death and I had mine.

  “I’m just . . .” I heave a frustrated sigh. “I thought I’d figured out how to deal with that. I thought the lesson I had to learn was that I should live my life to the fullest, because nobody ever knows when it’ll end, and once I accepted that, everything would work out. But now I don’t have a clue anymore. Following my gut last night just ended up screwing me over.”

  She clucks in sympathy. “For what it’s worth, honey, even though it didn’t turn out how you’d hoped, I still think you did the right thing. Telling someone you love them is never a mistake.”

  “Then why do I feel so awful?” I mutter.

  “Because you did something brave and honest and kind, and that girl threw it back in your face.” I can practically see my mother pacing around her antique-crowded living room in agitation. “I’m just saying, this could be a sign she isn’t good enough for you.”

  “Calm down, Mom. Remember your blood pressure. You don’t have to get so worked up for me.”

  I don’t have it in me to defend Keaton right now, but I don’t need Mom taking sides either. I’m a grown-ass man who can fight his own battles. And also . . . deep down, despite my bruised heart, some part of me still doesn’t want to hear anyone trash-talk Keaton.

  “The hell I don’t. I’m your mother, for heaven’s sake. If this is Tanya all over aga—”

  “No, it isn’t. She’s not like that.” I’m surprised by the forcefulness in my own voice.

  “All right, all right. I’m sure she was just confused and surprised, but it still wasn’t a nice thing to say. Maybe she’ll come to her senses and apologize, and maybe she won’t. Right now, what’s important is taking care of yourself. Get your rest, get something to eat, focus on taking care of yourself, and don’t talk to her until you’re ready to talk . . . or until she’s ready to apologize.”

  That gets a halfhearted snort out of me. Of course she’s telling me to eat. Doctor Mom, prescribing food for everything from headache to heartache. Then again, a microwave burrito can hardly make this situation any worse.

  “I think I’m done sleeping for today. But thanks, Mom. I’ll do the other two things.”

  “Good boy. I love you.” A long pause. “Do you still love her?”

  “I think so. I just don’t know if I . . .” Can ever touch her again. Open up to her again. Maybe even be friends with her again. God, what the fuck is going to happen to us? “I don’t know if I should.”

  “I understand. Things are hard now, but you’ll figure it out,” Mom says with a confidence I wish I shared.

  “I hope you’re right,” I say, pouring coffee into my mug.

  “Of course I am. I’m a mom. Knowing everything is my job.” She laughs at her own joke.

  I chuckle despite myself, but I still want to change the subject. “Anyway, what’ve you been up to?”

  I put her on speakerphone so I can heat up a frozen breakfast burrito and eat it while listening to her chatter merrily about the goings-on of her friends, her favorite shows, the neighborhood, the fabric store where she works part-time.

  By the time my plate is empty and we’ve said our good-byes, I still feel hollow and broken, but maybe a little bit less awful than before Mom called. So maybe her predictions about the other stuff will come true too.

  Slate doesn’t love me. This is the thought that threatens to spill out of my mouth every time it passes through my mind.

  I’m busier than I’ve ever been. It’s the last day of our fiscal quarter, and I’m in the office on a Sunday morning, trying to wrap everything up. I’m juggling multiple phone calls with clients and distributors, but the conversation from last night won’t leave me alone long enough to focus on the work at hand. I find myself repeating in my mind how much Slate is truly and deeply not in love with me, despite what he may say or think.

  There’s no way that’s even remotely possible. This isn’t some cheesy rom-com flick where the sweet, nerdy girl changes the playboy. This is my life. I promised myself I wouldn’t confuse our physical acts with something emotional, and I haven’t. I don’t think? But now Slate has, and it’s upended everything.

  I really want to talk to someone, anyone, about this. My first impulse is to reach out to Karina. She’d confirm my doubts about Slate’s confession in a heartbeat. She knows Slate almost as well as I do.

  Slate is too immature for a serious relationship, Keaton, she would say. He may think he loves you, but it’s more likely that he just realized he actually enjoys having sex wit
h someone he cares about rather than blindly fucking around with random strangers he picks up in a bar.

  Karina’s voice in my head sounds a little too much like my own. I honestly don’t know what she would say about Slate’s feelings. She doesn’t know the whole story. The mind-blowing sex, the secret glances, the soft kisses, the indescribable embraces . . .

  All Karina knows is that Slate planned a memorial service for my dead cat. That must have seemed very out of character. Slate can’t even manage his own personal daily routine, let alone put together an event that involves sensitivity, punctuality, and creativity. He proved us all wrong.

  He proved more than his organizational skills, I can hear Karina say. He proved he cares about you. A lot.

  And maybe he does care about me. But love? I didn’t think love was in Slate’s vocabulary. At least, it hasn’t been since that shitstorm with Tanya.

  I hang up the phone after a particularly difficult sales call. Leaning back in my chair, I push my hands into my hair and sigh.

  Logically, Slate and I don’t make any sense. He’s the kind of guy who drives to the airport with no plan in mind and takes the cheapest one-way flight to God knows where—just for fun. I’m the kind of woman who does her neighbor’s taxes just for fun. There’s an obvious difference between being sexually compatible with someone and romantically compatible. While the former is definitely a ten out of ten in my book, the latter is too risky to consider.

  And yet, as I chew on the end of my pen, I’m considering it. The look in his eyes when he said he loved me was just so . . .

  No. If Slate loved me, really loved me, and if—God forbid—I loved him back, that could seriously fuck up everything good about our friendship. There could be bickering and jealousy, and a total disregard for boundaries. All of that becomes way too complicated with love on the table. Best to go back to the basics and start from scratch, like a brand-new budget at the start of the quarter.

  I pull up a fresh spreadsheet and stare at the empty cells. My mind is equally blank. I have zero motivation, and my pen is nearly chewed through.