For Emery

by J. Nathan

  I laughed to myself as I strolled through the darkness to the old tree behind my house. I definitely enjoyed spending time with Emery a hell of a lot more than anyone at that dance. People could be so fake. I hated knowing they smiled to your face and talked about you behind your back. I didn’t have to worry about any of that nonsense with Emery.

  I leaned back against the tree’s rough trunk, scrolling through music on my phone. Country? Rap? Rock? I settled on a country playlist I knew she’d love and slipped my phone into my back pocket so her favorite country song filtered into the dark night.

  “Hey,” she said.

  I twisted around.

  Emery stood there in a frilly yellow dress her mama probably bought her for Easter or something. She was barefoot and I wouldn’t have expected anything less from her.

  “You look beautiful.”

  Her eyes dropped to her feet, embarrassed by my compliment. “Why’d you want me here in this stupid dress, Jordan?”

  “I owe you a dance.”

  It took a minute, but her eyes slowly lifted to mine. They were glazed with what I hoped to God were happy tears.

  I held out my hand. She stared at it for a long time before placing hers into it. I squeezed it and pulled her into me, bending as I lifted her hand and placed it on my shoulder so she could reach. “Now place your other one on this shoulder,” I said, ticking my head toward it. She did, and I slipped my arms around her small waist. “Now we dance.”

  She looked up into my eyes. Words were unnecessary. I could see the appreciation in her small grin. And I loved that I was able to give her this moment.

  “I told you I could dance,” she said with a sass I only tolerated from her.

  I laughed as I moved us from side to side to the slow beat of the music. “You did say that.”

  She rested her cheek against my chest and let me lead us in small circles under the thick tree branches that created a canopy above us. The song played through to the end as we shared what I was pretty sure was her first real dance.

  “How many girls did you dance with tonight?” Emery asked.

  “One.”

  “Was she any good?”

  “Great.”

  She tipped her head back so she could look up at me. A jealous glint flickered in her eyes. “Who was she?”

  I cocked my head, wondering what she’d do to whoever dared dance with me. “You,” I finally admitted.

  Her eyes rounded, surprise replacing jealousy. “You didn’t dance with anyone?”

  I shook my head. “The two of them were driving me crazy. I got out of there as fast as I could.”

  Her nose scrunched. “And you came to see me?”

  “And I came to see you.”

  She pulled in a breath before releasing it with a smile. “Thank you for being the best friend a girl could ever ask for.”

  I pulled her into me and spent the next twenty minutes making sure her night was as perfect as mine turned out to be.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grady - 17

  Raindrops bounced off the roof as I scrolled through my phone. Emery pushed up my window and climbed inside. It was a lot easier for her now. Though she was still smaller than some of the other high school freshmen, she’d grown a few inches.

  “Emery,” I said, seeing her wet hair and drenched clothes. “You’re soaked.” I jumped up and grabbed a towel off the hook on the back of my bedroom door.

  “I was out for a walk,” she said as I handed her the towel and she wrapped it around herself.

  I pulled my T-shirt over my head. “Here.” I handed it to her.

  “Thanks.”

  I sat on the bed as she walked to the corner of my room. She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Turn around.”

  I snickered as I looked away, giving her the privacy she needed to change into my shirt. She was beginning to fill out and show signs she was indeed a female—something I was becoming painfully aware of. Especially now that my twin bed left little room for both of us, and my morning wood had become a daily occurrence. I knew I was an ass for doing it, but I peeked over. Her bare back faced me as she slipped my shirt over her head. I needed to look away, but I just couldn’t tear my eyes away as she unbuttoned her shorts and shimmied out of them.

  When it looked as if she was about to turn—and for fear of being caught and looking like a perv, I quickly looked away.

  Once I heard her moving toward my bed, I looked at her. My shirt hung like a dress on her, and her wet hair was now twisted in a knot on top of her head. I slipped under the sheets, as if I hadn’t just been checking out my best friend, and lifted the sheet for her. She climbed in and nestled in beside me. Instinctively, we both turned on our sides to accommodate our growing bodies. I slipped my arms around her, pulling her back flush against my bare chest. Her body was chilled from the rain, and I had this intrinsic need to want to warm her up. “You’re freezing.”

  She shrugged.

  “Were you out walking alone?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Oh, fuck. “Is something wrong?”

  “You mean other than the usual?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I just have some things on my mind.”

  I waited for her to say more, but she remained silent. I hated when she was silent. It always meant she was thinking. And thinking too much could be a dangerous thing, especially since our current status as best friends and bedmates was becoming a slippery slope to navigate.

  “Is Lacy your girlfriend?” she asked.

  Yup. There it was. “Lacy?”

  She nodded. “I saw you with your arm around her at school today.”

  I sighed. “What’s this really about? Because if it’s me and you, you know regardless of who I date, you’ll always be my favorite girl.”

  “So, you’re dating her?”

  “What? No. I just meant...I don’t know what I meant.”

  A long silence descended on my room.

  “Is she your favorite girl too?” Emery asked.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I can keep up.”

  I laughed to myself. Things were becoming increasing difficult now that Emery and I were both in high school together. She was in my bed nearly every damn night and I couldn’t touch her in that way. Then I had girls at school—girls my own age—throwing themselves at me now that I’d filled out and could actually play football like the college-bound recruit I was.

  But, was that what I wanted? Did I want girls who only wanted me for who I was or who I could someday be? Honestly? I had no fucking clue.

  One thing I was sure about was my feelings were all over the place when it came to Emery. When it came to other girls. When it came to what I wanted. I was two weeks away from being eighteen, for Christ’s sake. I shouldn’t have been so torn over right and wrong.

  “Have you taken her on a date yet?” Emery asked. “Because if you tell me you took her on a boat which is my dream date, I might need to kill you.”

  “No, I didn’t take her out on a boat,” I said.

  “Have you kissed her yet?”

  “Emery,” I groaned.

  “Did you use tongue?”

  “That’s it.” I tightened my arms around her and rolled onto my back. Her back stayed pressed to my chest while her bare legs flailed above her.

  “What are you doing?” she giggled.

  “Trying to get you to stop talking.”

  She burst into full-blown hysterics which caused me to laugh. We’d done this long enough to know we needed to keep our voices low so my parents couldn’t hear us.

  Eventually, our laughter subsided. But I had a good hundred pounds on her, so I knew she couldn’t get loose unless I relented. I did just enough for her to turn, twisting in my arms so she lay on top of me with her face mere inches from mine. This closeness was clearly natural for us. We’d shared a bed for six years.

  But gone we
re the big awed eyes when she looked at me—like I was her very own knight in shining armor. Now her heavy-laden eyes showed want. Her unsteady breaths held need. “If you don’t want to talk,” she said. “Is there something else you’d rather do?”

  My dick sprang to attention, pressing itself between her thighs.

  Fuuuuuck.

  “Why haven’t you ever tried to kiss me?” she asked.

  Unable to look her in the eyes, my head dropped to the side. “Emery.”

  “I’m serious, Jordan. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

  “About what?”

  “What it’d be like.”

  I huffed, knowing I was in a no-win situation. This was my best friend. This was Emery.

  “Well, aren’t you?” she persisted.

  “I know what it’d be like,” I snapped.

  “And what’s that?”

  I looked back into her blue eyes, the ones I wished didn’t look so damn pretty gazing back at me. “Amazing.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath as her eyes widened, blindsided by my admission.

  I was blindsided by it. My pulse quickened. What the hell was I thinking saying something like that?

  A beat passed before she lowered her cheek to my chest and held onto me, like she was committing everything to memory. My words. The feel of me beneath her. Everything.

  We lay like that for a long time, the stillness and quiet of the night encompassing us.

  Should I have kissed her? Should I have kissed my best friend? I never seriously contemplated it before, and all I could come up with—as her sweet-smelling body lay on top of me—was I didn’t want it to ruin the bond we had.

  “No fighting tonight?” I said, breaking the long stretch of silence.

  “I think it’s the lull before the storm.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I just have a feeling,” she said. “It’s been too quiet.”

  I had no idea what it was like to live the way Emery did with a stepdad who came home drunk ninety-nine percent of the time and took out his drunken anger on her mother. My parents were still as in love as the day they married—or so they told me.

  Emery lifted her head and rested her chin on my chest, staring at me like she had something on her mind. “Will you kiss me, Jordan Grady?”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Like, some day?”

  She shook her head. “Right now.”

  My brows shot up. “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  I swallowed the lump that suddenly shot to my throat. “Is that really what you want?”

  Without hesitation, she nodded.

  We told each other everything, so I knew the gravity of her asking me to do this. “Why would you want to waste your first kiss on me?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve kinda been saving it...for you.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuuuuuck.

  The number of guys who would’ve wanted to be in my shoes at that moment—on the receiving end of Emery’s attention—was not lost on me. I heard the guys talking about her. Saw the looks she received when we walked into school every morning. I was starting to recognize the pit in my stomach as jealousy, but I quickly squashed it because it was Emery. Emery. The girl I would’ve done anything for. The girl I’d actually consider kissing so some other guy wouldn’t be her first kiss—despite the risk of it messing up our friendship.

  I was so screwed.

  I was damned if I kissed my best friend, and I was damned if I rejected her.

  What. The. Fuck?

  Gauging Emery’s reaction, I slipped my hands from where they rested on the dip above her ass slowly up her back. Her eyes never wavered from mine as my hands drifted from her back to her face, cupping her cheeks.

  She pulled in a breath that caused my dick to twitch.

  “Emery?” I said, keeping my voice as calm as I could. “Is this really what you want?”

  “Yes,” she breathed.

  Shit.

  Frantic thoughts whirled through my brain.

  Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

  “You can stop this whenever you want to stop,” I assured her.

  “I know.”

  “And I’m only doing this because I don’t want some other guy to be your first kiss.”

  The realization of what I’d said sucked the spark right out of her eyes. “Is that the only reason?”

  My eyes riveted between hers. What did she want me to say? What did I want to say? I didn’t want to lead her on. I didn’t want to ruin the friendship we’d built. But we were getting older. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t having these weird feelings toward her.

  “No,” I admitted softly.

  A soft blush colored her cheeks as her lips tipped up in the corners.

  Fuck it. There was no turning back now.

  I gently urged her face down to mine, stopping when our lips were no more than a breath apart. “This can’t ruin us.”

  “It won’t,” she breathed.

  I counted to three in my head then closed the distance between us, touching my lips to hers. An unfamiliar numbness spread through them as I took her top lip between mine and sucked on it gently.

  Her hands slipped up my arms. Weird tingles erupted over my biceps. She didn’t normally touch me with such feather-light caresses. Her hands drifted up to my shoulders before stopping and holding on tightly.

  My mouth moved to her bottom lip, sucking on it as gently as the top. It was just as soft and I suddenly couldn’t get enough.

  I wanted more.

  And, Emery did too.

  Her hands slipped to the back of my head, her fingers tunneling into my hair as our lips parted in sync. I licked my way inside her mouth, my tongue moving against hers. Her hands froze, startled by the intrusion. But I kept at it. If she wanted a real kiss, I was going to deliver. Her hands moved again, bracing me to her and keeping me where I was. If this kiss was going to end, I’d be the one ending it.

  I was suddenly very aware of her growing breasts pressing through the T-shirt and into my bare chest. Of her ass covered solely by underwear right there for the grabbing. I deepened the kiss, my tongue moving with purpose as I contemplated how far I should take it.

  “Jordan?” my mother gasped.

  Emery and I flew apart, both of us gasping for air as my mother stepped into my room with wide eyes, taking in the two of us—Emery now at the foot of the bed in nothing but my T-shirt and her underwear and me at the head of the bed in nothing but boxers.

  In the last six years my mother never walked into my room without knocking. Probably for fear of finding my hand down my pants. But it always gave Emery time to hide.

  For some reason, probably to subconsciously stop things from escalating between her son and his best friend, she entered without announcement.

  “Emery, I’m going to need you to head home, honey,” my mother said kindly, though I knew a cussing-out was inevitable once she left.

  Emery scooted off the bed with her eyes focused down on my floor and walked barefoot to my bedroom door. She glanced back at me briefly, before grabbing her wet clothes and disappearing down the hallway.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” my mother hissed when Emery was out of earshot.

  I wrapped my arms around my knees, knowing I didn’t have a damn clue what I was doing.

  “She’s fragile. You know it and I know it,” my mother continued.

  “She’s tougher than she looks,” I assured her.

  “She’s also fifteen. You’re almost eighteen, Jordan.”

  “I know that.”

  “And despite the age gap, you know what else could happen. Your daddy had the talk with you.”

  “Please don’t do this right now,” I groaned.

  “Do what? Give it to you straight?”

  “She’s my best friend. And if you must know, she’s never kissed a boy before. She wanted me to be her first.”


  I watched as the knowledge registered. My mother was a hopeless romantic and quickly stifled a grin. And though the news hit her like Cupid’s arrow, she still pegged me with her eyes. “You promise that’s all it was?”

  I thought for a beat longer than I probably should have, then nodded.

  She inhaled a deep breath before releasing it. “From now on when she’s here, I want the door open.”

  I nodded, knowing she meant when Emery visited during the day. She clearly had no idea of our nighttime sleeping routine.

  But it didn’t matter. Emery wouldn’t return tonight. I just wondered what awkwardness tomorrow night would bring.

  Emery

  I closed Jordan’s front door and stepped outside, my smile stretching a mile wide. He kissed me. Jordan Grady finally kissed me. And it didn’t even matter why.

  My body hummed as my fingers drifted over my lips. They were prickly in the most delicious way as I traced the path Jordan’s lips had taken. Was that what love felt like? Because I was pretty certain, since I was eight years old, I’d loved Jordan Grady. He was the boy who saved me. The one who protected me. The one who made my darkest days bright.

  I stared up at the stars speckling the sky. We country folk were privy to a magical display. And tonight, they were even more spectacular because Jordan kissed me. He actually kissed me. He’d been my first kiss. And if things went the way I hoped for, he’d be my last.

  I knew how he’d always looked at me. I knew he’d only ever seen me as his best friend. But now that we were in school together, something had changed. The jealous way he glared at me when I walked by him in the hallways with different boys. The way he dropped everything and everyone to catch up with me when I walked alone. The way he tried to avoid being around girls whenever I came around.

  He had to feel something.

  But where did we go from there?

  We’d kissed. That was for darn sure. But had he been truthful when he said he was only doing it first so no one else could?

  I’d never been kissed by a boy before, but I was pretty confident the way he kissed me wasn’t the way you kissed your best friend. How long would he have kissed me had his mom not interrupted? Would he have stopped or would it have gone farther?

  I knew I was only fifteen, and I definitely wasn’t the type of girl to lose my virginity to just any ole boy. I planned to wait. Until I was married. Until my future was a definite. If my mom and stepdad’s relationship taught me anything, it was that I wanted only the best for me. And I was willing to wait to get it…and give it.