by Aly Martinez
I moved my arm to my lap and righted myself in my seat. A myriad of conflicting emotions swirled inside me.
“Ramsey,” she breathed.
I had no words. It was already happening. One conversation and the carefully crafted walls I’d painstakingly built brick by fucking brick were starting to shake. It was what I’d feared would happen if I let her in even an inch.
“Please don’t shut down on me again.” She covered my hand with hers. “Come back. Please.”
I couldn’t go back. I’d ruined her life once. I’d never forgive myself if I did it again.
Nora was right. Thea was never going to stop until I was happy. After the hell I’d put her through, I had no idea why she cared at all anymore. Misplaced guilt or a sense of responsibility, I couldn’t be sure. But whatever the reason, it had to end.
I’d fooled her when we were kids. Wearing my smile as a mask when in reality my world had been crumbling around me. It had been a long time since that smile had been a part of my arsenal.
It was time to bring it back.
Giving her hand a squeeze that was as much of a goodbye as it was a hello, I split my lips into a smile so painful that it felt as though it had been created with the blade of a knife. “Let’s try the friends thing.”
Her head swung my way and her whole face lit like the New York City power grid. “Really?”
“Sure. Why not? It can’t hurt, right?”
It was a lie. It was going to fucking slay me.
But there wasn’t much I wouldn’t do to set my Sparrow free.
“Thea?” Ramsey called as he padded barefoot down the hall.
The grin I’d been wearing all day stretched across my face. “In the kitchen.”
It was well past seven, and Nora was out having drinks with a few of her fellow teachers. She didn’t go out often, and it was awful convenient that the day I’d texted her the good news about Ramsey and me giving the friends thing a shot, she’d suddenly had plans and wouldn’t be home until “late.” She’d followed it up with a GIF of Daisy Duck covering Donald’s face with lipstick kisses, so I thought her hopes for my first evening alone with Ramsey were slightly more aspiring than mine.
Ramsey and I had been busy at work that day, so our paths had only crossed a few times since our conversation that morning and our interactions had been limited. My dad and Misty had eaten with us when I’d walked over to have lunch, and when Ramsey had popped over to return a package that had been mistakenly delivered to the barbershop, I’d been on the phone with a client. That afternoon, he’d spent the ride home on the phone with his parole officer discussing the paperwork he needed from the prison so he could schedule the exam for his barber’s license. He had years more than the fifteen hundred hours of experience required, but until the prison signed off on his hours worked and he passed the exam, he was stuck cleaning and observing at my dad’s shop.
As per usual, when we’d gotten home, Ramsey had gone straight to his room, shut the door, and turned on the shower. I swear he was the cleanest man I had ever met. My water bill was going to be a bazillion dollars, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“Question,” he said, settling on one of the barstools that overlooked our kitchen.
I nervously toyed with the tie on my Yeti for Bed pajama pants before turning to face him. “Answer.”
He ran his finger down the yellow page of the open book and asked, “What do you know about Peach Ink?”
My chin jerked to the side. “What is that?”
“It’s a tattoo shop.”
“No, I mean, what is that you’re looking at?”
“A phone book?” He frowned adorably—and a lot hot too.
Dammit! Just friends, Thea. Just. Friends.
“Right,” I said. “But where did you find it? I didn’t know they made those anymore. You do know you can look up all that stuff on your phone, right?”
“Yeah, I’m not using that thing again. It’s possessed by that deaf Siri woman.” He looked back down at the phone book, shaking his head and mimicking, “I’m sorry, Ram-zay, I didn’t catch that.”
I barked a laugh. “You can turn her off, ya know?”
“I don’t even know how I turned her on. You think I can figure out how to turn her off?”
I walked around the bar, my hand outstretched. “Here, give it to me. I’ll show you.”
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket and slapped it in my hand. “So anyway, Peach Ink. What do you know about it? Are they any good? From one to ten, what are the chances I’ll catch hepatitis?”
I handed the phone back to him. “You gotta open it first.” Biting my bottom lip to stifle a laugh, I watched as he moved his head from side to side, trying to get the facial recognition to read the different angles of his face.
“Dammit,” he muttered, starting the process over.
“Oh my God. You and this phone.” I laughed, taking it again. “Sit still. You don’t have to move it around. Just look at it and it will open.” I held it up in front of his face, and not a second later, the sounds of a woman moaning and skin slapping filled the room.
Ramsey’s face contorted with horror and he jumped off the stool, yelling, “Siri off! Siri off!” He plucked it from my hands and frantically pressed the buttons on the side, cussing when the moans grew louder. “Goddamn it, Siri. Turn it off!”
The room suddenly fell silent, followed by, “I’m sorry, Ram-zay. I didn’t catch that.”
We stood there staring at each other, my surprise meeting his mortification.
And then it happened. Twelve years, nine months, five days, nineteen hours, and four minutes after I’d lost him, Ramsey came home. A full-blown Ramsey Stewart special split his face.
“Well, that wasn’t awkward at all.”
A loud laugh bubbled from my throat and I leaned against the bar to keep from falling over. “So let me get this straight. You can’t work Siri and you’re using a phone book to look up a number, but you were able to find porn?”
“Shut up.” He laughed, deep and throaty. It was the Ramsey Stewart masterpiece to match the Ramsey Stewart special and it made my knees weak.
“That does explain all the showers.”
“Sweet Jesus, we’re really going to talk about this, aren’t we?”
“I’m just happy Nora got you the waterproof model.”
His laughter abruptly stopped. “Wait, it’s waterproof?”
That was when I lost it. I collapsed onto the floor, holding my stomach, and laughing my ass off.
Ramsey was right behind me, groaning, “Shoot me!”
We laughed. And we laughed. God, did we laugh.
I started crying at one point.
Ramsey laughed harder.
He hit his leg on the barstool as he rolled over.
I laughed even harder.
“Siri off!” I mocked.
He was laughing so hard that he started coughing.
When he crawled over to me on his elbows and covered my mouth with his hand to make me stop talking, I continued to shout around his fingers.
It was stupid, but it felt like some of the pieces of me I’d lost over the years were finally clicking back into place. I had no idea how long it was in actual minutes, but it felt like twelve years’ worth of humor was trying to escape. By the time we sobered, we were both flat on our backs, not touching, but close enough that we could have.
I’d have given anything to inch over, rest my head on his shoulder, and curl into his side. He would have kissed me on the top of my head, and I would have tilted my head back and smiled up at him. He would have dipped low, telling me I was crazy before planting a toe-curling kiss on my lips. We’d have made out like we were high schoolers again, and then he would have picked me up and carried me to bed, where he’d have made love to me hard and fast like the adults we’d become.
But that wasn’t this version of Thea and Ramsey. They were just friends.
It would however be Ramsey and som
eone else one day.
As I lay there, staring at the side of his smiling face, love warmed my chest. I’d missed him so damn much. I didn’t need it to be physical with us. If keeping him as a part of my life meant not being the center of his, I could do that. Having him back was enough.
He’d been home just over a week, and as crazy as it was, I’d never thought about Ramsey watching porn or getting himself off. But now, it seemed so obvious. After all, I’d gone through my fair share of batteries over the years. He was a gorgeous twenty-nine-year-old man who had been arrested the same night he’d lost his virginity. Even if he was content with being alone for the time being, he wouldn’t be forever. A time would come when he would want to find a woman, if not for a long-term relationship then at least for a few hot and heavy nights.
He’d made it clear that woman wasn’t going to be me. I’d even come to terms with it—kind of. Deep down, I hoped that, when that day came, he didn’t feel like he had to lie to me about it or sneak around behind my back. It would break me to know he was out with another woman, but I’d already put myself back together once. I could do it again.
If he was happy, I would find a way to accept it.
“We…are never…speaking of this again,” Ramsey panted.
“I did…not agree to that.”
“I think Siri’s out to get me.”
“She’s probably jealous of all your porn ladies.”
“Nah. She’s a know-it-all. She’s not my type.”
I rolled to the side to face him and propped myself up on an elbow. “What is your type, Ramsey?”
Staring up at the ceiling, he laughed again. “A tree is my type at this point.”
I swallowed hard. “You know, if you ever wanted to go out and meet someone, you could tell me, right?”
His smile fell as he looked over at me. “Don’t do this. We’re finally having a good night. Don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what? We’re friends. We can talk about this stuff. Come on. Be real. The showers aren’t going to cut it forever.”
He shook his head and fluidly climbed to his feet. “I’m not talking about this.”
My chest literally ached, but I did my best to cover as I stood too. “Ramsey, it’s okay.”
“Drop it,” he demanded.
I rested my hand on his forearm. “I know it will happen eventually. It’s natural for you to want someone. I’m actually impressed you’ve waited this long. I’m sure it’s been tough over the years.”
He looked at my hand and then back up again, his dark eyes straddling the line between fury and fire. “Who said I’ve waited?”
Well, hello there, gaping hole in my chest. So nice to see you again.
My breath lodged in my throat as I mentally told myself it was okay. Wasn’t that the message I’d been trying to give him? That he was allowed to have someone else? And he hadn’t lied to me about it, which was also what I’d thought I’d wanted. Only now it stung.
I had no idea when he could have met someone. He was always with me or Nora. But the when and the how didn’t matter. He was officially moving on.
I quickly turned away, knowing that no matter how much I wanted to, I wouldn’t be able to smile through that kind of pain. Jesus, it had been twelve years. Why couldn’t I just let him go?
Oh, right. Because I still loved him as if it had been coded into my DNA.
“That’s good. Great. I’m happy for you,” I whispered, ready to bolt to my room but without an excuse to make my escape.
I heard his feet shuffle across the carpet just seconds before his suffocating proximity stole the oxygen from my lungs. He wasn’t touching me, but he loomed so close that his body heat licked at my back.
“What about you, Thea? There had to have been a lot of cold nights since you were sixteen?”
My breathing shuddered as I stared at the way our shadows erotically melded into one. “There were.”
“I know you were mad at me for a lot of years. You find someone to warm you up while I was gone?”
I gasped when his hands landed on my hips, his fingers sneaking under the hem of my tank top and brushing the sensitive flesh above my waistband.
“No,” I replied, chancing a step backward to bring his front flush against me.
He was hard. And not the ripples of his abs or the curves of his defined pecs. His cock was long and thick, straining against the denim of his jeans where they met my ass.
He hissed at the contact, and every nerve ending from my nipples to my clit, all the ones that had long since been dormant, came to life like wildfire.
His head dipped and his hot breath fluttered across my skin as he asked, “No one?”
Fiery butterflies hummed in my stomach as I boldly turned my head toward him. His nose swept my cheek. “You smell like watermelon.”
His fingers spasmed and he pulled me deeper into his curve. “Answer me.”
I didn’t want to answer him. Jealousy was the only thing keeping him in that moment.
Well, jealousy and need.
I lifted my arm, terrified of breaking whatever spell had been cast over him but unable to stop myself, and wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, drawing him closer. “I have hands too. I even know how to look up porn. Though I didn’t need it most nights.”
His chest rose and fell against my back, my heart working at a similar marathon pace.
I probably should have cared that he’d been with someone that week. I was a woman who knew my worth. And I deserved far more than being someone’s sloppy seconds.
But I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
It had been too long. And it was Ramsey; he could use me all he wanted.
I’d use him too.
We could be two broken people numbing our pain with sex and orgasms.
Distracting each other.
Giving to each other.
Taking from each other.
It was such subtle movement that I don’t think he was conscious of the way his hips rocked against my ass. Stroking and teasing.
“You think about me?” he rumbled, but it was laced with thick insecurity.
I nuzzled my cheek against his nose again and raked my fingernails across the back of his neck. “I don’t know. You think about me?”
My lungs seized as his hand glided up my stomach, his thumb stopping so close to the bottom of my breast that it caused an ache between my legs.
He licked his lips. “When I’m in the shower, you’re fucking beautiful on your knees, Thea.”
I moaned, arching my back to add more pressure against his hard-on, and smiled. “Good, because when I’m in my bed at night, you’re fucking beautiful between my thighs, Ramsey.”
A deep groan vibrated against my back. “Dammit, this can’t happen.”
“We’re two consenting adults. It can definitely happen.” I covered his hand and guided it to my breast.
His entire body stiffened at the contact, but his hand kneaded like it’d found its way home. “Fuck,” he groaned, plucking at my nipple through the fabric of my thin bra.
Throwing my head back to rest on his shoulder, I sagged against him.
His arm hooked around my hips, holding me up as he continued his delicious assault on my breast.
“I don’t want you,” he snarled, but his teeth nipped at my neck.
I thrust a hand between us and gave his hard length a pointed rub. “You’re a liar.”
His hand left my breast and traced up my throat, squeezing my jaw as his thumb dipped inside my mouth. “We’re not fucking doing this.”
“Ramsey, please.”
“No,” he growled before biting me again, harder this time, sending sparks to my clit.
One touch and I would unravel.
I tugged at his wrist, desperate to shift his frenzied attention into my panties, and I thought I was successful until he roughly shoved his hand into the front of my shirt.
Palm to breast. Skin to skin. Reckless and wild.
<
br /> It was fucking magical.
My lids fell shut, and his mouth opened and I could taste the watermelon on his breath as he hovered out of my reach. “Kiss me.”
The rocking of his hips intensified. “No.”
“Then let me touch you.” I twisted in his arms, going for the button of his jeans, but I never made it.
In less than a second, he had me off my feet and I hit the floor hard. I was face down and his hand beside my head was the only thing to soften the blow. He came down on top of me, his heavy weight pinning me to the carpet.
“I can’t do this with you,” he choked out, emotion overflowing in his voice. It was such a stark dichotomy to the relentless rhythm of his hips as he ground into me. “You’re going to kill me. I can’t handle this, Thea. I can’t do it. I can’t.”
I reached back, trying to hold him.
He pinned my hands out to my sides. “I’m not strong enough for this.”
“Ramsey, stop,” I urged, turning my head, trying to get a read on his face. The only progress I made was carpet burn on the tip of my chin.
He suddenly stopped moving over me, but his heavy weight slumped on top of me, head to foot, making it difficult to breathe.
“Stop,” I coughed.
As if he’d been propelled by a greater force, he flew off me all at once.
That day had been one of the biggest roller coasters of my life.
It’d started with nightmares.
Then elation after our conversation on the way to work.
Giddiness as I’d waited for that friendship to start.
Heartbreak when I’d realized he was already moving on.
Red-hot desire as his hands had traveled over my body.
But as I sat up, finding him on his knees across the room, I’d never seen such soul-crushing devastation in my entire life.
