by Lauren Layne
Ben groans. “You and your puzzles. How about a walk on the beach?”
I glance outside skeptically. “You mean, walk on a pitch-black beach next to the angry Pacific Ocean in forty-degree weather in the rain?” I ask.
He grins. “Yes. Exactly.”
“I’m in.”
Five minutes later, we’re covered head to toe, me in the big college sweatshirt I’ve confiscated from him, and Ben in his black fleece pullover. We make the short walk to the beach, and thankfully the rain seems to have tapered off to little more than a faint mist.
It’s not as cold as I expected, and since nothing makes me crankier than sand in my shoes, I take off my socks and tennis shoes next to the steps, setting them on a large, unmistakable rock, so I’ll be able to find them again.
Ben follows suit, and we both roll our jeans up to mid-calf.
The sand is cold under my feet, but deliciously so.
I’ve always loved all my family’s trips to Cannon Beach.
It’s one of the prettiest places in the world, all rough waves and smooth sand and the famous Haystack Rock looming over the beach.
But despite the fact that summer is its high season, with bonfires and ice cream cones and sunshine, I’ve always loved it best in winter.
Nothing beats curling up with a good book and a blanket while it storms outside, or roasting marshmallows in the fireplace. And, of course, the puzzles.
But the best part is having the beach all to yourself.
Well. You and your best friend.
Ben seems to feel the same way, because he breathes deep and I practically feel him relax as he walks beside me.
It’s low tide, which makes the sandy expanse feel endless. In silent agreement we turn left, although it doesn’t really matter which way we go. We’re not in it for the destination.
We walk in silence for several moments before I speak. “So, what did you and my mom talk about that had you ready to poop your pants?” I ask.
He’s quiet for a minute, almost as though debating whether or not to tell me. Or how much to tell me.
“Your mom’s worried about you,” he says finally.
I whip my head around in surprise. “Seriously? Am I giving off damaged vibes that I don’t know about?”
Ben doesn’t crack a joke in response like I think he’s going to. Instead, he shoves his hands into his pockets, tilting his head back to the sky for a moment. “She thinks you’re not dealing with your breakup with Lance.”
I open my mouth, then shut it.
Well, this is a twist I didn’t see coming.
Most of the time I feel like my mom and I are on the same page, but this catches me off guard. “She said that?”
He shrugs. “Something about pent-up emotions, blah blah blah.”
I shove my hands into my own pockets as I think on this.
In all truthfulness, I haven’t done much thinking about Lance. Or the breakup. But if I’m all the way truthful…I haven’t really let myself think about it.
Whenever something reminds me of Lance, I immediately go to how awful I felt when I realized he was breaking up with me, and my brain sort of skips away from that thought because it’s too painful.
“Is she right?” he asks after several moments. “Are you not over him?”
I stop, because suddenly it feels like too much to walk and think and talk about a topic so close to the heart at the same time.
“Maybe,” I answer quietly.
He stops, too, turning to face me. I can’t really make out his face. There’s no light to work with beyond the stars and a half moon shining through the mist, but I can sense his intensity.
“Maybe you need to deal with that,” he says.
“Yeah, but how?” I say. “I mean trust me, I want to move on—truly move on—more than anyone. I don’t want to be one of those ladies who hits her forty-fifth birthday only to realize she’s been carting around twenty-year-old emotional baggage. But there’s not, like, an instructional manual for mental health.”
Ben rolls his shoulders forward and looks down at the sand. “Maybe you start by talking to Lance. Exploring how that makes you feel.”
It’s not a terrible idea. Closure, and all that.
“I guess I could call him up for coffee or something,” I mutter.
“You sure vodka wouldn’t be the better choice when meeting one’s ex?”
“Nah. I’d want a clear head,” I say.
We start walking again, both of us quiet. I know why I’m quiet, but I can’t quite figure out why Ben’s all lost in thought.
“Did my mom say anything else?” I ask. “You seem sort of…pensive.”
“Pensive, huh?” he says. “That sounds kind of sexy and brooding.”
“It can also be annoying, so spit it out, Heathcliff.” I nudge his elbow playfully with mine.
But his next words are anything but playful.
“I don’t want our friendship to change,” he says.
My footsteps falter, and then I skip ahead so I’m in front of him, holding up a palm so he has no choice but to stop as well. “Wait, what? What the heck did my mom say to you?”
Honestly, this isn’t like Ben at all, and I don’t know that I like it.
I rarely have a cross thought about my mother, but I’m not exactly loving that she’s somehow changed my best friend into a reserved shell of himself tonight.
Ben looks away from me. “It’s just…I guess I’m realizing that we can’t be like this forever. Carefree and going off on vacations together whenever we want.”
“Yes, we can,” I say stubbornly.
His smile is a little sad. “Can we? What happens when you meet someone? I mean not just a good-looking guy in a bar, but like…someone. Or when I do? What about when one of us gets married?”
If I thought that my brain shied away from the memory of Lance dumping me, it’s nothing compared to the way my brain refuses to comprehend the thought of Ben getting married.
“Have you met someone?” I force myself to ask. “I mean someone…special?”
“No. Not even close. It’s just…it’s going to happen someday, you know? For both of us.”
It’s a weird role reversal for us. Him being all reasonable and forward thinking, and me being stubborn and in-the-moment.
“Yeah, but maybe it doesn’t make sense to be thinking about that now,” I say slowly. “It may be our future, but it’s not our present, you know?”
He turns and looks out at the water before looking back at me. “You’re right. Sorry. Man, your mom’s a pro about getting inside someone’s head, huh?”
“Apparently at getting inside your head,” I tease.
We begin walking, and the tension seems to fade, and I think we’re back to normal. Back to where we should be.
But then…
Ben slowly reaches out a hand toward me, and I’m confused right up until the moment his fingers brush mine.
The gesture is tentative. Sweet. And maybe just a little bit desperate for something that neither of us want to name.
Ben—my best friend in the whole world—is holding my hand.
And despite the fact that my brain is completely freaked out, my fingers seem to know what to do as they intertwine with his, and we walk hand in hand on a quiet beach, each of us lost in thought.
But for the life of me, I can’t muster the courage to ask him if his thoughts are as dangerous as my own.
Chapter 22
Ben
I can’t sleep.
The beach house the Blantons always rent has four bedrooms, and Parker and I are in separate ones, obviously, since her parents don’t know that we’ve been sharing a bed in recent weeks.
But it’s been over an hour since Parker and I got back from our walk on the beach, and I’ve been staring at the ceiling for a good forty-five minutes.
Finally I have to admit the real reason I can’t sleep:
Because Parker’s not beside me.
S
omehow in the past few weeks, I’ve gotten used to her warm softness curled against me.
Gotten used to the smell of her shampoo and the sound of her breathing.
It’s just sex, I tell myself.
Other than the few days Parker was all Crazy-Town thanks to PMS, we’ve had sex every damn day. So the fact that we haven’t today? That’s what’s throwing me off. That’s all. Just the lack of sex.
I’m pretty sure.
I hesitate for about thirty more seconds before throwing off the blankets and quietly moving toward the door of my bedroom and opening it. It squeaks. Damn it.
Then I let out a silent little laugh, realizing that I’m acting like a teenager trying to sneak into a girl’s room to cop a feel while her parents sleep down the hall.
And that’s exactly what’s about to happen.
Parker’s door is unlocked, and she must be awake, too, because she sits up in bed the second that I open her door.
I shut it behind me, but then, oddly, I lose my nerve, and don’t move.
But she does.
She doesn’t say a word, just scoots from the middle of the bed to the right side. Making room for me.
I grin as I hurry to the warmth of her bed. To the warmth of her.
We lie down at the same time, heads on our respective pillows as we face each other.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi.”
And just like that, I’m back to feeling hesitant. Shy, almost.
What the fuck is wrong with me? With us?
I’d come in here with every intention of hot, raunchy sex, made even hotter by the fact that we’d have to stay completely silent.
But now that I’m here, just barely able to make out her familiar features in the darkness, I find that I want something different. Something I don’t even have a name for.
My hand slides across my pillow, then hers, until my palm rests on her cheek. My thumb rubs across her soft skin, and I think I hear her sigh. I wish there was a little more light so that I could see her, but I make do with touch as my fingers explore her cheek, her closed eyes. Her lips.
She kisses my fingertips then, just barely, and my chest squeezes.
I move slowly closer until we’re chest to chest and I can feel her breath against my lips.
I kiss her.
Slowly, softly. It’s a different kiss. Dangerous in its intimacy, but neither of us seems eager to hurry it along to our usual frantic pace. My tongue dips into her mouth again and again, loving the way her fingers pull restlessly at my T-shirt.
My mouth moves down to her neck, her hands roaming through my hair as I linger there endlessly before moving down her body, kissing her breasts, her stomach.
I stop at her waist, pushing her tank top up slightly so my mouth can rest on the bare skin just below her belly button, and it’s there that I pause, realizing that what makes sex with her on some whole other level from sex with other women is not her amazing body, not the way her frantic fingers contradict her soft sighs.
It’s that she’s Parker. And sex with someone who I care about is…different.
Better.
My hands slide all the way under the shirt, and I move back up her body, pulling the shirt with me as I go. She lifts her arms above her head so I can remove it all the way. My own shirt follows, as do her panties and my sweatpants and boxers, although not before I pull a condom out of the pocket, because…Boy Scout.
There are so many things I want to do to her. Things that I want her to do to me. But when her arms come around me, pulling me closer, all I can think about is being inside her. Being home.
There’s none of the usual joking or impatience as I roll the condom on.
My hands are on the pillow on either side of her head, my eyes locked on hers as I gently move a strand of hair out of her face, wanting to see her. Needing to see her.
I watch her face as I slide all the way in, one smooth stroke that has both of us gasping in the quiet night air. And then somehow my hands have found hers on the pillow. Our fingers link together on either side of her head, and somehow the palm-to-palm contact feels every bit as important as the feel of me inside of her.
I plunge again and again, her hips lifting to mine.
“Ben.” My name on her lips is a whisper, a plea. One that I answer by moving against her just right until she arches against me, clenching around me.
I groan, and somehow this quiet, straightforward missionary sex makes me come harder than I ever have before.
I rest my forehead against hers lightly, catching my breath before pulling back and pressing my lips to her cheek.
I want nothing more than to lie beside her, cradle her to me, but reality is slowly creeping into the dreamlike sequence of the past several minutes, and I remember where we are. Who we are.
“I should go back to my room,” I whisper.
She nods.
Neither one of us make any effort to unlink our fingers.
I feel like there are things to say, but I don’t know what the hell they are, so I settle for kissing her one last time.
It’s only once I’m back in my room that I realize perhaps it’s not so much things I should have said, but thing. As in one thing.
Because for the first time since we started this whole thing, I’m wondering if one of us shouldn’t utter our safe word.
Before it’s too late.
Chapter 23
Parker
We both try to pretend that things haven’t changed. That last night wasn’t both awesome and weird.
But the ride back to Portland is strained in a way I’ve never experienced with Ben.
We still talk. We still argue over what to listen to on the radio, still play the license plate game where we try to be the first person to think of a word that contains all of the letters of whatever license plate is in front of us.
But I can’t stop thinking about last night.
About how it had felt important somehow.
And when we finally pull up to our driveway, I’m relieved. I need some alone time to think. To figure out just what to make of the hand-holding on the beach and the intense intimacy of the sex that followed.
All visions of me-time evaporate, though, the second Ben puts the car in park and I see the guy sitting on my front porch.
My mind seems to go perfectly blank, although over the ringing in my ears, I hear Ben mutter “What the hell?”
It’s Lance.
Lance is sitting on my front porch, watching with an unreadable expression as Ben and I get out of the car.
Ben pulls both of our bags out of the backseat, slinging my weekender bag over one shoulder and his duffel over the other.
Lance stands as we approach, and the look he gives Ben is definitely wary. A quick glance at Ben’s face tells me why. His usual easy smile is nowhere to be seen. My fingers touch Ben’s forearm, the gentle touch telling him to stand down.
His eyes meet mine, his expression angry. Still, he respects my request even if he doesn’t agree with it, because he merely jerks his head at Lance in grumpy acknowledgment as he passes.
“Hey, Ben.” Lance moves out of the way as Ben walks past him, and I’m pretty sure if he hadn’t, Ben would have done one of those too-hard shoulder bumps.
“We’re just getting back from Cannon Beach,” I tell Lance, out of the need to say something.
“Ah.” His smile is slight as he studies me. “I have fond memories of that place. Most of them involving sneaking into your bedroom in the middle of the night.”
Ben just put his key into the lock, but he clearly overhears because his shoulders stiffen.
No. No! And all my brain can register is oh my God! because is this really happening?
Objectively, I know Lance’s comment isn’t geared at Ben.
He can’t possibly know about last night. And it’s obvious from the slightly desperate expression on his face that his comment is an attempt to remind me of good times—better times.
; And yet I have the strangest urge to run after Ben. To tell him that yes, Lance came to my room once or twice, but that was before…before…
“What are you doing here?” I ask Lance, irrationally angry at his presence.
Lance slumps a bit, probably at my less-than-excited tone. “Can we talk?”
I glance once more at Ben, only to see him slam the door shut without so much as a backward glance.
My fingers touch my forehead as a headache starts creeping up out of nowhere. “Sure.”
Because what else am I supposed to say to the guy I dated for five years? Even if he did dump me.
I lower myself to the step, and Lance frowns in confusion, probably because it’s winter, and inside the house makes so much more sense for a heart-to-heart. But I don’t want Ben and Lance in the same house. I’m not sure I want Lance in my house at all until I know what he has to say.
“Um, okay,” he says. He sits beside me, close, but not quite touching. “So Ben went with you to Cannon Beach?”
“Yup.”
It’s not much as far as explanations go, but then I don’t really owe Lance anything.
Still, it’s odd that he even asks. One of Lance’s best qualities was always his lack of jealousy over my relationship with Ben. He always seemed to understand in ways that others didn’t.
But there’s a slight edge to his voice now, which makes me wonder if he doesn’t somehow sense the shift with Ben and me. Although heck if I know what that shift is.
I thought I did, but now…
Lance looks up at the sky, which is cloudy but thankfully not rainy. “I think I made a mistake, Parker.”
I put my hands between my knees and then squeeze my legs together. I say nothing.
He glances over at me. “I…I’ve been thinking about you. About us. A lot.”
“Yeah, I totally sensed that from all the phone calls,” I say sarcastically.
He’s quiet for a few moments. “I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. And I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure. Didn’t want to jerk you around.”
I snort. “Where was all that consideration when you strung me along for the last two months of our relationship even when you weren’t feeling it?”
