The Fourth Time Charm: A Friends to Lovers Romance

by Maya Hughes

  “My bed might as well be a fog horn. If we try anything with anyone home, they’ll wonder if we’re demolishing my walls.”

  “My bedroom is too close to the stairs, we’d have no time.”

  She rubbed her thumb against her bottom lip.

  “Bathroom!” We shouted at the same time. Pins-and-needles anticipation ratcheted up with each block we got closer to the house.

  Marisa ran her fingers along my thigh before squeezing it and making me jump. “Only if they’re home. If not, we get naked like a quick-change artist covered in killer bees.”

  “How exactly does your brain work?”

  “After all these years, you still don’t know?”

  I pulled up to the front of the house. Keyton and Berk’s cars were parked right out front. The bathroom it was. The sink and counter were sturdy—or at least they’d get a killer test as soon as we made it upstairs. Hopefully, Keyton wasn’t in his room, and maybe Berk was at Jules’s house.

  “Dammit.”

  When I opened the door, music pumped in from outside and a laugh or two cut through the low bass line. They were outside. The plans were still in play. We could make this work. My blood hummed in my veins.

  “Is your bag packed?” Keyton called out from the doorway headed to the backyard. He had a foil covered tray in one hand and tongs in the other.

  “Not yet.”

  “Berk and Jules are outside. Berk’s starving even though we already had dinner earlier. I’ve got steaks, burgers and hot dogs to cook. You’ve got maybe twenty minutes before the food is ready, if you wanted to pack before you eat.”

  “Actually, I’m ful—” I cut my gaze to Marisa.

  She creeped back toward the stairs.

  “That’s a great idea, man. I’ll go get packed.”

  Her foot hit the bottom step. “And I am going to get changed.”

  That didn’t sound suspicious at all…

  Keyton clipped the tongs in our direction. “They’ll be extra left over for you too, Marisa, so don’t worry about food or anything while we’re away.”

  “Thank you, Keyton! You’re the best.” Her hand slid up the banister and mouthed ‘bathroom’.

  He shook his head, chucking like it wasn’t true, but right now he was my hero, keeping everyone outside. He ducked out the back door, disappearing down the stairs.

  We both craned our necks to watch him walk out across the grass to the grill.

  I casually walked up the stairs with Marisa trailing behind me before we got to the point our feet disappeared from view and rocketed up the last of the stairs.

  Marisa ducked into the bathroom. “We’ve only got ten minutes, max, before someone comes back inside.”

  The door wasn’t even fully closed before she grabbed onto my shoulder and pulled me close.

  She reached around me and cranked on the shower. The spray drowning out the last of the music from the backyard and hopefully covering the noise we were about to make.

  I jerked open the fly of my jeans and she shimmied out of hers.

  My chest filled with the intoxicating hunger that reared its head whenever she stared at me like she wanted me just as much as I wanted her.

  Grabbing my wallet from my back pocket and ripping it open, I fumbled it and almost dropped the condom.

  Marisa’s hands were all over my chest, under my shirt. In my hair.

  I gritted my teeth and slid it on, the urgency and immediacy of getting inside her riding me almost as hard as I would her.

  She jumped up on the counter beside the sink.

  Testing and teasing her with my fingers, I found she was soaking. “Fucking hell, Marisa.”

  “I know, you should probably do something about it.” She bit her bottom lip, one already pink and glistening.

  Steadying myself with one hand, I sank into her. The warm, velvety walls clamped around me and she yelped.

  I shuddered trying to hold back and my muscles tensed with how good she felt and the creeping suspicion someone would come racing up the stairs thinking Marisa was being attacked.

  “This angle. Holy shit, L.”

  I rocked deeper into her, driving all the way home.

  Her back pressed against the wall and the front of my thighs banged into the cabinet beneath it, but it was quiet. At least the counter was. Marisa not so much.

  “Oh god. Do that again.”

  I laughed through my gritted my teeth.

  Her legs locked around mine, restricting my movements. Grinding and thrusting, she moaned, and her hold on my shoulders bordered on painful.

  There was a break in the music vibrating the floors and she screamed, body going rigid in my hold.

  I raised my arm and covered her mouth with my hand. If anything, my hand gave her permission to get louder. The music kicked back on.

  Pounding into her now, I chased my peak and she crested to another. The electric intensity wove deep into my body down to the cells of my DNA, making it impossible to hold back much longer.

  The music from outside and the loud-as-hell steps meant I’d at least have some warning, but we were quickly approaching the time where there wouldn’t be anything that could stop the explosion creeping to the base of my spine.

  Exploding into her, I braced my hands on the edge of the counter on either side of her hips and rested my forehead against her shoulder.

  “That was awesome.” She laughed against the side of my neck.

  “It was.” I licked my lips and stepped back on unsteady legs.

  Taking off the condom, I dropped it into the trash can and buttoned my jeans.

  Marisa crouched down and fumbled around under the sink, coming back out with a pad. She unwrapped it and crunched it up and put it on top of the condom along with some toilet paper. “That’s like throwing away plutonium. No one will look twice.” She pulled on her pants and checked her hair in the mirror. “Check that out, the braids held. Maybe we’ll have to make this the go-to style for a while.” Her eyes glittered with amusement in the mirror.

  A content settled in my chest like I’d been covered with a weighted blanket.

  “But then I can’t run my fingers through it.” I tickled the escaped curls at the base of her neck.

  She jerked away and spun around, facing me. “Maybe I’ll sneak into your bed tonight.” Her fingers trailed down the center of my chest.

  A shout from downstairs broke through the re-heating licking at my skin. “Guys, some of the food is ready if you’re hungry.”

  “We should get down there.” She stared at the center of my chest.

  “What’s up?” I tipped her chin up.

  “Nothing.” Her smile was wide, but it didn’t match her eyes. Distracting me with a quick kiss, she opened the door and looked both ways down the hall before stepping out.

  “Hurry up and pack your bag, then come down after me.”

  I hooked her arm and barely held back my smile. “I’ll go down first. I’m already packed.”

  I pecked her on her open lips and rushed downstairs.

  “Devious,” she whispered after me.

  Bounding into the kitchen, I grabbed sodas for me and Marisa before heading outside.

  “Hey, Berk. Hey, Jules.”

  Jules waved her cup in my direction and covered her mouth with her hand. “Hey, LJ. Where’s Marisa?”

  “What do you mean? Why do you assume I know where she is?” Had they heard her? Shit, our cover was blown.

  Everyone looked at me with a head tilt to go along with it. Okay, maybe the denial was a little too hard.

  “Because Keyton said you two came back together.”

  A stuttering laugh of relief broke through the questioning silence. “Oh yeah, I haven’t seen her since I went up to my room.”

  Berk took the last bite out of his burger I swore had been whole a minute ago and didn’t cover his mouth one bit. “So, a whole thirteen minutes apart. That must be a record for you two.”

  Berk nudged the tray of barb
ecued meats toward me.

  A plate with buns sat beside it.

  “I’m still stuffed from my mom’s dinner, so no meat for me.”

  “Dude, if I’d known that, I wouldn’t have piled so much onto the grill.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Marisa will need food for the next four days, so it won’t go to waste.”

  Jules set her cup down on the grass beside her. “She doesn’t cook?”

  “No!” We all shouted at once.

  She jolted and her hot dog flipped off her plate and onto the ground.

  Berk scooped it up and hook-shotted it into the trash by the back door and grabbed her another one. “We try to keep Marisa’s time in the kitchen to a minimum for the safety of all living things in the vicinity.”

  Keyton closed the grill. “She’s the worst cook in the world and I can only assume she has a cast iron stomach or is part synthetic life form.”

  I lifted my drink to my mouth. “It’s not that bad.”

  “What’s not that bad?” Marisa breezed into the circle of chairs.

  I wanted to pull her onto my lap, hold her hand, and kiss her like Berk could with Jules.

  Handing her the cup, I met the eyes of everyone else in the circle. “Nothing. Getting up early in the morning.”

  “All packed?” She sat in the plastic lawn chair beside me. So close our fingers brushed. I kept myself from hooking my pinkie around hers.

  Keyton lifted his cup in my direction. “Berk said he’d drive us to the bus in the morning and pick up some breakfast along the way, unless you wanted to drive yourself.”

  Marisa froze with her soda halfway to her mouth.

  The whole house to ourselves.

  “I might hit the snooze a few times. I’ll drive myself.”

  Her lips twitched and she flicked the rim of her cup. A sideways glance told me the morning plan was a go—now we just needed to get through the next eight hours until everyone else left.

  Fresh, crisp air. Crunchy, crinkly leaves. The best fucking way to start off a travel day.

  The spot on my chest where she’d nipped me before screaming my name pulsed. I rubbed my hand over the mark, happy to have a reminder of our morning.

  After Keyton and Berk had shouted from the bottom of the stairs that they were leaving, we’d waited a total of three minutes before running into each other in the hallway and falling back into her bedroom.

  Three team buses idled in the parking lot dotted with players’ cars. I slung my bag under one of them and climbed the stairs. The FU Trojan with his sword pointed toward our next win was painted on the side.

  Inside the muted interior of the bus, some guys had their hats pulled down over their eyes. Other had headphones on and phones out. The normal rowdiness was non-existent this early in the morning. A luxury charter bus wasn’t the worst way to get around, but long hours on the road made even this thing unbearable. At least it was only a twenty-minute drive to the airport.

  I grabbed a seat behind Keyton and Berk.

  “Look who finally decided to join us.” Keyton peered back at me, an eyebrow raised in suspicion.

  “The snooze is addictive.” I tried to play it off, but Shakespeare in the Summer wasn’t exactly in my wheelhouse.

  Berk spoke through the gap in the seats. “How are you feeling about your chances of getting on the field with this one?”

  And just like that, my untouchably great mood soured.

  The defensive line coach walked down the aisle, checking off names on his clipboard. Coach stood at the front of the bus. His gaze swept over each row and hit mine with extra heat. “I’d say, not good.”

  19

  Marisa

  “How long are you holding out on me that you and LJ are sleeping together?”

  I choked on my water. It burned my lungs and dribbled out of my mouth. I flailed and knocked my notebook off the dining room table in Ford’s apartment where Liv and I were studying for tonight.

  “You asswipe. I’ve been here for twenty minutes. You waited for me to take a drink to ask that question.” I used my sleeves to clean my chin.

  “You’re right, and you took forever to open your bottle of water.”

  I picked up my notebook and whacked her with it. “And that’s crazy. Why would you say that?

  “Please, I’m the queen of don’t-even-think-about-dating-that-guy relationships, remember?” Liv and Ford had been a big fucking deal to her older brother, Ford being his best friend and all. Although not anymore. Apparently, they hadn’t spoken much at all since Ford and Liv decided they didn’t care what he thought and they wanted to be together. If only it had been that easy for me and LJ.

  “Plus, you’ve checked the time at least twenty times in the twenty minutes you’ve been here. I was like that all the time when Ford was traveling to games.”

  Deflecting and evading these questions had become second nature, a holdover from all the times I hadn’t wanted everyone to know I was pining after my best friend that had continued until LJ had said we should keep what we were doing just between us. “Still not convincing enough. He’s my best friend. Of course, I’d want to know when he got in.”

  “I thought I was your best friend.”

  I glared. And LJ said I was a pain in the ass?

  “Plus, you have a used condom stuck to the back of your jeans.”

  I shot up from my seat. “Sonabitch. I threw that away.” Spinning in circles, I tried to find the gross latex.

  Liv perched on the edge of the couch, lips twitching like she was a second from cracking.

  Grabbing an overstuffed pillow off the couch, I lobbed it at her. “You’re the worst.” My screech could probably be heard in New Jersey.

  “Oh, my bad. It was just some tape.” She burst into laughter and pulled the piece of tape off the back of my jeans, waving it in front of me. “Not sleeping together, huh?”

  I flung myself onto the plush ottoman beside me, staring up at the exposed-beam ceiling. Well, so much for maintaining my cover. I’d make a terrible cop. But now it wasn’t so scary to let someone in. Liv had always suspected something was going on between us, even when I’d thought it wasn’t possible.

  I glanced around, checking over my shoulder like anyone else was inside other than the two of us. “We’ve been sleeping together for almost three weeks now. Technically, only a couple times because of his stupid football schedule, but we’ve definitely crossed over the line from friends to more than friends. There, are you happy?” It all came out in a rush. I felt a flood of relief that someone finally knew.

  “Supremely,” she beamed. “I swore one day you’d just trip and end up on his dick with all the flirting you two did all the time.”

  “We didn’t flirt.”

  “Right?” She nodded, looking at me like I was a delusional doofus. “You two have been foreplaying for at least a decade.”

  “Gross. We were twelve.”

  “You didn’t have the hots for him when you were a pre-teen?”

  “No, that was squarely high school territory. The first summer after football camp where he took off his shirt and the bird chest was gone.” Right before diving into the pool. I swear, I choked on my gum when he emerged from the water, glistening with rippling muscles.

  “Do the guys know? Have you two been driving them from the house with your hours-long sex sessions?”

  “Ew, what the hell?” And if there had been a doubt in my mind about whether we should shout about sleeping together from the rooftops here they’d been evaporated. “Is that what you and Ford were doing when you got together under the cover of night and, oh, posted to the internet.”

  “Only for a few hours.” She flinched and glared.

  Whoops, probably crossed a line there bringing up the voyeur sex clip of Ford and Liv celebrating her 21st birthday in May.

  “No, we haven’t told anyone. And you can’t tell anyone either.” I jabbed a finger in her direction.

  Liv was an excellent secret keeper
. It was part of the reason things had gone south with her brother. It turns out brothers tended to not like you hiding that you’re dating their best friend behind their back. So if anyone was a vault and knew how important it was to keep this quiet, it was Liv.

  “Your secret is safe with me. Does this mean you two are dating?” She made a swoony face I was seconds away from clobbering with another pillow.

  “Things are fluid. There aren’t any real plans beyond just enjoying the time we have together. He’ll be headed to the draft in April and I’m going to Venice for two years.” I shrugged. “There’s no point in making long term plans right now.”

  “Come on!” She slammed her hands down on the pillow on her lap. “You two have been dancing around this for so long and now that you’re finally banging you’re like ‘oh, we’re just keeping it casual.’”

  “What else am I supposed to do? I can’t give up Italy and he’s not going to give up football. Our lives will be crazy, why throw relationship expectations on top of that?” I’d run through it all hundreds of times in my head. Asking either of us to give up our dreams would lead to anger and resentment. It was better to hold onto what we had and let it go when the time came rather than clinging to it and destroying each other.

  “Because you two care about each other.”

  “We’ve been friends for a long time, but I’ve been burned before when it comes to expecting too much from the people in my life. You can’t be disappointed if you don’t have expectations.” We’d avoided any serious talks, and I planned on keeping it that way. Then at least I could pretend I wasn’t falling in love with him and didn’t know how I’d make it being apart from him for two years.

  “So the plan is you go to Italy, he goes pro and then what? You never see each other again?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to answer the questions that had been rolling through my head since I landed in August.

  “Be serious. Do you honestly think he’s going to get drafted and then never speak to you again?”

  “It’s a crazy life. He’ll be traveling all the time. Tons of attention. And I won’t be there. How can I expect him not to get caught up in the pro football world?”