by Emma Hart
Stupid wine. Stupid Shelby. Stupid brain.
Jay brought his plate over to the sink and put it in on top of mine. He paused, hovering behind me for a second. The sound of him sighing filled the air, and just when I expected him to say something, he didn’t.
He turned around and he walked away.
I’d had enough.
I slammed the wet cloth into the sink, splattering water over both me and the backsplash. Storming after him, I straightened my spine. “Jay.”
He gripped his bedroom door handle, keeping his back to me.
“If you have something to say, say it.”
“Nothing I have to say will be productive,” he ground out, his shoulders visibly tightening.
Damn his tight t-shirts.
“But clearly you have something you need to get off your chest. If you don’t want to share, then fine, but don’t get on my back when I don’t feel like talking to you, either.” I turned away, heading back for the kitchen.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fine.”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder, raising my eyebrows in question.
He let go of the handle, slowly turning his body so that he could meet my eyes. “The only reason I stepped away from you last night is because you’d been drinking.”
I drew in a short, sharp breath that quickly shuddered out of me. “What?”
“You’d been drinking,” he said simply. “I…didn’t want to be responsible for something you’d regret this morning, so I stepped away and left.”
The lump in my throat was big. Suffocating, almost.
What was he saying?
“Are you saying you don’t care that I kissed you?”
“I don’t care that you kissed me.” His eyes never wavered from mine. “But you do care, so it’s a moot point.”
“Right.” I swallowed and wrapped my arms around my waist. “A moot point.”
Except it wasn’t. Nothing about any of this was moot. It was all very, very valid.
“Like you said, we can forget it ever happened and move on.” Jay threw his arm out like he didn’t care, but I could see otherwise.
The muscle in his jaw ticked. His biceps were taut, and there was a glint in his eye that told me he was lying.
More to the point, I knew he was.
I knew him. Better than I knew anyone. Better than I knew myself.
And I knew he was lying.
“You’re lying,” I said softly.
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” I challenged, an edge to my voice. “Why are you lying to me?”
“Because you don’t want to know the truth, Shelby. Trust me on that.”
“If I didn’t want to know, I wouldn’t be standing here.” I lifted my chin a little, defiance flaring inside me. “I’m your best friend, Jay. You can tell me anything.”
“Not this.”
“Yes, this.”
He dipped his head, running his hand through his hair. “Fine. Fucking fine.” He jerked his head back up and took a step toward me, fire flashing in his eyes. “I don’t want to forget that you kissed me last night. I don’t want to pretend like it never happened, because if you’d been stone-cold sober, I wouldn’t have stopped you. I would have taken it a hell of a lot further and done something we’d both be regretting right now.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I knew the man standing in front of me, but I’d never seen this side of him. I’d never seen this… strong, almost darker side of him. I didn’t know how to describe it, but I did know that my heart was beating soundly against my ribs and filling my ears with the frantic thud-thud-thud of my pulse.
“See?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Told you that you didn’t want to know.”
“Jay, I—”
He stepped out of my way when I reached for him. “Don’t. Don’t touch me, Shelbs, or this time I really will do something we’ll regret.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – SHELBY
No Kissing Your Best Friend
His words were a warning as much as they were a plea, but I didn’t care.
We’d already crossed the line. At this point, our friendship was irrevocably changed. It didn’t matter what we did.
So I swallowed the lump in my throat and dragged up some of the confidence I instilled in the heroines in my romance novels, and I closed the distance between us.
We weren’t quite touching.
Not yet.
“Then do it,” I whispered.
And grabbed his shirt.
He hesitated for all of a second before he framed my face with his hands, tilted my head back, and covered my lips with his.
Want pumped through my veins, filling my body with heat as Jay kissed me.
And it wasn’t just a kiss. No—it was more than what last night’s kiss had been. This was a kiss you felt in every inch of your body. My awareness of his lips moving against mine heightened each time he moved. Every kiss, every sweep of his lips, every inch closer our bodies moved together set me on fire.
I slid my arms up his body, wrapping them around his neck, moving onto my tiptoes to meet him properly. I fell back against the wall, but Jay came with me, never breaking the connection between us. His hands moved, one cupping the back of my neck and the other going to my waist, his fingers digging into my skin as my shirt rode up.
Tingles danced across my skin at the touch, and I whimpered into his mouth as his teeth grazed my lower lip. My clit ached, and my nipples were hard inside my bra as lust took me over.
At this point, I didn’t care what happened. Not as long as he just didn’t stop. I didn’t want him to stop because I’d never wanted anything this much in my life.
I was so in trouble.
I’d never imagined that my best friend would be the one who’d have the power to break me.
As if he’d just had the same thought, Jay slowly pulled back, his lips resting at the corner of mine. “Shelby—”
“I know.” I dipped my head so his lips dragged across my cheek, leaving heat in their wake. His jaw brushed mine, the stubble making me shiver as it rubbed my skin. “This is a bad idea,” I said softly.
He stiffened. “Yeah. You’re right. It is.”
Neither of us moved. My fingers stayed where they were, now wrapped up in the soft cotton of his t-shirt, and he didn’t move his from my neck or my hip.
I shuddered out a breath. Jay rested his chin on top of my head when I sank down from being on my tiptoes. I pressed my face against his chest, taking a deep breath.
This was going wrong. So very wrong.
My eyes stung, and I extracted myself from his arms before he could see me cry. Everything I’d felt for long knotted into a ball in my chest, making it feel tight, and I managed to keep it compressed until I’d shut the bathroom door behind me and slid the lock across.
Running away right now wasn’t the answer, I knew that, but staying there in his arms wasn’t exactly a solution.
I needed to process what had just happened. I had to work through the knowledge that Jay had wanted to kiss me. That he didn’t care that I’d kissed him. That I’d basically goaded him into kissing, only for him to give me a kiss that wouldn’t be out of place in a movie about two idiot best friends who had feelings for each other.
Was that what this was? Two idiot best friends with feelings for each other instead of just one?
Or was it one who was thinking with her heart and another thinking with his dick?
Whatever it was, whatever was happening, was too much for me.
The tight ball of emotion in my chest gave way, exploding into silent tears that escaped my eyes and trailed down my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands and slid down the bathroom door until I was on the floor, back against the door, face in my hands, legs up to my chest.
And I cried, silently. I let out all the worry and fear and frustration I’d felt today. I let go of the stress of keeping how I felt to myself, of all the denial I’d put myse
lf through the past couple of weeks.
I let go of the jealousy that’d stabbed me when he said he’d been on a date, of the jealousy for Brie and Sean who hadn’t gone through any of this when they’d fallen in love with their best friend.
Mostly, I let go of the lies I’d been telling myself.
As the front door slammed shut somewhere behind me, I hugged my knees and really cried it all out, because now, the fear of the future was very, very real.
All the things Jay had told me when he’d moved in came flooding back. He’d told me it would only be three months. That I had to let him stay. That it would be fun, that we’d have the best time living together.
Not once had he ever told me that I’d fall for him.
And that was the problem.
That hurt more than anything else that could ever happen.
By falling for my best friend, I may have lost him.
And I didn’t quite know what to do about that.
• • •
I woke the next morning after Jay had left. He’d left a note on the fridge that he• • •’d gone to work and he’d stop by the store on the way home to get something for dinner and that I should text him if I had any ideas.
Instead of that, I packed up my laptop and notepads and hightailed it over to Brie’s. It was still early and not so hot in the day that I’d be a hot, sweaty mess when I made it to her apartment, so I walked.
The walk felt good. My cry last night had, unsurprisingly, been good for me. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders, but that didn’t mean another hadn’t replaced it.
Still, the walk helped. The smell of the sea as it crawled up the small beach and pounded against the thick bars that held up the pier swirled around me, and the gentle breeze that swept in from the sea and through my hair meant it’d be a hot mess within minutes, but I didn’t care.
Ten minutes later, I arrived at Brie’s apartment block. Jay and Sean often worked the same shift at the gym when they were there together, so unless Sean had a day off, I knew I’d be alone here.
I wasn’t ready to talk to Jay yet.
Yes, yes, this wasn’t very adult of me, I know that. But have you ever accidentally made out with someone you were living with who you weren’t in a romantic relationship with?
Exactly. Don’t judge me.
Besides—I would go home tonight. Just late. When he was asleep. And handle it tomorrow.
Not everyone is capable of handling adult situations there and then.
I was one of those people. I didn’t handle emotional confrontation well. Anger? I had that down pat. I was a feisty little shit when you pissed me off, but I liked to let my emotions out in my books and deal with it after that.
Writing was a surprisingly good way of working through your feelings. While I knew that Jay and I had to talk—hell, we had to be honest with each other, not just talk—I also didn’t know how to start that conversation just yet.
I walked up the two flights of stairs to Brie and Sean’s apartment and knocked on the door. There was no answer, so I knocked again, and there was still nothing.
Knowing Brie wouldn’t care, I pulled my spare key from my purse and let myself in. Their apartment was only slightly smaller than mine, but that was because they didn’t have an open-plan living space like I did.
Brie said she didn’t want to have the smell of burned toast in her living room, and after Jay moved in and burned his, I understood.
Brie couldn’t cook. At all. She was lucky Sean could—that was why they’d decided to live together. So Brie would exist on something other than ham sandwiches and take-out.
We were a weird little foursome.
I shut the door behind me and went into the living room. I waited for a second to make sure I was alone, and when I was sure nobody else was here, I set up on the sofa.
Minutes later, I had my headphones on, music playing, and my laptop open on my thighs. I stretched out on the sofa with my back to the door so I could look out at the ocean—Brie had sacrificed more space for an ocean view because she was a dreamer at heart.
I liked space, and besides, I had a whole three-foot of ocean view from my living room. Woot woot.
After I checked my emails, I settled down to open. I opened my word processor and hesitated before I clicked on my new client’s document. I would hate myself next week for this, but right now, I needed to work on my own book.
I needed to get this emotion out, so it was time to rip apart the lives of some fake people.
Who said fiction couldn’t mimic real life?
I skimmed the last chapter and set to work. The words flowed easily from my fingertips as I manufactured drama for my fledgling couple and tore them apart like a piece of paper.
It was therapeutic, and the more I wrote, the faster I wrote. I was in my own little world, lost to the fictional world I’d created and the hearts I’d sadistically broken.
This had meant to be a fun romantic comedy, but whatever. They could laugh later. Once they’d died a little inside.
See? Fiction was totally the same as real life.
I mean, I was a little dead inside right now.
I kept writing. I broke their hearts again with a blow-out fight where she stormed out and went to the beach to scream and cry her frustrations away. I was a little jealous I hadn’t thought to do that last night, the lucky bitch.
I sighed.
A shadow fell over my laptop, and I jerked my head up and screamed. It was only Sean, but holy hell—my heart was beating a mile a minute.
I tugged my headphones off and stared up at him. “You scared the hell out of me!”
“I’ve been here five minutes!” He laughed, moving my laptop bag so he could sit on the coffee table. “Noise-canceling headphones?”
I nodded, pausing my music. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to crash your apartment.”
“Then why are you here?”
“All right, I totally meant to. Aren’t you working today?”
“Shelby, it’s one-thirty in the afternoon. I finished at one.”
“It is?” My eyes bugged, and I checked the clock in the corner of my screen. “Well, shit. No wonder I’m hungry.”
Sean’s eyebrows shot up. “How long have you been here?”
“Since around nine.”
“And why are you here?”
“Can I plead the Fifth?”
He smirked. “Come on. I’ll make us lunch, and you can tell me what I already know.”
I sighed, made sure my document was saved, and followed him into the kitchen.
Sean pulled the fixings for a BLT from the fridge and grabbed a frying pan for the bacon. “Shit hit the fan yesterday then, huh?” He glanced over his shoulder.
“That’s one way of putting it.” I sat at the small square dining table and rested my chin on my hand. “He told you everything?”
“After I threatened to call his dad and have him put on toilet cleaning duty,” he said, referring to the threat they commonly used against each other. “It wasn’t too hard to guess what had happened. Brie told me you’d accidentally kissed him, and since you live together, you had to address it one way or another.”
“Yeah, well, we did.” I fiddled with the edge of a dishtowel that was in front of me. “Except we made things worse.”
“I don’t reckon you did,” he said, once again glancing back at me. “It’s only awkward because you don’t have any space between you, which is why you’re here, right?”
“Yeah. I don’t know what to say to him right now, so I figure it’s easier to hide out here and deal with it tomorrow.”
Sean turned and laughed, keeping half an eye on the bacon. “Is it really? I know you, Shelby. You overthink everything. There’s only so much you can let out in your books.”
I took a deep breath. I knew he was right, but that wasn’t the point. “It was so easy for you and Brie. Why is this so hard?”
He smiled sympathetically at me. “Because, if you remember,
Brie was your best friend and Jay was mine. We met because of the friendship you and Jay had. We became friends by default until I told her I wanted to date her—something I decided when we met in freshman year, by the way.”
I sighed.
“You and Jay have a lot of history together. I had nothing to lose by asking Brie out except my sanity.”
I laughed, pressing my hand to my mouth. “True. I don’t know. I just feel like if something is meant to happen, it’d be a hell of a lot less complicated.”
“Shelby, Brie spent four days being mad at me because a new coworker was asking me how the new treadmill worked because she’d forgotten.” He flipped the bacon. “Yes, she tried to talk casually, and I shut her down, but not before Brie lost her shit. Nothing about relationships is uncomplicated.”
I shrugged, once again focusing on the dishtowel. “I just—I just need some space from him. I can’t get that at home. He’s like a dog with a bone.”
“Weren’t you the one who demanded he told you what he was thinking?”
“Yes.”
“But he’s the dog with a bone?”
“That’s irrelevant.” I sniffed. “It’s hard. I’ve had these feelings for weeks now, and I guess I wanted to forget that he was my best friend for a few minutes. Does that make me a bad person?”
“No.” Sean moved to slice lettuce and tomatoes. “It makes you a human with real feelings, but that also means you have to face the consequences of your actions.”
“I know that. I do, honestly. I literally write books about people having to face them. Like I said, I just need some space. It’s impossible at home, and my parents’ bar is the first place he’ll look for me if he wants to find me.”
“And you think here is at the bottom of his list?” He smirked.
“No, but I’m going to play the best friend card here and ask you to keep it secret that I’m here.”
“You want me to lie to him?”
“No. I want you to help me make Brie lie to him.”
He laughed hard. “I won’t tell him you’re here, all right? If you need space, you need space. As long as you don’t mind sharing the sofa so I can play FIFA.”
That seemed like a fair deal.
