by Lara Swann
“But—but—” I say, struggling with it. “I don’t know…don’t know that…it wasn’t real, Maria. He was just pretending, and—and I don’t even—and what if I don’t want to risk…to risk that? I don’t—I don’t know what I want, and—and he doesn’t want it either—and—”
I collapse in her arms, unable to talk anymore, and she just holds me for a long time.
Can’t take a risk without a three-hour conversation, a spreadsheet and a timetable to consult…
“And—and what if—what if he meant what he said?” I continue, pouring out all the poisonous thoughts that I haven’t been able to get out of my head.
Maria just lets me, murmuring nonsense comfort and stroking my back as I cry on the sofa with her for what feels like forever.
When I finally feel like I have nothing left - it’s all wrung out and done and I’m nothing but an empty husk inside - I take a deep gasping breath and look back at her.
Wanting her to tell me how to make it all better again.
But she doesn’t have an answer for me.
“I don’t know, sweetie.” She says, seeming to read the bleak hope in my expression. “I can’t work any of that out for you. But…it sounds like you want to.”
She leans forward kissing my forehead and hugging me close. “And you’ve always gone after everything you’ve wanted, Cassie. But I don’t think I’m the person you need to talk to.”
I shudder in her grip, holding her as tightly as she is me, and we don’t say anything for a long time.
I know she’s right. But the idea of talking to Josh…terrifies me right now. And there’s too much to think about.
I don’t want to throw away whatever we have left between us. I’m afraid I don’t know what I want. I’m afraid to get it wrong. And afraid that, whatever I say, it’ll end with me missing out on something I need vitally.
His friendship. His touch. His kiss.
When we finally break apart, I say my goodbyes to the rest of my family.
And then I drive home.
Alone.
Chapter Sixteen
Josh
“I might have fucked this up.”
I knock back my beer, swallowing a third of it as I try to take the edge off.
“Sounds like it.” Jason agrees.
“You have a habit of doing that.” Dan nods.
“I mean, let’s not forget that it was a completely crazy idea to start with. Pretend to be her boyfriend, then break up, so that you end up…as her boyfriend?” Jack-O says.
He shakes his head and I look round at them all, scowling.
Jason, Jack-O and Dan.
Of course, Jack-O isn’t his real name. But we haven’t used Ollie since we burst into his dorm one night to find him…well, jacking off.
He never was able to shake the nickname. And Jason wanted to call us the 3Js or J3 or something. That one didn’t stick - and when Dan joined the group it died completely.
My used-to-be college acting group, and nowadays drinking buddies.
The only guys I can rely on to give me the time of day in this city.
But even so, I don’t usually go to them for this sort of thing. It’s always been Cassie that I talk to for girl stuff. Or even life stuff.
Anything where I’m looking for actual help.
She gives me shit, but there’s usually some good advice in there too.
With these guys, it’s just the shit.
But I can’t exactly talk to Cassie right now, so I don’t have much choice.
“Thanks.” I mutter. “Super helpful, guys.”
“Anytime.” Jack-O slaps me on the shoulder.
We go back to the drinking - something these guys actually are good for. Unlike Cassie.
God-damn it, why does every thought have to lead to her?!
“Okay, let’s help you out then, mate.” Jason says, and I cautiously get my hopes up.
Maybe they will take something seriously for once.
“Yeah, okay, so what have we got to work with?” Jack-O gives me a slow look up and down. “Hmm, maybe not much, but I’m sure we can think of something.”
Those hopes die.
“He’s pretty.” Dan joins in. “Girls seem to go for that—”
“I’m not pretty.” I mutter, but they ignore me.
“And she already fucked him.” Jason says. “So I’m guessing she likes his D—”
“Hey! Don’t talk about Cassie like that.” I hit him round the head.
I’m used to their insults, they’re part of the game, but that’s too far.
“Ooohh, you really do like her.” Dan crows.
“Pity she doesn’t like him.” Jason laughs, flipping me off.
“Or she did - but only as a friend.” Dan laughs. “That old problem.”
I start regretting ever getting them together.
Or telling them any of this shit. It’s not priming me for talking to Cassie at all.
“Nah, she fucked him, so it can’t be that.” Jack-O interrupts.
“Maybe it’s the whole ‘he’s an asshole who doesn’t know how to treat a woman, with a string of failed relationships’ thing then.” Jason suggests.
“I still can’t believe she said that.” I mutter.
I keep replaying it in my mind. The whole fucking argument.
Whatever the plan had been, that part was real.
“She has a point though.” Dan says, unhelpfully.
I glare at him and take another swig of beer. This is actually starting to piss me off now.
“Well maybe that’s because they weren’t Cassie - they weren’t right for me.”
“So why haven’t you told her that, dude?” Dan retorts, the first sensible thing any of them have said.
But it immediately puts me on the defensive.
“Because she’s got exams at the moment.”
I flip my phone over and over in my hand, a gesture I seem to have developed every time I think about texting her.
It’s been two weeks, and we haven’t talked. No message. No call. Nothing.
She does have exams, but it’s still just an excuse.
There’s too much shit between us now. Too much hanging over from that ugly scene at the end of our ‘vacation’.
I can’t just drop her a casual message and act like nothing ever happened, and I can’t tell her I want to give us a chance for real - not in the middle of her exams. Not when she’s never had a chance to think about us like that.
But those exams finish tomorrow. I know that even though we haven’t been talking. Which means that my excuse runs out right about…now.
It’s why I got the guys together. I’m done with giving her time.
I want the fucked up mess we left sorted out already.
“I still can’t believe you fucked her.” Jack-O says. “After four years. That, like, never happens.”
“Yeah, and after swearing up and down you weren’t interested, mate.” Jason adds. “Should’ve known you were having us on.”
I sigh. They’ve been ribbing me about this since I told them.
Apparently I’ve confirmed every theory they ever had that a guy can’t just be friends with a girl. But we were, once. Maybe not quite as long as they think, but still…
“It just…sort of happened. We were always more interested in being friends, before.”
“And now?”
That’s the big question.
“And now…that’s not enough. Not anymore.”
I know that much. I can’t do innocent friendship with Cassie anymore.
There’s no way I could spend another minute around her without kissing her, running my hand through her hair, making her gasp and moan and sigh.
I love our friendship. It’s one of the best things that ever happened to me.
But I’ve known since the moment I first fucked her that I’ll risk it all to have Cassie.
All of her.
“Sounds like you have your answer then, mate.” Jason says, raisin
g his glass to me.
I do. I knew that before I even came out with these guys.
Maybe I just wanted the liquid courage.
Or to hear someone else say it.
It’s all-or-nothing for me now. I know what I want.
And all I can do is hope that Cassie’s answer is the same.
Or, if that fails - show her that it is.
Chapter Seventeen
Cassie
“So you haven’t spoken to him?”
I just got in from my last exam, dumped my bag on the floor and now I’m lying on my bed, listening to Maria’s carefully neutral voice on the phone.
We talked last week too, and I can’t work out whether it’s because she’s just checking I’m okay, or after the week we spent together, she realized she’d like to keep in touch a little more. Or maybe I’m the one who realized it.
“No.”
There’s a long silence, and I can hear the ‘why not?’ in it.
But I don’t answer her.
I’m not sure I have a reason.
Or, rather, I have a dozen - but none of them really fit.
Because I’ve had exams.
Because I don’t know what I want.
Because I don’t know what he wants.
Because he insulted me to hell and back.
Because I’m doing the girly thing and think he should call me.
“Will you let me know when you do?” She finally asks.
Not if. When.
She clearly has a lot more faith in this thing than I think I do.
“Yeah, okay. Sure.” I agree. “How’s Mark?”
“Still pissed. But okay, too. I think he wants you to bring Josh back so he can go through blow-by-blow what was true about the whole thing.”
“Yeah, Maria…you know there might not be a Josh, right? Like, in my life. After all this.”
It hurts to say, but I’m trying not to delude myself here. She’s silent again, but when she finally responds it’s a little amused.
“If you say so, Cassie.”
I roll my eyes, even though she can’t see me, and the conversation shifts to Ellie and Lucas - always safe subjects, and I’m enjoying feeling closer to my niece and nephew too.
Maybe the vacation wasn’t all bad.
Then Josh reappears in my mind, again. As he keeps doing.
And I take that back. It was definitely all bad.
We talk for another ten minutes or so, and when she hangs up I stare at my phone, feeling the void that seems to have appeared in my life since Josh and I stopped talking.
It’s not the first time, of course. There have been plenty of times we’ve both just faded away - busy with life, and with far too much going on for casual chitchat. It’s usually exactly at times like this too, when I’ve had exams and needed to put my social life on hold.
But it’s the first time I’ve felt I can’t just reach out to him.
Like there isn’t someone waiting at the other end of the phone, ready to exchange a quick five-minute banter to relax and destress, or to share some random entertainment from my day.
It’s the first time it’s been an emptiness instead of a brief intermission. And we always knew we’d get together again soon. Now, I don’t know that.
And, more than that, I don’t feel like I even want there to be that pause. I miss him, in a way I haven’t before, and I keep picturing seeing him again - looking up from a cheap cocktail, roguish grin on his face, or walking around the corner trying not to bump into someone, buried in his latest script.
Or kissing me.
That too.
Damn it.
And tonight…tonight would be the night I’d almost always hit him up to go out. Post-exam celebration.
Instead, I feel down and miserable and I have for the last two weeks. The exams have left me weary, sure, they always do - but I know that this time, it’s not about that.
I’ve barely been able to focus on them at all.
That scares me, just a little, because I never wanted to get into something that could distract me or pull me away from them. But now I’m not even in anything, and it’s happening anyway.
And I can’t help wondering if maybe, for the first time, that resolution isn’t as firm as it was.
If maybe I could balance studying with a relationship.
If maybe I’d even want to.
Have someone to kiss and cuddle and fuck and laugh with. Someone who might support me, instead of detract from everything else I want to do, as I’ve always feared.
My eyes catch on the diary I’ve stuffed into my shelf, and I pull it out, almost unable to help myself.
I flick through it again, as I’ve done almost every night for the last few weeks.
I haven’t been able to write anything in it. Not since I got back, and remembered Josh’s comment…
You have a diary of things we’ve done together?
That’s not what it was meant to be. Not what I thought it was. But every page…
Josh and I got tacos and played pool…Josh tried to convince me to watch Lord of the Rings…Josh is thinking about getting a tattoo…I moved into my new place today, and Josh said…Josh broke up with Amy this morning, that’s another one…Josh drove me crazy today…
Damn it.
I glance at my phone again, then reach over and open up our most recent messages - from before we left to see my family.
I might have spent far too much time on this screen over the last couple of weeks.
This sucks.
I flick over to another contact - Hannah - and wonder whether she’ll want to go out for a post-exam celebration instead. Josh isn’t my only friend. He’s just the one I have all these things with.
The one I want to see tonight.
I switch it back to him again.
And, after two weeks of silence, that’s the moment a message finally comes in.
Can we talk? Jack’s tonight?
I bite my lip.
I have no idea whether he’s done that deliberately - my last day of exams - or it’s just coincidence. But I can’t help the shot of silly, ridiculous relief that bursts through me.
Followed a moment later by anxiety.
I have no idea how the hell this is going to go.
I spend far longer than I should trying to work out the wording of my response - something I’ve never, ever done with Josh, or actually, with anyone - and then go with my initial attempt.
Okay. See you there.
I take a deep breath as I get ready - putting way more effort into it than usual then noticing how weird that is and mussing my hair up again.
Oh fuck all this.
I throw on my favorite top, a hot leather jacket, and give my make-up a once-over.
My standard low-effort high-result formula.
Then I walk out of my room, butterflies dancing in my stomach.
I want to see Josh again. I want to have our post-exam celebrations, our stupid debates over unimportant life issues, our everyday banter and our TV binge sessions.
But I don’t think I can just be friends with him anymore.
And I don’t know whether the idea of more was ever real to him.
* * *
Despite all my deliberations, I still get there before him.
And I order the 2-for-1 cocktails again. But I get one round this time, instead of our usual two.
There’s a small part of me that wonders whether this talk is going to last for two drinks.
I’m used to waiting for him, too. But tonight it pisses me off. I’m too taut and uneasy to enjoy an easy drink before he arrives.
When I do see him walking down the stairs and into the underground bar, though…
Ohh fuck.
I wonder whether it might have been better if he’d been a little later. Just so I could’ve prepared a bit more.
He’s gorgeous as ever - only now, this time, I see it.
In a blood-rushing-from-my-head, sparks flaring t
hrough me, and heat building in my pussy kind of way.
The sort of reaction I so totally shouldn’t be having right now.
He smiles as he sees me, sending another buzz of response through me, and the bastard looks confident enough that I want to smack him just for that.
If he thinks we can continue like nothing happened…
But he walks straight past the seat opposite me. Right up to where I’m sat on one of those high bar stools.
And before I know what’s happening, he’s leaning down and kissing me.
Right fucking here.
His hand tangles in my hair and his lips are firm against mine - no soft, gentle caresses this time, just a hunger that makes me ache. I want to be outraged, but I can’t. I’m responding already, kissing him back, my own hand reaching up to grip the back of his neck as I melt against him the way I’ve wanted to for the longest two weeks of my life.
By the time he finally lets me go, growling a little as he steps back, I swear my vision has gone fuzzy at the edges and I’m already wet.
Oh, fuck me.
He sits down with a satisfied smirk, and I want to feel like glaring at him for it.
But I don’t. Instead, I wish he hadn’t stopped at all.
“I don’t think you can just do that…after everything…” I say, flustered.
That shouldn’t be an appropriate greeting right now.
My mind insists on it, even as my body is wholeheartedly disagreeing.
“You don’t want me to?” He says, eyes still burning with the kind of need I’ve been suppressing all week.
“I…I don’t know what I want.” I say, trying to breathe again.
Trying to think while those smoldering, sex-on-fire eyes are on me.
I’m not exactly sure what I expected from this, but not that.
There’s so much I wanted to say…needed to say…and now I can’t remember any of it.
This was meant to be difficult. Fraught. Tense.
He wasn’t supposed to do that.
Josh never fucking does what he’s supposed to do.
And now he’s just sitting there, eyebrow raised, looking hot as all hell and daring me to tell him not to kiss me.
I run a hand through my hair, and take a sip of my margarita to buy time.
“I’m confused, Josh.” I shake my head. “That whole damned thing…got really fucking confusing. I—I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. What we were to each other.”
