Unbroken Promises: a friends to lovers romance

by Nikki Ash

  Not able to listen to Delilah and her friends discuss her moving forward any longer, I made the excuse that I needed to shower. I could see Cole was pissed as well and gave the same excuse I did, following me into the house. The difference is, where Cole is in love with Delilah—and not like she’s his sister—I’m in love with Cole. So, while he’s pissed at the thought of losing her, I’m gutted at the thought of losing him. Which is ironic as fuck since I’ve technically never had him.

  Without saying a word, we both walk down the hallway. When I see him go into his room, I go into mine. I fall onto my bed, covering my eyes with my arm, and think back to the day I knew my feelings for Cole ran deeper than being friends.

  “Hey, man, how’s it going?” I say, answering Cole’s call. I’m seriously running late, but I always answer Cole’s call, especially since it’s been close to three months since I’ve seen him and Delilah. Not since winter break when I came home for the holidays.

  “It’s going. How are you?” he asks.

  “I’m all right. How’s Delilah?” I ask while tucking in my shirt. Once I’m done, I grab the jacket to the suit I rented for tonight. I had no clue how I was going to afford one, but luckily one of the guys mentioned his father owns a tuxedo rental company, and he was offering to fit and rent any of the players a tux for free. While I’m here at Texas on a full-ride scholarship, it doesn’t cover anything extra, and with me playing basketball, it’s the equivalent of a fulltime job without any pay.

  “She’s okay. She had a rough bout of chemo the other day so she’s home sleeping. Her mom is taking care of her.” This statement shocks me because normally it’s Cole who is caring for Delilah. Don’t get me wrong, her mom dotes on her plenty. She’s loving and caring, and protective of Delilah—everything I imagine a mom is supposed to be like, and nothing like Karina Carson, the woman who took care of Cole and me.

  “Why aren’t you there with her?” I hold the phone between my shoulder and ear as I try to tie this fucking tie. I glance at the clock and see it’s almost 5:30. Shit! I need to get going.

  “I have something more important to do,” Cole answers, and I feel my stomach sink. Since when is anything more important than Delilah?

  “Oh,” is all I say. “All right, well I gotta go. I’ll call you tomorrow and see how she is.”

  “Okay, man. Have a good night,” Cole says, then hangs up the phone before I can even say goodbye. I look in the mirror and nod to myself. This is the best it’s going to get. I should be excited for tonight. I’m a freshman in college, and I’m being awarded MVP at the team banquet. Most freshman don’t even leave the bench, yet I’m a starter and kicking ass and taking names. Coach told me if I keep going the way I am, I’ll be playing in the NBA before I can legally drink. I should’ve been ecstatic at that, but my first thought was if I get drafted, I’d have to leave Cole and Delilah.

  While I should be excited about getting this award, the truth is I’m dreading it. The team banquet is also known as the family banquet. Normally I would’ve invited Cole and Delilah to go since they’re my only family, but with Delilah going through chemo, she’s not supposed to be out in public more than necessary, and Cole’s mobility is still partially limited from his ACL surgery. Since Cole and I don’t have a car of our own, that would mean he would have to borrow a car or take a cab, which is expensive. So, instead it’s just me. I knew moving up here would mean being away from my friends, but I didn’t realize just how lonely I would feel. Which is so strange to me since most of my life I was alone. I might’ve lived with my dad for the first ten years of my life, but he didn’t exactly raise me. He was too busy robbing banks and shit to actually be a dad.

  Grabbing my wallet, cell phone, and keys, I shove them into my pockets and swing the door open. And standing there, with a single crutch under his armpit, in a black tux, is Cole. He smiles at me and my heart does the craziest thing. It’s like it skips a beat or picks up speed or something...I don’t even know.

  “You’re here,” I say dumbly.

  “Where else would I be? You’re getting a fucking MVP award tonight.” His hand comes down to pat my shoulder and his touch has me feeling weird thoughts. Then he pulls me into a hug, and for the first time in my life, I feel not so alone. Tears prick my eyes and a lump gets stuck in my throat. He’s here...Cole is here for me.

  “How did you know?” I ask once I get my emotions in check and can speak.

  “I subscribed to the Family of Texas Basketball Athletes newsletter a while back. I know you’re busy, so I wanted to make sure I was kept in the loop. And it’s a good thing I did, since you didn’t bother to tell me you’re getting an award tonight. I had to email the booster ladies and get myself a damn ticket.” Cole smirks, and in that moment I know I’m in love with my best friend. Fuck!

  My eyes water as I remember later that night after my banquet. He ended up spending the night in my dorm with me, and we talked for hours. It might have been the night I realized I was in love with him, but it was also the night I realized I would never stand a chance with him.

  It’s late. Probably three in the morning. After the banquet, a bunch of teammates threw a party, and Cole and I hung out there for a while. Once we had enough, we came back here to shower and go to bed. Since basketball season is over and it’s Saturday night, my roommate is out for the night with his girlfriend. Cole is laying in my roommate’s bed and I’m lying in mine. We’ve been talking for the last couple hours about everything and nothing. It reminds me a lot of the nights we spent together at the Carson’s. I knew back then I had feelings for Cole, but I always chalked them up to friendship. Since I was old enough to understand the difference between the male and female anatomy, I’ve always been attracted to a sexy woman with a nice rack and a round ass. Not once did I ever look at a guy and think, “Hell yeah, I want that dick.” When Cole and I are with Delilah, her pussy and ass feel like heaven gripped around my cock, so I know I’m still attracted to women. But at the same time, when I watch Cole fuck her, I find myself fantasizing about what it would be like for him to fuck me instead of her, or vice versa.

  “Do you ever wonder if we made the right decision by being with Delilah sexually?” I ask Cole, trying my best to appear nonchalant.

  He takes a moment before he answers. “That’s a tough question. I try not to regret anything I do. My parents dying made me realize life is too short to live with regrets. I love Delilah. Aside from you, she’s my best friend. When I moved in with the Carson’s I was down. I had lost both my parents and grandma in less than two years. You and Delilah came into my life and made me feel like I once again had a family.”

  “You guys did the same for me,” I admit.

  “I don’t think we made the wrong decision short term. I think the issue will come years from now. When she wants to accomplish everything she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to, like getting married and having kids. In order to do that, we’ll have to end. And whoever she meets is most likely not going to understand the relationship we had with her.”

  “It’s not like we would continue to fuck her once she moves on.”

  “No, but Delilah’s parents never keep anything from each other. We’ve heard them say on several occasions that the key to a good marriage is honesty. So, I’m almost positive that Delilah will go into a relationship with the same mindset. And once she meets someone she wants to spend her life with, she’s either going to have to keep the fact that we’ve all had sex together from him or tell him. Would you want your girlfriend or wife hanging out with two guys she spent several years fucking...together?”

  I try to imagine myself one day having a wife, but for some reason the only person I can see when I visualize my future is Cole. While Delilah choosing a boyfriend or husband over us would fucking suck, I can’t help but do a metaphorical fist pump in the air that Cole is talking about her meeting someone else which means he doesn’t see himself with Delilah in the future.

  But just to confirm, I ask, �
�Could you see yourself with Delilah?”

  “As my wife?” He tilts his head to the side and quirks his one brow up, and I have to hold back my grin at how fucking sexy he looks when he does that. “We agreed all together or not at all.”

  “I know what we agreed, but what if that wasn’t a rule?”

  “It is, so it doesn’t matter.” He shrugs one shoulder.

  “Do you see yourself getting married one day?”

  “Yeah,” he admits. “When my parents got into the car accident my dad died instantly, but my mom actually survived. While she was in the ICU recovering from her surgery, my grandma brought me to see her, and even though the doctors thought she was going to make it, I think she had a feeling she wasn’t going to, because she went on and on about everything she wanted for me in life.”

  “Damn, what did she say?”

  “She made me promise a bunch of shit. Like to find my passion and hold onto it. And when I find the woman I want to spend my life with, to love her and treat her like my dad treated my mom. To be the type of dad he was to me. They were literally the last words she ever spoke to me.

  “Not even an hour after I left the room, she died. It sounds bad, but with the way my parents loved each other, I feel like maybe they were meant to die together. Like she couldn’t live knowing he was in heaven without her,” Cole says.

  “Like they were soulmates,” I add softly, realizing there’s no way Cole will ever give us a chance. In order to be with me, he would have to go against everything his mom wished for him on her death bed. And that’s not the kind of person Cole is.

  Feeling annoyed and defeated, I get back up, grab my towel from behind my door, and head out of my room to the bathroom. I pass Cole’s room on the way and see his door’s shut. I want to knock and ask him what’s going through his head, but if I’m honest with myself, I don’t really want to know. The three of us have been friends for over eight years—three of those years spent with us fucking like we’re married. But other than the rules I established to ensure Cole and Delilah would never be together without me, we’ve never once discussed what we’re doing. We’re all apparently completely okay with living in our three-way-ignorant-bliss.

  Lost in my thoughts, I swing the bathroom door open without knocking and freeze in my spot at the sight in front of me. Cole is standing in the shower, and while there’s a shower curtain blocking me from seeing him, it’s see-through plastic with yellow ducks all over it—Delilah’s choice, not ours. I never noticed just how fucking see-through the curtain is until right now, as I watch Cole, with the water raining down around him and his cock in his hand as he jerks his dick. I shouldn’t still be standing here. I’m like a Peeping fucking Tom, but I can’t take my eyes off him. We’ve been together dozens of times the last few years with Delilah, but it’s never enough. He’s always right there in front of me, in reaching distance, yet untouchable.

  It started out as Cole wanting to give her what she needed at the time. She had just found out her cancer was back. She wasn’t sure if she was going to live long enough to be sexual with someone, and she wanted to feel something other than fear. When I walked into the barn and saw them about to have sex, I had a choice to make in that moment: beg them not to do it in fear of everything changing, or join them. Knowing Cole would do anything for Delilah—hell, we both would—I joined them. I knew I had feelings for Cole. I’ve had them for years. But up until that moment, when I watched him push his cock into her pussy, I didn’t realize just how strongly I felt for him.

  “Xander?” The baritone voice brings me back to the present, and I realize I’m still standing here in the fucking bathroom while Cole’s in the shower. “Everything okay?” he chokes out, and when I look down I see his dick is still hard in his hand. He follows my gaze then quickly releases his cock. It bobs up and down, and I wonder how it would feel if I dropped to my knees and took him in my mouth. How he would taste. Would his cock swell at the feel of my mouth wrapped around his hard shaft?

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “I didn’t realize you were in here. I saw you go into your room.” My eyes go back down to his still hard length, and before I think about the consequences that could come from my words, I ask him, “Can I watch you?”

  Cole’s eyes widen and dart back down to his dick. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and I’m almost positive he’s either going to shrink back and cover himself or freak the fuck out on me. I mean, I pretty much just admitted I want him. But he doesn’t do either one. Instead, his eyes meet mine as his hand reaches down to his dick. He grips it tight and starts to stroke it. My dick twitches at the sight, and my mouth waters at the thought of my mouth replacing his hand. But I keep control of myself. I’m in shock he’s even stroking himself in front of me. There’s no way he’s going to let me wrap my lips around him and suck him dry.

  As I watch him, I close the door behind me. I don’t walk all the way into the bathroom, though, not wanting to spook him. Instead, I lean against the door and silently watch. The shower water continues to rain down over him, and I follow the droplets of water as they run down his face, over his muscular chest and down his abs, leading straight to his dick. My eyes follow the way his hand pulls at his shaft, and with slow and steady pumps, he fucks his fist. I imagine that his dick is moving in my ass. Would it feel good? Would it hurt? The first time we took Delilah’s ass, even with it lubed up, she complained of it hurting. But after a few times, she started to really enjoy it. Hell, now she practically begs for it.

  A moan releases from Cole’s lips, and my gaze drags up to his face. His head is tilted back, and his eyes are squeezed shut. A few seconds later, he groans out, “Fuck, I’m coming,” and I’d like to think he just said those words out loud for me. My eyes drop back down to his dick just in time to watch him come all over his fingers, the cum dripping off his hand as the water washes it away. He releases his dick, which is still semi-hard, and looks at me almost shyly. The moment is broken, and I pray to whatever God that’s up there that I didn’t just push my best friend away.

  Before he can say a word, my hand reaches behind me and turns the knob, and with my eyes locked with his, I back out of the bathroom and close the door behind me.

  “Hey,” Delilah calls from behind me, and I practically jump out of my skin. I turn around to face her but can’t look her in the eye. “Is Cole in the shower?”

  “Um...yeah, I had to take a piss.” I shrug.

  Delilah’s head tilts slightly to the side, not too much but enough to know she’s contemplating whether she believes me. Then she walks up to me and, standing on her tiptoes, whispers into my ear, “If you never tell him how you feel, you’ll never know if he feels the same way.” Then she kisses me on my cheek, pats my chest gently, and walks away, leaving me standing in the hallway, fucking speechless.

  chapter sixteen

  Cole

  “Okay! I have everything we need.” I look to my left and see Delilah standing next to me, her hands full of junk food. “I got us two hot dogs.” She attempts to hand me one, and I snag it before it hits the floor. “A bucket of popcorn.” She juggles it with one hand, popcorn pieces falling to the ground, so I grab it as well. “Thanks.” She grins. “Here’s a soda for us to split.” She hands me the drink. “And last but not least...” She pulls several bags of candy out of her back pocket while still holding her hotdog in one hand. “I got us M&Ms, KitKats, and Twix!” Her eyebrows waggle up and down, her grin getting wider.

  “No cotton candy?” I deadpan, and she frowns. “I’m kidding! I think you got enough shit to last us ten games. It’s only a forty minute game.”

  Delilah gives me a side-eye. “Yeah, sorry, buddy, that lie no longer works on me.” She sticks her tongue out, and I chuckle, remembering the first game of Xander’s we attended. We were still in middle school, and it was his first year of high school. Delilah asked how long the game was, and I told her the truth...thirty-two minutes. Two hours later, she was starving, had to go pee
, and was as restless as a toddler on a sugar high. So, I might’ve forgotten to mention that a minute in sports is more like ten...sue me.

  Delilah sits down and gets situated. A few minutes later the music starts up and the teams are announced, each player running out onto the court when his name is called. When the announcer yells, “Xander Thompson,” the gym goes crazy. Women are screaming his name extra loud, the cheerleaders are cheering for him with extra pep, hell, even the guys are clapping harder for him. It makes sense since this is the final game of the season. The winners of this game will be named conference champions. And if Xander makes the decision to enter the NBA draft, the game tonight will be the last one he ever plays in college, and who the fuck knows where he’ll end up.

  My thoughts go back to yesterday with me in the shower and Xander asking if he could watch me jerk off. When I saw him standing in the bathroom looking at me, my first thought was that he needed to take a leak and walked in without realizing I was in the shower, but as I observed him standing there, a weird feeling came over me, like he wasn’t just looking at me but instead assessing me. And when he asked if he could watch me finish, I didn’t know how to handle it. Plenty of times when we’ve been together with Delilah, Xander has grabbed my dick to guide it into her. He’s even stroked it a few times to make sure it’s hard, but I never thought anything of it, but now...now I’m questioning everything, and I have no fucking clue what to think. I thought my feelings for him were safe because they were one-sided, but knowing Xander might feel the same way...Fuck!