In Your Heart

by Micalea Smeltzer

  “You’re unusually quiet today.” Emma commented from beside me.

  I guessed I was. I kept replaying what had happened yesterday with Ezra, then again in the shower, and then yet again this morning. We were both insatiable.

  I shrugged. “I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Want to share?” She asked, adding another layer of sunscreen to her nose, momentarily hiding her freckles beneath the white lotion like substance.

  “Not really.”

  “Everything’s okay, though, right?” Her voice was full of concern.

  “Yeah, of course.” I forced a smile.

  “You know…” She started and then trailed off like she wasn’t sure she should continue.

  “Come on, spit it out.” I bumped her shoulder with mine.

  She winced—not in pain, but at whatever she had to say. “It’s just that…I thought after you broke up with Braden you’d return to the normal, bubbly Sadie you used to be, but you’re still…”

  “I’m still what?” I didn’t snap at her, even though a part of me wanted to.

  “Withdrawn.” She settled on.

  I guessed that was an accurate description of what I’d gradually become over the last two years.

  “I’m working on it,” I mumbled, adjusting the straps of my bikini top.

  “Is there anything I can do?” She asked, her toes skimming the surface of the lake.

  “Nah,” I shrugged, “I have to find my way back to myself on my own.”

  “Hey, Em!”

  We both turned to look behind us, and saw Maddox barreling straight for us.

  “What is he doing?” She mumbled.

  He wasn’t slowing down and reached us in a matter of seconds. Somehow, without stopping, he grabbed Emma around her torso and jumped into the water with her in his arms. Water splashed everywhere, and I ended up drenched.

  They surfaced a few feet in front of me and Emma smacked her fists against his muscular chest. “You asshole! That was mean!”

  “Aw,” he reached for her, pulling her body against his and she immediately melted into his embrace, “you know I love you.”

  “I think you just like dragging me into bodies of water,” she mumbled, but she was smiling. She kissed him quickly and swam away.

  “What are they up to?”

  I jumped at the sound of Ezra’s voice. I tilted my head back and—oh Lord. I swallowed thickly at the sight of him in a pair of white low hanging swim trunks and a blue baseball cap sitting backwards on his head. Pieces of his black curls curled around the edges of the baseball cap, refusing to be tamed.

  “Oh, you know, the usual, being the sickeningly cute couple that they are.” I hoped he didn’t notice the pitch in my voice but based on the quirk of his lips he definitely saw how I was eyeing him. I felt like I was dehydrated and stranded in the middle of the desert, while Ezra was the cool glass of water just out of my reach.

  While we might be having sex now, our friends didn’t know that and they had to remain blind to our deal. They wouldn’t understand.

  Unfortunately, that meant around them we had to keep our hands to ourselves.

  When Ezra said Maddox and Emma were coming over I hadn’t expected that to be a problem, but even though they hadn’t even been here an hour I was ready for them to leave so I could have him all to myself.

  “Oh, here.” Ezra mumbled and handed me a bottle of beer. I hadn’t even noticed he was holding two, one for me and one for himself, since I was too busy checking him out. “You only get one, though.” He joked.

  “Ha, ha, ha.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m an awesome drunk and you know it.”

  He sat down beside me and brought the beer to his lips. “You’re definitely entertaining, that’s for sure.”

  “Darling!” Maddox called in a joking voice to Ezra. “Are you going to sit there all day or join us?”

  “I’m fine right here.” Ezra chuckled. “Darling.”

  “You guys are so weird.” I snorted, shaking my head.

  Ezra shrugged. “We’re practically like brothers, after a while you find you don’t care what the fuck you say to each other. Besides, if you can’t joke around life gets pretty boring.”

  “That’s true.”

  I set my beer aside, not bothering to take a drink. The last thing I needed was a buzz right now.

  “Come on! Get in! It’s hot!” Emma called, floating on her back. Maddox splashed her and she retaliated with an even bigger splash.

  “They’re not going to leave us alone until we get in,” I told Ezra.

  He sighed. “You’re right.”

  He emptied his beer and stood up, tossing his baseball cap onto the dock. He reached a hand down to me and I took it, letting him haul me up. I stumbled into his chest and he steadied me before we both toppled over.

  He chuckled lowly and smoothed my hair away from my face. “Are you okay?”

  I swallowed thickly. “Mhmm, yeah. Great.” I definitely was not affected at all. Nope. Not even a little bit.

  “We have an audience,” he whispered in my ear.

  I jerked away from him like I’d been electrocuted.

  When I looked out at the lake Maddox wasn’t paying attention to us, but Emma was. Her eyes were narrowed and I could tell she’d be asking me about this later. Fantastic.

  Ezra reached for my hand again and we stepped up to the edge of the dock. I wanted to pull away since I knew Emma was watching, but I didn’t.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  Together we jumped into the water. The temperature of it was cool, but it felt like heaven against my heated skin.

  We came up and Maddox hollered. “Perfect score!”

  “That wasn’t even a dive!” Ezra yelled back as he swam towards his friend.

  Emma was already headed my way and I wished I could sink beneath the surface of the water and disappear.

  When she reached me she pushed the wet strands of her blonde hair away from her eyes. “Are you still going to tell me nothing is going on with you guys?” She arched a brow.

  “I think you need your eyesight checked,” I quipped, “because you’re seeing things.”

  “I’m not blind or stupid.” She glared at me, the skin beneath her freckles turning red—and not from a sunburn. “You used to tell me everything, even things I didn’t want to know, and now you tell me nothing. I feel like I don’t know you anymore.” She frowned, her shoulders sagging even as she moved her arms to stay afloat.

  The truth was, Emma and I had been growing apart for a while. That was why Ezra and I had grown so close the last few years. Our best friends ditched us for each other, so we ended up becoming friends. While Ezra had maintained his close relationship with Maddox I hadn’t done the same with Emma. It wasn’t all her fault though. She’d been wrapped up in Maddox and I’d been wrapped up in Braden.

  “We used to do everything together,” she continued. “I miss our sleepovers and pigging out on way too much pizza while watching those stupid shows you seem to love.”

  I laughed and began to smile. “Yeah, that was always fun.”

  “Maybe we should do that again?” She suggested, her voice meek sounding.

  “We’re grown ups now, Emma.”

  “So?” She countered. “Maybe the mistake in growing up is thinking that everything you used to do was childish.”

  “You really want to have a sleepover?”

  She nodded eagerly. I hated to let her down, because lately I’d been letting everyone down, including myself.

  “Let’s do it then. You provide the pizza, I’ll pick the stupid shows.” I mimed her tone with a laugh.

  “Deal.” She smiled back.

  “We’ll have to do it at your place, though,” I told her, “I wouldn’t feel right taking over Ezra’s place with girly stuff.”

  “Sounds good. Tonight?”

  “Sure,” I said, even though I cringed

  I sent up a silent prayer that at this sleepove
r she’d let the topic of Ezra go, but I knew that wasn’t likely. Emma was too perceptive. Besides, she’d already brought it up too many times for me to believe she’d suddenly stop asking me about it.

  She swam away from me, over to Maddox, no doubt to tell him about our plan for a sleepover.

  Ezra swam over to me, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. “Is everything okay?” He asked. “It looked like you were having an intense conversation.”

  “Everything is fine,” I assured him, “but we’re going to have a sleepover tonight. Emma wants us to…reconnect,” I said, for lack of a better word.

  “Reconnect, huh?” He arched a brow.

  I shrugged. “We haven’t hung out much in a long time.”

  “Ezra!” Maddox called, drawing his attention away from me and over to his friend. “The girls are having a sleepover tonight, which means we are too! Are you ready for me, buddy?” Maddox raised his fists in the air. “I’m going to whoop your ass on Call of Duty.”

  “You wish.” Ezra rolled his eyes.

  They began bickering back and forth about different video games and Emma swam back to me.

  “We’ve lost them to nerd land,” she declared, but she smiled when she said it. She glanced over at Maddox and love shone in her eyes.

  I wondered if I’d ever looked at Braden like that—like he was my whole world. I doubted it.

  I swam away from Emma and onto the shore. I grabbed my towel and shook it out before lying down on top. Emma joined me, doing the same with her towel. The guys continued to goof around in the lake. No surprise there.

  It grew quiet between us when Emma picked up a book to read, but a little while later she voiced, “Are you happy?”

  I glanced over at her, puzzled by the random question.

  “I’m just wondering,” she defended, “after everything that’s happened the last month if you’re happy now.”

  I looked away from her and out at the shimmering water of the lake. “No,” I answered honestly. “I mean, I’m not miserable, but I’m not exactly happy either.” How could I be when I felt like a shell of the person I used to be?

  Emma rolled over onto her stomach and propped her body up on her elbows. “What can I do to help?”

  I gave her a small smile. “No one can help me with this. This is all on me. Don’t worry,” I assured her, “I’ll find my way back to my happy place one day.”

  “Good.” She reached over and gave my arm a playful squeeze. “I miss the peppy Sadie.”

  I laughed. “Admit it, you totally want to choke me when I get hyper.”

  She grinned. “Okay, so I have had some fantasies of knocking you out when you get a little crazy, but I miss that you’re not like that anymore. Maybe the sleepover will be step one into resurrecting you,” she winked.

  “Yeah, maybe so,” I agreed.

  I really hoped so.

  “I can’t believe you’re abandoning me so soon after our…arrangement.”

  I turned around sharply at the sound of Ezra’s voice.

  “That’s it, you need to wear your boots all the time so that I can hear you, because otherwise you sneak up on me all stealth-like. Stop trying to be a ninja, Ezra.” I scolded him, taking a deep breath to calm myself.

  He chuckled, leaning against the doorway. His hair was still damp from his shower and the woodsy scent of his soap filled the air. He’d changed into a white wifebeater and a pair of basketball shorts. I hated how he made such a simple ensemble look so amazing. It was completely unfair.

  He strode into the room and sat on the edge of my bed. Or—er—I guess technically it was his bed, since this was his house, and—why the hell was I obsessing over this? The answer was simple, because I was trying to ignore the searing force of his dark gaze.

  “Going away for a while?” He arched a brow.

  “I’m a girl,” I defended, zipping my overnight bag closed, “we need a lot of stuff.”

  Sobering, he bowed his head and his shoulders tightened with tension. When he looked up at me there was worry in his eyes. “You’re not leaving tonight because of me, right? Because of what we did?”

  I expelled the breath I’d been holding. “No, definitely not,” I shook my head. “I…I don’t regret what we did.” My hands shook at the memories.

  He cleared his throat. “Good.”

  He looked so awkward sitting there that I had to feel sorry for him.

  “I promise I’m not running away. And,” I grew bold and sat down in his lap, his hands landed on my hips and the tips of his fingers dug into me, “I’m really looking forward to doing it again.”

  Before he could reply I kissed him.

  His body instantly relaxed at the feel of my lips and a low growl rumbled in his throat. His hands fisted the fabric of my t-shirt, like he was tempted to tear it off of me but knew he shouldn’t.

  The kiss quickly grew heated and desire blossomed low in my belly.

  I felt him harden beneath me and within seconds he’d maneuvered us so that I was lying flat on the bed with him above me.

  I wrapped my legs around his waist, our lips never breaking.

  He began to ease my shirt up while I reached for the band of his shorts and that was when the doorbell rang.

  Ezra tore his lips away from mine and rested his head in the crook of my neck while he tried to regain his breath. “Fucking hell. I’m going to kill Maddox. He has the worst timing ever.”

  Maddox and Emma had left a little over an hour ago so that they could shower and Maddox could grab a change of clothes since he was staying the night here. Emma was supposed to ride back with him and pick me up.

  “Hello!” We heard called downstairs. “Honey, I’m hoooome!”

  Ezra cursed and pulled away from me, muttering under his breath. “And why the fuck did I ever think giving him a key to my house was a good idea?”

  I laughed, biting my lip. “Uh, Ezra…you might want to hide that?” I pointed to his hard-on tenting his shorts.

  He cursed again and headed for the bathroom.

  “Are you seriously going to jerk-off?” I hissed under my breath.

  He started to close the bathroom door, but poked his head out so he could see me sitting on my bed. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” He slammed the door closed and I dissolved into a fit of laughter.

  “Is everything okay?” Maddox called and I heard him start up the steps.

  “Yeah,” I yelled back, grabbing my bag. I met Maddox at the bottom of the stairs and he took my bag from me.

  “What the hell do you have in here?” He groaned against the weight.

  “It’s not that heavy.” I smacked his side, heading for the door.

  He mumbled, “Yeah, it is.”

  I shook my head and stepped outside. I was surprised to see Emma had brought her car, but I guessed that made sense because she hated driving Maddox’s since it was a stick shift. She didn’t like the SUV very much either, but that was only because she thought spending a lot of money on a vehicle was ridiculous. It was a nice car though, a pretty white Porsche Cayenne. I’d been happy when Maddox got it for her. The old Volkswagen beetle she’d been driving had definitely seen better days.

  Maddox put my bag in the backseat and leaned in through the open driver’s window to kiss Emma goodbye.

  “I love you,” he told her, grinning widely.

  “I love you too.” She kissed him quickly one last time as I climbed into the car.

  Maddox jogged up the porch steps and disappeared inside.

  “Ready for girl time?” Emma asked.

  “Definitely.”

  “I like that color.” Emma pointed to my pale blue toenails as we left the nail salon.

  “Me too,” I agreed.

  When we left Ezra’s house we ended up stopping off to get a manicure and pedicure. I’d been shocked when Emma pulled into the parking lot, because I knew this wasn’t really her thing. I had to give her credit; she really was trying to cheer me up.

/>   We walked over to the nearby pizza place to grab our order that Emma had called in a few minutes ago.

  Once we had that we got back in her car and she drove us to her house. Well, it wasn’t really a house since she and Maddox still lived in the guesthouse behind his parent’s house. It was funny, since they could afford to live elsewhere, but they loved the guesthouse. I knew they were planning to move soon though since they were getting married in a few months.

  “Have you guys found a house you like, yet?” I questioned, getting out of the car and grabbing the pizza boxes.

  Emma wrinkled her nose as she fiddled with her keys, looking for the right one.

  “No,” she sighed, opening the door and waving me inside. “Maddox wants to buy a piece of land and build a house, but that seems like a major headache to me. I’d rather get something older and remodel. Who knows what we’ll do,” she shrugged, tossing her keys on the kitchen counter.

  The guesthouse was actually pretty large. It was two-stories, with two bedrooms upstairs along with a bathroom. Downstairs was the kitchen and living room. The living room used to be where the guys had band practice, but they’d long ago moved most of their instruments into the recording studio they’d installed in their parent’s home. The piano still remained though.

  I took a seat on the couch and Emma turned the TV on before handing me the remote. The TV was huge—which I knew was Maddox’s doing. Emma rarely watched TV. She preferred her books and music.

  I put the TV on one of the entertainment channels and set the boxes of pizza on the coffee table.

  Emma lifted the lids and grabbed a slice. “I love pizza,” she moaned, taking a bite. “Pizza is life.”

  I laughed, grabbing a piece for myself. “Do you love pizza more than Maddox?”

  She pretended to ponder my words. “It’s a tie.” She tucked her legs underneath her and turned towards me. “This is nice. I can’t remember the last time we did something like this.”

  “I think we were still in high school,” I mumbled around a bite of pizza. After we graduated Emma jetted off to L.A. with Maddox, and started writing songs for the band. I stayed behind and went to college. It’d been weird being without her at first, since we’d been friends since we were kids. Luckily, Ezra spent most of his time in Virginia so I’d still had him.