Cutting In

by Julia Wolf

  I’d only been half-joking when I said this all felt like a dream. Part of me expected to wake up this morning and find none of it had been real. But this, having Anna in my arms, felt more real than anything in my entire life.

  And last night, when we’d kissed—for so long that her taste still lingered on my lips—my world had tilted on its axis, righting itself for the first time in ten years.

  I pulled her closer, and she murmured, then sighed. She was so soft in my arms, the shell she wore almost constantly—though it had grown thinner over time—had completely fallen away. In our years of friendship, we’d never slept together, so I’d never gotten to see her face like this. Vulnerable. Open. Bare.

  Leaning in, I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then wound a thick strand of her honey-blonde hair loosely around my fingers and let it go. She whispered my name and slung her arm over my waist, scooting even closer, leaving only a narrow slice of air between us.

  “You awake, sleepy?” I whispered.

  “Definitely not.” She burrowed her head under my arm. “It’s so dark and cozy in here. I’m not coming out.”

  I chuckled and ran my hand up and down her back. “Sorry if I woke you up. My body’s so trained to be up early, I can’t sleep past seven.”

  She groaned. “It’s seven? What a horrible time to be awake!”

  “Then I hate to tell you what time I’m normally up.”

  She shook her head from her hiding spot. “Don’t tell me. Seven is painful enough.”

  “Five,” I whispered.

  Anna lifted her head and kissed the center of my chest. “Poor, poor you.”

  “I guess you don’t have to be at the salon early.”

  “Nope. Not until ten or eleven. I haven’t seen seven in the morning since the last time I stayed up all night.” I tipped her chin and she slowly opened her eyes.

  “This is what seven looks like,” I said softly.

  She shot a small, sleepy smile straight to my heart. “Not too bad.”

  “Are you going to work today?”

  “Yeah, I have a few clients. But I don’t have to go in until ten, so we can be lazy.”

  She rolled over on her back with her hands over her head and stretched. Her black tank top had ridden up and her pink underwear had ridden down, so a long plane of her creamy stomach was exposed. And as her back arched as she stretched, I pictured what she’d look like with my head between her legs.

  She relaxed and smiled up at me. “You’re still here.”

  I shook my head slowly, not able to take my eyes off of her. “Do you have any idea what you look like right now?”

  She rubbed a finger under her eye, then examined it. “Do I have last night’s makeup smeared all over my face?”

  Before I could stop myself, I traced a line from the hem of her shirt to the lacy band of her underwear. “Your face is beautiful. You look all sleepy-sexy. And you have no pants on.”

  She giggled and rolled onto her side to face me again. “Pants are my enemy. I try to wear them as little as possible.”

  “So, no pants, no dresses?”

  “Don’t forget no bras!”

  I pushed a piece of hair off her face. “Don’t think I could forget that, even if I tried. Your lack of bra was staring me in the face last night.”

  She crossed her arm over her chest. “Oh, sorry. These tits have a mind of their own.”

  I pulled her arm down and held her hand. “Never apologize for your tits, Annie.”

  She laughed and threw her arm around me, hugging me tight. “I’m so glad you’re still here,” she whispered.

  We lay like that, holding each other quietly for a long time. There was no past, no time apart, no outside world. Just this bed, this girl, her arms around me and my arms around her.

  “Oh, Will. I want to kiss you so bad, but I have total morning breath. I’m gonna need to brush my teeth now,” she said.

  I chuckled and gently pushed her away. “Get outta here, stinky.” She rolled away from me and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Hey, Annie?”

  She looked over her shoulder with a raised brow. “Yeah?”

  “Do you happen to have a spare toothbrush? ’Cause I really want to kiss you too.”

  She grinned. “I think I can manage to find one.”

  And then she stood and I fucking swallowed my tongue. Her tiny pink underwear were basically nonexistent and her ass bounced with every step she took toward the bathroom.

  “You’re killing me!” I called.

  She peeked her head around the door. “Oops! I still don’t have any pants on, do I?”

  I tossed a pillow in her direction. “Toothbrush, stat!”

  When I made my way into the bathroom, she’d wrapped a silky floral kimono around herself, sadly.

  She held out a packaged toothbrush. “Here ya go. Sorry it’s pink.”

  “Pink is my very favorite color,” I said.

  She smiled and watched me as I brushed my teeth. There was something really intimate about it, maybe even more intimate than sleeping in the same bed together. And just the sight of Anna standing there, her long legs crossed at the ankle as she leaned her hip against the Formica counter, had me scrubbing my teeth at light speed so I could get my mouth on hers.

  I spit out the toothpaste and swished water around my mouth, then straightened.

  “Ahhhh...fresh as a daisy.” I wiped my face with a towel, then yanked her against me and kissed her minty-fresh mouth. Her entire body melted into mine and she sighed as she opened for me.

  The Annie I knew as a teenager had been hard and bristly, sometimes even with me, but now she felt so damn soft in my arms and on my lips.

  I slid my hands around her waist and down over her ass, lifting her onto the counter. She spread her legs, welcoming me between them. I broke from her lips and kissed down the column of her neck while she gripped my shoulders. She tipped her head to the side, letting me know that she liked what I did to her and she wanted more of it.

  Her skin looked like cream and smelled like vanilla. I trailed my lips along the angle where her jaw met her neck and she whimpered, wrapping her legs around my waist.

  She made me painfully hard. Just looking at her made me throb, but having her legs around me brought it to the point of the ridiculous.

  I pulled back.

  I didn’t want to. I wanted to sink inside her and lose myself in this woman, my beautiful Annie. But either I enjoyed torturing myself or I was actually wising up and taking my time with her.

  “Where’d you go?” she asked.

  I cupped her jaw, my thumbs rubbing over her velvety cheeks. “I need a minute. You’re driving me crazy.”

  She smoothed her hands over my arms. “I thought that was a good thing.”

  “It’s both.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “Is there somewhere in town a guy can get a strong cup of coffee and something to eat?”

  She hopped off the counter and pressed herself against me. “I have those things here.”

  “I know you do, baby. But I wanna talk to you, and we’re not gonna get much talking done in this apartment, are we?”

  “Not if I have my way.” She sighed. “I want to talk to you too, Will.”

  I kissed her one more time—because I couldn’t help myself around her—and then we got ready and headed out.

  Nine

  Anna

  Will.

  He made me want to sigh and sigh and sigh until I ran out of breath.

  His mouth...my god, his mouth on mine was magic. He made me feel girly and romantic. He made my heart beat faster, his name echoing loudly through each chamber.

  I’d had a couple of boyfriends over the years, and I’d even been in love for a brief period. But none of it compared to what I felt for Will.

  It seemed crazy, but I knew it was real. I felt it down to my core. If we let it, if we—or really, I—didn’t run scared, this thing between us could be big. The biggest.

  And still, there was th
at part of me, the part I’d carried since I pulled away from him as a teenager, that whispered insidiously in my mother’s voice. This won’t last. He won’t want you when you let him really see you.

  I hated that part of me. I hadn’t spoken to my mom in years and still I let her voice fill my head with doubts.

  But Will did know me. He’d had a front row seat to my stony outer shell, but to him I’d never been impenetrable, even when I tried.

  After I got dressed in a pair of skinny jeans, a loose, gray V-neck that showed just enough cleavage to hopefully interest Will, and my shitkickers, I took him to the little Greek bakery a few blocks from my place on Main Street.

  “Taking a baker to a bakery, huh? It’s gotta be good,” he said as we walked inside.

  “It’s a Greek bakery. I bet you don’t make spanakopita, do you?”

  He shook his head. “You got me there.” He studied the menu on the wall behind the register. “What should I order?”

  “Well, the aforementioned spanakopita is delicious. Really, you can’t go wrong. I’m ordering a Greek omelet.”

  He tapped his chin. “I think I have to try the crepe with the lamb. It’s too intriguing to pass up.”

  After we ordered at the counter, we found a table by the bay window that overlooked the street.

  Will looked out the window, his head moving back and forth, taking everything in. “I feel like I stepped back in time about fifty years.”

  I laughed lightly. “I know. I love it. There are some weeks I never use my car. I walk to work, there’s a little mom-and-pop grocery shop a few blocks up, and anything else I could need is right here.”

  He grinned. “I think I’m gonna be hanging out at your place a lot. You have that balcony, this town- oh, and you.”

  I felt my cheeks heat. Am I fucking blushing? I turned to look out the window, hoping he didn’t see, but he reached across the table and ran the back of his hand over my hot skin.

  “I like that,” he said quietly.

  I turned to him and let him see me. “I hope you’re here all the damn time, Will.”

  He nodded once. “So you feel it too, Annie?”

  “I never stopped feeling it.”

  “Can you just tell me what happened, then? What did I do wrong?”

  I shook my head vigorously, my hair swaying around my shoulders. “No. Oh god, I can’t believe I made you think you did anything wrong. It was me. It was always me.”

  A waitress chose that moment to set our plates in front of us.

  “Can I get you anything else?” she asked.

  Neither of us looked at her. Our eyes stayed locked on each other, so many words and years between us.

  “We’re good,” I managed to get out.

  When she walked away, Will asked, “If I didn’t do anything wrong, why’d you lie to me for so long, Anna?”

  I rubbed my face with my hands. “I didn’t see it until you were there, until you were in love with me.”

  “I was always in love with you. Always.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I rubbed the front of my neck, trying to loosen the knot.

  “I didn’t know. I swear it. Not until we’d made our plans; then I realized it. But I just couldn’t...I couldn’t believe that someone would love me. And definitely not someone I actually loved with every fiber of my being.”

  He leaned in, the small cafe table the only thing holding him back. “You fucking loved me too?” he rasped.

  I nodded, pinching my lips together to keep the tears back. I’d fallen in love with my best friend somewhere along the way. But after we'd had sex, I couldn’t bear to even look at him. I came clean, told him I planned to move to California for college and then I lied. I said I didn’t feel the same way about him.

  “Anna... god, I don’t know what to say.”

  He looked close to tears, and it killed me. I reached out and touched his hand. He didn’t pull away, so I gripped it and he squeezed back.

  “It was too good. I didn’t think I deserved any of it. Your friendship, the way you looked at me, and definitely not your love. I felt like nothing back then. How could a boy as sweet as you love a girl who was hollow?”

  “You weren’t hollow. I won’t let you say that. Even if you didn’t know how to love me back, you were the best fucking friend I’d ever had.”

  I picked up my coffee cup and then set it back down again without taking a sip. “I wasn’t that good of a friend,” I muttered.

  “Are you kidding me? You literally stood in front of me when those dickheads in school tried to push me around. I was a puny little ass who couldn’t defend himself, who just wanted to bake all day and you got me. Sometimes I thought you were the only one who got me.”

  “Hey.” I kicked him under the table and he raised his eyebrows. “One of those douches that used to pick on you was at the reunion. He was totally losing his hair.”

  He snorted and looked down at his plate. “Good. Let’s just hope he’s a better human being than he was ten years ago.”

  “Let’s hope we all are. Well, not you. You’ve always been awesome.”

  “I definitely wasn’t awesome to you in the end.”

  “No, but I deserved it.”

  He squeezed my hand again. “No. You didn’t. I was too caught up in my own hurt feelings to even try to see what you were going through. I shouldn’t have cut you off so completely.”

  “I think we can admit we both fucked up. And we let our silence go on far, far too long.”

  “Are we starting fresh?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I would like that more than anything in this world. But I want you to know, I don’t run from my feelings anymore. I’m kind of intense at times.”

  He chuckled. “What’s fucking new? You’re the most intense person I’ve ever met.”

  I grinned. “You didn’t know the half of it back then!”

  He threaded our fingers together. “No more hiding shit, okay? This is gonna be real, Annie.”

  “Well, then, real talk: if I don’t eat this omelet, I might eat your face. And not in a sexy way.”

  He laughed and let go of my hand. “Please, go ahead. Don’t want my face eaten off when I just got the girl.”

  I dug into my eggs while Will ate his crepes. I felt like a thousand pounds—weight I hadn’t even realized I’d been carrying around—had been lifted off me. I looked up from my food and watched Will eat, and I had to grip the table for a moment to keep myself from floating away. I still fucking loved this guy. It didn’t scare me at all, but damn, it might scare him.

  “This is amazing,” he said around a mouth full of food.

  “I wouldn’t steer you wrong, my friend. You may know how to bake, but I know how to eat!”

  Will wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Your friend, huh?”

  “Aren’t you my friend?”

  “Always. But am I just your friend?”

  I shook my head. “I hope not. Because I really think we need a take-two on our first time.”

  He studied me for a beat. “Can I take you on a date?”

  I waved him off. “You don’t have to do that. I’m kind of a sure thing.”

  “Annie…” he groaned.

  I shot him my sauciest smile. “Will…”

  “Let’s do this right. Drinks, dinner, dancing.”

  I giggled. “Dancing, really?”

  “Yeah, dancing. I wanna dance with you now that I’m actually taller than you are.”

  I tucked my hair behind my ear and smiled. “I don’t know. Prom was pretty lovely.”

  “True. I can’t say I minded resting my head on your chest during slow dances.”

  “Oh, we were quite the pair, weren’t we?” I bit my lip. “But you were just as handsome in your suit back then as you were last night.”

  “I’ll never forget you in that blue dress.”

  “And the thigh-high boots. Don’t forget them!”

  He flopped back in his chair and blew out a b
reath. “I could never forget those fucking boots.”

  I smiled and pushed my food around with my fork. “I’ll go on a date with you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Of course!”

  He pumped his fist in the air. “Hell yes!”

  “When is this date going to be?”

  “Well, I kinda go to bed by ten during the week, so—”

  I held my hand up. “Ten?”

  “Sorry, babe. I can’t be a night owl anymore. I gotta rise with the sun.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “That’s so gross.”

  He smiled. “How about next Saturday?”

  My stomach dropped. “I have to wait a week for this date?”

  “What’s a week when we waited ten years?”

  “Too long, that’s what it is.”

  Even though I hated the idea, we made plans to go out the next weekend and finished up our meal. We walked slowly back up Main Street, hand in hand, toward my salon.

  When we got to the dark purple building, I said, “This is it.”

  He peered through the front window. “Looks really nice, Annie. But are you sure you have to go to work?”

  “Pretty sure. If I don’t, I’m going to have some pissed off ladies with really bad roots.”

  He caressed my cheek gently. “Look at you, all responsible and stuff.”

  I leaned into his hand. “So responsible. It’s kind of annoying.”

  “I’m gonna miss you,” he said softly.

  “Well, good thing I’m super needy because I’m planning to text you so much you won’t have a chance to miss me.”

  He pulled me into his arms and held me securely against him. As soon as his arms wrapped around me, my body went limp. “This is my favorite spot in the world,” I murmured into his shoulder.

  He kissed my cheek. “Mine too.”

  We finally separated and I went into mourning for Will immediately, even though he still stood in front of me.

  “It’s just six days,” he said.

  I nodded. “I know. I’ll make it.”

  He started walking backwards, his eyes on mine. “Bye, pretty Annie!”

  I held up a hand. “Bye, beautiful Will!”

  I watched him walk down the hill until he disappeared from sight, and then I stood there a while longer, staring at the spot he’d just stood on, wondering if any of it had been real.