by Melissa Blue
“So, what do you say?” he asked. “It’s worth the risk?”
“Being single is a little overrated.”
He took a step toward her. “And?”
“You won’t be breaking up with me on Valentine’s day
since it was yesterday.”
Another step and she tried to fight the hum of attraction, of comfort and rightness urging her to meet him half-way.
“And,” he murmured, stopped moving.
She stepped out the door to him. Even with a late night binge he smelled of man and laundry soap. She barely stopped herself from burying her nose in his shirt. Waking up to a man that smelled like that. A man who noticed her idiosyncrasies. And maybe it was just him.
“I’m willing to take the risk,” she said.
The light came back into his eyes and she wanted to jump him. She wanted to kiss him. Evan the IT Geek. But then…shhh, she was kissing him.
End of Talk Nerdy to Me
The Sixteen Year Itch
The Sixteen Year Itch Published by Melissa Blue
Copyright 2012
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Melissa Blue
Self-Published Edition 2012
The Sixteen Year Itch
Morgan Stevens took in the pink and red heart-shaped balloons, the rows of endless chocolate in heart-shaped boxes, the heart-shaped greeting cards, and her stomach clenched.
“You know,” she said. “I really hate this holiday. It’s not even a week from now and everything is so…ugh.”
Alan, her best friend, laughed. The deep, silken trace of amusement colored his voice as he said, “Only because no one has ever asked you to be their Valentine,” he shrugged. “Could make anyone grumpy.”
Morgan took in the atmosphere again. She’d missed the naked babies armed with heart-shaped arrows. Oh, and the array of pink stuffed animals. It was like Pepto-Bismol on crack. “Definitely not grumpy. Naked babies with weapons? Who finds this heart-warming?”
She followed him down the card aisle. His long, easy strides ate up the floor. She tried not to watch the view from behind. He was her best friend of sixteen years. She wasn’t blind, but…you just didn’t check out your friend.
She rolled the discomfort from her shoulders. “Why did I get dragged into this again?”
“Because you love me.” The comment stopped her cold, until he continued. “And because you know what card my mother would like.”
The fear seizing Morgan’s heart loosened. He only saw her in a platonic fashion knowing someone since the age of five could make you see someone as nothing else. But there had been moments when things between them shifted like a crackle in the air. Moments when if she had leaned forward, just a little, the platonic part of their relationship would no longer exist.
Morgan never leaned forward and those moments passed as if she imagined the zing in the air.
There had been one of those moments just that morning when he reached behind her for a coffee mug. He had paused. Her breasts had been pressed against his muscled chest. Her heart had thudded seeing, feeling their mouths touching like she fantasized on too many nights to count. He had smiled down at her like a brother would and the moment evaporated like a puff of smoke. Another opportunity lost.
Morgan pulled her mind back to this moment. Nothing could come out of her crush-that-should-have-died-years-ago. They were friends. They’d always been and always would be friends.
In the near future, instead of years of hot, sweaty, monkey sex with Alan, Morgan consigned herself to be the one to tell him to put his teeth in. She’d stand in as his best man when he’d inevitably get married. She’d be the adopted aunt to his children instead of the mother of them. Something sharp and angry coiled in her gut.
“What’s wrong?” Alan asked softly.
She jerked a shoulder, forcing a nonchalant air. “The capitalist way of saying I love you with an oversized-balloon that says, “I love you, 'beary much' is getting to me. I think I’m developing an eye twitch.”
She pointed to her face. “I’m sure of it. Tell me, is my eye twitching?”
He reached out and cradled the side of right cheek with his wide palm. The corner of his mouth quirked up, and made the dimple in his left cheek peek out.
The sight made the zing zipped through her again. And no, she wasn’t imagining the feeling this time. The same nameless emotion that had been driving her berserk since puberty flashed in his hazel eyes.
He caressed her eyebrow with his thumb. Under the florescent light his caramel toned skin appeared flush.
This was it; he was finally going to kiss her. Yes, yes, yes!
The smile spread, the damn brotherly smile, and the moment went poof.
“Your eyes are fine.”
He turned back to the cards, and her heart, like it always did after one of those zing moments, broke a little. She let out a frustrated breath. She had to stop doing this to herself.
Who was she kidding? This was maddening. Holding her breath for one of those moments to stretch and become more was pointless. They would never become more. Maybe, if she really wanted to delude herself she could add up those moments and hold them close.
And it still wouldn’t be enough. Morgan crossed her arms to stave off the cold creeping up her spine. “I think your Mom would like the one on the left. Twelve o’clock.”
His hand went straight to it. “Not too cheesy?”
A laugh finally broke through the melancholy. “Everything in this aisle is too cheesy.” Including me.
*****
Alan tried not to let his glance slide back to Morgan, but lately keeping his eyes off her was becoming troublesome.
The leather upholstery squeaked when he shifted again to curb the urge to look his fill of her. He knew without having to look something was off.
If he only had one guess, Alan would pick the moment in Lucky’s Superstore. God, he shouldn’t have touched her. When would he learn touching Morgan only made the need to do so worse?
He had come close, twice, in one day to kissing her. If Morgan had been anyone other woman he’d have close the distance, placed his mouth over hers and tasted her. By now he’d know the contours of her plumps lips. He’d have nipped and sucked them swollen. But she wasn’t any woman.
Alan needed to be rid of these feelings for Morgan or he’d do something dumb and ruin a friendship.
She was smart, witty, and incredibly sensual. Over the years they’d argued, made up with a joke or smile, but most people couldn’t go from lovers to friends. That and many other reasons is what stopped him every time.
Just see what happens, his mother’s voice lodge in his head. More often those words pushed him closer to forgetting his reasons for keeping things on a platonic level.
The silence on the other side of the car continued. Alan gave up and glanced at her—big mistake, because his eyes strayed to her lips, thick and kissable. Lips that had comforted, chastised, and encouraged him when he needed it.
Damn, damn, damn. He was in deep this time. He had to get her out of the car, now, because Alan was sure, he was going to do something dumb. He slowed to park in her driveway. He kept the car running. “I guess I’ll see you later.”
She made a noncommittal noise and opened the door. The leather seat seemed to hug her wide hips as she slide down from the SUV. Finally the seat let her go and she turned those dark brown eyes on him. Something was definitely off.
“I think we need some time from each other,�
� she said and uncertainty furrowed her brows.
Those had been the last words he’d expected her to say, so it took him a moment to get his brain wrapped around them. His hands gripped the steering wheel. He saw what she was going to do in her eyes. He’d known her too long to assume what had happened in Lucky’s didn’t already change things between them.
Even knowing the answer, Alan still said, “Can I ask why?”
“I just need some time. Away from you. We’re twenty-eight. We’re unattached. Most men I date don’t understand our relationship.”
She scoffed. “Hell, most of them offer a three-way, thinking we’ve already been there and done that.”
She shook head as if to say that’s not my point. “The comment you said back at the store got me thinking. I’ve never had a Valentine. Not that I really wanted one, but still…” She stopped, unable to meet his gaze.
Whether or not he’d acted on the urges, the intent in his actions had consequences. Had he not considered this same type of break? This would be good for them. He wouldn’t lose her and that was the last thing he ever wanted. Alan couldn’t imagine his life without Morgan in it.
He took in her expression. Nerves. Uncertainty. And…something he didn’t want to see, because he felt it too.
And this is why men shouldn’t talk, Alan conceded, at least why he shouldn’t talk. But this separation would be a good thing for them. He never really looked at any other woman as a possible girlfriend, much less as a wife.
When Alan did he compared them to Morgan. None of them ever passed muster when he did. Maybe it was time to let their friendship die. They could stay in touch by phone. He gaze went back to those chocolate irises. His stomach clenched harder. He wouldn’t be able to admire how her soft features belied the sarcastic temperament underneath. He wouldn’t be able to drown in her eyes, secretly, and not want an anchor when the undertow of the woman dragged him under. She sunk her teeth in her bottom lip, her nervous tell, and the thought hit him. I’ve lost her already.
It was for the best.
Okay, think brotherly. Think non-sexual, non-lust, sans kissing or making love…His lips started to pull into smile. Morgan made a disgruntled noise and slammed the car door.
Moments passed by in silence. Finally, he banged his head back on the headrest and then reached for the door handle. He couldn’t bring himself to open it. Ages ago he should have made the first move. It’s not like there weren’t moments where he could have taken the opportunity. His mind went back to the first and only time they kissed back in the 8th grade.
“I’m going to be dead before a boy kisses me,” Morgan had said. They’d been sitting on the bleachers outside the cafeteria. She’d been doing math homework, and he was waiting to copy the answers. Without thought but plenty of gumption, he leaned forward and gave her a closed mouth kiss. Her eyes had widened, but then surprised turned to pleasure.
A punch of lust, so foreign to him then, and so rare to him now, had hit him. A simple brush of their lips had kept him up many nights since. He hadn’t known, truly, what he’d been doing. She’d been inexperienced too. What would a kiss be like now?
Alan shook the thought of his head. They’d never talked about the kiss or how it felt. Now that Alan considered about the situation, he’d made a joke afterward and they moved on like they always did.
But there were other times: summers spent half naked and swimming in Dead Man’s Lake dancing together at prom, drunken college nights spent in their dorm. A few million opportunities, all wasted because he’d been too chicken shit to take a chance.
He scowled at the home Morgan disappeared into. One level, but plenty of yard to make up for the house’s lack of size. A home she’d made for herself and no prospect of a family because she had to be waiting for him.
No, he hadn’t been too chicken shit, only scared that any relationship they’d have would crash and burn like all his relationships. She was the staple in his life, for better or worse. Their lives we so intertwined and Alan tried to think of a time when Morgan wasn’t there. Fear pumped into his veins.
He couldn’t walk up her to her door and knock. He definitely couldn’t wrap his arms around her the moment she opened the door and kiss her. He couldn’t tell her all the number of ways his heart pounded in his chest at the sight of her or even when they touched. She’d probably throw back her head and laugh, a flippant quip on the lips he wanted to kiss.
Alan loosened his grip on the door handle, stared at her house for a few more moments, and then threw the car into reverse. No, he was definitely a chicken shit.
*****
Morgan stared down the phone on her kitchen counter then said, “I swore on a stack of Holy Bibles I wasn’t going to call.”
She didn’t turn to her mother’s sigh, a few feet away, at the kitchen table near the bay window. “Dear, either you call him or stop calling me.”
Morgan whirled around, not surprised at her mother’s reply. “What kind of mother are you? You are supposed to be my moral support. You are supposed to be the one who says, ‘It’s all right, let me kiss your hurt.’ Not, ‘don’t call me.’ Ugh.”
“I would be if you hadn’t called me for seven days straight, asking me if you did the right thing. Every day I’ve come over here to watch you mope around the house for hours. In between the moping I’ve watched you break your neck every time the phone rings. So, that circles me back to call him.”
Her mother lifted the Chardonnay bottle. The five carat diamond wedding ring shone in the false light. “Looks like you need a refill, Honey.”
No wonder Morgan was so screwed up. Not that having June Cleaver as a mom seemed like a better choice out of the two extremes, but she wanted…Morgan wasn’t sure what she wanted.
On a whim she’d spoken words she wished to take back. She thought her life would be simpler without pining over Alan. Apparently life completely without him didn’t lessen the pining.
She wanted him here, anywhere near here, just to be there with her. Apparently, he still wasn’t out of her system. Realizing how pathetic she appeared, Morgan marched away from the phone and took the glass her mother offered.
“If I call, he wins.” And my heart will keep breaking every time he doesn’t touch me.
Stacey rolled her eyes. “And what if he doesn’t call? Weren’t you the one to tell him you needed time away? I mean really, dear, sometimes I don’t know how you became so contrary.” Her mother took a liberal sip of wine.
“I have a mother that says contrary and celebrates every holiday on a calendar year.” Morgan rubbed the condensation from the glass. The liquid beaded on her fingertip. “But I think my contrariness has screwed things up.”
“What’s to come is inevitable. Think about it, dear, for sixteen years you guys have ignored this elephant in the room. Also, in sixteen years this is the first time you guys haven’t talked.”
Her mother took a sip from her glass and then said, “There is going to be an implosion. I just hope I’m not in the way when it happens.”
Morgan glanced down into her drink. “No, I’ve definitely screwed this up.”
Before she could take a sip from her glass the phone rang. She skidded across the floor, snatched it up from the counter and answered it half-way through the first ring. “Hello?”
She didn’t hear the reply over the ringing of the doorbell.
Still couldn’t pin-point the voice when her mother yelled, “I’ll get it.” And the swigging door to the kitchen swished behind Stacey.
“I’m sorry can you repeat that.” She said.
An automated voice said, “If you don’t have renter’s insurance here’s your opportunity to.”
Morgan slammed the phone down. The swinging door creaked open behind her. “It wasn’t.” She glanced up and stopped mid-sentence.
Alan wasn’t calling her, because he was standing in her kitchen. Wrinkles clung to the bottom of the denims he wore. His collared shirt was half tucked into his pants and h
alf out. She backed up into the wood counter, not sure if it was his appearance leaving her at a lost for words or that he was standing in her kitchen.
“Stacey said she had to go and something about an implosion,” Alan said. She said you’d know what it meant.”
There was an implosion alright. Was it wrong that she wanted to run to him and wrap her arms around his steady frame? Maybe, but seven long days had changed her outlook a little. It was time to stop lying to herself.
She loved Alan, and she’d been in love with him for sixteen years. Morgan told her rational brain to shut up and took a step forward.
“I’m sorry,” Alan said, and a multitude of emotions colored the words. “I—it’s been hard.”
Morgan stopped moving at his words. “What do you mean?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I thought I would go out on dates. When that didn’t work, I grabbed the nearest sibling and went on a drinking binge.”
“You drank? Hard liquor?” Morgan narrowed her eyes.
He grimaced. “Sure as hell wasn’t a Fuzzy Navel.”
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Why?”
Morgan asked, though she already knew the answer.
“Because I was trying to live my life without you in it.” He moved toward her. “It’s damn hard.” He took another step until he stood in front of her. “Frankly, I don’t want to.”
Damn the consequences. Morgan closed the distance between the, until they were chest to chest. Her breasts were pressed against the hard wall of muscle. It felt right.
She licked her lips, filled with nerves and who-gives-a-damn and said, “Kiss me.”
His wide palms, the ones she’d fantasized about cradled her face. Heat spread from her temples down, down farther, until she moaned against his mouth. The kiss was everything she dreamt it would be, but it didn’t scratch the itch.
“I love you.” He murmured.
Oh, that was close, but not quite there. “Beary much?”
