Without Scars

by Jones, Ayla

  Charlie trapped me against the side of the building with his arms suddenly. His expression was still solid with anger. One of his knees brushed both of mine. Rocking against them. “I don’t care if you’re mad at me right now; he was being a dick.” His gaze went from my eyes to my mouth.

  “What? Since when? Not Deacon! This is a long-established fact, Dara. Deacon is the Almighty Supreme Leader of the Republic of I’m a Dick. He takes his job very seriously. You’ve been aware of this for more than a decade. It’s not breaking news. Why the outburst? This is my job, you know.”

  Charlie’s knee split my legs. I let Charlie’s knee split my legs. I hugged it between my thighs. His tongue swiped the small space between his parted lips. He squinted all defiantly. Jesus fuck, Charlie was so damn sexy. “I know that. He was just—”

  “Being Deacon, Charlie. I can handle him. Chill out.”

  “You chill out.” His gaze drifted to my mouth again. “He was going on and on about your ass!”

  “Like you’ve never looked at my ass!”

  “Yeah, I look! I don’t say things out loud!” Charlie stood straight and crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t like how he was talking to you.”

  “You’ve literally made a joke about me bending over before, Charlie. But the truth is you haven’t liked anything tonight, have you? You’ve had a bad attitude since we got here.”

  He had the best seat out of our friends, and I could see him frowning the entire freaking time I was on stage. He didn’t participate during our audience appreciation number between acts; instead, he’d sat there arms crossed and brooding. There had been a few seconds of booty shaking! I’d seen my ass enough to know that it was really not a moment to sulk. Almost ruined the whole night for me.

  “I’m not in a bad mood, Nik.”

  Yes, he was. And now that I was thinking about it, he had been since before the show. My mind raced. Maybe things were getting weird. No, they were definitely weird. Because right now Charlie was riled up. And it was clearly more than Deacon. The earlier conversation wasn’t all that different than how we’d talked in the past, but we were kind of different. Truth be told, we were just sort of dangling over a relationship by the last friendship thread.

  When was the last time I’d had a friend’s leg essentially between mine?

  Um, never.

  Shaking his head, Charlie folded his arms around me, but his body stiffened as he kissed my forehead. “You were awesome tonight, baby girl. Deacon was a dick but you’re right; I was too. I’m sorry. We’ll see you in a few.”

  Um, okay. He stepped back and turned away from me. Sighing, I walked inside, found a dark corner, and changed into my outfit for the after party.

  ****

  Charlie

  Feelings were a goddamn bitch.

  I kicked the air and yelled. Oh fuck it. It was Miami after midnight. People would assume I was drunk and not crazy. Except I was crazy. About her. Nikki was spectacular tonight, and I was about to fuck it all up. I walked back into SoBe when I was sure she was backstage, and I huffed out a breath. I shook my head and sent out two tweets:

  Darable: How do I immediately turn down my Douchebag Factor?

  Darable: Do I have to unsay ‘bro’ a few times?

  The college tour for my show, which I had been looking forward to since signing with Hillington, wasn’t as fun as it should’ve been. The highlight of my days was when we previewed upcoming episodes because I could sneak off and text Nikki. Then I’d get disappointed when it wasn’t a convenient time for her. Without her company, I overindulged in drugs and work to keep my mind off her—analyzing viewing numbers on episodes, partying with show fans, and doing publicity outings. I was never without people around and couldn’t believe how lonely I was. Everything felt off. It was getting a lot harder to be anywhere she wasn’t.

  By the time we got to Pensacola I was ready to be back in Miami, and so much so that I cancelled one of the Q&A’s at the University of West Florida. I wanted to be here tonight as Nikki’s biggest supporter, and I’d let predictable ass Deacon push my buttons until they stuck.

  But it wasn’t really about him. The combination of resisting every sexual urge toward Nikki, while being so fucking on edge about her the last few weeks was hard to manage. I wasn’t saying I deserved an award for not reacting during our conversation about masturbation but, holy shit, Nikki proudly knew the road map straight to her O-face, and I just sat there like I didn’t want to see it.

  And for fuck’s sake, she’d had a sharp blade—in a very shaky hand—against my neck, and all I could think about was flipping her around and bending her over the bathroom counter. That was just the tip of the Nikki related fantasy iceberg I was jerking off to these days. I was at the point where it didn’t take much to get turned on by her. It was Nikki smiling. And touching me. And hugging me. And just being her. I was fourteen-year-old me all over again and couldn’t keep my dick soft for nothing. Fuck, I had little sisters, and I was turning my best friend, who I respected so much, into a Maxim issue.

  No, my own personal porn star.

  But that was the mental battle these days: be friend or boyfriend.

  Want to hug her or want to fuck her.

  She was right about me. I had been angry during the show, because seeing her up there being admired by so many other men forced me to face the all-too-stark reality that she wasn’t mine. She could go home with any guy at Sonar tonight, and there wasn’t a goddamn thing I’d be able to do about it.

  “Hey, is everything okay?” Lea asked when she walked over to me.

  “Yeah. Just in a weird headspace right now. I’m not normally like that.” I liked Lea but, more importantly, I knew that a convo between female best friends could shut an entire relationship down.

  Relationship. That’s where Nikki and I are right now, huh? We talked so much about everything and, yet, this subject of us, which we hadn’t broached in a straightforward way at all, had lived and died in the theater the night of the season premiere viewing party. Whatever courage I’d had then had gotten lost in the hustle-and-bustle of the college tour. Now my apprehension over having the discussion was coming from not knowing if screwing with the status quo would do more harm than good for us. Other than the fact that I wanted to bang her at every waking moment, we were happy.

  As friends.

  But I wanted her so badly.

  “I don’t know what came over me,” I continued. Lea gave me an eye roll. I clearly wasn’t selling my whole momentary insanity story.

  “Sure you don’t,” she said, grinning before she headed for the dressing room.

  “Make sure I didn’t get her in trouble. Please tell her I’m sorry.”

  Deacon and I made amends by visiting his favorite weed guy in South Beach and me buying us a lot of pot. Nikki and Lea were going to Sonar with the SoBe Sexy girls, and Ghost and Shaw had the car, so Deek and I got high and took a cab to the club to find our friends.

  We found them by the bar, but Nikki was my priority right now. I needed to say sorry again about tonight, and I needed to be honest about my feelings. I forced my friends to play lookout, which I was sure was annoying as fuck, especially when they wanted to talk to women and drink. Shaw finally pointed out a group of chicks, and I recognized them as SoBe girls. When I walked over, one of them told me Nikki was still at the lounge. Shit, I hoped I hadn’t ruined her night so much that she decided to stay away. I walked back there as quickly as I could. Thankfully, the security was willing to let me in, and I found Nikki in the theater sitting on the stage with her pointe shoes on, eyes closed. Completely in her own world.

  I decided not to interrupt, but the pot and amphetamines were drowning me in dopamine. To see her all beautiful and perfect and just caught up in a moment had me fucking bursting inside.

  She snapped to attention when a spot on the floor where I stepped creaked. “Hey,” she said, smiling, “I haven’t been able to leave. I just want tonight to never end.”

/>   “What are you doing?”

  “Saying goodbye…saying hello. Were you sent to retrieve me?”

  “Nope,” I said when she climbed down and walked to me. “I’m so glad I got to be here for your first show, Nik. You were great.”

  She threw her arms around my neck, and I wrapped mine around her waist. “Thank you!”

  “Hey, can I take you somewhere? Or can we just walk?” Drugs…Nikki…either way, my heart was racing.

  “Yeah, but I should tell Lea I really won’t get to the club until later.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to be a helicopter friend tonight? She promised she’d let you know if things got too much for her. And she’s with Ghost and Denise. She’s fine.”

  “I should just tell her, Charlie. This is what we do for each other. And it’s a big night for her, too. Crap. Everything of mine is in her purse. Can I use your phone?” I nodded, but as soon as I handed it to her she frowned.

  Oh shit.

  I’d put a baggie of ADHD pills in her hand, too. “Uh?” she asked.

  Her hair was different. I reached for her ponytail. She was so beautiful. She was such a great person, too. Perfect. So fucking perfect. And how did she even get into this tiny ass dress? It was green, lace, short. It looked like it was poured directly on her body. Was it easy to take off? Touching her was nice. I put my hands on her waist and squeezed. I couldn’t even pull any fabric away; it was so tight. I would love to watch her take it off. Inch by inch. Nikki naked. Damn.

  “Charlie!”

  “Yes…”

  “What is this? What are you on right now?”

  “On?”

  She pointed at her palm. Oh shit. I checked my pockets. Empty. Right. I snatched the pills away. “It’s weed. Well, that’s not weed. Obviously. Weed is not that. I’m on weed. We smoked a little while ago. We…eed. No. We… me and Deacon—“

  “Charlie!”

  Shit. “Amphetamines. But I just use them when I need to work, like watch dailies and write scripts—”

  “That’s how you get through pages and pages of scripts? Does Samira know about this?” Her brow furrowed for a beat and she held up her hands. “Wait…is this how you were able to drive from Pensacola the way you did? What the hell?”

  “You know how much work I have to do. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to do all of it. To make things come together, okay? Sometimes I need a little help.” I held her shoulders. “It’s under control, dude. I know you can’t be around an addict—”

  “No one starts out an addict, Charlie. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but if you’re taking these to function and to get you through your day, you’re depending on them. I bet you’re not even taking the same amount you started out with anymo—”

  “I’m not an addict, Nik,” I said, getting defensive. “I have it under fucking control. I don’t want a fucking lecture.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “From an addict, right? From someone who was dumb enough to fuck it all up?”

  “No…I don’t want a lecture. Period.”

  “I wasn’t going to lecture you!” she shot back. We stayed where we were, but we both looked away from each other. My heart sank. Dammit. This was not the conversation I wanted to have with Nikki.

  I jostled her lightly until she turned back to me, her defiance showing no signs of going away. “You mad at me?”

  “Uh, yeah, you don’t get a monopoly on the emotion, Dara! And I’m mad because I care!”

  “So this is love-yelling?” I shook her again, hoping she’d laugh. “Thank you for caring, Nikki!” I yelled back.

  “You’re not funny.”

  “Well, I don’t want you to be mad at me. I just want…” Her. Her and me. Fuck it. I was telling her. “I just want you, Nik. Not really sure how to be around you anymore like this or how to focus when you’re not around. I have never stopped being nervous around you and I know you. I worry so much about whether I’m saying or doing the right thing. And I miss you all the time. I’ve been trying to figure out all this shit and...” I cupped her face. “I’m crazy about you, period. End of sentence.”

  Nikki’s mouth fell open for a moment, shock filling her face, but then she laughed. Finally. “Really?”

  “I wanna be your boyfriend. Put a name on this and make it official between us.”

  “You like me like me, Charlie? You want me to check the YES box on your note?” she said, giggling.

  “Hey, I’m working on this whole speech extemporaneously; gimme a break.”

  “Fine.” She drew her face to mine until our lips touched. When she parted hers, I moved my tongue over the break and into her mouth. Nikki rocked against me, forcing our bodies to sway, and I gripped her in a tight hold around the back. Her fingertips slid up my biceps until her arms were locked over my shoulders. She clutched the back of my neck and smashed my mouth to hers roughly. Damn, I fucking loved that she was just as eager about this as I was.

  I pulled back, dizzy with need, high, and happy as hell. “Wow…” she said.

  “Wanna get out of here?” I asked.

  “And go…have sex? Right now?” She bit her lip and ran her hand over the end of her ponytail. She was breathing much harder, and her eyes were darting from side to side. Really? Miss I Know Your Hard-on Was For Me was suddenly gun-shy?

  Heh.

  I held her hands up to my mouth. Kissed them both. “We don’t have to do anything. You don’t look like you’re—”

  “No…I mean, I want to be more than friends, too, but we just literally had our first kiss. Maybe we’re rushing things. This could be a complete disaster, and we’d never be able to get back to before…”

  “To before I…kissed you? Um, that doesn’t exactly exist anymore. You know that, right? Look, I’m not gonna stop being your friend. You being comfortable and happy are all I care about. Tonight is not about what we do at all, but it is about what I don’t want to do without you anymore.”

  Chapter Nine

  Nikki

  “One night. Cheapest room you got,” Charlie said, slapping his credit card down at the front desk inside the Savoy. In spite of my giggle fit, I smacked him on the chest. “What? The rooms are expensive!”

  The man at reception was probably so annoyed with us right now. We’d been laughing since we walked in. Hotel employees didn’t need an explanation for why two people without luggage were paying for a night. But I had an intense urge to tell Frank here why we were really like this. It was about sex, yes (thank God, yes), but we were, like, together together, too. I wanted to tell everybody. I hugged Charlie’s arm and pressed my nose to his sleeve. Thrill and desire were roaring through me. I felt dangerously unsteady. That rush you got when something scared you but seduced you, too. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, untethered. No net.

  I was giddy about fucking. About fucking Charlie. About Charlie. About us.

  He hugged me, and I tried to ignore the small ball of worry that was also nesting in my throat: concern about what we might lose after tonight. But he was right. There was no way to go back to before kissing him. How could it not get better? This would work. This would work.

  Or it would be exactly how to fuck up a friendship.

  There was a pause when Frank stopped interacting with us to type. I turned Charlie’s head and kissed him. Harder than we had at SoBe Sexy. To know it was real. To feel the hand on my back that had always been just comforting turn possessive and greedy. It moved to my ass.

  After a deep sigh from Frank—which snapped us both back to reality—he slid two plastic key cards across the desk and directed us to the elevator bank. Once we were inside an elevator, Charlie kissed and kissed and kissed the top of my head. It would probably be the last bit of innocence between us.

  Wow. My best friend was about to know me in a way he hadn’t before.

  See me naked.

  Be inside me.

  Have his way with me.

  How exactly did Charlie Dara
fuck, anyway? Would he bend me over the bed? Screw me against the door? His chest rose and fell in a deep breath. It would be pressed to mine soon enough. Oh my God. What was this like for him? Was he thinking about our first time, too? “Shit,” I whispered.

  Charlie’s hand slid down my back, pulling me from my thoughts. “You okay?”

  “I’m so glad I had to wax for work,” I admitted.

  Swinging me around, he pinned my hips to the mirrored wall behind us. “You really think hair was gonna stop me? Do you know how long I’ve wanted you, Nik?” he said without a smile. “I would’ve plowed through the Amazon rainforest of bushes for your pussy. Plowed. Dug. Excavated. Bushwhacked. Make no mistake.”

  I laughed until tears came. “You are terrible,” I said. The doors opened. I took a breath and dragged him out of the elevator.

  “Wait…wait…wait…” Charlie stopped us in the middle of the hallway. He moved me to the wall fast. Leaning in close, he cradled either side of my face, a mix of glee and nervousness in his expression. “Here’s to the end of a great friendship.”

  “The greatest! But it’s not ending, just getting better!” I whispered back before his lips were against mine. Third time kissing ever and we were about to fuck each other’s brains out. Well, maybe this was my kind of night, actually.

  My wobbly legs led us to room seven-sixty. My breaths were just pulses when he caged me to the door from behind, pressing his lips to my shoulder and inching toward my ear. Charlie ground his entire body against me, his fingers stabbing into my stomach. He lifted the front of my dress and eased his hand into my panties.

  Was the hallway empty?

  Did I really even care? No. The answer was hell no.

  “Jesus, Nik,” he whispered as his fingers slipped inside me with ease, “you’re this wet already?” His chest expanded against my back and his breaths quickened. He caressed my clit then cupped me with his entire hand. “I’ve wanted you for so long.” My knees buckled. I leaned forward to put my cheek and palm on the door. When my arm went up between us, he undid the button of his jeans. I reached into his boxer briefs and fisted his dick. He was so lost in what I was doing that he missed the door’s key card slot twice. I was no better when I tried while he was fingering me and pinching my nipple through my dress.