A Very Friendly Valentine's Day

by Kayley Loring

  “You need a Dramamine.” He lets me down slowly and I step away from him a little too quickly. He grabs on to my arms to steady me.

  I’m a mess.

  I slowly open my eyes, keeping them downturned.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes.”

  He loosens his grip a little before letting go.

  “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  “I’ll finish making the bed for you.”

  Before I can complete the sentence “I’ll do it,” he’s up on the ladder and finishing the job for me.

  And I need to stop staring at his butt in those sweatpants.

  I’m doing it. Stopping staring at his butt. Right now.

  I get the Dramamine from my bag. Hopefully this will make me feel more normal. Less unsteady.

  “You want to watch Sherlock with me?” he asks as he clutches the pillow to his chest and pulls up my pillowcase.

  Great. Now my pillow’s going to smell like snowy beach sex.

  “Absolutely not,” I say. That is just what I need right now. A Cumberbitchboner and a lady froner.

  He laughs. “Okay. What do you want to watch, then?”

  “I think I’ll just close my eyes and listen to music tonight, actually. Is that okay with you? I’m kind of tired.”

  “Sure. I mean, it’s almost your bedtime, so…”

  It’s not even nine thirty, but I do like to be in bed by ten.

  He smooths out the top sheet and blankets before hopping down off the ladder. “Your bed awaits,” he says.

  “Thank you.”

  “You take a Dramamine?”

  “Yes. I’m sure it will help.” I grab my iPad and earbuds and get settled in the top bunk under the covers. “You should wear something with long sleeves,” I tell him. “These blankets aren’t very warm.”

  He waves dismissively. “Not worried. I’m hot blooded.”

  “Okay. You’ve got your noise-canceling headphones, right?”

  “Always.”

  “Okay. You aren’t going to be bored, are you?”

  “Not if you keep asking me awesome questions all night,” he says, grinning. He lies down on his bed, and I look down at our phones.

  I guess it’s okay to leave mine down there overnight. It needs to keep charging. “Don’t look at my phone.”

  “Why would I look at your phone?”

  Good. He’s forgotten about the voicemail.

  “No reason.”

  “Oh. The voicemail.”

  Shit. He remembers.

  “You still haven’t erased it, huh?”

  I don’t answer.

  “I’m not going to hack into your phone,” he grumbles, sounding a little insulted.

  “I know. I trust you.”

  “I would hope so.”

  “Hey.” I lean over the edge a bit so I can see him. He has one arm curled behind his head, and his bicep is all flexed and magnificent.

  I wait for him to glance up at me before saying, “Thank you for coming with me. On the train. For getting this room. I really do appreciate it.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  I nod and lie back with my head on the pillow. “You were really good,” I say to the ceiling right above me. Because I can’t look at him when I say this. “The monologues. That was so romantic. It was so good to see you perform like that again. You’re really talented.”

  “Thank you. Thanks for getting me to do that. I mean, it was weird. But thank you.”

  I’m not going to tell him about the part that lady’s casting, in case he doesn’t get called in for it. But I have a good feeling about it. “I’m gonna put my earbuds in now, okay? Good night.”

  “Hang on. When do we have to get up tomorrow?”

  “Whenever. Do you want me to wake you?”

  “Not really. I’ve had such early call times lately. It’d be nice to sleep in if I can.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll get breakfast when I’m up and let you know where I am.”

  “’Kay. G’night.”

  I turn off the wall light by my bed, put my earbuds in and turn on my classical relaxation playlist.

  The rhythmic rocking of the train is surprisingly soothing and also very surprisingly…arousing. I realize I’ve absentmindedly been doing Kegel exercises as I lie here listening to a Chopin cello sonata—which you’d think would be the opposite of provocative. But you’d be wrong.

  I’m feeling all fluttery in my belly and tense and wet between my legs and what the flickering flackering clickety clacketing hell man?! My breasts are swollen and my nipples are pointing right up at the ceiling. I suppose it doesn’t help that I can’t stop massaging them.

  I can’t do this.

  I’m the one who came up with the rule about us not pleasuring ourselves while we’re in the same room together.

  But oh God, the flutters. The tension. I carefully slide my hand down into my panties. It’s so slippery and silky smooth down there.

  This requiem I’m listening to now is so seductive.

  And if I don’t release a little tension tonight, I mean, what’s it going to be like tomorrow?

  My clitoris already feels like an alien egg pod, ready to burst.

  I pull my earbuds out and quietly, slowly, peer over the edge of the bed. Eddie is lying down there with his wireless Bose headphones on and he’s staring at the iPad that’s propped up on his chest. Both arms are crossed behind his head, both biceps flexing.

  I slowly slide back toward the wall, push my iPad aside and turn onto my stomach. If I barely move… If I bury my face into the Eddie-scented pillow… Surely, I can just relieve a little tension without him knowing.

  I mean, that show is riveting. And he has noise-canceling headphones on. And I’ll barely have to move around at all at this point.

  I’ll just try to make it sound like I’m snoring if I make a noise.

  If he happens to hear me, he’ll think I’m asleep.

  I slide my hand down between my legs, rubbing flat against my clit with as much pressure as possible. All the blood in my body and all eight thousand nerve endings are rushing up to the surface to thank me already. And I can’t help that I’m being rocked by the motion of the train. I can’t help that I can still feel Eddie’s arms around me. I can’t help that when I close my eyes, I see the way he stared into them when we were in the dining car. When he was kneeling on the floor beside me. When he was Romeo, and I was a silent, stunned Juliet, unable to do anything but watch and admire him.

  My heart is already racing. My breaths are already coming fast and heavy as I inhale the intoxicating scent of fresh laundry, cocoa butter, sea salt, musk, and something cold, wet and metallic. He’s right, he is hot blooded. His skin is always warm to the touch. It’s why it always feels like I’m melting into him when he’s hugging me. I’m not all that curvy, but I feel so soft against the firm curves of his muscles.

  “I got you,” he’d said. And he had. He’d caught me. As if he’d been there waiting for me to fall all along.

  I slide two fingers inside myself, grind my pelvis into the mattress, rock my hips.

  The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,

  And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.

  I make a fist with one hand, gripping the thin mattress, and release a loud sigh into the pillow as my body contracts and releases. I shudder and then remember to make a snorting sound—so it sounds like a snore. I go completely still for a minute because I hear Eddie moving beneath me.

  Oh God, oh God, please don’t hear me.

  “Eddie?” I whisper.

  More movement as he shifts around, but he doesn’t reply.

  I make another slightly piggy snoring sound and then move my hand vigorously because I need to get this over with and I need to stop thinking about the man in the bed below me.

  Sherlock.

  I need to think of Sherlock. That brain. Those wide-set crystal blue eyes. That wavy brown hair. That slender torso. That accent.


  The way Eddie looked at me tonight.

  His big ol’ semi-erection against my thigh and his big warm hands on my waist when I was lying on top of him, accidentally flashing him.

  The way he looked at me in that moment.

  And if Layla hadn't burst into my room…

  If I had just lowered myself down to him, lips parted, if our mouths had touched and our tongues had touched.

  If his hands had squeezed my hips and I had rocked my hips just a little.

  I wouldn't have had to say a word.

  He would have taken it from there.

  He would have massaged and squeezed and maybe even scratched and spanked a little.

  His hands would have disappeared under my camisole and found my breasts, and he would have flipped me onto my back so he could uncover them and kiss them all over.

  And I would have just stretched out and offered myself up to him.

  He would have made me come with his mouth and his tongue and his hands and maybe his fingernails and teeth even. He'd be gentle. He'd know exactly what to do to make me feel good.

  And it would. It would have felt so good.

  I would have whispered to him fuck me, Eddie, just do it. Do it fast before anyone comes in. And he would do it fast and hard, and we would have covered each other's mouths and screamed into each other's hands while staring into each other's eyes and it would have been so, so hot.

  “Oh, God!” I whisper into the pillow as a wave of orgasm hits me.

  I remember to snort, and then as I feel that tumbling, falling again in my abdomen and a violent shudder, my muffled cry is surely too quiet for Eddie to hear, but oh God, I can’t contain it.

  And I can’t snort.

  It’s physically impossible to snort in the middle of an orgasm, it turns out.

  It’s mentally impossible to think about anyone other than Eddie while I’m touching myself now, it seems.

  But I can still tell myself that it’s just a physical thing. It’s just hormones. It’s just my confused body reacting to things that don’t mean anything other than—we’re two friends who haven’t had sex with anyone in a while and we just happen to be in close proximity to each other right now. For a short period of time.

  I shudder and jolt again, and then I pull my hand away. Both hands clutch the pillow as I breath into it, trying to catch my breath, trying to slow my heart rate, trying to forget that Eddie is just a few feet below me. Reminding myself that when he said he’d never seen true beauty until this night, they weren’t his words. They weren’t his feelings. It was just a performance. Something I’d asked for. Something he used to do for auditions.

  He loves me as a friend.

  I love him as a friend.

  Sometimes friends have orgasms while they’re touching themselves and thinking about their friends.

  It’s just the wine.

  It’s just the built-up tension.

  It’s just the rocking of the train.

  It’s just friendship.

  And that’s more than enough.

  It has to be.

  Because I don’t think I could handle any more from Eddie Cannavale—body, mind, or soul.

  That’s why I have guidelines in place.

  That’s why I have New Year’s resolutions to focus on.

  That’s why he’s traveling with me to New York, to spend Valentine’s Day with a woman who isn’t me.

  And it’s fine.

  Because it has to be.

  11

  Eddie

  The One with Lord Snottington McFartnugget of Fuckyoushire

  When I was thirteen, I stole my ma's DVD of When Harry Met Sally and watched it on Declan's laptop in my room. Not the whole movie—just the part where Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in the middle of lunch at a deli. I thought it was so hot. I don’t think I even realized that Billy Crystal was in the scene. I had no intention of ever watching the rest of the movie. I just watched that part, over and over, because I'd heard Aiden and Brady talking about it once.

  And then, when I was fifteen, I watched that movie with a girl at her house after school. Most of the time, all I was thinking about was whether or not I should try to touch that girl's boob during the movie or if I should wait until it was over. But when that deli scene came on, all I could think about was—how did that actor not have a boner while he watched Meg Ryan fake orgasms two feet away from him all day? And then when my first girlfriend made me watch that movie with her when we were seventeen, I thought—yeah, Harry is right. Men and women can't be friends. Because the sex part always gets in the way.

  But then, when I met Birdie, I convinced myself that Harry was wrong.

  Well, not when I'd first met Birdie. When I first met her, I thought she was the hottest nerd I'd ever seen. I'd imagined getting a fistful of that long, dark blonde wavy hair and tugging on it, just enough to make her gasp. I'd imagined her mouth on my cock, and I'd imagined all the crazy dirty things she'd say to me when I made her come for the first time in her life. Because I just had a hunch that no guy had ever given her an orgasm before—still do.

  But after a while, I realized men and women can be friends if that’s what they both want. The sex part does get in the way. But that doesn't mean they can't be friends.

  I’d like to believe that you can stay friends with anyone for as long as you want to. Even when you're lying in a bunk bed right below your best female friend. Even when she is clearly giving herself a very real orgasm or three, and you're quietly palming yourself because what the fuck else are you supposed to do when Birdie Beckett is four feet over you, moaning into a pillow?

  And snorting.

  Somehow that didn’t make it any less hot.

  I’m glad I brought extra sheets. I’m really glad she seemed to have fallen asleep right after she came, because I came so hard, I had to groan into the crook of my arm, and I swear I made the train rock even harder for a few seconds. And fuck you, Catholic guilt—I’m still being faithful to Alana.

  I can hear a couple of young kids squealing outside the bedroom door. Sunlight’s streaming in through the gap between the blue curtains. I can sense that I’m alone in here. Birdie let me sleep in like I’d asked her to. I get up, open the curtains—looks like we’re in Arizona—and find a note in Birdie’s unmistakable, perfect cursive handwriting:

  Morning, sleepyhead.

  I’m off to have breakfast in the dining car.

  Take it easy.

  If you aren’t there by the time I’m done, I’ll head over to the lounge car.

  xx Birdie

  I love how she signed it—as if anyone else would be leaving me a note like this in our private room. I love how she writes “take it easy,” like some sixty-year-old aunt. I wonder if her hand still smells like her pussy… Whoa.

  No, I don’t.

  Not in the cold light of day.

  Not when I have to check in with Alana.

  I do find text notifications from Alana when I unplug my phone. But I also have a voice message from my agent’s office, and I’ve got three signal bars, so I call them back immediately.

  Her assistant Eric answers. “Rita Baskin’s office.”

  “Hey man, it’s Eddie. What’s up?”

  “Oh, hey man. I hear you’re on a train.”

  “Yep. Headed to New York.” Don’t small talk me now, man. I might lose my signal.

  “To meet the IG chick?”

  “You got that right.”

  “Niiiiiice. Hang on, let me get Rita for you.”

  I’ve had the same agent since I was at UCLA. I signed with her because she was kind of hot, but she sounded exactly like Joey’s agent on Friends, and I thought that was hilarious. When you’re eighteen, that’s a good enough reason to hire someone. But she’s actually good at what she does, and she’s taken me with her every time she’s moved to a bigger agency. Now that we’re at one of the biggest ones, I hear from the junior agents on my team more. So, if she’s calling me, it should be a
ctual news. Not someone telling me they’re talking to someone about me doing a guest spot on Pretty Little Liars or some horseshit. Not that that show’s horseshit. But I don’t need another guest spot. I need a fucking grownup role in something that my family can’t make fun of, for a change.

  “Cannavale, you there?” My agent might be the only woman left in LA who smokes a pack a day. She coughs into the phone.

  “Rita. Lovely to hear your voice.”

  “Oh, fuck off. I’m made of phlegm. What’s this I hear about you takin’ a train to my hometown? You afraid of flyin’ all of a sudden?”

  “I’m with a friend who doesn’t like to fly. What’s up? I’m afraid I’ll lose my signal.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m gettin’ to it hotshot. I got a call from Debra Silver. Said she’s on a train with you, and she saw you do a couple of Romeo monologues? I was like, shut your face that’s not even funny. But then Eric got a Google alert for you, and it turns out someone recorded some of it and posted it online. Eric—you send him that link yet? Eric? Eric?!”

  Eric gets on the line. “Sending now.”

  “Okay. So, Debra Silver called you?”

  “Right. So, Debra Silver’s casting a drama that shoots in LA starting June fourteenth. Everyone wants in on this one. Very prestigious but very hush-hush. I tried to put you up for it when she was in our offices last month, but she didn’t even want you to record an audition for her. Now she wants you to read for her when she’s back in town in a couple of weeks. If it goes well, you go straight in to meet with the director. Pretty exciting, am I right?”

  This is the opposite of a guest spot on Pretty Little Liars.

  “Am I an amazing agent or what?” I can’t tell if she’s making a joke or not, but I would not put it past her to take credit for this.

  “Yeah. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “You wanna know about the project, or you wanna wait until I send you the pages?”

  “Yeah, don’t tell me.” One thing I love about Rita is she knows I get nervous about a part that I really want, so we decided years ago it’s better if I don’t know all the details until I absolutely have to. “That’s really cool. Should I talk to her if I see her on the train again or…?”