For All The Wrong Reasons

by Brownell, Rachael

  He let me go on and on as I moved things around in the fridge, finally slamming it shut in frustration while still mumbling profanities at Gavin as if he was standing next to me. I turned around and found Quinn, arms crossed over his bare chest, pressing his lips together in an attempt not to laugh.

  That didn’t last but a few beats before he burst at the seams, laughing so hard he bent over and grabbed on to his knees.

  I didn’t find it as funny.

  I was pissed.

  But not at Quinn and watching him crack up at my antics. After listening to how carefree he sounded for just a few seconds, I joined in. I couldn’t stop myself. It was as if his laughter was infectious. It made me even more grateful for his friendship.

  Friendship.

  It means a state of mutual trust and support.

  Not all relationships are friendships, yet we throw the word around as if it has no meaning. The same way some people toss around the word love.

  True friends, people who worked hard to build a relationship, know the meaning. They feel it. They don’t have to question the state of their relationship.

  That’s how I feel about Quinn. I would trust him with my life. He’s never given me any reason not to. He’s always been there for me when I needed him.

  And right now, he’s trying to help me find my way back to the one thing in life that will make me happy again. To the one person who holds my heart.

  I don’t know a single other man who would do that for a woman, who would help her win over the heart of another man.

  It’s far from normal, but so is our friendship.

  Our ‘relationship,’ I guess I can call it now. Because he’s going to be here shortly, and we’re going to practice kissing so it doesn’t look like it’s the first time we’ve ever done it. So the vision of us bumping heads like teenagers who don’t know what they’re doing doesn’t haunt me at night.

  I should open a bottle of wine. Take the edge off a little. I’m going to need it.

  Because with that first kiss, things are going to change between us. Even if this is all just for show. Even if we’re in a fake relationship. Nothing after this moment will ever be the same again.

  I’ll know what it’s like to kiss one of my best friends.

  This is something I should have thought about before I agreed to this deal. Before I signed the contract and emailed him a copy. But I wasn’t thinking about kissing Quinn when I signed my name, I was thinking about Gavin. I was thinking about everything I could get back, about everything I lost, and how complete my life is about to be again.

  I just hope I’m not risking one thing in exchange for another.

  The last thing I want is to destroy my relationship with Quinn. He means too much to me.

  Chapter Six

  QUINN

  Ever since Gabby took sex off the table, typing it in capitalized bold letters in the contract, it’s all I’ve been able to think about. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been with anyone in a long time. Or it could be the fact I’ve been listening to Kara go at it on a nightly basis these last few weeks.

  Whatever the reason, after I agree to head to her place to practice kissing, I have to take a cold shower. Thoughts of where kissing could potentially lead consume me. Her lips always look soft and shiny, like she’s constantly applying lip gloss. How will they feel for the first time? How will they taste? Is her lip gloss flavored? Mint? Cherry?

  Will it just be a kiss, or am I rounding first base?

  What are the bases again?

  It’s been so long I don’t even remember.

  But that’s not the point.

  My bigger issue is that in my haste to get to Gabby’s place, I completely forgot about why I was doing this to begin with. Why we had to practice.

  The bigger picture wasn’t even a blip on my radar until I walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and bumped into Kara. Her face was streaked with tears, dark-gray and black mascara stains running from her eyes to her chin.

  “What happened?” I ask, holding her by the arms to keep from knocking her over.

  Dropping her chin to her chest, Kara lets out a sigh and mumbles his name.

  James fucking Camden.

  “Please don’t say I told you so. I don’t think I can take it right now. I’ve mentally beat myself up enough. I don’t need you to pile it on.”

  Her voice is small as she pleads with me to keep my opinions to myself. I want nothing more than to put in my two cents, but it will only hurt her, and she’s not the one I want to hurt. He is.

  And as much as I want to comfort her, I need to take a step back right now. I can’t be the man she needs me to be until she realizes she wants me to be that person for her. She has to make the decision. She has to figure out if she has feelings for me.

  So I do the one thing I don’t want to. I turn her away.

  “I won’t say anything you probably haven’t already said to yourself, so I’ll just keep it to myself for now. If you want to talk later, I’ll be back in a little bit.”

  Releasing her arms, I step around her, and I’m about to close my door so I can change when she finally speaks up. “Wait, you’re leaving?”

  Peeking my head back into the hall, I nod and then say “I’m going over to Gabby’s for a while. I shouldn’t be gone that long. A few hours or so.”

  A few hours . . . wishful thinking. I’m confident in my abilities. It’ll take all of ten minutes of practice for us to fall into a rhythm.

  I guess if I come back early, I could always say I was worried about her. Then again, I don’t want to lay it on too thick yet. This whole plan is just starting to come together. Gabby and I need to take it slow, build things up, and then—

  Shit!

  We didn’t talk about how this would all end. It never crossed my mind. We were too caught up in planning how it would go down, on all the steps we needed to take to get what we wanted.

  The fact our relationship would have to come to an end never came up in conversation. It’s something we’ll need to figure out tonight, I guess.

  “Gabby? The girl you worked with that summer? The blonde who used to date Gavin, frat-boy-extraordinaire?”

  “Yes, that Gabby.”

  She knows exactly who Gabby is. She’s met her on more than one occasion. The fact she’s being dismissive of her pisses me off. Is she jealous of her? Probably not. She’s more than likely projecting her hurt onto me right now. Of all Kara’s faults, that’s the one I hate the most.

  If she’s in a bad mood, everyone should be.

  If she’s hurt, everyone needs to hurt.

  “Oh,” she says, straightening her back and wiping at her dried tears. “Have fun.”

  Or maybe there’s a tinge of jealousy.

  “I’m sure we will.” A slow smile spreads across my face at the thought I’m getting to Kara and she hasn’t even seen us together. I can’t wait to tell Gabby about our exchange. We’re miles ahead of where we planned to be at this point.

  As I stand outside Gabby’s door, waiting for her to let me in, I focus on the look of shock Kara couldn’t shake. The way she made it a point to be downstairs before I left and how she tried to keep me talking so I couldn’t leave.

  She was definitely grasping for attention.

  From me for once.

  And not the bad kind of attention she seeks from the rotation of men in her life.

  Maybe the thought of me with another woman was enough to change her tune, but I doubt it. My guess would be that as soon as I was ‘available’ for her again, whether as a friend or more, she would go right back to seeking attention elsewhere.

  Remember, the heart only wants what it can’t have. If it yearns for something long enough, it won’t want to live without it. That’s the goal here. To make her level of want and desire skyrocket so once she has me, she never wants to let go. I don’t want to be a passing fling. I don’t want to be a notch on her bedpost.

  I want to be the last man she’
s ever with. The only one who matters out of all the ones who came before me.

  The only name she ever screams again.

  “Are you going to stand out here all night or did you want to come inside?”

  Snapping out of my daydream, I find Gabby standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, right eyebrow raised suspiciously.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “About Kara?” she asks as I step past her into the warmth of her living room. I can’t help but smile at her question.

  Gabby’s apartment is cute. It’s all girly but modern and grown-up at the same time. Clean lines and soft colors. Nice decorations, especially compared to most college apartments where the beer pong table often doubles as the dining room table. None of the chairs match, if there are even chairs, and the closest thing to a real cup they have are the red Solos they’ve washed after beer pong has ended.

  Yeah. Glad I don’t live in a place like that anymore. Those first two years of college were a lot of fun, but rough. There are entire weekends I don’t remember. Pictures I’m in that I don’t have any recollection of taking with people I can’t attribute names to.

  Gabby never lived in a shit hole as far as I can remember. She’s been in this apartment for a few years now, living by herself. She’s always kept it neat and clean. The best part . . . she has real glasses. The kind that are made of glass, not plastic.

  Like the wine glass she hands to me before lifting another one to her lips.

  And they match.

  That says a lot more about her than I think she realizes. She’s not your average college student. She’s already on her way to being a responsible adult. She supports herself. Pays her own bills. I know her parents help her a little, so she can focus on school, but she doesn’t take advantage of that like most people our age would. She works hard every summer and saves all her money so she can be mostly independent during the school year.

  “So what had you all hot and bothered on my doorstep?” Gabby finally asks, taking a seat on her sofa and turning down the volume on the television.

  “Kara and I had a run-in before I left. She seemed to be slightly irritated by the fact that I was coming over here.”

  “To see me? But it’s not like she doesn’t know we’re friends.”

  “The only thing I can think of is that someone saw something and said something to her or Tess already. You know Tess loves to run her mouth, and Kara is usually the first person she tells.”

  “True, but there’s nothing to tell yet.”

  “Unless someone saw us talking to Gavin the other day.”

  The idea that people are already talking about us seems to make Gabby uncomfortable. Taking the seat next to her on the couch, I place both our wine glasses on the table and then turn her to face me.

  “Hey, why the worried look?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought this would be easy. I really didn’t think about other people being involved. I didn’t think about people aside from us, Gavin, and Kara knowing about any of this. I don’t think I thought this through at all.” Gabby shifts uncomfortably, tucking her legs under herself before straightening them out again as she continues to ramble on.

  “And now we have to kiss, and that’s going to ruin our friendship. We’ll never be able to go back to the way things were after this, and I’m going to lose you. I don’t want to lose you. I love the way things are between us right now and—”

  Placing my hands on her cheeks, I gently pull Gabby forward until her lips meet mine. Not only to stop her from rambling and freaking out but because I want to get this over with. The longer we sit here and debate what we’re doing, what the ramifications might be of our decision, the longer we delay the inevitable.

  Because we’ve both already agreed to do this.

  There’s no turning back.

  When her lips relax against mine, the shock of what I’ve just done wearing off, I slide my hands into her hair and pull her closer, licking the seam of her lips with the tip of my tongue. She grants me access, and as our tongues intertwine and dance around each other, the sweet taste of her red wine mixing with the mint of my gum, I begin to lose myself in the kiss.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this passionate.

  It was just going to be an innocent kiss between friends.

  No tongue action.

  No hands grasping at each other.

  I wasn’t supposed to lay her down on the couch and cover her with my body.

  None of that was supposed to happen.

  Yet here we are. Our bodies wrapped around each other, my hand sliding under her shirt without a second thought, causing her to moan into my mouth as she grips my hips and attempts to pull me closer and press her body against mine at the same time.

  I’m in so much trouble. There’s no way this can end well. For either of us.

  Chapter Seven

  GABRIELLE

  Every kiss is unique. Every person does it differently. In my mind, there is no right or wrong way to kiss another person. Yes, people have a preference as to how to kiss. This means a kiss can be good and a kiss can be bad, but that lies in the eye of the beholder.

  Kissing Gavin felt natural. He was always gentle yet passionate. He knew what I liked, what made me ache for more than just a kiss.

  That didn’t happen overnight. It took ‘practice’ for us to find our perfect technique. To enjoy kissing each other and to leave the other person craving one more kiss before the night was over.

  I knew kissing Quinn would feel different.

  I expected it to be awkward. To be unsure of what to do with my hands. Of which way to turn my head.

  What I didn’t prepare for was the fire that sparked inside me the moment our lips connected. Or the need that began to build when he covered my body with his. But what surprised me the most was the way my body reacted to him. It felt as if I was alive again for the first time in years. Maybe the first time ever.

  I wanted him.

  Needed him.

  Craved his touch.

  And when his hand slide under my shirt, making his way slowly up my stomach and under my bra, leaving my skin covered in goosebumps, I let out a growl that surprised both of us, causing Quinn to jump back. Under hooded eyes, Quinn stared down at me, straddling my body, as we both attempted to catch our breath.

  “Gabby, I’m . . .” he finally says, his voice trailing off before he can finish his sentence.

  “Yeah?” I counter.

  And then he does the one thing I don’t expect him to do.

  He bends and kisses me again, gently this time, but this kiss is still filled with passion. And when I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him back down on top of me, he goes willingly, keeping his elbows bent so as not to put all his weight on me.

  But I want his body pressing me into the couch.

  I want to feel every inch of him covering me.

  It’s a desire so strong I’ve never experienced it before.

  And I didn’t expect Quinn to be the one to bring out this side of me. To bring out these feelings.

  I mean . . . we’re only pretending to date. Our end game is to unite with other people, not with each other, right?

  Releasing my lips, Quinn rests his forehead against mine, bringing our make-out session to an end. “I think that’s all the practice I can handle tonight.”

  The angle of his body hovering over mine doesn’t provide me with the view I need to affirm my suspicions. When he pushes off me, though, and adjusts his jeans as he stands, I receive all the confirmation I need.

  He’s as turned on by our kiss as I am.

  And therein lies the problem.

  Reality smacks me in the face as I’m about to ask him to stay. To ask him to kiss me again. Not because I want to practice but because I enjoyed kissing him. I enjoyed the way it made me feel.

  “So I guess I’ll see you in a few days,” I reply, pushing myself into a sitting position and reaching for my wine glass.


  His back is to me, but I hear his words as clear as day. “Yeah. I should probably go. I’ll see you at lunch.”

  And then he’s gone, letting himself out without looking back. Rushing home to Kara. To his dream woman. The one he wants. Because I need to be honest with myself, I’m not the one he wants to be with.

  We got carried away.

  Both of us have needs. Our bodies reacted to one another. It’s as simple as that.

  Hell, it’s been months since I’ve been touched that intimately. I’m not surprised I reacted the way I did.

  Gavin.

  He’s the reason I’m doing all this. He’s the reason I’m sacrificing my sanity. To be with him again. To have the chance to feel his hands on my body, not Quinn’s.

  We’re just friends. We’re helping each other out.

  And after all this is over, we’re going to go back to being just friends.

  Because we’re adults.

  We can control ourselves. We took sex off the table already. It’s spelled out in the contract. We’re not obligated to do anything more than kiss and we’re only doing that because it’s necessary to the plan. So we’re believable as a couple.

  But if that’s all true, why do I want to chase after him?

  Why does his going home to Kara bother me?

  She was jealous when she found out he was coming over here. Our plan is already having the effect he was hoping for. I’m sure lunch is only going to add to her jealousy, which is what we want.

  And then we’ll tackle flaunting our relationship in front of Gavin on Friday night. I’m not really looking forward to either meetup. Lunch is going to be unsettling, and the frat party is going to turn into an overwhelming experience filled with memories of days past and hopefully not a lot of questions from Gavin’s frat brothers.

  I have two days to prepare for that. Two days to come up with believable answers. Two days to overthink everything and question myself, my motives, and my reasons for agreeing to this stupid plan.

  We’re doing this for the wrong reasons.