by Jessica Roe
I go to reply, but my mouth is dry and I have to swallow before I can continue. “We need to talk about what just happened,” I say, pleased with how firm my voice sounds. With an effort, I manage to drag my gaze away from her chest.
Her shoulders haunch awkwardly. “Let's not.”
I feel. . .lost. This situation with Ivy is like trying to navigate through unknown territory because even though I've had more women than I can count, it's different when it comes to her. With the others I knew just how to act and just what to say to get them to do whatever I wanted, and even though I know Ivy better than any woman I've ever been with, I'm lost with her. But hell, I don't even know what I want from her, so how am I supposed to figure this shit out? Everything feels different now. Being lost, it's not a feeling I like. Not at all.
“We had a moment,” I accuse, daring her to deny it.
“Um. . .”
“Don't say um. We had a moment. . .didn't we?” I step closer, and I hate that she takes a step back. No matter what happens between us, no matter what messed up feelings we've stirred up, I never, ever want her to feel like she has to flinch away from me. I've never felt so unsure before. Not even with Bambi. It doesn't sit well.
She gets that stubborn look on her face – the drawn in brows, the pursed lips, the tilted head. It's a look I've seen many times over the years. “We are not talking about this,” she declares, then she stalks into her bathroom and slams the door in my face when I try to follow.
“We have to,” I argue, resting my forehead against the door.
“No we don't,” comes her muffled voice.
“Yes we fucking do! The last time we avoided talking about something like this we ended up not talking at all for a month. I'm not going through that shit with you again. I need you in my life.”
The bathroom door whips open, startling me so much I almost stumble. She's changed into a dry top but her damp jeans are still clinging to her ass like a wet fucking dream. A funny look takes over her face as she glares at me, obviously unhappy with something I've said. I wait for her to speak but the front door opening and closing makes the pair of us jump. Voices sound in the hallway as the others let themselves in, and I make a mental note to get that key back off Nathan before I end up wringing his damned neck.
Looking way too smug, Ivy pushes by me and leaves the bedroom, clearly thinking I'll drop the whole thing if we're around the others.
She should know me better than that.
I stalk out after her, ripping off my wet hat and jacket and throwing them over the back of an armchair. Nathan has parked himself in the middle of the sofa. He's as wet as me so he's getting the thing soaked, but he seems less crazed than he did before so getting caught in the rain must have done him good, given him some clarity.
“You good?” I ask him.
He shrugs a shoulder. “Sure.”
And that's the extent of it. He probably isn't good, but it's something we'll get into when we've got about ten beers in us because we're not chicks and being drunk off our asses is the only way we're ever going to talk about our feelings.
Ivy and I, on the other hand. . .
“We're not through,” I tell her sternly, folding my arms across my chest.
She groans frustratedly, rising from the arm of the sofa where she'd been patting Nathan's back and stomping into the kitchen. But this apartment just isn't big enough for her to hide from me. Hell, this whole town isn't big enough, not when I'm this determined to make sense of what happened.
“What's going on?” Silver wants to know. “Did you guys have a fight?”
I ignore him and walk into the kitchen after Ivy like she's pulling me along by a string. I'm seriously starting to feel like her stalker. She fills a glass with water and drinks it slowly, stubbornly refusing to look at me as I wait.
“Drop it,” she demands finally, when it becomes apparent that I'm not going anywhere.
“Can't. Won't.”
She slams the glass down hard on the counter. “Why the hell not? Why are you making this weird?”
“Because I felt something out there!” I burst out, admitting far more than I'd intended. “Something I can't let go of. And I know you felt something too.”
“Whoa. This just got interesting.” Nathan spins on the sofa and leans over the back to watch us. Blair and Silver drop down on either side of him. “What the fuck happened with you guys? I was not gone long enough for you to screw. Or if I was, then you're doing it wrong, bud.”
“We had a moment,” I tell him dismissively, not taking my eyes off Ivy.
She throws her hands up in the air. “So you're just telling every- Ugh! Stop saying we had a moment. We didn't have a moment. No moments!”
Well now she's just being ignorant. “Are you kidding me? We almost kissed out there!”
Nathan starts to snicker, suddenly seeming much lighter than he was just minutes ago. “Okay, this is definitely what I needed to get my mind off of things. This is way better than booze.” He slaps both Silver and Blair on their backs. “Thanks for bringing me back, guys. I would've hated to have missed this-”
“SHUT UP!” Ivy and I both yell.
He smirks. “Aw, look at that. You two had another moment.”
Deciding that he needs to be ignored before I end up punching him, I focus on Ivy once more. “Just admit it happened. The only reason this is so weird is because you're trying to pretend it didn't.”
Flustered, she runs her hands through her hair but it's still clogged up with water so her fingers catch in the tangles. “Fine! We had a moment! A stupid, crazy, thoughtless moment and we almost kissed and it was hot and you made me wanna do things that friends should definitely not do!” I can't help but grin smugly at that, because I got a feeling she admitted more than she intended too. “But obviously we're both really emotional and vulnerable right now – you over Bambi and me over Lambert – and so it led to a stray moment which shouldn't have happened. That's it.”
“This is fun,” Blair announces cheerfully. I'm beginning to think that airing this out in front of an audience hadn't been the best idea after all. “Way better than the movies. Because the people we get to make fun of are real. And here.”
I stick my hand up to block my annoying sister's face. “How do you know that's all it was?”
Ivy sighs. “Because if it were anything else then it would ruin our friendship, and neither of us wants that.”
“Ruin our friendship? That would never happen. I wouldn't let it-”
“Do you remember that time we kissed?” she interrupts, her cheeks flaming. Instantly I'm that seventeen year old kid again; the tent surrounding us, her lips beckoning me closer, her body flush beneath mine.
“When did they kiss?” Blair asks, and Nathan shushes her.
I frown. “Of course I remember.”
“Well do you remember how awkward things got after that? Because I couldn't keep my stupid feelings under control and it freaked you out?”
Now that stops me in my tracks. My head jerks back as confusion rolls through me. “What the fuck are you talking about? What feelings? You had feelings back then? For me?”
She blinks, her hands moving behind her to rest of the edge of the counter. “But I thought you-”
Nathan guffaws behind us. “Wait, are you guys talking about that time you were crushing on Ivy, Nash?”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yell. I don't care what shit he's been through tonight, I will fucking gag him.
Ivy's brows furrow together. She looks just as confused as I feel. “What's he talking about?”
My jaw clenches and I lift my eyes to the ceiling, because there's no way I can admit this to her face. “I liked you back then. Why do you think I crawled into your tent and kissed you that night?”
She's silent for so long that I have to look at her again. Her mouth has dropped open in shock. Obviously she'd been oblivious to how I'd felt, which surprises me because I'd always thought she'd known, at least on some
level. The fact that she didn't, and that she had feelings for me. . . It feels like it shifts something in our friendship. Changes how things have always been. I'm not sure how that makes me feel.
“Because you were drunk?”
“I wasn't drunk,” I tell her quietly, rubbing the back of my neck. This whole topic wasn't something I'd wanted brought up. This was something I'd never wanted brought up ever again. It wasn't like I'd been in love with her back then – hell, I'd only been seventeen – but the whole situation had twisted me up inside for months. Damn Nathan and his big ass mouth.
“But the next morning you blamed it on alcohol,” she protests, her voice coming out high pitched.
“No, you blamed it on alcohol. I just went along with it. I thought you were rejecting me, Ivy. Why do you think I couldn't talk to you for the next month? I was fucking embarrassed that I liked you and you didn't like me back.”
She gapes, shaking her head back and forth like she's in a trance. I want to touch her, I want to. . . Fuck, I don't know. Everything feels weird now. It feels different.
A steely determination comes over her face as she pushes away from the counter. “I can't deal with this right now.”
“Maybe we should leave,” Silver murmurs to Blair and Nathan. Finally someone has my back. “Give them a little privacy.”
“No way.”
“Blair-”
“You're not the boss of me.”
“Ha, that's not what you said last night,” he returns smugly, and my conversation with Ivy is temporarily put on hold as I turn to find him smirking at Blair like a punk. She's grinning back, not offended, but I-
“I will fucking destroy you,” I growl at him, and they both burst into laughter. Deciding my sister can put up with her perv of a boyfriend without my interference, I spin back to make sense of things with Ivy but she's already disappearing out the front door. “Ivy!”
The door slams. My body deflates as I lean against the fridge, banging my head back and sighing. “Fucking women.”
Chapter 9
Ivy
The days that pass by after The Moment are filled with an awkwardness that has never existed between Nash and I before, not even after our camping kiss. At least then I didn't have to see his face every single time I got out of bed, but now that we live together there's no escaping him. I tried, but my options in Fortune are pretty much limited to my mom and dad's house or my sister's place. Mom asks too many questions, and Heather smells like baby poop. In the end I decided I'd much rather face the awkwardness, to be honest.
My only saving grace has been that I'm back at work until New Year's Eve, so I have at least one valid reason to be out of the house during the day. I have never, not in all my life, been as happy to spend time with Space Head as I am these days. It's not good, not good at all. The other day I even begged him for overtime and I'm certain he took it very, very wrong.
At home now, there's just this tension that didn't exist before. Obviously I've always known how gorgeous Nash is but aside from my brief stint of madness as an unruly, hormonal seventeen year old, he's always just been Nash to me; the boy who gave me wedgies and tried to make me eat mud pies as a ten year old, the boy who I spent most of my detentions with in high school, the boy who puked all over my feet after the first ever time we stole wine from his parents and got drunk. But now. . .now I can't stop noticing that he's a man. A man with muscles that stand out on his arms whenever he lifts them and a butt that fills out his jeans in the best way and a cute dimple on the bottom of his back that I can't keep my eyes off. Yesterday morning I was so busy watching the way the muscles in his back moved beneath his skin as he grabbed juice out of the fridge that I spilled milk right down the front of my dress. He noticed, of course he freaking did, and the jerk just looked so smug about it, like I was playing right into his hands. I'm ninety nine percent certain he's been walking around shirtless all the time purely to torture me.
But it's not one sided, this whole lust thing. He watches me too, in a way he never has before. The same way he'd watch a woman in a bar before going in for the kill, but with something more about it. Something frighteningly intense. I feel his heated gaze every time we pass in the apartment, every time we sit next to each other and pretend to watch TV while really having absolutely no idea what's even on because we're too busy being completely and totally aware of each other to notice anything else.
It's all very confusing. Confusing and frustrating.
That day in the kitchen, when he'd told me about how he'd felt at seventeen, it had been a blow that I really hadn't been prepared for. It had put our friendship in a whole new perspective and I hadn't been lying to him – I really can't deal with the ramifications of that. It's dangerous territory. Because if I start thinking about that, then I'm going to start thinking about other things too. Like the what ifs.
What if we hadn't swept that kiss under the rug?
What if we hadn't blamed the whole thing on alcohol the next morning?
What if we hadn't both been too scared to tell each other how we'd really felt?
Nothing, I decide firmly. Nothing would have happened that wouldn't have destroyed our friendship, and our friendship is something that is more precious to me than anything, even now. Admitting our feelings back then wouldn't have changed who we were. It wouldn't have magically stopped the pair of us from being commitaphobes, or made us the kind of people who were ready and mature enough for a real relationship. It wouldn't have curbed Nash's womanizing, or made me want to stay in Fortune instead of chasing my career dreams. Maybe we would have fooled around for a while through high school, maybe even in college. But in the end, it would have destroyed everything that is good and awesome already between us.
And that's just not okay, because our friendship isn't, and never has been or will be, something that I'm willing to risk. It just isn't.
+++
Another day, another awkward breakfast together. Nash doesn't have to be in work until after the new year and usually he can't be woken until midday, but he's been up at the same time as me every morning this week. It's maddening.
He sits across from me at the kitchen table, casually slurping his Wheaties off a spoon as he reads the newspaper. I nibble on my bagel, trying my hardest not to stare at his chest because, as usual, he's naked from the waist up. Only a pair of red and blue striped pajama pants hang off his hips and his bare feet keep brushing against my ankles. He's clearly doing it on purpose to mess with me – it's working. It's a simple, seemingly innocent touch, but it makes my legs break out into goosebumps every single time.
We make idle conversation, but it's stilted. Forced. Nothing is easy like it used to be.
“Busy day at work today?” he asks, still reading his paper.
I shrug a shoulder. “There are few people in. Mostly for fillings. You?”
“Not a lot going on. Might hit up the gym for a couple hours. Dad wants me to go along to dinner with a possible client with him tonight though. Apparently if they like us they'll send a shit load of business our way.”
My head bobs up and down vacantly like a nodding dog. “That's good.”
Silence. Painful silence. How do we fill it? How did we used to fill it?
“So I think we need to have sex.”
Well that's sure as hell not how. I splutter on a sip of coffee, spraying the back of Nash's newspaper as his words hit me full force. He just shakes the paper off and continues to read, like this is just so normal.
So I think we need to have sex? Said so casually, between mouthfuls of cereal, like he was letting me know that one of us needs to pick up a carton of milk from the store. He doesn't even look up at me, because clearly that newspaper is more interesting than my flaming face.
“WHAT?” I manage to demand finally. When he still doesn't glance up, I slap the newspaper down on the table to get his attention.
His eyes slowly rise to meet mine, and the amusement positively making them shine and the tiny little
smirk on his stupid gorgeous face only serves to PISS ME THE HELL OFF! I snatch his spoon and throw it at his chest, but it's not nearly as satisfying as I'd hoped it would be. Now a knife, perhaps. . .
He chuckles, he freaking chuckles, as he wipes the beads of milk away with the back of his hand. “We should have sex,” he replies easily, as if it's just so logical. “It makes sense, don't you think?”
“Only if you're a guy and you think with your dick more than ninety percent of the time. Oh look, you tick both of those boxes.”
He moves his newspaper and cereal bowl to one side so he can stretch his arms across the table and lean towards me. “Clearly there's tension between us now and we need to do something to get it out of our systems so we can go back to the way things were before. I miss how easy we used to be, don't you?”
“Of course I do.”
“This weird shit that's been going on with us these last few days isn't working for me, Ives. It's like we can barely be friends anymore. So. . .” He sits back in his chair and holds his hands out. “. . .sex. It's the only way I can think of that'll fix things.”
Just. . .the arrogance of him. It leaves me speechless. I mean, he's always been an arrogant d-bag, especially when it comes to women, but I never thought he'd turn that crap around and use it on me. It's insulting, that's what it is. And I'm not even getting the charm and the flirtation that other women get. No, all I get is a cold, clinical we should have sex, Ivy. It makes sense, Ivy.
Who has sex just because it makes sense?
“You're crazy!” I splutter, filled to the brim with righteous indignation. And he still looks amused. “If you think any of this is okay, then you obviously have no respect for me at all, Nash.”
