by J. S. Cooper
“You seem to have a lot on your mind, huh, Janie? You seem to have drifted off again.”
“Yeah, sorry.” I made a face. “It’s just been a long week.”
“No worries. I feel ya. I’m glad you took some time out to meet me though.”
“Yeah, I had fun.” I smiled at him genuinely. “I had a really good night with you.”
“Me too. Even though I do have blue balls now.” He started laughing as my face froze in shock. “Oh Janie, if you could see your face. I’m just teasing you, love. I’m horny, but that’s okay. More to look forward to next time.” He reached a hand around my waist and pulled me toward him. His lips came down to my ear and I could feel his tongue licking before he nibbled on my earlobe. “I sure hope there is a next time,” he whispered and my toes curled in my shoes as I felt his breath so deliciously close.
“I guess we shall see,” I said softly. I wasn’t used to a man that was so full-on. “I’ve had a great evening, thanks. But I really should get going.”
“Okay, Janie. Let me get you home.” And with that he gave me a sweet smile and took a step back and walked me to the front of the apartment.
“I had a nice evening, thank you,” I said to Dylan as we stopped outside of my apartment building.
“Do you want me to come up?” he asked, a huge grin on his face as we stood there, somewhat awkwardly. I stared at his handsome face and a part of me warmed that he wanted me. A part of me wanted to say yes, come up with me. Let’s have some fun. Let’s have a good night. But then, that part of me that wasn’t as adventurous as the secret hidden part of me said no.
“I don’t think so.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m not ready to have you come inside.”
“No worries. It was my pleasure just to be able to spend the evening with you,” he said softly and I wondered if that was true. I wondered if he really did just want to spend time with me or if he was just saying that. “Can I get one final goodnight kiss?” he asked me, moving toward me.
Standing outside my apartment felt so awkward. I really wasn’t sure what Dylan was expecting. Did he think that I’d changed my mind and that I wanted to hook up with him after all?
“Well thanks for the ride home. It was really great meeting you. I’ve had such a great time with you.”
“I guess that’s my cue to leave then, huh?”
“Not to be rude or anything.” I laughed. “But I don’t think I’ll be inviting you up. Sorry.”
“No worries, Janie. I understand. You’re a good girl.”
“Hmm,” I responded with a short smile. His words felt slightly condescending and annoying. I wasn’t sure if he was mocking me or if he was being sincere. If he was being sincere then he sure didn’t come off that way. I liked him, but there was something about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Can I get one last kiss for the road?” he asked me sweetly. And I nodded, trying not to roll my eyes. He really was pushing it. It was sweet, but also a bit annoying.
“Sure,” I said and closed my eyes. He leaned in and gave me a small kiss and I giggled slightly. “Good night, Dylan.”
“Night, Janie.”
I WALKED INTO MY APARTMENT and nearly screamed when I saw a dark shadow moving toward me from the couch. “Argh,” I cried out as I bumped my arm against the wall as I backed up in fright. My body froze as I saw the figure heading toward me.
“Janie, where the hell have you been?” Nate’s voice was deep and annoyed and I flicked the light switch on to look at his face.
“What the hell are you doing? You nearly made me faint in shock. What are you doing here?” I shouted at him. I tried to ignore the fact that he looked distractingly handsome in his blue checked shirt and jeans. His hair looked unruly and his face was glaring at me. But he still looked as hot as ever.
“Where have you been?” he growled, his face dark as he walked toward me. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Uhm no and I don’t care. What do you care?”
“Were you on a date?” He scowled at me. “I’ve been texting and calling you all night.”
“Oh my God, are you joking me right now?” I shook my head at him and rolled my eyes. “Dude, if I had texted you that much you would have told me to stop blowing up your phone.”
“You keep avoiding my question, Janie.”
“Is that why you’re here?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did Anabel tell you I was going on a date?”
“So, you were on a date?” He paused as he glared at me disapprovingly. “What sort of time is this?”
“Nate, you’re not my dad.” I pushed past him and headed to my couch. “What do you care?”
“Janie, you’re my best friend. You can’t just make poor decisions and think it’s okay.”
“What the ...?” My jaw dropped at him. “What poor decisions are you talking about?” I sighed as I dropped down and settled back into the cushions. “Dude, you’ve lost it.”
“Janie.” He walked toward me and sat down next to me on the couch, his blue eyes looked angry and concerned at the same time. “I am not happy right now.” He stared at me for a few seconds and I swallowed hard as I gazed at his lips. All of a sudden, I was taken back to a previous time. I could feel a warmness in my belly as I sat there wondering why he was so hot and bothered after everything we’d been through.
“I think you should give me my key back.” I glared at him. “You can’t just be letting yourself into my apartment whenever you feel like it.”
“This was an emergency.” His expression was stoney. “And no, you’re not getting your key back.”
“If I want my key back, I can have it back.” I shook my head at him. “You can’t tell me no. It’s my key.”
“I just told you no.”
“Nate,” I growled at him. “My key?”
“What did you and Dylan do tonight?” He almost shouted at me and I jumped back, surprised by his anger.
“What is your problem dude?” I rolled my eyes at him and then paused. “Hey, how did you know I went on a date with Dylan?” My eyes narrowed. “I never told you his name.”
“What does it matter?” He looked away for a brief second. “Did you sleep with him?”
“Are you insane?” I poked him in the shoulder. “You can’t ask me that.”
“I just did.” His eyes stared into mine intently. “Did you?”
“What do you care?” I was starting to get really annoyed and confused. “We’re just friends, Nate.”
“I know that, obviously,” he said with a cold voice. “I think I’m the one that decided that we should just be friends.”
“Wow, low blow.” I recoiled at his statement. “Thanks for that.”
“I’m sorry, that came out wrong.” His face looked pained and his blue eyes softened. “I’m sorry for that. I just meant when we were in college you were all over me and you slept with me very quickly and I don’t want you to make that mistake again.”
“Okay, so you’re calling me a slut and reminding me that you rejected me?” I stood up, my body feeling hot and my face red. “You need to leave, Nate.”
“I’m not calling you a slut. I just know how Dylan is.” He sighed.
“How do you know Dylan? What’s going on here?” I looked down at him, my chest heaving now. “I’m so confused.”
“Anabel told me you were going online, to join a dating app.” He made a face. “She showed me your profile. Dylan is a college buddy of mine, one you never met and well, I thought it might be nice for you to have some dates.” He sighed. “I know you’ve been down because you have no options.”
“Wow, you think I have no options?” I shook my head at him in disbelief. He really thought I was some kind of loser.
“No, no. I just mean you haven’t dated anyone in a while and I didn’t know how the online dating would go for you, so I thought it would be cool if he hit you up and took you on a few dates.” He made a face. “That’s all it was meant to be. A way to b
oost your ego.”
“So, you thought no one else would ask me out?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He shook his head. “Sit down, please. You’re making me nervous just standing there watching me like that.”
“I’m making you nervous? Really?” I started laughing. “Do you frigging hear yourself, Nate? You’re so frigging annoying.”
“Don’t be mad at me, Janie.” He grabbed my hands and pulled me down onto the couch next to him. “I don’t want you to go and start ignoring me again.”
“Ignoring you again? When have I ignored you?” I blinked at him.
“You know.” He made a face.
“No? When?”
“Back in college.”
“Oh.” I stifled a sigh. I didn’t want to think about that again right now. “Well, you deserved it. You blew me off for another girl and you didn’t even care.”
“Of course I cared.” He made a face. “It’s not like we were exclusive.”
“Uh huh.” I looked away from him as his hand came down on mine. He squeezed it and his warm touch made me flush.
“Look at me, Janie,” he said softly and I glanced over at him. His eyes were warm and concerned and I could feel myself sinking into his mysterious depths. His face was handsome and dark and I looked down at his chest. I could feel butterflies in my stomach as I looked at his muscular pecs and biceps. He had been handsome as a college guy, but now he was absolutely gorgeous. I tried not to remember what it had felt like making love to him. How he’d held me so strongly and capably as he slid inside of me. My entire body flushed as I remembered him sucking on my breasts. I had to stop this line of thought. It wasn’t good. At all. Especially seeing as I’d just been making out with Dylan. I really was a slut. “I want you to know just how sorry I am for what happened in the past.” He sounded sincere. “I was immature and young and I regret how I treated you.” He sighed. “I never want anything like that to happen to us again. You’re my absolute best friend and I care about you. I shouldn’t have interfered with Dylan. That was a mistake. He’s just not a good guy.” He sighed. “He’s a player and you deserve someone better than a player.”
“Maybe right now I don’t care. Maybe right now I just want to have some fun,” I said petulantly.
“Not a good idea.” He shook his head and we just stood staring at each other and glaring. I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to tell him off for acting like I was a child or some desperado, yet I didn’t know what to say. We were so close, yet there were some times that I felt that our relationship was precarious. There were certain things that we couldn’t say to each other. Certain things that still felt out of bounds, given our past.
“Most people would be happy to have a friend that would drop everything to check up on them.” Nate gave me a smug look after a few seconds and I couldn’t stop myself from snorting in exasperation.
“Dude, it’s the middle of the night and there was no reason for you to think I was in trouble.”
“I’ve been texting you all night and calling you. I thought something was wrong.” He glared at me.
“No, you didn’t.” I rolled my eyes. “But anyway, you see I’m fine. So you can feel satisfied with that.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, though he looked anything but satisfied. “Can I stay over tonight?”
“Nate.” I made a face at him. “Really?”
“It’s late and I don’t want to drive back home.” He grinned at me. “We can play chess if you want.”
“Haha, very funny.” I rolled my eyes at him.
“Or we could watch a movie.”
“You just said you were tired.” I gave him a pointed look.
“Janie, stop being difficult.”
“I’m not being difficult,” I said and folded my arms. “You’re being difficult.”
“What do you want to watch? Your pick.” He grinned at me and I could feel my anger ebbing away. It was hard to stay mad at Nate’s handsome face.
“Well, we can watch the movie if you give me more info on Dylan,” I said wickedly, secretly pleased by the angry look that passed over his face. “Seeing as I’m a desperado and can’t get any other guys.”
“Janie, you know that’s not what I meant.” Nate grunted. “I don’t want to talk about Dylan.”
“Oh well, you wanna stay over?” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Then you talk.”
“Fine.” He shook his head and huffed. “You win.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled under my breath. “This is me winning. Big time.” I pointed a finger at him. “Come with me to the bedroom. I put my smart TV in my room so I can watch Netflix at night. We’ll have to watch it in there.”
“Fine,” he said as he followed me to my room. “I’m going to take my jeans off, okay?”
“Whatever.” I shrugged. “I’ve seen you in less.”
“Yes, you have.” He winked at me and I could feel my face flushing.
“Here’s the remote.” I handed it to him before sitting down in front of my vanity. “I need to remove my makeup before we start though.”
“Why do you put on so much of that gunk?” He made a face at me. “You look so much better without it.
“Uh huh.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s what every guy says until they actually see a girl without makeup.”
“I’ve seen you without makeup,” he said softly. “You’re beautiful.”
“Thanks.” I blushed and looked away from him quickly as my stomach started to soar. Why did he say these things to me? They always got me so confused. And I didn’t need to add confusion about our relationship to the mix right now.
I tried not to watch Nate as he took off his clothes, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he was practically naked as he stood there in his dark gray briefs and nothing else. He sat on the edge of the bed and stretched and I swallowed hard as I stared at his taut chest muscles. There was a sprinkling of hair on his chest that I remembered well and I tried to forget how it had felt to run my fingers down his pecs to his abdomen. I tried to forget what it felt like to have him inside of me, kissing me, pulling my hair, whispering my name. That had been years ago and I remembered that he’d been a good lover. I could only imagine how great he must be now with more experience. I felt a twinge of pain as I thought about him sleeping with other women. I could not let myself feel jealous. It had no place in our friendship. I quickly turned back to study my face in the mirror as I cleaned off my makeup. I needed to think about something else.
“So, what do you want to watch?” Nate turned on my TV and clicked through to the Netflix screen. “Did you have anything in mind, seeing as you said you wanted to choose?”
“Give me some options,” I said not looking up. “I don’t want a horror movie.”
“What?” he said in a mock surprise voice. “I thought you loved them.”
“Uh huh.” I giggled. “You know how much I love them.”
“Do you remember that time we watched a horror movie and you screamed so loud that they escorted us out of the movie theater?”
“I’m trying to forget.” I turned around and glared at him. “That was so embarrassing.”
“That was funny.” He laughed and then paused. “That was right after we became friends again.” His voice was soft. “Do you remember that?”
“How could I forget?” I tried to keep my voice light. “If only we could go back to that day,” I joked.
“What do you mean?” His voice sounded serious all of a sudden. “Do you regret becoming friends with me again?”
“I don’t know that we can say again,” I said, trying to keep my voice light. “We weren’t exactly friends before.”
“We weren’t boyfriend and girlfriend though.” His voice sounded defensive.
“Maybe not technically,” I said. “At least in your eyes. However, to me, I felt like we were boyfriend and girlfriend. We made love. We hung out. I just assumed ...” My voice trailed off. “Hey, but it’s not important now.”
