by Grey, S. R.
When I reach his front door, I glance down and realize my blue spaghetti strap tank, even though it’s layered under a blue and white checkered shirt, is revealing entirely too much cleavage.
My boobs are one of Nolan’s weaknesses, so I quickly button up. When picking out clothes for this nondate, I chose jeans, Keds, and the shirt and tank ensemble, thinking it’d look fun and casual, but in no way sexy. Buttoned up, I’m good.
I ring the doorbell, feeling better about this whole thing and pretty sure it’ll work.
But then Nolan answers, and I’m all like, “Whoa, wow.” He clearly didn’t receive the casual dress memo. He’s decked out very date-like.
I narrow my eyes, wondering if he dressed so sharply on purpose to chip away at my resistance.
“Something wrong?” he asks, one brow arched.
Yes, something is wrong! The dark pants you’re wearing and the crisp light-gray button-down make you him look like a freaking model, a very powerfully built model.
Wait, I can’t tell him that. “No, nothing is wrong,” I say, sighing. “You look nice, is all. I think I might be underdressed.”
His eyes sweep over my body. “No, you look perfect, Lainey.”
Our eyes meet, and just like that, a fire is ignited.
“This is going to be harder than we thought,” he murmurs.
Why lie? “Yeah, it is,” I agree.
“Well…” He rolls back his shoulders and steps away from the door. “Come on in, friend.”
I scurry past him, so as not to be tempted to touch his hard chest…or grab his wide shoulders…or kiss his chiseled face. In my haste, I get tripped up on my own two feet and almost do a header onto the foyer floor, which would really hurt like hell seeing as it is pure marble.
Nolan—hockey gods, bless his fast reflexes—catches me by an elbow and helps me right myself.
“Thanks,” I murmur as I twist from his firm, manly grasp.
Those amazing hands have been all over my body. How can one innocent, protective and caring gesture have me so ready to cave?
Gesturing to the open door, and before I do something I’ll regret, I blurt out, “We should go.” I don’t add, but definitely think, before we end up in your bedroom.
Blue eyes scan down my body appreciatively as he nods absently. Guess my buds-appropriate attire isn’t quite enough to quell our passion. A burlap sack might be in order for our next nondate date.
“What is it?” I ask when his gaze lingers.
Chuckling, he says, “I was just thinking that you look really cute in that outfit.”
“Nolan.”
I pin him with a don’t go there look. And he, well, he gets defensive.
“What’s wrong with telling you that you look cute? It’s just an opinion. Friends tell each other all the time when they think the other looks nice. I grew up with three older sisters, Lainey. I know the drill.”
Nolan does come from a big family, three girls and two boys. He’s the youngest of the crew. And though I’ve never met any of his siblings, I’d be willing to bet he’s the one who thinks he knows it all, especially since he usually does.
I hear him chuckling as I scamper out the door.
As he’s locking up behind us, he lets out a genuine laugh when he hears me muttering, “Wonder if they make burlap sacks in a size four.”
What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas
We can do this. Yes, we can. It’s like hockey, all about discipline, which is something I have lots of.
Then again, maybe I don’t when it comes to Lainey.
Touch me there. Oh God, yes, a little to the right. A female gasp, and then, How have we stayed away from this?
I don’t know. But never again, baby. Never. If we make it through this night, I plan on touching you like this all the time.
A tasteful flash of boobs, two bodies rolling in the sheets.
No, it’s not me and Lainey.
Unfortunately.
We’re at the cinema, and I shift in my seat as I’m forced to watch two fucking actors get it on up on the big screen. And I do mean fucking actors, as in that’s exactly what they’re simulating, in rather explicit detail for a movie with an R rating. This movie is supposed to be a horror flick for God’s sake!
Since we’re on a roll with the fucking—fuck my life, this shit sucks.
I’m ready to throw in the towel on this “friends” bull, and go ahead and suggest to the girl next to me that we drop this charade and head back to my house to reenact what these two actors are pretending to do.
That’s probably not a good idea, though.
Speaking of the girl next to me, she’s elbowing me right now, hard, in the ribs.
“Ouch! What the hell is that for?” I ask when she continues to assault me.
Another sharp jab, I guess for good measure, then she says, “That’s for picking out this movie, Nolan. What is wrong with you?” She doles out one more bony elbow shot. “You promised not to pick out a movie with sex in it.”
“Hey, there was no mention of sex in the reviews I read,” I say in my defense.
I’m confused, and more than a little dumbfounded, as to why there is a hot-as-hell love scene smack dab in the beginning of what’s supposed to be a slasher flick.
I guess sex really does sell.
Carnal moaning blares from the huge speakers on the walls, and I suddenly hate surround sound. It makes everything waaay too realistic. The last thing two people trying to avoid ending up in bed, fucking each other’s brains out, need to hear is other people doing exactly that.
Lainey starts squirming in her seat and angles herself as far away from me as she can, without actually getting up and moving to the empty seat next to her.
Yeah, this is affecting her too.
When a shot of the guy pumping away, going to town on the girl, pops up on the screen, Lainey jumps up and does indeed claim the empty seat.
I cock my head. “Is that really necessary?” I whisper over to her.
“Yes,” she hisses back. But then she shoots me a please understand look.
I do understand—God, do I ever—so I give her a nod and whisper a resigned, “Okay.”
Leaning over the empty seat, she assures me, “I’ll come back and sit next to you once it’s over.”
“Great, but…” Shaking my head, I blurt out, louder than intended, what’s going through my mind, “This is still so fucked up.”
That last garners the attention of a much older man seated directly in front of me. He twists around to shush me.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Suddenly, his eyes widen, and slowly turning back to face the screen, I hear him say to the lady next to him, whom I assume is his wife, “I think that’s Nolan Solvenson behind us. You know, honey, the hockey player.”
Oh no. The last thing I need is to be recognized, seeing as my nondate “date” and I are acting so strangely—watching the movie with the seat between us unoccupied like we’re a couple of teenage boys trying to be cool.
But of course, on this evening, one that’s already weird as hell, things get even stranger when the silver-haired man turns back around and asks me to autograph his half-empty cardboard tub of popcorn.
I’ve signed odder things than this, so that’s not an issue, but there is a problem. “Uh, I don’t have a marker on me,” I inform him.
Lainey, helpful girl that she is, returns to the seat next to me and starts digging around in her purse.
“Wait, I think I have one.” Two seconds later, she pulls out a hot pink Sharpie and says, “Here you go.”
She passes the marker to me, and I reply, “You’re kidding, right?”
The autograph seeker’s wife, who’s now turned around and staring at me just as excitedly as her husband, assures me, “Pink is fine.”
“Yes, yes, it is,” the man adds, nodding fervently.
“I guess pink it is then.”
Sighing, I sign my name…on a popcorn tub…in hot pink.
As I’m finishing up, a girl seated behind me reaches across to tap Lainey on the shoulder.
“Wow,” she gushes, “you’re out with Nolan Solvenson. What’s it like to date a hockey player?”
Hello, I’m right here. She knows it. Oh, she sure does. Her arm is outstretched, touching Lainey, but rubbing up against my back.
I think she’s doing it on purpose, to sort of backhandedly flirt. Not happening, sweetheart.
I clear my throat and turn to shoot her a look. The girl moves her arm. “Sorry,” she says with a smile held with promise.
I roll my eyes at her, feeling bad for the dweeby dude she’s with. He’s watching the movie, acting like he can’t see his girlfriend giving me googly eyes.
I ignore the girl and turn around so I can watch the movie, but she’s right back to chatting it up with Lainey, whispering, “So what’s it like, dating…?”
I assume she must be motioning to me, so I look over at Lainey to gauge her reaction. I’m curious how she plans to handle this little inquiry.
She starts out by stammering, “Oh, uh, I…” Her eyes dart from me to the girl.
Oh, hell. Swooping in to save the day, and to wrap this shit up before the other patrons start bitching about us talking, I wave around the pink marker still in my hand and say, “We’re not dating. She’s my—”
“Sister,” Lainey blurts out.
She looks at me, and I look at her.
Shrugging, she informs Dweeby’s date, “Yeah, I’m his younger sister.”
Why she doesn’t just tell the girl we’re friends is beyond me. We’re trying to be friends, right? Maybe Lainey feels this better explains our bizarre behavior during the now thankfully long-behind us sex scene.
I hand the popcorn tub back to the guy in front of me, and he takes it and thanks me. I then give Lainey back her marker, and everyone goes back to watching the movie. Thank God.
A few minutes later I go out to the concession stand, and Lainey and I then spend the next hour watching the movie and munching on buttered popcorn.
“This is actually a really well-done horror flick,” she whispers to me about three-quarters of the way through. “But I’m glad the sex scenes are done.”
I laugh and agree. “So I’m forgiven? Even though we did have to start off with a literal bang?”
That earns me another elbow to the side, albeit a gentle one. I’m beginning to think this elbowing business is Lainey’s way of touching me without, you know, touching me.
“You are,” she tells me. “But this is getting a little scary now, and I might not forgive you for that.”
“Aw.” I drape my arm around the back of her seat, careful not to touch her. “I may have picked a scary movie, but I’m here to protect you from the monsters on the screen.”
“That’s really sweet, Nolan,” she murmurs, inching closer to me.
I’d like to put my arm around her, not just the seat. She’s frightened, so she’d probably let me. But then again, she might move again. Fuck. The arm around the seat will have to do for now.
The movie plays on, and though I wouldn’t characterize it as “scary,” like Lainey thinks it is, it’s definitely suspenseful. There are a lot of what-the-hell’s-around-that-corner and don’t-go-in-there-you-idiot moments.
To Lainey, though, it seems to be outright terrifying. I assume this because she continues to inch closer and closer to me. So much for the no touching. By the time we reach the climactic ending, she’s snuggled against my shoulder and hiding her face in the crook of my neck.
Not that I’m complaining…or surprised. I remember Lainey once telling me that though she loves scary movies, she hates them as well. She wants to watch, but always ends up too scared to. She told me one time she hid behind her friend and just listened to the ending.
Shit, maybe that’s why I chose this movie, like subconsciously. Maybe I was hoping Lainey would end up close to me, like she is now.
Oh hell, I go ahead and put my arm around her. Meanwhile, up on the screen the creepy clown-faced killer is breaking into a ramshackle cabin deep in the woods. The lead actress just went in the ramshackle building to hide.
Lainey looks up to watch, lets out a little squeak, and lifts the armrest between us. She moves so close she may as well just sit on my lap.
Covering her eyes with her hand, she whispers, “I don’t know if I can watch the rest. I want to see what happens, but I just can’t do it. Can you tell me when the super scary part is over?”
“Ah, it’s okay.” I rub her back, chuckling. “It’s only a movie,” I remind her.
“I know.” She peeks through her fingers to look up at me. “It’s still freaking me out. I swear my heart’s beating a mile a minute.”
Her chest is heaving, though I shouldn’t be staring, not there.
I tighten my arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry. I got you,” I whisper into her hair.
“Thanks, Nolan.”
Maybe holding her like this is comforting, seeing as, a minute later, she bravely announces, “Maybe I’ll watch for a minute or two.”
I look down at her, and say, “You should. I know you can do it.”
I tighten my hold, and she smiles up at me. “Just don’t stop holding me, okay?”
“Never.”
God, she’s so beautiful, vulnerable like this.
Resting her head on my shoulder, she finally turns her eyes to the screen. “I’m proud of you,” I whisper.
She continues to watch, gripping my thigh in a death hold when the girl in the cabin finds a knife on the floor just as the killer is sneaking up on her.
The girl turns to face the killer, and Lainey squeaks out, “Nolan.”
“You’re good, babe.” I kiss the top of her head. “I’m here.”
I expect Lainey to close her eyes eventually, but she forges through, confronting her fears. In the movie, so does the girl. She charges ahead and stabs the villain, only enough to incapacitate him, though. The girl then runs out of the cabin, screaming for help, which arrives in the form of her love interest, the guy she was having the hot sex with in the beginning.
When the killer emerges from the cabin, as the psychos often do in these films, it’s the love interest that saves her by shooting the bad guy. I realize then that even though this is a silly horror movie, I want to be that for Lainey. I want to be the man with whom she not only has the best sex of her life, but also the one she can always rely on to save her in the end.
I’d go up against a psycho killer for her any day, really I would.
But what the hell does that say about me and my feelings for her? Am I falling for Lainey Shelburne? Or have I already fallen, and that’s why this “friends” act is killing me?
I continue to hold her as the credits start to roll, and she surprisingly lets me, even though she’s no longer scared.
“I’m glad I watched the whole ending,” she says softly, picking at a loose thread on my pants.
Her head is still on my shoulder so her face is really close to my neck. When she speaks her lips graze my skin, making me wish we were not friends.
“I couldn’t have watched without you holding me,” she says. “Despite all our issues, Nolan, I do feel safe when I’m with you. I shouldn’t tell you this, but sometimes I feel like I could do pretty much anything with you by my side.”
Shit, we are stepping way out of the friend-zone lines.
All I want to do is lean down and kiss the crap out of her. It would be so easy too, just this once. We could blame it on the movie, and then we could go back to the friend-zone. Though I have to say that zone is out of whack already, seeing how physically close we are right now.
Lainey looks up at me, her lips mere inches away.
“Babe,” I murmur, my breaths mingling with hers.
“Nolan, I—”
Abruptly, she’s cut off when the guy behind us—the dweeb—clears his throat very loudly.
That’s weird…and rather rude.<
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It all becomes clear—at least it does to me—when I hear the girl next to him hiss, “Ugh! That is beyond disgusting!”
“Repulsive,” he agrees. “Who would have ever thought that kind of shit goes on in professional sports?”
“Huh?” Lainey murmurs. “What the hell are they talking about?”
She settles back into her own seat, peering at me questioningly, like I know what’s up the girl’s ass.
Actually, I do. Thanks to Lainey telling the couple behind us that she and I are siblings, they now think we’re into incest. After all, we were all mashed up in each other’s business. Plus, we almost just kissed. Little wonder they’re so freaked.
Lainey shoots the couple a dirty look, still not picking up on why they’re so appalled.
When I start to chuckle, she wants to know, “What’s so funny about rude people, Nolan?”
The couple continues to murmur in disgust as they stand and hasten to leave.
“That was just so weird,” Lainey remarks once they’re gone. And then, narrowing her eyes over at me, she says, “I still don’t get how you can find this so amusing. That couple said some really rude things, for no good reason. We were nothing but nice to them.”
I’m about to explain, but just then the older couple in the row in front of us gets up and turns around. They missed Lainey draped all over me, and we’re seated normally now, so there are no distasteful comments or stares from them. I’m glad, since they seem nice and like genuine fans.
“Thanks again for signing this.” The man raises his popcorn tub. “And good luck to you and the team this season.”
I thank him, shake his hand, and he and his wife leave.
Lainey makes a face. “See, those two were fine,” she says, still clearly bothered by the comments the other couple made. “I just don’t get why those people behind us started acting so grossed out. What in the hell did we do?”
I can’t let her remain in the dark another minute longer.
“Lainey, think about it. What did you tell that girl when she asked you about dating a hockey player?”
Suddenly, she gets it.
“Oh crap. I told her I was your sister.”
“Yep.” I nod.
