I start to wonder if I was too harsh on him. So what if he has a girlfriend at work, or whatever she’s supposed to be. It shouldn’t change our dynamic. We can still have lunch and watch movies and build LEGO together. I can be an amenable, supportive friend. Or I can choose to be angry at him. Throw a fit, slash his tires, and cause a scene at his place of work. It feels like the more adjacent emotion to the current situation on hand. A situationship masquerading as a friendship with all the complicated components like jealousy and lust and hormones. And now, all of those cumbersome, confusing parts had a moment to sit over a low simmering fire only to stew into indignation and hurt.
I hold my phone in my hands, wondering if I should text Andrew. Or even call him. Let him know I’m not even the slightest bit mad at him. That I don’t care about Olive or whoever he meets in his free time. That there’s nothing we need to talk about unless it’s something arbitrary like noun declension or pop culture facts in reference to science fiction movies. Instead of tapping out a text message—my own digital olive branch—I chuck my phone onto the counter right next to my keys. I don’t even know what the right words are right now. Letting things just cool down for a few beats might be best.
Buster greets me, lazily walking toward me as he works through a yawn. He settles for a light pat on his head and turns back to his sleeping area in the living room. I move in a monotonous haze as I reach for his can of dog food from the fridge and mix some kibble with it before setting it down next to his water bowl in the kitchen. He greets his food with more gusto as he comes out of his sleepy daze.
Just as I’m slipping off the heavy cardigan I’ve been wearing all day, letting the cool air-conditioned air hit my exposed skin from the sports bra-style top I’m wearing, I hear a knock at my door. I hold my bundled-up sweater against my chest in an attempt to cover up and answer the door.
“Who is it?” I ask.
“Grace,” I hear from the other side, recognizing the voice immediately. “It’s me.”
There’s a barrier between us. A solid door. And between the door and my heart there are more layers. My clothes, my skin and muscles, my ribcage, all of it a layer of protection to safeguard the weak beating thing in my chest. But it feels as if Andrew has his bare hand wrapped around it, holding all the power if I let him, and it scares the fuck out of me.
“Andrew, just go home.” I wince through my words, laying my forehead on the cool surface.
“Please, Grace. Can we talk?”
“Why? What do you have to talk to me about?”
“I–I don’t know,” he stammers. “But I ju—I need to talk to you.”
My hand lays over the doorknob, still unsure if I can face him. A shaky sigh squeezes through my lips, and Andrew’s voice presses against the one solid barrier I thought I could count on, turning it frail and brittle.
“Please.”
I give, unable to bear the sound of his desperate, quivering plea. I unlock my door, the deadbolt hitting the latch with a heavy thunk. Andrew’s wounded face, all downcast and urgent, looks at me with one hand braced on the door frame and his head ducked in a way that shows he’s knocking at my door in the middle of the night with an air of caution. He’s tossed aside the inflated one-man show of someone confident and provoked like he was back at Teeny’s. He looks hesitant and scared.
And I don’t have it in me to taunt him like I did earlier. To egg him on with rhetorical questions or spiteful comments. I don’t even ask him why he’s here. Because I think I already know. And it seems he doesn’t even care to tell me with the way he charges toward me. He crosses the threshold with so much intent, I feel as if it’s going to physically push me back. His hand cups the nape of my neck at the same time his lips crash into mine. This time, I’m not drunk or buzzed. I don’t have the excuse of alcohol to explain why I don’t push him away. And he doesn’t have the opportunity to use the same reasoning to explain why he showed up on my doorstep with all the actions to speak the words we can’t seem to say out loud.
He closes the door behind him and nudges me backward to the closest wall. His hands thread into my hair, gripping the roots at my nape. I drop my sweater, and my own hands grapple at his waist, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper between kisses. “I swear I’m not mad at you.”
“It’s okay,” he whispers back, speaking the words against my hot skin. “Be mad at me. I don’t care.”
His tongue sweeps inside my mouth, and my legs grow wobbly at the taste of him. It’s so specific and unique to him, and I want to taste other parts of him. Lewd, indecent thoughts swirl in my head, wondering how I can smother those curiosities, and it seems he has the same thoughts because his tongue starts to travel elsewhere. From my neck to my collarbone to the valley between my breasts, trailing to where he leaves a path of wet kisses over my cleavage. It’s like my skin, all the dips and curves, have become his own little smorgasbord, curated just for his palate.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do this,” he murmurs. “I thought I was going to lose my fucking mind.”
All words have left my brain. I can only respond with my hands. My extremely greedy hands. I cup his jaw, pulling him closer to me. Trying to get more of that taste I’m growing obsessed with. I kiss him, feeling his teeth grate against my swollen lower lip.
Suddenly, it feels like the sports bra I chose to wear was a very intentional choice. It has a zipper down the middle at my front. It wasn’t a conscious choice when I bought it. Probably something more to do with price and quite possibly a buy one, get one free kind of sale. But now, I’m thanking the athletic wear gods for creating something this resourceful and efficacious.
His fingers move like he’s dismantling a live bomb. Like the zipper sitting between us might break and shatter. And all the noises around us have gone mute. Our heady breaths, our urgent kisses, even the low hum of the fridge and Buster’s tongue lapping away at his food have dwindled down to complete silence. I only feel the vibrations as he tugs at the zipper pull,peeling back the one layer keeping me covered. When it finally gets past the last tooth, springing open, his eyes focus on the crease lining down my center. Like he’s been hypnotized, his eyelids grow heavy. They flutter as if they’ve grown weak and helpless.
“You are so goddamn sexy,” he rasps, a painful scrape scratching against his throat. His warm hands peel back the rest of the sports bra, leaving my chest completely bare. The cool air that hits me is smothered when his mouth finds my nipple. He lets it unfurl on his eager tongue, causing my back to arch and my head to hit the wall behind me. I moan, holding nothing back, and he pulls me closer to him with his strong hands pressed to my hot skin. He picks me up, his arms wrapping around my waist, and takes me to my room. He doesn’t need my guidance this time. He knows where to go.
As soon as we walk into my room, I flip the lights on, and he kicks the door shut behind him. He reaches over his shoulder and rips his shirt off by the collar in one swift move. He steps out of his pants, urgently toeing off his shoes into a messy pile on my bedroom floor and nudges me back toward my bed. And I follow his lead like he has a complete spell over me.
He has me sitting at the edge of the bed, and he kneels in front of me. He keeps his eyes on mine, watching my every reaction. Like he’s wanting to know how fast or how slow he should move. His fingers tuck into the waistband of my leggings, and I lift my hips up, letting them slip over my butt and down my thighs. When they reach my calves, Andrew dips his head, kissing the fleshy part of my leg, just below my hip.
I’m left in a thong while he nuzzles his cheek against the parts he kissed, taking a moment to relish the quiet before we dive headfirst into this. My hands run through his thick hair, and my nails scrape over the back of his neck, encouraging him to continue.
“This isn’t like last time, is it?” I ask. My question sounds more like a thought spoken out loud, but it’s a thought we’re both sharing.
He looks up at me, his hands hooking under my knees. His fingers graze over my skin in soft strokes, and he shakes his head. “No, it isn’t.”
We can’t deny this anymore. We can’t act like being friends is what makes the most sense for us. I can’t just be his friend. I don’twantto just be his friend. I want to do more intimate things like this with him. Learn what it’s like to feel his heart beating against mine. I want to lie naked with him, our legs tangled with the sheets as we talk and laugh and kiss. I want to wake up in the morning with him. Without the hangover and regret.
