“Why the hell would you think that?”
Friends? Friends? Yeah sure, I wanted to be mates with Seth. He was a good guy and so far, he’d proven to be honest and trustworthy, which was more than I could say about a lot of other guys I knew, but I also wanted him to fuck me seven ways to Sunday.
“The other day you told me what a good guy I was. And you said ‘thanks for being such a great friend’, or something like that.”
Oh, fuck me.
I had said those things. And I meant every damn word. He was a good guy and a great friend, but that wasn’t all he was. And it certainly wasn’t all I wanted from him. I needed to fix this, and I needed to fix it now. The last thing I needed in my already overly complicated life right at the moment was some dumb miscommunication which cost us both precious moments when we could’ve been having some fun.
The problem was the more I got to know Seth, the more I wanted to know. I knew he was hurting about not being selected last week and I knew he was shitting himself that tomorrow when selection time came around again, his name wouldn’t be on the sheet. The part that made it hard though, was until we sorted us out, if there even could be an us, I couldn’t be the one sitting beside him when he got the news, good, bad or indifferent to help him deal with it. I wanted to be the one there to celebrate his successes and console him when things didn’t go to plan. All I needed was for him to let me.
Spending two days lying in bed, staring at the ceiling replaying everything that had happened had left me more determined than ever that I had to make each day, each moment count. I was going to use the good crockery and drink the good wine. The dresses stashed away in the back of my cupboard waiting for me to go somewhere worthy of wearing them would be pulled out and worn to the supermarket if I felt like it. No one knew what tomorrow held. We could be here, or we could be gone. We didn’t know. We had no control over the universe no matter how much we’d like to believe we did.
Dropping my shoes in the sand, I reached out and grabbed Seth’s hand, surprising him. His whole body went ramrod straight, and I watched his abs as he sucked in short sharp breaths. I couldn’t wait until I got him somewhere more private where I could take my time exploring every impressive ridge on his built body.
“Seth, I don’t want to be your friend.”
The look on his face changed, and all the hope and light in his eyes vanished instantly. “Oh,” he conceded, trying to wriggle his hand free from my grip.
“Sorry! That came out wrong. I don’t only want to be your friend. I thought we had something. Something pretty incredible. I want to see where it goes. If you do.”
Now it was my turn to feel vulnerable. I talked a big game and I’d laid it all out there, but standing here waiting for an answer wasn’t my idea of fun.
And the prick kept me waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
It took for-fucking-ever before a smile broke out across his face and all the weight that’d been building on my shoulders started to feel just a little lighter. Hope. It was hope that was filling my body and I’d never been more grateful.
“Fuck yeah, I do,” he growled before reaching for the scruff of my neck and dragging me against him and kissing me like I’d been craving for days.
