COLLEGE GIRL STUFF, ALCOHOL, WHATEVER
IVY
Evidently, my breaking point for how long I can sit on an emotional outburst is about nine hours. Because the second Delilah enters the bedroom after putting Sadie to sleep and rubbing cocoa butter on her belly to prevent stretch marks (does that even work? Or is it a ploy from Big Cocoa Butter to sell lotion?) I unload all over her before the door even clicks shut.
“Delilah, I’m so sorry. I have no excuse for kissing you and saying those things today, but I did and I can’t apologize enough. He’s just so fucking infuriating and I’ve been holding my tongue for years because he was your boyfriend and then your husband and Sadie’s father, but Jesus fuck, Lilah. Ifhe was willing to put you down like that in front of me and Artie and Bindy/Bandy/Brandy, what the fuck was he saying to you behind closed doors? I never should have kissed you. I never should have implied that we were together or having sex or whatever. I just couldn’t take his snivelling little face anymore, and I remembered what you said about us being together being the ultimate blow to his pride, and it all just came out.
“I shouldn’t have challenged him to a dick-measuring contest either. That was immature and I’m better than that. But for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure any one of my dildos could take his ineffective penis in a fight any day of the week. But god, Lilah. I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I can totally take the fall for this, however you want to deal with it. You want to fake date to piss Earl off until the ink is dry on the divorce papers? I’ll do it. You want me to tell the town I had some sort of psychotic break today and it was all some figment of my warped imagination? I’ll do it, and I’m not even sure I’d be lying because I’m feeling pretty out of my mind right now. Just don’t leave me. Don’t move out. Don’t stop being my friend. I can’t live without you and Sadie and Little Bean. I’ll do anything to fix this Lilah. Anything.”
By the time I’m done, I’m practically panting froma lack of air getting to my lungs. I’m pretty sure that all came out as one incoherent word and not an actual thought, but Sapho help me if I have to repeat myself because not only am I mortified and sweaty, I’m not sure I have any idea what I just said. And by the looks of it, neither does Delilah.
She’s staring at me, one hand on the swell of her belly that is all shiny from the lotion and the other resting on her breastbone, where her cleavage is on full display in the wireless sleep bra that is most definitely a size too small for her pregnant boobs. That can’t be comfortable, but fuck if I don’t notice her breasts look damn good spilling over the top of the cups. Her brown eyes are darting back and forth between mine, those pretty pink lips that I now know feel like pillows and taste like heaven slightly pursed as she looks at me.
“Wow. That was…a lot. I feel like you should go on some kind of talent show for those speed-talking abilities,” she says finally, and I huff out a sarcastic laugh.
“C’mon, Lilah. Be serious. Put me out of my misery, here.”
I watch as Delilah pushes her tongue into her cheek, then clacks her teeth together. She crosses the room, props her butt against the dresser and crossesher arms under her boobs which pushes them up even further. Not the distraction I need right now, but fuck it. I might as well take in the sight of her glorious cleavage while I can.
“What if you didn’t have to do either of those things?” she asks after a long moment of intense silence.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if you didn’t have to pretend to be in the midst of a psychotic break or act like my fake girlfriend until the drama blows over?”
“That’d be nice, but this is Fox Hole. We can try to pretend it didn’t happen all we want, but you know as well as I do that the gossip mongers aren’t going to let a kiss between you and me go, even if it was pretend. I bet someone got a picture and it gets plastered on the front page of the Sunday Gazette in the morning.” I run a hand through my short hair as I plop into a seat on the edge of the bed.
“Ivy. What if…what if we kept on kissing each other? Like for real?”
Delilah’s face has contorted into a sort of shy excitement that I haven’t seen since we were teenagers. It’s the same lip-chewing grin and sparkling, wide-eyed gaze she’d get whenever she was gushing about whatever boy she was crushingon that week. I’m so taken aback by the way she nervously drums her fingers against her bicep that I almost miss her question. And when it does register, my brain goes completely offline.
“I…you want…you…what?!”
Delilah drops her arms to her sides and stares at her feet, her blush spreading from the tip of her button nose all the way down her chest.
“Shit, this is hard. I feel like a fucking teenager.” Her brows knit as she looks back up at me, this time as serious as I’ve ever seen her. “I have feelings for you, Vee. Romantic feelings. Romantic and…sexual feelings. I have for a while. Longer than I think I even realized. And they’ve been eating away at me for weeks. You’re all I can think about. Your lips, your body, the way you crack your neck when you’re deep in thought and I can see all the muscles and tendons straining against your skin. How you stand up for me and Sadie and take care of us. The way you love me like no one else does. I can’t…I can’t keep it in anymore. I thought for a while it was just the pregnancy hormones and all the changes and the divorce but it’s not. It’s you, Vee. I fucking want you.”
I swear on everything gay and holy, my heart has completely stopped beating. The fact that I haven’t dropped dead yet is a medical marvel that will surely be studied by doctors for decades to come.
“But you’re straight.” And I can’t do this. I’m so far past the point in my life where I entertain curious straight girls and inevitably end up with my heart broken. I’m certainly past the point in my life where I get my heart broken by Delilah. I’ve spent too long building all these walls around my heart for that very reason. I can’t let her come in with a wrecking ball and demolish them to pieces just because she…
To be honest, I have no idea what she’s thinking. Maybe Little Bean has stolen all her nutrients and turned her brain to mush.
“Am I straight, Vee? Or is that something you’ve just assumed about me?”
“I mean, I can’t imagine anyone other than a raging heterosexual woman or a very down on his luck gay man wanting to see Earl Ellis Booth naked, so yeah. I think you might be straight.”
Delilah rolls her eyes and pushes off the dress, crossing the room until she’s right in front of me. The smell of cocoa butter and the faintest trace of strawberries invade my senses, and while I’m busy getting nose drunk on her delectable scent, Delilah does something that shocks me to my very core.
She climbs on top of me, kneeling on the bed and straddling my thighs while lowering her ass into my lap. Her arms loop around my neck and she leans forward, brushing the tip of her nose across mine.Little Bean sits between us, their protrusion the only thing keeping Lilah’s chest from pressing right up against mine, keeping those diamond nipples from scraping against my skin.
I don’t know when my hands find her hips, but she is soft and warm under my palms, flames licking at my skin from her nearness. In just my white tank top and the loose boxers I like to wear to bed, I might as well be naked for how much of our bare skin is touching.
“I’m not straight, Vee. Never have been. It’s something I think I’ve always known, but I shoved it down because…”
“Because why?” I ask, my tongue swiping over my too-dry lips.
“Because for so long, the only woman I ever thought about that way was you. When we were young, I’d lay in bed at night and try so hard not to think about you when I touched myself. We’d cuddle on the couch watching movies and I couldn’t focus because I wanted you to kiss me so bad. But any other time I felt those feelings, it was about a boy. I thought I was just confused, that maybe we were just closer than the other best friends I knew. Then you left Fox Hole, and I went to college and then before you know it, I was married to Earl.”
