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This morning, I decided I’d proceed as if nothing happened, knowing fully that she wouldn’t allow it. That part, of course, I’d play by ear. I entered the living room to find her seated on the couch watching cartoons, showered and waiting.
“Do you want coffee?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded normal. I was well aware of the awkward vibe I put out into the world, though I didn’t quite understand it. It was innate to me, apparently. I just acted like myself and somehow other people read it as weird. Kai was the only one who didn’t seem to read me that way, but after last night…
She answered with a nod of the head, her sweet eyes already telling me something I didn’t want to hear.
I ignored that look and prepared two coffees at the counter, disregarding, as well, the magnetic pull between my position in the kitchen and hers on the couch. The spoon of sugar in my hand dumped half into her light blue mug and half onto the counter as my brain put the image of me fucking her on the couch in front of my vision. Shit. I grabbed the sponge and wiped the sugar into the sink as I imagined what she’d look like on top of me, moaning my name just as she had last night. I glanced down at my sweatpants to find that my dick was all but settled.
Universe, spare me. This was by far the most difficulty I’d ever had making fucking coffee.
When my work was finally finished, I brought the two mugs to the sitting area, reaching around the back of the couch to hand her one and keeping a safe distance between her and the mess of fantasies that was me and my ridiculous body. I then proceeded to plant myself on the lonely loveseat, crossing my leg away from her to keep my hips from her view.
“Jonah,” she said with a tone of voice I was familiar with. It was the tone she used when she wanted me to open up, when she could sense there was something wrong, when she tried to climb over my perfectly structured walls.
“Don’t.” A matter of minutes and my plan to carry on as usual was already becoming painfully impossible. Perhaps I’d tried to be normal too soon. Maybe I needed to give it a day. The only issue is, I’d hardly gone a day without talking to her in twelve years, and I preferred not to start now.
“Oh, Jo,” she whispered. “No. Please don’t do that.”
Oh, I am the fucking worst. That plead broke my fucking heart. Though somehow it soothed me to know she was aware of what I was doing. At least this way, she’d know I didn’t hate her. She’d know I was just being Jonah. While it was no excuse to treat each other poorly, it was nice to know each other so well that we didn’t need to explain ourselves when we didn’t want to. In this scenario, I most certainly did not want to.
I didn’t answer her, and she let me be.
An hour was spent watching cartoons in utter silence. I began to question if my left side had a magnet running down it and if Kai was a stack of steel, because our nearness was downright painful.
Her voice piped up once again, a thick block of silent time between her last attempt and this one. “I just think we should at least talk ab—”
“Kai, stop,” I said more firmly. “Please. Just stop. I don’t want to talk about it.” How could I? I’d destroyed our entire friendship in a matter of fucking minutes. Over a decade of waiting and pining and thinking for me to just ruin it all in one night.
Again, she dropped it.
I shifted in my seat awkwardly, attempting to position myself in a way that my throbbing heart wasn’t knocking so loudly at my fucking ribs. There was weight in places I didn’t want to feel weight. Between my legs, in my chest, in my brain. I’d never been in such an excruciating predicament in my life, and right here with the one person who had always been able to make me feel good.
My fingers had been inside of her, for fuck’s sake. I watched her crumble for me. I saw something I shouldn’t have seen, and now things would never be the same, and that made me sad, uncomfortable, and honestly, so very fucking angry. It could’ve all been avoided. “Why’d you have to fucking start with that last night in the first place?”
Ah, fuck. Did I really just say that?
She snapped her head toward me, any softness that had been in her voice washed away completely now. “So you do want to talk about it.” I sank deeper into the loveseat in silence. I really needed better coping skills than being an asshole, because Kai knew exactly how to bite back and then some. “And don’t blame me. You fucking started it.”
I glared at her. That was so untrue. “You ran your nails down my neck.”
“You pushed me against a wall, told me how excellent you are in bed, and then asked me about my sex life, you child.”
Shit. She got me there. Deflect. Deflect. I crossed my arms tighter and shifted my ass down on the seat to make myself smaller. “You’re a child, you squeaky little freak.”
Her breathing was audible from where I sat, as was the sound of the couch underneath her as she adjusted her position. “Don’t insult me, or I will come over there and shut you up the best way I know how.”
I scoffed. “Teasing,” I said as if it were an insult. “Ribs, collarbone, forearms, palms, teasing.”
A beat of silence passed, and a creepy grin crept across her face. “You forgot hips.”
My eyebrows pooled in the middle of my forehead, my confusion setting in and my curiosity piqued. “Hips?”
“Mhm.” She widened her eyes at me, and my gaze bounced between her stare and her lips. Why the hell did she have to be so pretty? “Found it this morning in the shower. All by myself.”
Oh, she is such a fucking brat. I shut my mouth and slammed my teeth together, ignoring her quite aggressively. I ignored, as well, the weight that continued to grow relentlessly between my legs.
“Perfect.” She lifted a hand and smacked it down on the couch, tossing herself back on the seat to look at the television. “Is this how we’re going to be now?”
I didn’t deign to answer. Fighting with Kai was like being right back in her yard, thirteen years old and bickering over who got to the base first. It seemed my brain was only capable of producing insults for the one girl I quite literally had nothing bad to say about. Either insults or intense confessions of love, and I knew exactly where that would have gotten me. I couldn’t continue this discussion until I got myself in check, but I was so worked up, I couldn’t even communicate that to her.
