“Then why aren’t you going?” he asks, turning around to face me.
He takes another drink from his coffee, the muscles in his arms that are threatening to pop out of his plain gray t-shirt flexing with the movement.
We’ve spent many moments in this exact same position. Me sitting in my spot, legs bouncing off the cabinets. Him leaning against the counter opposite, one bare foot crossed over the other. Him sipping on his coffee, me drinking flavored water.
It’s comfortable. We’re comfortable.
Easy. Simple.
We make sense together.
How am I just now seeing this?
“Did he cancel on you? I knew something was off about that guy.”
“No. I’m the one canceling.”
“What? Why?” He sighs. “Come on. You can’t keep being too shy to get out there and date. You’ll never get laid if you don’t try.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe I jumped the gun on the whole thing.”
“Is there even a gun for you to jump? You haven’t been out with anyone in nearly a year.”
I lift a brow. “You keeping track of my sex life now?”
“What? No.” He scoffs. “I don’t care if you get laid or not.”
“Really? You’re pushing this a little hard, don’t you think?”
His hands tighten around his mug, and his jaw jumps with how hard his teeth are clenched together.
I wonder if he’s doing the same thing I am…trying to force one thing to forget about another.
“I’m not. Just trying to be a good friend is all.”
Another tic in his jaw.
“Right,” I say. “Friend.”
I take another pull from my drink, and he swallows down the rest of his.
He sets his coffee mug down on the counter harder than necessary.
“I’m going to take a shower.”
9
Cooper
Friend.
Fuck, I’m really starting to hate that word.
Being a good friend to your best friend is hard to do when everything inside you wants to haul her into your lap and kiss her until neither of you can breathe.
I stopped the other night because Caroline asked, not because I wanted to.
I wanted to kiss her again. To taste her.
To see if what happened last Friday was a fluke or not.
How can something that felt so fucking good be a fluke?
Despite what happened, things have been good between us. Normal. Back to the same routine as before.
At least that’s what it looks like to anyone else.
We’re putting more distance between us than there has been, both physically and emotionally. We’re smiling, but the expression never reaches our eyes. We’re talking, but we’re not really saying anything.
Things have changed. We’ve changed.
That once easy dynamic isn’t so easy, and it’s all fallen apart in a matter of days.
Part of me wants to take it all back: the incident in the hall, the kiss, and everything after. I want to go back to what we had before.
But I want to see what we could have even more, and I have no idea how to fucking tell her that when it’s clear she doesn’t want the same thing.
I close myself into the bathroom and crank the water all the way up, letting the steam fill the room as I strip off my basketball shorts and tee.
I step into the tub, pull the curtain closed, and sigh when the water hits my back.
I’ve been so knotted up over things with Caroline that I’m literally knotting up. Normally I’d ask her to use the foam roller on my back and work out the kinks, but I don’t think having her straddle me is the best idea right now.
Unless she’s straddling my lap…
My cock stirs to life, and I try to ignore the throbbing that seems to be a constant as of late.
Instead, I reach for the shampoo and pour a good amount on my hands, then scrub at my hair.
I wonder how good Caroline’s fingers would feel doing this, if they’d feel as good as they did when they were in my hair last time…
“Fuck!” I shout, smacking the wall in frustration.
“Cooper?”
I freeze when I realize she’s right outside the door.
I just wanted a few minutes alone not thinking about her.
“You okay in there?” she calls.
“Fine!” I shout back, maybe a little too aggressively.
I don’t hear her say anything else, shoving myself back under the water, drowning out her voice, and all my thoughts of her.
When the fuck did she get so stuck in my head?
When did she become all I can think about?
When did I start having feelings for my best friend?
I realized days ago it goes beyond anything sexual when I missed her.
Not her touch or her lips.
Her.
The annoying way she always slaps her legs when she finds something truly funny. The references to those ridiculous TV shows she loves. How she always drinks all the good flavored water and leaves me with the gross ones. Fuck, I even miss her always rolling her eyes at me.
I miss those trivial things about her that she’s holding back on now.
She’s scared. Shy. Walking the straight and narrow. Playing it safe.
It’s like she’s reverted to the same Caroline she was the summer I met her.
Quiet and cautious. Unsure about me.
And I fucking hate it.
I hate that we did this to ourselves.
But I hate even more how much I want to do it again.
The water starts to run cold, and I realize I haven’t even washed my body yet.
I squirt some bodywash onto the loofa and quickly wash up, rinsing off before the water really starts to freeze.
I turn it off, step out of the tub, and begin to dry off.
I realize my mistake then.
I forgot to grab new clothes.
“Fucking hell.” I sigh. “Not again.”
I push my clothes into the corner, not wanting to carry my dirty laundry through the house, and wrap my towel extra tight around my lower body.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter, pulling the door open.
The steam billows out around me, and I look down the hall toward the living room, listening for the pad of her feet.
Nothing.
I crane my neck the other direction…and my eyes collide right with Caroline’s.
Her bedroom door is open, and she’s sitting at her sewing desk.
Staring right at me.
Her eyes flit down my body, and her stare somehow feels even hotter than it did before.
Catching herself before her eyes travel too far, she snaps her attention back to my face.
Need.
It’s right there in her gaze.
She wants me just as badly as I want her.
She swallows once, twice.
And then slowly drops her head to the work in front of her.
Don’t say anything, Cooper. Don’t say anything at all. Go to your room.
“You could at least buy me dinner next time.”
She lifts her head, brows crushed together. “Huh?”
“If you’re going to eye-fuck me, the least you could do is buy me dinner first.”
Her face twists in anger, then she pushes up from her chair, stomping to her bedroom door.
“You’re a real dick, Cooper Bennett.”