“Actually, no. Things didn’t go that far. But they shouldn’t have gone as far as they did.”
“What kind of stuff did you do?”
For some reason, I didn’t feel comfortable telling him. It felt like I was exploiting what had happened somehow, which was weird because I never hesitated to talk about sex. But I felt protective of Carys. I wasn’t going to kiss and tell.
I held my palm up. “It doesn’t matter what we did. I just don’t think I can look at her the same way now. That really sucks, because I don’t want to lose her friendship.”
He scratched his chin. “If you didn’t live right next door, it would be easier to avoid her.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t want to fucking avoid her. I just don’t want to mess things up any more than I already have.”
“You think she has feelings for you?”
Deep down, I believed she did. “Possibly.”
For a long time, I hadn’t been sure. But lately, even before her birthday night, there was something about the way she looked at me—probably the same way I looked at her. And what happened between us had confirmed that she was attracted to me, at the very least. For as long as I lived, I would never forget her begging me to fuck her. Pretending not to have heard that in the moment was nearly impossible, and I’d thought about little else since. My mind kept wandering back to her words, to the need in her voice. I’d spent that entire night hard, even after I jacked off. I’d stayed up until morning, unable to forget how she tasted, still savoring her on my tongue and smelling her on my body. And right now, I was nearly hard again just thinking about it.
Adrian snapped me out of my thoughts. “Well, if you think she has feelings for you, and if you’re a hundred-percent sure you don’t want anything more than a friendship, continuing to be around her is a recipe for disaster. You can’t have it both ways, you know? Sounds like you’ve reached the point of no return. You can’t go back to being friends once you’ve crossed the line with a woman. Speaking from experience, it just doesn’t work. You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.”
There was that fucking saying again. It kept haunting me. Except now, the word eating conjured up images of her sweet pussy. My jeans tightened.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to lose her as a friend, but I also don’t think I can forget what happened between us.”
“I don’t think you have a choice. You already did ruin the friendship. Honestly, was it ever really ‘just a friendship’ if you were attracted to her from the beginning?”
He had a point. From almost the first day I’d hung out with Carys, I’d had to fight my attraction to her.
“So how do I handle it?”
“You stop trying to be her friend. I hate to say it, but this is a ‘shit or get off the pot’ situation. If you continue to stick around, you will cross the line again. Someone’s gonna get hurt.”
Adrian was a straight shooter; he was seldom wrong. And I hated that I knew he was right in this case. It wasn’t fair to toy with Carys’s emotions. I wanted to be there for her if she needed me, but I needed to stop trying to get closer if I couldn’t trust myself.
* * *
Despite Adrian’s warning, when I passed Starbucks on the way home, I walked in and picked up a latte for Carys. My plan was to go over to her apartment and see if things seemed different between us. If they did, I’d know I’d fucked everything up beyond the point of no return. If by chance she acted normal, maybe that would mean I hadn’t totally ruined our friendship.
Once I got to her apartment, I texted her from outside her door in case the baby was napping.
A few seconds later, she opened. “Hey.” Her face seemed flushed.
“Hey,” I said.
And there it was. Immediately. An unspoken energy that was different than what I normally felt.
I handed her the coffee.
She took it. “Thanks for this.”
“You’re welcome.” After I entered, I looked down at my shoes for a moment. “After the other night, I, uh, wanted to come by and…see you…feel you up.” I shut my eyes and corrected, “Fuck. Out! Feel you out.”
Jesus Christ. Not even a minute here, and I was already acting crazy. It was one thing to tell myself to act normal, but now that she was right in front of me, I was incapable of that. Her scent immediately fucked with my head, brought me back to my face buried in her pussy. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to smell her and not lose my mind again. I was a lost cause and an idiot for thinking things could go back to the way they were before.
“I’m glad you came,” she said, turning red. She shook her head. “I guess I’m speaking in ambiguous sexual phrases, too.”
“What the fuck is wrong with us?” I asked.
When I noticed Sunny kicking her legs in the air on her playmat, I put my coffee down on the table and walked over.
Kneeling down, I said, “Hey, Sunny Side Up. How ya doin’?”
I’d never been more grateful for Sunny’s presence, because it was just the buffer I needed right now. She cooed but didn’t cry to be held.
I turned to Carys. “How’s Bee Gees therapy going?”
“It’s amazing. I had the album on a little while ago, and it put her in a really good mood. It’s a miracle. You see how she’s not even crying for you to hold her? I guess we weaned her off that habit.”
“Who knew the answer was some high-pitched disco dudes all along?” I stood up. “Glad to help.”
About fifteen seconds of silence passed, but I swear it felt like fifteen minutes.
Then we both started to speak over each other.
“You first…” I told her.
Then she said the dreaded words. “About the other night…”
Here it comes.
My heart started to pound. “Yeah…”
“I don’t want things to be weird between us.”
I let out a long breath, happy she’d articulated what I’d been struggling to. “Neither do, I, Carys.”
“There’s no reason why they should be, right?” She shrugged. “I mean, we’re both adults.”
I forced honesty out of myself. “What happened…felt right at the time. In retrospect, I probably took things too far. I care about you and would never want to do anything to ruin our friendship.”
She blinked several times and whispered, “It’s not ruined.”
Relief washed over me, though I didn’t exactly believe her. I wanted to believe her. “I’m glad you said that. You have no idea how much.”
Then my chest felt heavy again, because while the elephant in the room was no longer present, that unspoken tension remained. No matter what we told each other right now, something had changed. Our words weren’t coming as easily, and I could hardly look at her without remembering how she tasted. In fact, I could hardly look at her at all. Meanwhile, her eyes were on my lips. If coming over here was a test to see if things could feel “back to normal,” we’d failed miserably.
I had to give her credit for trying to convince herself our friendship could pick up where it left off. But it wasn’t working because I could see in her eyes that she felt the change in our dynamic, too.