I jumped and pointed at her, causing her to shriek. “See! That’s the problem. Your brother brings out this whole other side of me, and I can’t think straight when I’m around him. I trip on shit and say the stupidest things. You’d never know I was going to run a huge corporation someday by the way I act when he’s near me.”
The smile that spread over her face made my stomach drop.
“Oh. My. God. You really like him.”
I frantically nodded my head. “Yes. No. Oh God, I don’t know. No! I don’t like him. I cannot like him. We had an amazing weekend with the best sex of my life, but it’s over. I told him in my note I wanted to forget it ever happened and that it was best if we were just friends.”
Swallowing hard, I looked away as I chewed on my lip. Oh, how I tried to talk myself out of kissing him that first night. We were both a little drunk, and damn it if he didn’t look hot as hell in his stupid Dallas Cowboys baseball hat turned backward. Do guys have any idea how hot that makes them look?
For the last three years I fought my feelings for Tucker. I had a moment of weakness. Okay, it was more than a moment. It was three days’ worth of moments of weakness.
“Friends? So you’re saying you’re not attracted to my brother?”
Attracted? Pffttt. Boy, was she off. I had fallen for Tucker the first time he grabbed my hand and walked me into a movie theater with our little group of friends. To him it was a friendly gesture … to me it made my entire body come to life. I knew then he was going to be my kryptonite.
Innocent touches here and there I could handle, but this past weekend took everything to a DEFCON level 5. All I heard the entire weekend were sirens going off in my head. Not to mention my father’s voice warning me to stay focused and not get involved with what could only amount to a fling. After all, college relationships never lasted, he said. It didn’t matter he had met my mother in college and married her. Or that they had been happily married for thirty years. He made me promise I wouldn’t date and that I would solely focus on school.
I had kept my promise too. Kept it as long as my heart would allow.
Well, until last Thursday night when I let my betraying bitch of a body control me.
But Tucker was different. So very different. He made me want things I never desired before. He was a weakness I couldn’t afford to have in my life. Not if I wanted to pursue my dreams. Well, my father’s dreams.
“Hello? Earth to Charlie? Are you even listening to me?”
I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Sorry. Listen, I messed up this past weekend. Things got a little hot and heavy with Tucker. It was a mistake that I … that I … regret.”
I wonder if that sounded convincing to her? It sure as shit didn’t to me.
Her mouth damn near dropped to the ground. “Wait, did you say you told him you wished it never happened in the note? The note you left him, Charlie?” Her eyes nearly popped out of her head.
Damn. This is where the shit is going to hit the fan.
“I, um … well. I left super early.”
The look of disappointment on her face about killed me. I knew if I had waited for Tucker to wake up, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I would have found myself wrapped up in him another day. And that would have turned into another night, which would ultimately turn into more days and nights. There was no way I would have been able to look him in the eyes and say it was a mistake we were together because deep down in my heart, it was exactly what I had been wanting. There wasn’t one ounce of regret in my body over the time we spent together, but my mind was flooded with all the whys and hows of why we could never be more than friends.
My blank stare was answer enough.
She closed her eyes for a brief moment before glaring at me with pure anger in her irises. “So, let me get this straight. Y’all made love, you led him on, then got up and left without so much as saying goodbye?”
The way she said it made me feel like such a slut, and truly the world’s biggest bitch. Tucker was right when he told Nash I was a bitch. In fact, he was being a tad bit generous in his assessment of me.
Note to self. Sleeping with a guy and then getting up and leaving without so much as a thank you for the multiple orgasms is a bitch move. A total bitch move.
I didn’t like the way she looked at me. Anger quickly raced through me. It was the only choice I had. “We didn’t make love, Lily. Don’t try to romanticize it. We fucked. He wanted me; I wanted to see what it would be like with him. Itches scratched. End of story.”
Lily slowly shook her head. “You know it was more than that, Charlie. I see it in your eyes. You’re just too damn scared to admit it. Maybe next time you want to get laid, go find some asshole who won’t care when you get up and leave. Someone who will actually slap your ass on the way out the door. Tucker had feelings for you. How could you do this to him? How could you lead him on all weekend and then leave him high and dry and say it was a mistake?”
My chest squeezed thinking Tucker might no longer have feelings for me. That if he had feelings for me, I’d crushed any chance of ever being more than what we are right now. The thought that I had ruined a friendship I valued so much for a few hours of pleasure was fracturing my already broken heart. I had to keep telling myself it was for the best; it was the only way I’d be able to put one foot in front of the other around him.
Forcing myself to keep a steady voice, I replied, “Tucker wanted in my pants as much as I wanted in his, Lily. I can’t help it if he thought there was going to be something more out of it. There were no promises made between us; it was just two adults doing adult things with no strings attached. Plain and simple.”
Her head jerked back and she wore a shocked expression before letting out a scoff. “Wow, Charlie. You really are a bitch. A heartless bitch with no feelings at all. You’ve mastered that at the ripe old age of twenty-one. You’re going to make a great addition to your father’s company with that attitude.”
With that, my best friend spun around on her heels and stormed out the door. I couldn’t even be mad at her because every single word she said was true.
All of it.