String me along learning.., p.25
String Me Along (Learning to Love Series), page 25
I moved faster, working myself closer and closer until I could see stars behind my eyelids. And just as I tipped toward the edge, firm fingers slid over the front of my pants and pressed against my clit, sending me flying over, headfirst.
I moaned into his mouth, possibly cursing and praising him all at the same time, as my body shuddered and fell apart beneath his touch. As my mind turned to mush and every single line between us disintegrated into ash.
He hummed in pleasure, even though he was still hard as a rock against my leg, and he kissed me softly. Once. Twice.
Then he pulled back, and we both stared at each other, our chests heaving and his fingers still resting against my clit and cupping my ass. I wanted him to circle those fingers, but more than anything, I wanted to move my own down to him. To palm the impressive length I could feel, and make him see the same stars I had.
His mouth opened, and I readied myself for him to say it’d all been a mistake, when the front door suddenly slammed open like a tornado had come to visit, scaring the shit out of both of us.
Garrett stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but a thin pair of basketball shorts while his hair was soaked and water dripped from his body. His breathing was erratic and his eyes wide as they darted around the room and landed on us.
I shoved away from Adrian like he was a demon come to kidnap me, my face a mini-inferno as I came down from my orgasm and stared at my best friend’s boyfriend.
His gaze moved back and forth between us, and then stopped on me, his hazel eyes narrowing as he took in my reddened face and expression, his own hardening to stone.
“Everything okay, Layla?”
“Yep,” I squeaked, nodding more vigorously than was probably believable. I was so screwed. There was no way Garrett was going to keep this a secret from Madison. Adrian said nothing at my right, but I could see his own chest still moving a little too rapidly in my peripheral.
Garrett took another step in, the door still wide open, his jaw working back and forth as he considered my words and mannerisms. “Are you sure? I heard yelling when I stepped out of the shower, and saw several missed calls from Madison, and I thought—” He shook his head, his hands fisting at his sides.
Madison. He’d thought the yelling had been from her. Something flickered across his face, and I suddenly felt a surge of guilt for Adrian’s and my fight. It’d probably terrified Garrett, especially since the last time he’d heard shouting from over here, it had been Madison, and she hadn’t been okay.
“I’m sorry, Garrett,” I said, smoothing my hands down my sides and crossing the living room to pick up Adrian’s guitar. “Everything’s fine. We just got in an argument. One I started.”
Garrett’s eyes flicked down toward Adrian’s legs so fast, I barely caught the movement before they came back up, his face returning to solid stone. Jesus Christ, he’d noticed Adrian’s fucking boner. Of course, he had. Adrian wasn’t even trying to hide it. I was so fucked when Madison got home.
Clearing my throat, I moved toward Adrian’s case and tucked his guitar in, making sure it nestled in carefully before latching it and picking it up.
Garrett hadn’t moved a muscle, his jaw ticcing. “Do you want me to stay?”
I held out the case in Adrian’s direction, pointedly not making eye contact. I could still feel his teeth grazing my lip, his tongue swiping into my mouth, and hear the deep moans vibrating up his throat as his hands molded my ass.
I shook my head, mentally screaming at the thoughts to leave. “No, it’s okay. Adrian was just leaving,” I said, my voice failing to come out as strong as I’d wanted it to. I nudged the case toward him again, demanding he take the hint.
And to my relief, he didn’t argue. He just reached one long arm out and wrapped his hand around the handle, his fingers brushing mine for only a moment before I released it like a hot potato.
Adrian gave me one more long look, one I didn’t meet, and then turned away and headed for the door. “Have a good night, Davis.”
Davis. I suddenly hated my last name, the syllables feeling like two hits to the gut. I dared a look, watching his shoulders and arms flex and move as he leaned down to slip his feet into his shoes. My traitorous heart hoping he’d glance one last time over his shoulder so I could gauge what was going through his head, but he didn’t.
He just slipped passed Garrett, who’d moved to the side just enough to let him through, and walked out of my house without another word.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a blanket fort taking up the entire living room. Not a small one like what we used to make for Jamie when we’d have our movie nights, but a huge one that used more blankets and chairs than we even owned.
I paused in front of the door, keys still in hand, phone in the other, and listened for the sound of Jamie whispering or the dogs’ tails thumping. But I didn’t hear anything.
Looking the tent over again, I noticed at least two blankets I didn’t recognize, confirming that Madison had not only built it, but had gone over to Garrett’s and retrieved his own kitchen chairs and blankets.
I crouched down and tipped my head to the side, staring in through what was clearly the entrance. Madison sat right smack in the middle of the tent, wearing a pair of sweats, one of Garrett’s oversized hoodies, and her typical hideous socks. A bag of marshmallows accompanied her left side, and a box of wine and two empty glasses her right.
Her eyes flicked up from her phone when she saw me peek in, and she gave me a tentative smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said, matching her smile. “May I come in, or is this a private party?”
“Only if you know the secret password.”
Without batting an eye, I said, “Cookie dough ice cream.”
She nodded seriously, waving her hand out in a grand gesture to silently invite me inside. I snorted at her antics and plopped all my shit onto the floor.
“Where is everyone?” I asked, reaching down to unfasten my heels. The house was suspiciously quiet considering we had a motor-mouth kid and two dogs.
She tilted her head in the direction of Garrett’s side of the duplex and tossed an oversized marshmallow into her mouth, talking around it. “Garrett took them all to his place to watch a movie.” She chuckled. “And before you ask, Sadie is fine. He carried her out the door like a giant infant even though I assured him she could walk.”
I lowered to my hands and knees and crawled in, accepting the wine glass she handed me once I’d gotten settled. I tipped it back and took a drink, admiring the cozy abode my friend had created. However, cute as it was, I wasn’t stupid enough to believe she’d just randomly decided to find her inner child on a Wednesday after we’d both worked all day.
“All right, Mads, spill. What’s all this for?” I asked, even though I already knew the exact words that were about to come out of her mouth. We need to talk.
She sat up a little straighter, like she was steeling her spine. “We need to talk.”
And there it was. I nodded, taking another sip of wine and dreading every second of the approaching conversation. I’d known from the second she left the house to pick up Jamie that it was coming, but that didn’t mean I’d ever be ready for it.
I’d holed myself up in my room last night after Adrian and Garrett had left and hidden like a complete coward. I hadn’t even come out to greet Jamie or to secretly ask him how his shopping went.
Every time footsteps passed by my door, I’d tensed, assuming it was Madison coming to drag me out by my hair and demand we talk, but she hadn’t. Like the amazing friend she was, she’d given me my space to work everything out in my head without the pressure of her questions or opinions.
I didn’t do well with emotions and big feelings, even with her. I never had. It was easy to listen to her thoughts and feelings and give advice, but having the tables turned always made me uncomfortable. Like the entire universe was staring at me while I whined about my life problems.
“And I figured,” she continued, grabbing the bag of marshmallows and tossing it into my lap, “that you’d be more comfortable doing so if we also got tipsy and played fuzzy bunny while we did it.”
I snapped my head up from the bag, a choked laugh slipping past my lips while my brows jumped clear off my forehead. “You’re going to get tipsy on a work night?”
“Yep.”
“Who are you and what did you do with Madison?”
In answer, she just held her glass under the wine box’s spout and topped it off. “I take my friendship necklace very seriously, Layla Davis.”
I chuckled, grabbing a handful of marshmallows from the bag and tossing it back to her. God, I loved this woman. “All right, wench, you win. We’ll talk.”
I said it assuming there’d be an awkward silence for a minute before she tentatively began, but she’d been ready and waiting. She didn’t waste a single second before pulling out a proverbial knife and slicing it right across my jugular.
“Why did you lie to me about the weekday gigs? I just don’t understand why you lied about that of all things. We tell each other everything.”
“I mean, not everything,” I hedged, trying to joke it off in a way that was more instinctual than anything else. At least her first question hadn’t been about the kiss, which is what I’d assumed she was going to ask first. I mentally crossed my fingers that maybe Garrett hadn’t told her that particular story yet.
She narrowed her eyes, not letting my answer slide even an inch. “Really? Because I happen to remember you telling me in painful detail which tongue motions you like—”
“Okay, okay!” I laughed, holding my hands up in surrender as best I could with them full of alcohol and sweets. “I get it.”
She didn’t laugh, putting her mom face on and looking at me pointedly. The woman would wait me out for as long as she had to.
I sighed and dropped my gaze to the marshmallows in my hand. Why was telling her how I felt so hard? If I could hold my own against Adrian, I could have an honest conversation with my best friend.
I popped a white morsel in my mouth and tucked it into my cheek long enough to say, “Fuzzy bunny,” and then stretched my legs out, chewing as I worked through my thoughts.
“I feel like…” I paused, hesitating. I didn’t hesitate with Madison. That wasn’t how our friendship had ever worked. But this, I knew, would hurt both of us, and the thought of breaking her heart made me want to puke.
Taking a deep breath, and trying to calm the nausea coiling in my stomach, I tried again, unable to meet her eyes. “I was there when you found out you were pregnant, and when you found out you were having a boy.”
I smiled, remembering the way Beth had taken us shopping afterward to pick out some baby clothes to celebrate, even though the idea of Madison being pregnant had to have still been a struggle for her mother.
“I was there when he was born and there for his first birthday and first steps.”
There was a beat of silence, and I knew she was watching me, giving me the time I needed to continue without pushing me. I took another breath. “And sometimes, because of that, I feel like I have to be there for you two anytime you need me. No matter what.” I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t. Not when I knew the guilt my words would make her feel.
“Until Garrett, I’ve been the only father figure he’s ever known,” I added, trying to slip some humor in to cover the sting of my admission.
She reached out and placed her hand over mine, squeezing gently. “You weren’t the one to get me pregnant, Layla.”
I nodded. I knew that.
“You’re my best friend,” she continued, “and I love you. But it’s not your job to take care of us.”
I shook my head. She was right, but she was also wrong. “I moved here to help you. You didn’t ask. I offered.”
“Demanded was more like it,” she said, chuckling into her glass and following it up with two marshmallows. “Fuzzy bunny.”
But I didn’t return her smile. I vividly remembered the day I’d agreed to move here. The phone call that had solidified my decision when she’d called me in tears because she felt like she was failing Jamie by working so many jobs just to pay the bills.
I hadn’t thought twice after that call. I’d just settled what I’d needed in Kansas and booked a moving truck.
“Exactly. And what kind of friend would I be to promise you that help only to bail on it the second something I preferred to do came up?”
“Quitting a job you hate isn’t bailing on me, Layla. Even if you didn’t take the shows, and you just quit, it still wouldn’t be bailing on me. Yes, affording rent and doing everything on my own was hard, but I made it work. Just like I could make it work again if I had to.”
I shook my head. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should have to. If I take those gigs, I’d make more money, but I’d never be home in the evenings to help with dinner, or dishes, or read to Jamie.”
She looked at me over the rim of her glass, one eyebrow shooting up. “Garrett does more dishes than the two of us combined, and you know Jamie’s been reading to himself lately, so try again.”
She was right. I knew she was. But if I wasn’t here to help her anymore, then what was the point in staying in North Carolina away from all of my family? I shoved three marshmallows into my mouth, stretching my cheeks out to mumble, “Fuzzy bunny.”
“Do you even want to live here? Truly?” she asked, reading me in the way she always could.
I took a large drink of wine, letting the dry bite swish around my mouth because I didn’t know the answer to that question. Because I now had people I loved in both states. Adrian’s face flashed in my mind, and the memory of how my heart had beat in time with his as he’d kissed me.
“I don’t know,” I finally said, setting my empty glass on top of the box of wine and laying across the carpet. I stared at the yarn tufts in the quilt above us, fully content to not move again the rest of the night.
Madison set her glass next to mine and laid out beside me, silently staring up at our blanket ceiling as well. “Would taking on more shows make you happy?”
“I’d almost never see you and Jamie.”
“Would it make you happy, Layla? Not me. Not Jamie. You.”
Since my throat felt like it was going to close for a reason unrelated to the wine and spongy confection, I made do with nodding.
“What else would make you happy? Because I’ll make it happen whatever it is,” she said, leaning her head against my shoulder.
Performing every day. Writing music and having someone who understood me listen and give advice. Living close to my best friend and seeing her and her son get their happily ever after. Seeing my mother and other family members more than once a year. Having Adrian Waters love me back in the same overwhelming, angry, chaotic mess of a way I suddenly realized I loved him.
But I didn’t say any of that. I just held those thoughts close to my chest as if I could make them happen by pushing them deep enough into my heart.
“A steak dinner, Broadway musical, and the souls of my enemies would be a good start.”
She nudged my side with her elbow. “Are you sure about that? Because from what I heard, your enemy is quite the kisser.”
I elbowed her back and heaved out a breath dramatically. “Your boyfriend is a gossip whore,” I muttered, feeling her arm shake against me as she laughed.
I knew he’d only said something to her to make sure that he did not, in fact, need to hunt Adrian down and punch his lights out. Still, I was absolutely going to slog him in the arm the next time I saw him.
Unless Jamie was watching. And in that case, I’d make do with a well-timed wet willy.
“So…?”
I huffed, trying to keep my voice as neutral as possible so she wouldn’t sense the depth of my attachment to the memory. “Of course, he’s a good kisser. There’s no greater passion than hatred. You said it yourself; the hate sex would probably be spectacular if we didn’t kill each other during it.”
The words tasted awful, like I was insulting Adrian by insinuating I still hated him. But by the knowing look Madison shot me as she leaned up onto one arm, she didn’t believe me for one fucking second anyway.
“I know you won’t believe me, because I’ve been in your shoes while you said the same to me,” she said, her face serious, “but I’ve seen the way Adrian looks at you, Layla.”
“And what way is that? Like he’s wondering where to shove the knife?”
“Like you’re his.”
I scoffed, internally telling my heart, which had kickstarted like an engine, to calm the fuck down because Madison was clearly delusional. The man might want in my pants because of some hate-induced lust that had been kindling from the get-go, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be more than friends. Right?
Friends partnered up to help make connections for each other. They rubbed each other’s shoulders when they were in pain and beat up drunk men who were being assholes. Friends ditched their plans and made time for you when you needed them most and weren’t afraid to show their soft sides. They made breakfast and paid attention to know when you weren’t taking care of yourself.
Adrian Waters was just my friend. A good friend, I’d come to realize. But still just that. A friend.
But friends didn’t look at you with so much heat you thought you’d combust on the spot, and they certainly didn’t run their thumbs up and down your skin, or murmur in your ear. And they definitely didn’t throw you against the wall and rock against you, moaning your name until you came all over their leg.
I wasn’t sure how much of that I’d voiced out loud, but it had to have been quite a bit because Madison eyed me like I’d suddenly forgotten what two plus two was.
“Layla, no man who looks at you the way he does, and isn’t afraid to go head-to-head with your wrath if it means taking care of you, just wants to be friends.”
Groaning like a petulant child, I smacked my hands to my face and pressed my fingertips against my eyelids. “God, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, Mads.”
