AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t have the power to stop her.
Her brown eyes, the color of coffee now that, in her mind, everything was right with the world once again, looked up at me, a question swimming in those dark depths.
“So…we’re okay?”
Okay? What the hell did okay even mean right now? The words didn’t even compute at the moment while my heart cracked into thousands of tiny pieces while she looked so damn relieved it was all over. But this was my oldest friend, and I wasn’t willing to burn that bridge, no matter how hurt and angry I felt.
“Are we, Stone?”
But I also wasn’t ready to ease her conscience, so I shrugged and looked at the spot of chipped paint just past her shoulder. “No Sophie, we are not okay.” She gasped and took a step back, her hand scrambling for that doorknob once again, ready to bolt. “But we will be. Eventually.”
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, or what Sophie expected to hear. But I never believed in a million years that she wouldn’t at least consider giving us a chance. “Eventually? What does that mean?”
“It means that in due time, when it doesn’t hurt to be around you, we will be okay. Good night, Soph.” I leaned forward and she flinched as if she thought I might kiss her and I sighed, unlocking the door so she could open it and make her escape.
“I’ll t-t-talk to you soon, Stone.” She wouldn’t, but it would be cruel to say that, so I stood there silently and watched as she scurried off, down the porch. Running as far from me as she could get.
As soon as the headlights of Sophie’s little blue car disappeared down the street, I locked the door behind me and reached for another cold beer. I sat on the sofa, channel surfing until I found a football game to distract me. This was Texas, it wasn’t all that difficult to find a game, and that’s what I did until I fell asleep, reliving the moment my best friend broke my heart.SophieI kissed Stone.
I kissed Stone and it ruined everything. Sure, he said that we would be okay. Eventually. But I knew the truth. That one moment of lust, one moment where I’d forgotten how much you could lose in just a moment, ruined a friendship that was in its third decade. That was a difficult pill to swallow, and I’d spent the past few days regretting that I’d initiated it, while also reliving every scorching hot second of that kiss.
Unlike the first kiss that had barely been a kiss, more like an attempt at a kiss, this was the real thing. His big hard body had been pressed up against mine, letting me feel all those muscles my eyes had memorized during those stolen moments in my bathroom. Holy hell that kiss had been better than any I’d ever experienced. It was full of passion and unspent sexual tension. It was as if twenty plus years of kissing had been bottled and shaken up, and inside Stone’s foyer, it had exploded unexpectedly.
And shortly after the kiss ended, everything had exploded, and it was equally as unexpected. I couldn’t get the look on his face out of my mind, when he said the best relationships involved friendship and love. Or the way his face crumbled when I said I couldn’t give us a chance. But the look that stuck with me more than any, was the look of sad resignation when he’d realized I was serious and wouldn’t change my mind. That look was…goodbye.
And it was that look that devastated me and caused sleepless nights for the past week. It was that look that scared the heck out of me.
Because it was that look that I’d feared all these years. That look was the reason I never pursued my crush on him in high school, because it spelled the end of us. The end of an era. The end of the most important relationship in my life. And I wasn’t ready to face such a monumental change, not yet, probably not ever. Stone said he needed space, and I had no choice but to give it to him, I owed him that much.
Even if it killed me.
I looked around the busy Mexican restaurant and wondered how other people made it work. Did their ego make it difficult to go back to being friends, or was the friendship doomed the moment romance entered the picture?
“Yoo-hoo! Earth to Sophie.” Eva’s husky voice, tinged with annoyance, pulled me out of my head and brought me back to the present and the crowded restaurant where I waited for her and Olive to meet me for happy hour. We decided to skip The Mayflower since Olive’s pregnant body and smell sensitivity made it more of a hassle than a good time. “Damn girl, where did you go?”
