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ChapterOne
"Yes!"Kiera squeals as she throws her arms around my neck. "I love you so much, Joshy! You're the best!"
I can't hold back the goofy grin that breaks over my face as I hold my best friend in my arms and stroke my hands over her hair as I tell her, "I love you too, Kiera."
God, if she only knew just how true those words are.
I'm completely in love with her.
Of course, Kiera thinks I just mean them in that platonic, best-friend way like she does. We tell each other we love each other all the time. The only difference between how we say it is that I know Kiera means it in that playful best-friend way, whereas I mean it with every fiber of my being.
I've loved Kiera since the first day I saw her on the playground wearing a little yellow dress. She looked like a little ray of sunshine with her yellow dress and blond hair and big eyes that rivaled the blue of the sky.
I agreed to take her to this New Year's Eve bash she wants to go to. Not only am I her college roommate, but I'm her go-to tag-a-long when she wants to go somewhere but doesn't want to go alone.
I both love and hate it. I love going everywhere with her, but I hate that it's because she sees me as nothing more than a friend to hang out with. I want her to feel safe with me, but I also don't like that she's dubbed me as completely safe like I'm one of those guy friends she doesn't have to worry about trying to get into her pants.
Especially when I'd love nothing more than to get into her pants.
When she comes out of her room, I swallow hard when I see what she's wearing.
Yellow. She's wearing a long-sleeved little yellow dress that flares out mid-thigh. She's got her long, curly hair up in a fancy updo, exposing the long expanse of her back that the dress shows with its low dip.
She looks just as pretty as she did that day when I first saw her on the playground, only now she's all grown up.
"Wow, you look beautiful, Kiera," I breathe out.
She gives me a dazzling smile as her eyes rake up and down me. "You don't look so bad yourself, Joshy."
Joshy. It's her pet name for me, and it's another one of those things I love yet hate. I love it because it shows how comfortable she is with me, yet I hate it too because it shows how she thinks of me as a totally safe friend.
Yeah, I'm firmly in the friend zone.
I think about going over there to her, wrapping my arm around her waist, and pulling her flush against me while staring deep into her eyes. Would her breath catch, or would she laugh and assume I was joking with her?
Probably the latter.
"You ready?" she asks me.
"Yeah," I tell her.
I've thought about what I plan on doing tonight all day, and while I'm nervous as hell, I can't keep going on this way.
One way or the other, I'm getting out of the friend zone tonight.
I have to tell Kiera how I really feel.
Chapter 2
Kiera is one year younger than me. At just twenty, she's not legally old enough to drink yet, so I never drink when we go out either.
"Please, Joshy! I'm almost twenty-one, so no one will ever know." She pleads with me for a glass of champagne, and I've never been able to say no to her.
That's why I come back carrying two flutes of champagne in my hands. "Just one," I caution her. She's never drank before, and I don't want her getting so tipsy she won't remember what happens tonight.
I want her sober and lucid for what I have planned.
Kiera sips the champagne, moaning deep in the back of her throat as she does so. "It's got a bite to it, but it's really good." She beams up at me.
