The Pact

  Here, on this bluff, on this coast, near Linden, I am the opposite of safe.

  I hear gravel crunch on the other side of the car and by the length of the strides, I know it’s Linden before I even see him.

  “Hey,” he says, coming around the back of the car. He stands there, the wind tossing his hair, faintly lit by the lights from the front of the cottage.

  I try to speak but I can’t. I hug my arms closer to my chest and stare down at my boots. They are nice boots, new to the store just last week. Medium heel, rugged rubber sole, black python body. These boots are safe and real and what I know.

  I don’t know this man who is staring at me.

  Now walking toward me.

  “Stephanie,” he says and in that moment his accent is so strong and thick and gravely, I have no choice but to look up at him. “We need to talk about that.”

  I suck in my breath and try to defuse the bomb. “She’s your girlfriend, Linden, not mine.”

  He stares at me for a beat and his face softens. “Yes. I’m sorry about that. Did she hurt you?”

  I give him a look. “Please. I’m not made of glass.”

  Yet why does it feel like I’m so close to shattering?

  “I know,” he says. “She freaked out but that was no excuse for her to touch you.”

  I sigh and look away, not sure if I want to talk about this at all. I want to pretend none of this happened, but I’m not sure that I can. I’m not sure that I can ever be around Linden as a friend now that I know what it’s like to be with him in another way.

  “It’s fine,” I say quietly. “I guess I got a little carried away.” Now, that part was hard to admit. “I’m drunk,” I add. “I’m sorry if I seemed a bit, um…not myself.”

  “That wasn’t yourself?” he asks, taking another step toward me. The tips of his shoes nearly meet the tips of mine and there is barely any distance between us. I keep my chin down, my focus on the ground. I can’t look at him now, not so close, not when being so near to him is conjuring up the memories from just moments ago. My lips are tingling and I want to touch them to get them to stop.

  “That felt like you, baby blue,” he says. “And it felt good.”

  My breath stills, my heart starts to thump harder, slower.

  He reaches for my hand and I let him take it because I am weak and I have no willpower. Not with him. None.

  “I don’t know what that was,” I whisper. “It was just a dare.”

  He squeezes my hand hard and starts to lace his fingers in with mine. Now I’m staring at our intertwined hands, his large one over my small one, and I’m struck by how natural it looks, how easy it feels. I’m meant to hold this man’s hand. I’m meant to kiss him.

  “Look at me,” he says. I don’t. He reaches for me with his other hand and his fingers rest underneath my chin. He raises it up until I am forced to meet his eyes, those dark blue, stormy eyes. My knees feel like they are made of jelly and my heart beat is all I can hear.

  “That was more than just a dare,” he murmurs and as he speaks, his voice is so rough and low that I can’t help the shivers down my spine nor the heat between my legs. “That was real. That was something. Tell me you felt something, that you felt what I felt.”

  “What did you feel?” I whisper.

  He runs a thumb across my lips. “I felt you. The you I’ve always wanted.”

  Oh god. What is he saying? He’s staring at me so hungrily and I crave that look, that want, so much that another kiss is inevitable. If he doesn’t do it, I will.

  But in the background, above the crackle of the flames, I can still hear our friends’ voices. I can still hear Aaron’s laugh. He might not be the guy for me, but he is a nice, good guy at heart and I couldn’t cheat on him. I couldn’t do that to him, not when it’s been done to me before.

  “It’s okay to want me, you know,” Linden says thickly.

  My stomach quivers. I manage to shake my head and now his fingers are trailing behind my neck, running into the base of my hair and another shiver escapes down my back.

  “Since when is it ever okay to want your best friend?” I say softly, nearly choking on the words. Because that’s what he is, that’s what he’s always been.

  He smiles gently, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Isn’t that the best person to want? The person that knows you inside and out. The person who has seen you at your ugliest and most beautiful and still wants to be with you. The person who believes in you and has your back, no matter what.” Then his smile fades and his brow furrows. “You’ve always been more than a friend to me, Steph. Always. You have no idea how I’ve felt, how I still feel about you.”

  I blink, trying to absorb what he’s saying. How have I always been more than a friend to him? How has that even been possible, all this time?

  “You have no idea how badly I want you.” He takes another step toward me and now my back is flat against the car and his hard, strong body is against mine. “Do you feel that?” his voice is rough as he presses himself against me, stealing my breath. “That’s how hard I am for you. All the fucking time.”

  He is hard as steel, his large erection digging into my thigh and I can’t even swallow or think or act. I’m just this soft shell with a beating heart and flaring hormones and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a man to just take me and fuck me senseless, to just drill into me, to make me totally and completely his, as much as I want him right now.

  I close my eyes as his lips go for my neck and he kisses me there, soft and sweet, wet and warm.

  I want more.

  I can’t have more.

  “I can’t do this,” I manage to say, my words disappearing into the night. Part of me is hoping Linden won’t hear them, that he’ll continue to kiss me and press his dick against me. I want his hands, those long, strong fingers, to disappear inside my jeans, in my underwear, to find out how wet I am, because I know I am so fucking wet for him. I want his tongue in my mouth, on my breasts, my jeans to be ripped down and I want to wrap my legs around him as he fucks me against the side of the car.

  It would be so easy. It would be so fucking good.

  But he hears my words.

  And he stops.

  He takes a step back from me and I can see his heart is racing too, his pulse visible on his neck, his breathing shallow and unsteady. “You can’t do this?” he asks. “Or you won’t?”

  I lick my lips and the blood is coming back to my legs. I feel a little bit stronger. “Both. Aaron. I can’t do this to him. It’s not fair.”

  “Then break up with him.”

  “You’re still with Nadine,” I am quick to remind him.

  “I’ll do the same. Look, Steph, if you’ve felt anything for me at all, even the slightest clench between your legs, you know you shouldn’t be with him. You know it’s over.”

  It takes me a moment to tear my mind off the filthy way he said “clench” and know that he’s right. I shouldn’t be with Aaron if I feel this about Linden. Maybe I should have never been with him to begin with. But I thought that was part of life. If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Isn’t that how the song goes? Isn’t that what getting older is all about, realizing we all have to settle sometimes, that you can’t always get what you want? Damn it, why is everything a song from the seventies?

  “Stephanie?” It’s Penny yelling.

  I look at Linden, feeling like I’ve been slapped back to reality. “Where’s Nadine?” I ask, suddenly worried she’s going to come around the corner and strangle me with her ponytail.

  “She went to bed early,” he explains, his eyes darting over to the cottage. The gravel crunches and in seconds Penny appears, rounding the hood of the vehicle.

  “Oh,” she says in surprise, looking between the two of us with a well-placed eyebrow raise. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I shake my head and brush past Linden, quickly walking toward her. “No, we were just talking about how bad of a kisser I am.”
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  She smirks. “Uh huh. Anyway, I’m going to bed, just wanted to know if you were okay.” She looks over my shoulder at Linden. “I assume you were taking good care of her.”

  “Only the best,” is Linden’s uneven remark.

  I don’t turn to look at him. I can’t. I tell Penny I’m tired and too drunk and am going to bed as well. James and Aaron are still outside drinking when I curl up on the pull-out couch and yank the blankets over me. I hear Penny getting ready for bed, then I hear Linden come in. I know it’s him, I can feel his presence. Always.

  He stops in the living room, just a few feet from the couch and I try to breathe as deeply and regularly as possible, to pretend to be asleep. I don’t want him to say anything or do anything. I just want him to leave.

  Eventually he does. I hear the door to his bedroom close.

  But I still can’t sleep.

  Not even when James goes to bed and Aaron gets under the covers with me.

  I still can’t sleep.

  I can only feel Linden’s body against mine, lips on lips, and wonder what’s going to happen next.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  STEPHANIE

  “You kissed Linden?” Nicola exclaims so loudly that her daughter, sweet little Ava, looks over at her mom and makes a sad face.

  “Must I remind you that it was a dare?” I say, moving over a stack of what looks like over-stylized Barbies with giant heads so I can sit down on her couch.

  “Still,” she says, absently rolling the truck on the floor toward Ava who has now moved onto other things, “this is huge news.”

  “This isn’t high school.”

  “This is huge news,” she reiterates. “Huge.”

  It’s Sunday night and after we returned back from the cottage I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to either be with Aaron or to be by myself. The car ride itself was one big container of sexual tension and bad vibes and I desperately needed to tell somebody what had happened.

  Penny is too close to James, so I can’t trust her with anything Linden related and I obviously couldn’t go to Linden, which left Nicola.

  I felt kind of bad barging in on her like this, especially since her boyfriend was staying the night, but he kindly went out to grab a drink at the local bar so we could have some alone time. We’re with her daughter of course, but Ava is as cute as pie and one of those low-maintenance kids that trick you into thinking motherhood will be a piece of cake.

  “Anyway,” I go on, “it obviously meant something to me. And maybe to him. And now I don’t know what to do.”

  “You know what to do,” she says adamantly.

  “No, I don’t. I don’t know what this is…I mean, am I just being a fucking horndog because I haven’t been getting any lately? Am I just turning to Linden because he’s new and exciting?”

  “First of all,” she says, tucking her legs under her. “Linden is not new but he is exciting. And I don’t think you’re being a horndog. I think this is just what happens sometimes when a man and a woman have been friends for too long. And you guys, shit Stephanie, you knew this was bound to happen.”

  “Nothing happened,” I repeat.

  “Something did. Something changed. You’re sitting here like we’re back in grade school all over again. Remember Joey Pines? You had the biggest crush on him. You have that same look on your face now.”

  “We barely talked in grade school.”

  “And yet I remember how much you liked him.”

  “Didn’t you end up kissing him at one point?”

  She waves the suggestion away. “That’s neither here nor there. The point is, you’re attracted to Linden and it’s painfully obvious that he’s attracted to you.”

  “What do you mean painfully?” I ask, remembering how hard his cock dug into my hip.

  She rolls her eyes. “I think I need some wine to deal with your obliviousness, Steph. Linden’s never looked at you like a friend truly would, like a brother would look at a sister. He looks at you like a man wants a woman. If you want to take a chance on him, I bet he’d be more than willing.”

  I don’t really know anymore. He did say he would break up with Nadine. But then what? If we both left our lovers, then what would come of us? Would we sleep together and if we did, would there be anything beyond that? Would we want there to be?

  Would the both of us be willing to sacrifice our friendship because of sex?

  Unfortunately, I think our friendship has already changed because of this. I will never, ever forget the feel of his lips against mine, the hard length of his cock or the way he made my body submit in seconds. I won’t be able to look past that, see him as purely a friend, even if I never really did to begin with.

  And I know that no matter what happens now, that I have to break up with Aaron. It’s the right thing to do and it’s been a long time coming.

  I voice this to Nicola who I think will meet me with disapproval since she thinks Aaron is so “hawt” but she only nods. “I think that’s for the best. He’s a good guy but he’s not really for you. Not when there is someone so much better.”

  I sit up straighter. “You really think Linden might be good for me?”

  “Please. He’s one of your best friends. You know he’s already good for you.”

  “He’s a player.”

  “And I bet he wouldn’t be with you.”

  “Things might go horribly wrong.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “They could. You could say they went horribly wrong for me when I took a chance on Phil. But I wouldn’t have Ava here. The chance was still worth it.”

  I’m not sure I like Nicola comparing Linden to Ava’s total asshole of a deadbeat dad, but she does have a point. I think.

  “Look,” she says, as she brings Ava into her lap and starts to braid her long hair, “you might not think that the one exists but I believe they do. I know they do. You’ve never settled for anything in your life so far, Steph, and you aren’t going to start now, just because society or whatever is spewing their bullshit, that you need to have the perfect life already. Take a chance on Linden. That’s not settling. That’s opening yourself up to something that could be amazing. Don’t you know it’s a woman’s dream to find out the man she’s secretly been in love with has been in love with her this whole time?”

  I shake my head. “I never said I was in love with him.”

  “But you do love him,” she says. “As he loves you. And that love can morph into something that will blow your freaking mind.”

  “And if it doesn’t work out?”

  “At least you’ll know. Live with no regrets, that’s what I say.”

  “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll regret it. Big time.” If it doesn’t work out, I could lose one of the closest people to me. I would shatter like the thinnest, frosted glass and there would be no Linden to help me pick up the pieces.

  Later that night I go home and prepare for a busy week at work. I’m more determined now to find someone to hire. I’m also determined to take Nicola’s advice to heart.

  First things first, though. I have to deal with Aaron.

  I’ve never been very good at breaking up with people. I hate being the bad guy and I hate ruining what good things they’ve thought of me. I’ve done it, obviously with James and then later with Owen, but Owen’s cheating made it easy to do. All the rest of the guys it was more of an “ignore them and they will go away” kind of deal.

  But Aaron isn’t like that. I mean, I have a feeling that in theory it could work. I don’t think Aaron would even notice all that much if I just dropped out of his life. But I owe him a lot more than that.

  On Tuesday evening I tell him to come over to my place, that we “need to talk.”

  Bless his heart, he didn’t seem concerned about my choice of words and when he showed up at the door, holding a six-pack, it’s clear that he had no idea what was about to come.

  When I drop the bomb, he’s even more understanding. It kind of reminds me of a Seinfeld
episode, where one of the characters re-examines their reasons for breaking up because the break-up went so well. Aaron made it really easy and for a moment I wonder why I’m breaking up with a guy who can just handle whatever life throws at them.

  Then I realize that I at least wanted some kind of reaction, some kicking and screaming, maybe a single tear or even a heartfelt “We can work it out, give us another chance.” I mean, we had been together for a year now. Instead I got an “Aw, I’ll miss you babe” and that was it!

  I told him I’d be by for my things later in the week – even though I barely left anything at his house – and he said “Cool beans, I’ll leave them with Chuck if I’m not home, going to LA again” and that was that.

  Now I’m alone in my condo, lying in my bed and feeling incredibly empty inside. I stare up at the ceiling at the crappy plaster job I did the other day when I tried to patch up the leak on my own and I kind of want it all to come crashing down on me.

  There is a sense of relief though, that I did the right thing. I know I did and it’s better for Aaron too. If he wasn’t upset in the slightest by the break-up, then we really weren’t meant to be together at all. I wonder how many couples coast through life and eventually marry each other because it’s the comfortable thing to do? Because they feel like they’ve been together long enough, that it’s what is expected of them?

  It would explain a lot of divorces, that’s for sure. And I find myself hoping that no matter what happens in the future, with Linden or with anyone, that I never settle for something less than fireworks.

  I close my eyes and curl up on top of the covers. I keep replaying in my mind, over and over again, that kiss, that look, those words. Now that I can do it without guilt, my fingers trail down my stomach and slide beneath my underwear. I desperately need a new vibrator so my fingers will do and it’s not long before I’m biting my pillow and coming hard.

  All I need is to remember how hard and thick and long he was as he pressed himself against me, eager to show me how much I turned him on. I want to show him how much he turns me on, how just the memory of his lips and tongue melding into mine, the feel of his hand at my neck, the way he spoke about wanting him, gets me off in seconds flat.