More Than Friends

Chapter One

Harlyn

“So, this is it!” Caitlin yelled into my ear.

We were standing at the bar of a club in downtown Austin, Texas. The music seemed to be louder than usual but it may have been my anxiety that had me feeling extra sensitive.

“Yeah, I guess so.” I raised my beer in her direction. “To finally finishing our masters!”

“To the class of 2017!” Caitlin added.

“To new beginnings!” The spring semester only had two weeks left in it which meant we pretty much considered it to be over.

“You’re really gonna go?” Caitlin asked.

“Why do you always ask me that? Dani and I have been making these plans for six months.”

“Yes, but you have yet to tell mommy dearest that you do not plan to return to the great metropolis of Denver and instead plan to move to New York City with your girlfriend.”

“I’m twenty-five, almost twenty-six. I don’t think I need my mother’s permission to do anything.”

Caitlin laughed so loud and hard it hurt my ears and my feelings. She was right. My mom was going to shit a brick when I told her what Dani and I had been planning. What mommy dearest didn’t understand was that this was my dream. Had been for as long as I could remember. Finish up my Master’s degree in Architecture and then move to the city where anything was possible. Where renovations and restorations and new creations all lived together. The possibilities were endless and the city life was energizing.

“Did you tell her that you spent the first half of spring break in New York?”

I narrowed my eyes at her. She knew I had not, though the plan had been to break the ice by telling my mother about that little trip. Only, when I returned home for the second half of my vacation, my mother was all about the herbal treatments and relaxation and finding time to center myself. I never found the opportunity to talk about my plans.

“Doesn’t matter. Dani and I put a deposit on a studio apartment.”

That was news I hadn’t shared with Caitlin. I watched as her eyes changed from intense surprise to a touch angry. I knew she was going to be pissed but I was hoping for excited. Caitlin and I had been best friends since the day we met at freshman orientation during our undergrad days. When I told her I was sticking around for my master’s, she decided to do the same. Telling her about my new apartment when she had a few beers in her system and while we were in a public place where she couldn’t murder me was the only way I knew how to deliver the news.

I was supposed to be tutoring a freshman that was struggling with College Algebra but he’d canceled at the last minute. When my plans changed and Caitlin asked me to join her for a celebratory end of semester drink, I knew it was the perfect time to divulge my news. Dani was working with her study group, preparing for finals, and though I had initially planned to surprise her with a coffee run, I decided Caitlin and I needed a night out instead.

“What the fuck, Harlyn!”

“June one is our move in date.”

Caitlin pushed my shoulder. A little too hard for my liking but she’d been drinking and she hadn’t been wielding a knife so I was willing to forgive her.

“I can’t believe you kept that from me.”

“It was a last-minute decision. We looked at a few listings while we were there. Everything is so expensive. Then we met this awesome couple that happen to be leaving the city at the end of May for a year. It was perfect, they were looking for someone to sublet while they’re away and of course we need a place to live.”

Caitlin pulled me into a hug and squeezed tight. “I love you so much! I can’t believe you’re leaving me behind. Will you still remember me when you’re rich and famous?”

“Okay, tipsy, I think it’s time we hit the dance floor to work out some of that alcohol.”

I placed both our drinks on the bar and led her toward the music and flashing lights. The club had more than its share of patrons for a Tuesday night which was a bummer. The whole reason Caitlin and I went out on Tuesdays was to avoid the crowds, obviously we weren’t the only ones switching into summer mode.

The music was definitely louder on the dance floor but it was exactly what I needed to shake off the nerves I was feeling about my move to New York. I was two weeks away from actualizing my dreams, I should have been excited-nervous, not apprehensive-nervous, but Caitlin was right, my mom was not going to be happy that I had gone and made all of those plans behind her back. She sure as hell was not going to give me her blessing and just let me go, but it was the only way to do anything when it came to dealing with Renee.

“OMG,” Caitlin said.

She followed up with something else but I couldn’t hear her. She was the only person I knew that tried to hold a conversation while you were on the dance floor. The tipsier she got, the more she wanted to talk.

Her face scrunched up in disgust so I followed her line of sight. I thought I would find one of her exes, she’d formed quite the list over six years, but that was not the case. In the back corner of the club was a couple making out. But it wasn’t your standard make out session. The guy had his girl, or whatever random girl he’d picked up in the club pinned against the wall. You couldn’t see her face because it was so dark, but the little bit of light that was shining on his back revealed a detail I could have gone an entire lifetime without seeing. His pants were slack and about halfway down his hips. He was grinding up against the girl and since her hands weren’t visible, the only conclusion to be drawn was that she was giving him a hand job.

Just as I was about to turn away, the guy lifted the girl up by her thighs and she wrapped her legs around his waist. She fluffed the skirt of her dress and then wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Holy shit!” I yelled at Caitlin. “They’re like really getting it on.”

“Gross!” Caitlin yelled back.

I wanted to turn away, I knew I should turn away, but there was something about the fingers that were wrapped up in the guy’s hair that pulled me toward them instead. I stopped dancing and without even realizing it I started to move toward the back wall. The girl’s head was buried in the guy’s shoulder as he started to fuck her. His hips were thrusting back and forth like he didn’t even care that the entire club could see them. It was the most unerotic sight I had ever seen and yet I could not look away. It wasn’t about the way he fucked her, or the fact that if he kept up his thrusting for much longer his pants would end up on the floor, it was the tiny bit of silver shining off the ring on the girl’s thumb.

Any number of people might own that same ring, but I only knew one person who wore it on her left thumb. The girl threw her head back against the wall and that’s when I recognized her eyes. Not the color or the shape because they were shut tight in concentration, but the way they were shut, the look she had on her face. I knew what she would do next. She would run her teeth across her bottom lip, then her mouth would fall open just a touch and then she’d come, hard. Her entire body shivering. The girl against the wall did exactly as I predicted but the guy kept thrusting into her. He either didn’t realize she’d come or he wasn’t done himself. Part of me wanted to give him props for getting her there before himself but I knew it had nothing to do with him. She never took long to climax when she was being penetrated.

The girl didn’t seem upset that he was still going. She leaned her forehead against his and plastered a smile on her face until he finished. Then she kissed him. When they broke away from the kiss, she said something into his ear. I couldn’t see his face but whatever she said made him throw his head back and laugh. They stood like that a little while longer, her legs around him, his hands up the skirt of her dress, her body pressed against the wall. She pulled back a little and did that thing she always does when she’s feeling smug. She tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear and the tiny diamond stud I gave her for her birthday glowed in the flash of dance lights.

The girl looked out at the crowd and our eyes met. I imagined it wasn’t hard for her to miss me since I had been standing on the edge of the dance floor watching her. I didn’t know whether to be happy or sad that the smile fell from her face when she saw me. I had obviously ruined her plans for the night. She pushed the guy back and dismounted as quickly as she could without taking his pants down with her. Our eyes locked again after she pulled at her dress and straightened the skirt. She was brazen enough to put a smile on her face when she started toward me. I turned and walked toward the exit.

I heard Caitlin say a few words to her as I walked away. Dani said she wanted to talk and I knew in that moment that I had absolutely no need to ever speak to her again.

“Harlyn!” Dani called out as I made my way outside. “Please, let me explain.”

I didn’t turn around but I had nowhere to go. Caitlin and I had taken a rideshare because we knew we’d be drinking. I looked down at my phone. A ride was fifteen minutes out.

I felt her hand on my arm and I whirled around. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

She lifted both her hands in the air and took a step back. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry? For which part?”

“I didn’t know you were going to be out tonight.”

“So, this is my fault?”

“No, I just mean…”

For a moment there was only the sound of traffic, then there was the sudden sound of music as someone opened the door to the club. I turned and found Caitlin watching us. Her arms were crossed, her forehead scrunched but the look in her eyes was kind. She wanted to make sure I was okay.

“I want you out of my apartment by the time I get done with my classes tomorrow,” I said.

“Harlyn, come on. Let’s talk about this.”

I turned back to Dani. Stunned speechless that she thought I was going to just forget everything I had seen inside the club.

“Talk? About what? How you were just fucking some random guy in a club?”

“He’s not some random guy,” she said as if that was supposed to make me feel better. She ran her hands over the front of her skirt. “I’ve been seeing him for a few months.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Dani and I had only been together a year. We didn’t technically live together, but she stayed over at my apartment more nights than not. How the hell had I not noticed that she was seeing someone else?

“I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell you.”

“Tell me what? That you’re into guys now?”

“Harlyn, I like men and women.”

“You’re bisexual? Since when?”

“Since forever. It’s just that my last two relationships happen to have been with women.”

“And you didn’t think that was important for me to know?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with us. Can we go home and talk about this?”

“Home? As in my apartment? Fuck you. You’re sleeping with someone else and I’m just supposed to accept that?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. I messed up. I had not had sex with him until tonight. Things got out of control. I meant to talk to you first.”

“You were going to break up with me and that’s somehow supposed to make me feel better?”

“No. Of course not. I wasn’t going to break up with you, we’re heading to New York together. Look, you know monogamy is a bullshit straight people thing made up to control women. It’s not natural—”

“Stop! I have no idea who you are. Where the hell is all of this coming from?”

My phone buzzed with a notification that my driver had arrived. I waved at Caitlin and then pointed to the red car that had pulled up.

“Just give me a chance to explain.”

“Fuck off,” I said to Dani as I got into the car.