Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
ATHENA
“A box of Junior Mints and Airheads, please,” Charlie said to the woman behind the counter, flashing her his pretty white smile and pulling out his leather wallet after he checked us into Purple Starlight Mini-Golf—an indoor mini-golf place that just opened in the heart of Pittsburgh.
I glanced over his shoulder, peeping at a picture of us from three years ago at a Pitt football game. It was the first time we had gone out by ourselves and without our friend group. My chest warmed. I really shouldn’t be having all these gooey feelings, but I couldn’t stop.
Once the lady handed him the candy, he slipped me the Junior Mints. I smiled and ripped them open, popping two of those chewy mints into my mouth. We walked to the first hole in the indoor mini-golf place.
“How was your day?” he asked.
“Good.” I beamed. “Same old, same old. Did you work on your virtual reality thingy?”
“My VR thingy?” he repeated with a chuckle.
After dropping my pink ball on the turf, I lined up to take my shot. “Your start-up.”
Charlie grinned. “I set up a meeting with a couple of investors to get funding.”
“You did?” I exclaimed. “That’s great!”
While his parents and grandparents could fund any project that he wanted, I knew he didn’t want their money. He wanted to do this all on his own, which was a complete one-eighty from when I had first met him.
That wannabe player had turned into a man sometime along the way.
Once he grabbed a handful of Airheads out of the bag, he chomped down on them and tore pieces off. “I have to fly out to California in a couple of weeks to take the meeting. Wanna come with me?”
Sometimes, it was hard to believe that he had grown up in a billion-dollar family with a silver spoon in his mouth, that he’d traveled the world and stayed in the most luxurious hotels, or that he had grown up with the finest of manners. He acted like the biggest, cutest doofus.
“Only if you want me to,” I teased.
We played a few more holes, the conversation easy between us, like it had always been. Thankfully, sleeping together hadn’t ruined it or made it awkward. We were still the same, even after he’d been inside me. Twice now!
“So, did anyone come see you today?” Charlie asked on hole six.
I raised a brow. “No. Why?”
He shrugged his shoulders and stayed quiet for a couple more moments.
“I heard that Derek came over the other night. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Why didn’t I tell him that his brother came over?! Because I have literally done nothing but obsess over the fact that he has been inside me not once, but twice now! All my dirty dreams are coming true, and Derek slipped out of my mind.
I walked up to my pink golf ball and lined my golf club up to it. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. He said that he was going to text you and that it wasn’t really important.”
“It is a big deal,” Charlie said sternly, which was so unlike him.
I glanced over to see him glaring at the fake green grass while clutching his golf club until the veins popped out in his strong hands. He gritted his teeth like he hated Derek more than anyone in the world.
But he barely ever spoke about him, good or bad.
“Why?” I asked while hitting the ball. “Did he do—”
“I don’t want him around you alone.”
My eyes widened as the ball spun around the back edge of the hole and rolled out of it. I walked over to it and lined up again to hit it into the hole.
Why was he acting so weird about it?
“It’s not like he stayed for long,” I said. “Only a couple of minutes.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Not much.”
“Did he flirt with you?”
My mouth dried, and I walked up to my ball. Had Derek flirted with me? Maybe a bit. Had I flirted back because I never thought anything would happen between Charlie and me? I really didn’t want to tell him that.
“Not really.”
He stepped up to his ball, but didn’t look up at me. “But he did?”
“Charlie,” I whispered, “nothing happened.”
After hitting a hole in one, he pressed his lips together and walked toward me like it didn’t matter that he had just hit the ball into the hole in a single hit. Something I had never ever been able to do. Not that I cared, but it was more significant than this reaction, wasn’t it?
“That’s not what he made it seem like.”
“You talked to him?”
“Did you flirt with him back?”
I opened and closed my mouth a handful of times, then settled on, “No.”
While I might’ve flirted a bit—I was terrible at it anyway, so Derek had probably just thought I was acting weird—a little white lie to protect our friendship wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t like Charlie hadn’t told a couple of white lies either.
Last Halloween, he had told me that I looked good in that angel costume. Then, the next morning, when I saw those pictures, I wanted to hurl from how terrible I’d looked. But I had spent three hours stressing out over having nothing to wear.
It had protected me at the time, and this would do the same.
I had no interest in Derek either. Absolutely none.
“It’s okay if you did, Athie,” he said, friendly again. “We’re … friends. You can tell me.”
Friends …
Shit, that stung.
“Oh, then …” I sucked in a sharp breath. “Um, maybe a little.”
The easy look on Charlie’s face disappeared, and his jaw twitched. “Oh, okay. Cool.”
Cool? Charlie never said cool.
“Yeah, but it was just so he’d leave,” I whispered. “Nothing more! Really, he’s not even my type.”
“You have a type?”
“Yeah …” YOU!!! “Derek doesn’t fit it.”
“Who does?”
Internally screaming! What should I say?!
I shuffled my feet on the turf. “Oh, um, I don’t really know how to explain it. Just … nice and funny. Derek seems a bit too self-absorbed for me. You know, it seems like he thinks his shit doesn’t stink and …”
And now I am freaking rambling!
Charlie stayed quiet for a couple of moments, then nodded. “Next time he comes to our place, call me immediately.”
“But—”
“Athie …” Charlie whispered, grasping on to my chin and drawing his thumb across my lower lip—something he had never done before, especially in public. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Athie,” he whispered. “You’re important to me.”
My heart pounded so loudly that I could hear it in my ears. Important to him? Of course, only in a friendship kind of way, right? That was what it had to be. There wasn’t a possibility that he actually wanted a relationship with me.
Or else … he would’ve made a move these past few years.
Or else … he wouldn’t have just called me a friend.
“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I said. “Trust me, okay?”
“I trust you, but I don’t trust him,” he said, and then his voice dropped so I could barely hear it, but I gathered, “not to take you away from me.”
My eyes widened slightly, and I moved closer to him. “We’ll always be best friends.”
“Best friends,” he repeated, but the words didn’t sound like they usually did.
I wondered if the word friend stung as badly for him as it did for me.
He brushed some hair out of my face, his fingers gliding against my skin, and moved closer to me.
I stared up at him through wide eyes, my heart racing.
We had always been this close in public, but not after what had happened.
This somehow felt different because we had actually been together, fucking all over our high-rise.
And I might be having feelings that I shouldn’t.
My gaze dropped to his lips, and I pressed my thighs together.
One little kiss wouldn’t ruin our friendship, right?
I mean, we had already done more than that, but in public? That would kinda make it feel a little too real. Like it meant more than sleeping with each other a couple of times in private. Like he actually wanted this too.
“You’re so pretty,” he murmured, gazing down at my lips.
Pretty? He thought I was pretty? Like … that?
My insides gushed everywhere, and I curled my hands around his collar to pull him closer and stood on my toes to close the distance.
I didn’t know why I was doing this here, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
As soon as my lips grazed against his, everything seemed to fall into place, except… he stiffened.
“Ew! Mommy, are they going to kiss?” a kid shouted behind us.
I jumped away from Charlie, my heart pounding in my ears and my face suddenly burning hot from embarrassment. Charlie straightened out his back and swiped his thumb across his lower lip.
“We should continue,” I said, keeping my head down. “We have a few holes left.”
“Yeah,” he said, clearing his throat. “We should.”
“We’re best friends after all,” I whispered to myself. “And best friends don’t kiss.”
Best friends also didn’t fuck each other, but that was a problem for another day.