Chapter 1 #2
Distracted by the out-of-the-blue desire to suck on that lip she’s gnawing on, I ask, “What is it?”
She growls at her tits, which still haven’t disappeared. I’m in both heaven and hell when she juggles them between her hands and does something that makes them smaller.
I gape at her.
Women can do that?!
Is that how I never noticed—
“I applied for the study abroad program last semester, Zach,” she says in a rush.
“Hmm?” Only when she repeats herself do her words register. “You did?” The idea of her leaving when I just got here has me jerking upright. But she’s so excited. “That’s… great?”
I sag into the cushions and look anywhere but at her.
It’s not D’s fault I chose to study at the community college closest to my mom so I could stay home with her when her doctors told us how sick she was.
It’s not D’s fault that when she offered to stay with me, with us, her father insisted she start college or he wouldn’t pay her tuition.
It’s not D’s fault that I missed her for a year and now she’s—
“It’s only for half a semester,” she continues, fingers nervously plucking at her skirt.
“When?” I look up and see she’s plunked on the coffee table, still worrying her bottom lip.
I get the impression she was dreading telling me.
“Beginning of next semester.” She sniffs. “I managed to get Dad to sign off on it by telling him how big soccer was going to be for the agency by 2035.”
My throat closes, but her dread? Not cool. “Great. I’m happy for you, D.” Lies, but I refuse to be the reason that unformed excitement in her expression disappears.
Six weeks. That’s nothing after a year. Right?
Her smile’s… hopeful. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really. You’ll enjoy it. You know where you’re going?”
“I asked for Madrid but I think it could be Barcelona.”
Across the world. A whole different time zone.
I’m not freaking out.
You are.
Then, something occurs to me and I jerk, showering the floor with a bunch of pillows.
“Zach! I only just finished tidying!”
“Wait, if you do get in, will you have to move?”
“Get in where?”
“Pi Beta Epsilon!”
She hoots. “As if they’ll accept me. Mom suggested I do two things, the study abroad program and then try out again. I’ll be able to give her the study abroad program, at least.”
Fucking Melanie.
Of course this’d be her idea.
Then, D does this shimmying thing with the dress from hell as she stands and my chubby is back in business.
What the fuck is with me today?
I find myself transfixed when she, gulps, props her foot on the edge of the coffee table.
That tells me these gorgeous stilettos are brand new because she’d never do that otherwise.
She fiddles with a strap that was sent to torture me, as are the cherry-red toenails, and the—sweet Lord, is that an anklet?
I don’t even care that she’s bitching about blisters and broken toes.
I just wonder if she knows she’s about to walk outside looking like a pinup.
“No sneakers?” My voice is back to being a croak but I’m here for it.
“Mom sent me these. I’m under orders to wear them. You have to take a picture as proof.”
Used to the freaky requests from Mel, I shrug.
But nothing about this situation is shruggable.
Not only do I have a literal boner for my best friend, but she’s leaving me in January and she might have to move out in September if the sorority sees what I see.
This night sucks.
“Right.” With a final tug to one of the straps I want to bite off with my teeth, she declares, “Picture time. You can send it to her. She won’t believe it if it’s from my phone.”
Grunting, I pick up my cell then take a couple snaps. I even direct her to do the shit the puck bunnies around me do—drop their shoulders and tilt their head. Anything to get Mel to cut her some slack.
“I have a few good ones.” Lie. They’re ALL good.
Then, she further tortures me.
She rounds the couch corner, leans over me, and—oh, god—presses her boobs into my elbow as she stares at my screen.
This is not a drill.
Her tits are a thousand times better than the gazillion pillows she insists we have everywhere.
You mean to tell me I could have been using something better this whole time?!
I AM AN IDIOT.
“Swipe over, Zach,” she orders.
Staring blankly at my cell, I do as she commands.
“Hey, they’re pretty good. Maybe if the hockey gig doesn’t work out,” she teases, “you can go into photography.”
“Har, har.”
I can feel her smile. “Send that one. I look semi-decent.”
More lies. She looks amazing.
Denny, unaware of my treacherous thoughts, scrubs a hand over my hair, making my scalp burn with the sensation.
It’d be wrong to drag her over the arm of the couch.
To tug her onto my lap.
To wrestle and win.
To kiss—
“Hey, can you put these on for me?”
It’s a small ask. Really, it is.
But oh damn, what I wouldn’t give to put a different kind of pearl necklace on—
“Zach?! What’s with you?”
“Huh? Nothing.” Just having incredibly inappropriate reactions to normal stimuli FROM MY CHILDHOOD BEST FRIEND, thank you very much. “And sure. Yes. Of course. Yep. No problem.”
Her frown darkens as she shoves the pearls at me.
They look kinda old, but in a cool way. “These your grandma’s?”
Let’s make it about her 60-year-old abuela.
You can do this, Zach. You got this. Don’t even have to touch her. In fact, DO NOT TOUCH HER.
“Dad gave them to me this summer.” She tips her head to the side once I climb off the couch and stand behind her.
The soft whorls of hair there, the silken promise of her throat, the torment as she lifts her fancy updo ever higher, exposing a part of herself that I must have seen a thousand times but never like this…
Never, ever like this.
I bend down. Suddenly so aware of how tall I am. How short she is.
Then I smell her.
And I have to hold my breath.
She’s like a spring orchard—I don’t think I’ve ever even been in an orchard. Spring or otherwise. But I know, point blank, this is what one smells like.
I want to press my face into her neck and inhale her scent and—
“Zach? Sometime this year, please?”
“S-Sorry!”
Annoyed with the stutter, I’m just relieved she doesn’t pick up on it.
My fingers fumble as I string the necklace around her neck, and then the goddamn catch is this little twirly thing that I have to shove together. Insert part A into part B and then twist.
Thrust—
“Did you get hit in the head by a puck during practice?”
I blink at the question. “No.”
“Huh. Dexterity’s just a challenge, then. Come on,” she whines. “I have places to go, Zach. Hurry up.”
In my haste, my fingers brush over her nape.
The torment is so much worse now that I know what she feels like.
Holy fuck.
“Done.” I retreat to the sofa to hide away from her all-seeing eyes.
My cock pounds like she just licked it. Instead, my boner went T-1 explosion alert because I touched her neck?!
“Okay, I’m out of here. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” I rasp.
Her brow furrows. “If you didn’t get hit by a puck, are you coming down with a cold? You sound kinda hoarse.”
“Allergies.”
She tips up her chin and trudges out of the living room. That’s when I know she’s a lying liar who lies because she can walk in those heels. She’s not clomping around like Laura, one of my current squeezes, does. She’s gliding.
Denny is gliding in high heels.
Seriously, is this a GIF of The Twilight Zone meets The Truman Show?!
“How are you getting to the sorority house?”
“Rideshare.”
“Oh. Well, call me if you need me.”
“Thanks, Zach, and don’t be gross. If you leave that laundry here until the morning, I will stick a red towel in there to turn all your whites pink.”
“Uh-huh.”
Once the front door clicks closed, I face the wall. Study her quirky art—the Magic 8 Ball cherries, the heart with feet, and the, ‘Please, only do coke in the kitchen,’ slogan—then glance over the pot with a bunch of flowers in it and the three different candles she has burning at the same time.
My sinuses are used to the disaster.
So used to it that my erection goes nowhere.
The fact that Denny has made our apartment a home is suddenly even more of a turn-on. I know she did it for herself, but this means something. And my lizard brain doesn’t know what.
Desperate, I switch on the TV.
Nope, the boner’s still there.
“Why won’t you die?” I groan at my crotch.
I switch onto the PSN app that’s talking about the New York Stars’ upcoming preseason games. They’re playing against the Montreal Mounties on home ice first.
The chirping in the comments alone should hold my attention, seeing as my dad is the coach and the Stars’ captain is an old Mounties’ player, but nope.
“Fuck,” I snarl as my cock pounds a literal tune.
I unzip my pants and pull it free, relieved by the loss of pressure.
The pre-cum bubbling on top speaks of how dire my situation is.
But I use it as lube anyway.
Because this is an emergency.
Then, just as I tighten my grip around my length, something digs into my elbow. Scowling at the distraction, I burrow beneath the many throw pillows on our couch to encounter—
My lips part.
“No. That’d be fucked up.” I falter even as I toy with the aluminum tube in my hand.
Hand cream.
Denny’s favorite.
The jasmine-scented one.
Licking my lips, I flip open the tube and squirt some onto my palm.
That smell blossoms around me, dragging me deeper into sensory overload.
“Denny’s your best friend,” I grumble even as I’m pumping my hips, jacking off hard and fast now that her hand cream is lubricating things for me.
My fist isn’t as good as her mouth would be.
Or those tits of hers.
Holy shit.
Just imagining her pillowing my cock between those beauties and letting me titty fuck them has me rocking back into the couch and picturing that in the flesh. Of her lecturing me about how I fucked up on the ice while she got me off to make sure she had my full attention.
“Oh, god,” I moan, so goddamn close, so, so—
It’s terrible. I know it. But I grab my phone. Swipe onto the pics I took and I jack off faster.
“Denny.”
It’s her name on my lips when I find my release.
Her boobs in my focus as cum splatters over the screen—
“Zach, my…” Pecan strolls in, pauses, then hoots. “…old pal, jerking his ghhhheerkin!”
“FUCK OFF,” I hiss at him, shame befalling me as I struggle to tuck my dick away.
He yanks on the pillow I’m covering myself with and waggles his eyebrows. “Addison didn’t do it for you last night, huh?”
“Boundaries. Get some.”
“Naaah, where’d be the fun in that? Anyway, you shouldn’t be slapping the ham sandwich when Denny’s around.
She wouldn’t be as understanding as I am.
” He rubs his cheek. “I woke up with a cock Sharpied onto my face the last time she caught me. Not even her foundation covered it. I didn’t know she had any of that stuff until then—”
“The last time, Peeks? Jesus.”
“Hey! There’s nothing wrong with some self-exploration. Want anything from the kitchen?” he yells, already strolling out of the room.
“I’m good.”
I’m not.
I’m both better.
And worse.
Now that I’m alone, I can process what just happened.
I came.
To thoughts of Denny.
Her tits and her legs and—dammit to hell.
“It stinks of jasmine in here,” Pecan calls out. “Did D just leave?”
Eyes flaring in panic because Pecan cannot know that I used her hand cream as lube, I sit my ass on the tube, zip up, and call out, “She left for invitation night.”
“Oh, yeah. I forgot that was tonight. Okay, I’m making popcorn,” Pecan shouts like I give a fuck.
Popcorn when the end of the world is nigh?!
What just happened can’t happen again.
Even if that self-induced orgasm is better than anything I’ve experienced with the puck bunnies I’ve screwed recently…
This is Denny.
My Denny.
My best friend.
“Ooooh, we have one bag of the All Dressed left. Want some chips instead?”
Shoving my arm over my face, I close my eyes. “I am so fucked.”