Chapter Twenty-Two
Danika
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He’s acting so weird and I have no idea why. That kiss in the living room was insanely hot and would’ve been a great show for Nico but I didn’t see Nico anywhere in that room. It seemed like he only did that kiss for himself.
Which would be crazy.
Why would he want to kiss me?
“I’m just confused, I think,” I say, letting my arms drop to my sides. I slide onto the arm of Arden’s chair. “I thought we were pretending.”
Grabbing my hand, Arden pulls me down toward him. He places my palm over the seam of his pants where a rather considerable bulge feels ready to burst through.
“Does this feel pretend to you?”
I stifle my surprise and the noise comes out like a moan instead. My eyes bolt to his and we hold the contact for what seemed like an eternity.
“Say something, Danika.”
“I–”
But before I can muster up anything, Arden’s tongue slips along my mouth and his lips connect to mine as if they were sewn together. I grip his neck, pulling him even closer to me as I keep my other palm pressed firmly on his crotch.
This feels exactly like the kiss on the couch. The one we did just for us, not for anyone else. This feels like something we both desperately want. Like something we’ve been aching for.
This feels like something we should continue at home.
Pulling back, I hear Arden whimper softly at the loss of contact. His hands are gripping my hips. He thinks I’m going to bolt again. He has no idea how wrong he is.
“Ready to go?”
He looks up at me, clearly confused by the sudden shift of energy. I’m hoping my facial expression says everything I’m trying to convey. And I think it does, because Arden places a soft kiss on my nose before nodding.
We stand together, abandoning the warmth of the fire, hope aflame in both of our eyes.
Instead of going back through the house, we decide to leave through the driveway, passing by a couple making out and someone puking in the bushes.
Avoiding the couple, we step passed the puking girl and that’s when I notice the pink pigtails. “Gemma?”
She looks up from the ground, vomit dribbling out of her mouth.
“Oh my god. Are you okay?” Rushing over to her, I use a somewhat clean part of her oversized t-shirt to clean her face.
“Too much drinking,” she mutters before leaning down and falling asleep on my lap.
“Shit. Arden, can you–” He’s already grabbing her under the arms before I can get the sentence out. “We should probably take her home with us. I don’t know how far her dorm is and there’s no way I’m putting her in a cab.”
“Of course.” Arden lifts Gemma into a fireman’s carry, holding her like she weighs absolutely nothing. It’s a good thing we only live five minutes away or this would’ve been much harder.
Besides the sounds of Gemma’s snoring, the walk is uncomfortably silent. What do you say to the guy that you were about to bring home and bone but instead he’s carrying your friend who was just puking her guts out?
When we get to the building, I rush ahead of Arden to open the door to the apartment and then my bedroom.
“Just put her on my bed. I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Arden nods as he walks past me into the room. He places Gemma down as gently as he can and she immediately rolls over, her snoring picking up volume and pace.
“This is the first time I’ve been in your bedroom,” he says, barely loud enough for me to hear, but I do.
“Arden, I—”
“It’s okay, Dani,” he says, walking toward the door. He passes me again and heads toward his own room.
“Wait, can we talk about this?”
“Not tonight,” he says. He sounds so…sad. Why is he sad? Because he didn’t get some? That’s a bit shallow. “Goodnight, brat.”
He goes into his room and closes the door. I follow suit but for some reason I’m smiling. He called me brat.
“Good morning, puking beauty.”
The blanket mountain next to me groans impossibly loud. “What the hell happened last night. How did I get here?” She pushes the blanket off her face and looks at me. “Did we have sex?”
Rolling my eyes, I throw a pillow at her exposed face and she smiles before groaning again. “My head,” she cries, as if someone is standing over her with a chisel. “Seriously, how did I end up in your bed?”
“You were puking in the bushes outside the KA house. I found you, and Arden carried you home.”
“What a gentleman. Remind me to give him a basket of soap as a thank you.”
I laugh but she’s dead serious. “I’m sure he’ll love that.”
“Thanks for taking care of me, Dani. I’m sorry if I ruined your night.”
“I was going to have sex with Arden last night,” I say, looking up at the glow in the dark stars I stuck to the ceiling.
“Oh, then I’m extra sorry. I didn’t mean to cockblock sexy time with your boyfriend.”
“No,” I say, looking toward her. “Okay…I’m going to tell you something but you have to promise not to get mad at me about it.”
“Why would I get mad at you?”
I peek over at her. “Because I’m a lying liar who lies?”
Gemma waits patiently for me to finish my thought.
“Arden is not my boyfriend. Well, he is. But he’s my pretend boyfriend. And last night, I was going to have real sex with my pretend boyfriend.”
Gemma blinks a few times before responding. “I’m confused.”
“That’s understandable.” I look back toward the starry ceiling.
“Arden is my best friend’s older brother.
We met up at the beginning of this year because I needed an apartment and he needed a roommate.
Once he found out that Nico was giving me a hard time, he agreed to pretend to be my boyfriend so Nico would leave me alone. ”
“That’s nice of him.”
She doesn’t ask me questions. She doesn’t judge. She doesn’t even get mad at me for not telling her the truth up front. Instead, she sympathizes. She understands. She is a friend I do not deserve.
“It really is.” Finally looking her way, I’m met with sympathetic eyes. “In payment, I’ve been tutoring him in statistics.”
“Do you think that’s comparable payment?”
I actually think about it for the first time since we came up with this hairbrained scene. He’s had to go out of his way for me multiple times since we started this. He has had to break out of his comfort zone. He has had to be the one who pretended.
Because really, there’s no pretending on my part.
I’ve always had a crush on Margot’s older brother.
I mean, the man was my first kiss. You don’t get over that stuff.
For me, this was always going to be difficult because I knew I had real feelings for him.
But no matter what my feelings for Arden are, there’s no way we could ever truly be together in real life.
He’s too angry. Too ready to snap. Too…much like my father.
It would never work.
But the sexual chemistry? It’s off the charts. As I always knew it would be. But sex is easy. Starting a relationship with a man who could snap in the blink of an eye is something I told myself I would never, ever do.
“It works for us,” I say with a shrug.
Gemma nods a few times before taking a huge sniff of the air. “I smell coffee.” She slowly rolls to the side of the bed and stands on shaking limbs like bambi.
We leave my bedroom and the smell of morning greets us tenfold. Coffee, eggs, pancakes. The whole nine yards is set up on the dining room table, and Arden is working on his heaping full plate.
“Morning,” he greets us in between bites of scrambled eggs.
“Good morning, I hear I have you to thank for the transport service last night,” Gemma says, following me to the table where the food is displayed.
“It was nothing, really.”
“Well you have my gratitude nonetheless. And you’ll be getting soap for it.” Gemma grabs a plate and starts filling it with the fresh food. Arden looks over at me and mouths the word soap with a questioning look on his face.
My answering expression is one of resigned understanding. Arden chuckles into his fork.
We fill our plates and sit next to each other across from Arden. All of a sudden, I see the main reason why Arden and I would absolutely never be able to be a real couple.
“Oh no, I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Sorry?” Arden asks, his eyes full of confusion.
“You put ketchup on eggs? Absolutely not. Dealbreaker.”
Arden laughs, picking up a forkful of ketchupy eggs. He makes an exaggerated show of putting the food in his mouth and enjoying the hell out of it. I want to puke just looking at him but Gemma cackles next to me.
“You two are disgustingly adorable.”
She knows that this relationship is not real, but Arden doesn’t know that she knows. Maybe she’s putting on the show for him? I’m going to tell him that I told her but not right now. It seems more like a conversation we should have alone.
Arden glances at her and then at me. Reaching across the table, he grabs my fork-free hand and holds it.
“Nothing disgusting about it.” He winks at me, grinning before giving my hand a squeeze and pulling back across the table. The pancakes on my plate have never looked so interesting.
Gemma takes a sip of the coffee in the mug in front of her, giving us both sideways glances before she seemingly decides to just leave it alone. We eat in silence for a few more minutes until Gemma pulls her phone out of her pocket, surprisingly still alive even though it wasn’t charged all night.
“Shit, I’ve got a million notifications. I gotta run.” She takes one last forkful of pancake before chugging the mug of coffee and running toward the door.
“Thanks again, guys! Lifesavers, the both of you!” She calls to us as the door shuts behind her.
“She’s really an interesting one, isn’t she?”
“She is,” I agree.
We sit in silence for another few seconds before one of us gets the courage to speak.
Either of us.
Any time now.
Okay, I guess it’ll be me.
“And then there were two.”
Arden looks up at me and again his eyes just look…sad. Why does he look so damn sad all the time? He nods his head, finishes his last bite and takes his plate into the kitchen.
I follow him with my empty plate and a few of the others from the table. “We should talk about last night, right? We’re both mature adults.”
“We are,” Arden says, putting his plate in the sink. He turns and takes mine, putting it on top of his. “We should.”
We stare at each other for another few seconds without a word passed between us. Looking at his phone, Arden sighs.
“I’ve got a shift. We can talk later, right?”
I’m nodding before I even realize it. “Yes, of course. Later.”
Perfect. Just enough time for me to spiral out of control. I want to call Margot, but can I talk to my best friend about wanting to have sex with her brother? Is that crossing a line? Maybe I can call it something else. Think of a codeword or something.
Arden and I clean up the table in silence and with a promise to talk later, he leaves for work. I immediately pull my phone out, hitting Margot’s number like it’s a hot potato.
“Hey, what’s–”
“I think I want to bone your brother.” So much for a codeword.
“Danika, it is nine-fifteen in the morning.”
“Oh, sorry, were you asleep?”
I hear Margot’s exasperated sigh from the other side of the phone. I know that sleep isn’t why she’s sighing.
“Okay, Dani. You are my best friend so I will entertain this conversation but please, please tread lightly. What’s going on?”
“So, I haven’t told you the whole truth about my relationship with Arden.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been kind of…fake dating for a few weeks.”
“Oh.” Margot hums on the other side of the phone and I can tell she’s sipping her iced coffee. Probably her second of the morning already. “Why?”
She’s taking this awfully well.
“Well, I wanted Nico to leave me alone and Arden needed help with his statistics class so it just kind of made sense. And it was his idea!”
I’m blathering at this point but I’m just so confused to how she’s not having a bigger reaction about the thought of her best friend and her brother being together. Even just for pretend.
Margot remains silent, allowing me to continue. “And, well, things kind of…escalated last night. Without giving too many details, we almost…”
“Say no more,” Margot says, and I hold back my giggle. "You know, I've never understood why you guys don't just date in the first place."
"What are you talking about? I can't date your brother?" Putting the phone on speaker, I place it on the kitchen counter and start loading the dishes in the dishwasher.
"Why not?"
"Because! He's...he's your brother!"
"So?"
"So! He's your brother!" Closing the dishwasher, I collapse onto a dining room chair. The phone is still on speaker and I raise the volume to hear her better.
"That argument stopped working the minute I said 'so'. And now you officially have my blessing. Next excuse?"
I'm silent for a moment.
"Oh, so there is an actual reason. Okay, tell me."
I pause for a second. I’ve never really voiced this to anyone, these thoughts I have about Arden and my father. But, Margot deserves to hear it as much as I need to say it. "Do you remember, when he was in eighth grade, Arden got into a fight with Darren Parks during recess?"
"Vaguely."
"And then in sophomore year when Arden beat the shit out of Connor Hart?"
"What are you getting at—oh Dani, no. He's not a violent person, you know that. He's not your da—"
"You're so sure?"
It's Margot's turn to be silent. Just in time for keys to jiggle outside the door.
“Shit, I’ll call you later.”
“Wai—” I hang up the phone as Arden enters the apartment.
He looks at me sitting at the table. “I forgot my phone,” he says, walking past me toward his bedroom. He emerges seconds later and heads back toward the door.
Phew, I don’t think he heard anything.
"You think I'm too violent for you?"
Fuck. "Wait, that wasn't what it...you weren't supposed to..."
"Do you want to know why I got into that fight with Darren in middle school? I overheard him talking about you. Couldn't tell you exactly what now but it was enough to piss me off."
"Okay, listen–"
"And Conner? He made some shit comment about your body in gym class."
"What did that have to do with you?"
"What did it...you know what, Dani? Forget it. If you want to be obtuse, go right ahead."
"Obtuse?"
"I fought that ass at the party because he put his hands on you. That's three times you've seen me fight. Besides me, what is the common denominator?"
I'm silent for a second, trying to piece together what he's saying.
"I don't know if those are the only times you've fought." I say, my voice small. "I just know those are the ones I was there for."
"Exactly, Danika. The common denominator is you. Just think about that for a while." And then he leaves.