45. Max
FORTY-FIVE
MAX
I’d felt shit for not going to the farm with Rosy last week. Not just because I’d let her down, but because I missed being around her.
Making it clear I only wanted to be friends should’ve made it easier, not harder.
So today I’m back to help, and it’s going to be okay. No awkward moments. Everything will be great.
Well, it might have felt a bit awkward when she opened the door this morning, and I’d been unable to stop myself from telling her how cute she’d looked. Which she had, cosied up in her fleece, eyes all pretty and cheeks pink.
Then, when we got into her car, an audiobook automatically started playing…
and it was smutty. She squeaked loudly and shut it off before I could hear enough.
But the male narrator was “licking a trail up her…”, and it was up to my imagination to fill in the blanks.
And it did. But it wasn’t a random female character I imagined it with, but my friend sitting next to me.
“So, do you—”
“Nope! I’m not talking about it with you,” Rosy cuts me off, still avoiding looking directly at me.
I tried to probe more in the car, but she put the music on loud enough that neither of us could hear each other without yelling.
Now, other than giving me brief instructions on what to do, we’ve barely talked for the few hours we’ve been at the farm and I’ve been able to feel the bristling embarrassment radiating from her the entire time.
It’s kind of adorable, really. She’s dating my three best friends but clams up when I find out about her smutty book secret. Not sure her avoidance is helping me drop it, though. My interest has only increased. Because just what is she actually listening to?
But I drop it.
Well, for another hour, maybe.
As we sit to eat one of Bry’s homemade lunches—a fucking amazing sweet chilli chicken wrap for me and tacos for Rosy—I let out some of the building curiosity.
“Knee?”
She sighs, rolling her eyes as I try another guess at the body part he was licking.
“Neck? Underboob?”
“Can’t you just give up?” She laughs, her shoulder nudging me this time.
She finds it easier being around me when I can make her laugh. I’ve felt a little off my game recently, with more jokes landing wrong than right, but to feel her laugh for me… It makes me desperate to have her smile all her smiles for me.
“Ear? Good erogenous zone.” I wink.
“No. Stop.” She giggles, and her hand grazes mine.
The touch sends goosebumps up my arm, and I have to fight back the groan that wants to break free.
Since Rosy came into our lives, I’ve not been with another woman.
Even if nothing could happen since I friend-zoned myself.
But I can’t imagine having anyone else’s touch on me, and it’s making me feel starved.
Fucking cruel that I’ve been rewired to only tolerate her touch.
How am I supposed to figure that out when she’s not an option for me?
I stiffen under her touch, and she notices. Her body tenses up too. I hate that I’m making her feel like this.
“Left buttcheek?” I force out, feeling my voice crack a little, but it works as we both relax again.
Her head shakes, and a sweet smile warms her face.
“Am I even close?”
Her lips purse for a second, then her bottom lip rolls under her teeth. She nibbles, fucking nibbles it. I could combust right now in front of her, and she probably wouldn’t even realise why.
“She’s on her hands and knees. He…he comes up behind her. Then he, um…he licks up her thigh,” she whispers, eyes darting to look anywhere but at me. “I’ve already read the scene, but I got the audiobook too.”
“What happens next?” I lean in, invested. Whether it’s about the story or hearing Rosy talking about it…fuck, it might be both.
A loud meow cuts through my fogged thoughts. We both clear our throats at the same time, realising we’d been straddling the metaphorical boundary, teetering. Crossing it would change things completely. It would risk too much.
Or it could be the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
“Hey, Daisy girl.” Rosy strokes the tabby cat's back.
If forced under torture, I might admit out loud that there’s a part of me that’s frustrated at the interruption.
But it would take something drastic, like limb removal or starvation.
There’s no way I should be feeling anything, but my body’s gravitating towards her, desperate to get closer.
However, my heart is sprinting in the opposite direction, unable to cope with the idea of being torn to shreds again.
Because when people promise forever, they don’t really mean it.
They’re promising “yes to right now” until they find someone better.
“We just need to move the boundary to another section for them,” Rosy instructs, pointing to the temporary fencing within the horse’s field.
“They’re rotated to different areas throughout the year, so the grass has a chance to grow.
It would be easier if we had another field, but as there’s only three ponies in here, we’re able to section it and still let them have enough space. ”
I nod, watching as the breeze brushes the loose strands coming from her braid across her face. Involuntarily, my hand rises to push it back, but she does it before I can slip up.
“Okay, sounds good. Lead the way, boss.”
Picking up a roll of fencing tape, she hops the fence, the move obviously familiar and practised. It also gives me a perfect view of her arse as she lands. It both jiggles and flexes in her jeans.
She strides away, leaving me a little hot in my sweatshirt.
She turns back to me, hands on her hips. “You coming?”
I flash a smile, then take a running leap, vaulting over the fence. As I jog over, she cups her mouth as she snorts. I love that I caused that sound.
“So enthusiastic. Do you not get tired?” She spins, and we walk side-by-side over to the first area of fencing to work on.
“Nope, I like moving,” I tell her, pulling up the plastic post and pushing it into the ground where she points.
“But…is it all you? I’m not trying to indicate you’re not genuine,” she rushes, “I mean, is the high energy part always you? Or do you use it as a mask when you’re around others? Because you don’t need to do it around me.”
I stop to think, and the fence tape linking us goes taut, forcing her to stumble backwards.
“Sorry.” I walk to catch up. “Your question threw me. No one’s asked me that before.”
“I didn’t mean to sound rude, or to tell you how to be. I was just…”
“Honeybee, don’t. You didn’t piss me off or anything.
I just meant that I’ve not thought about it before.
I think…humour’s easy. If people are laughing, then they aren’t trying to leave.
People love to laugh and be happy, so then they’ll stay.
And I need people to stay… Fuck, that all sounds stupid. ” I laugh, but it feels humourless.
It’s what I need, though. I'm always surrounded by people; rarely do I let myself be alone. I’m startled by the realisation that I’m still being smothered by loneliness, because when I’m with Rosy, that feeling finally ebbs, and I feel lighter than I have in years.
Perhaps even before Becka left me.
“I don’t think it’s stupid. It’s how you feel and what you need to feel safe.” She stops winding the tape around the post I’d pushed into the ground.
Our eyes meet, and I swallow back the painful wave of emotion crawling up my throat. A part of me wants to confess and let Rosy really see me. “I don’t know who I am sometimes. I don’t always feel like a person, like I’m here but…not. People help, at least for a while.”
She inhales deeply, holding it before she lets the breath out slowly.
Her shoulder brushes against mine as we walk to the next post. “I don’t think we’re supposed to know who we are.
As much as I hate that we don’t stay the same, that we’re ever changing, I think that’s what life’s about. Learning, growing, evolving.”
Unravelling a bit of tape again, she shrugs.
“I can’t truly understand how you feel, but there was a time when I felt adrift.
As if I were just existing, not really living.
Then you all came into my life, and I feel anchored.
Present. For the first time in years.” She inhales another lungful of air; my chest squeezes over her words and her obvious pain.
“I’m unsure what you need to feel anchored, but I’m here. If you ever need it,” she promises.
I don’t know who reaches out first, but our pinkie fingers curl around each other.
“Thank you.” The rest of my words are lost as my mind spins with her offer. Is that really something we can be to one another as just friends?
Fuck, I don’t know.
Would it be so bad to try to be something more?
Distancing myself from her is too hard, and being around her still isn’t enough. I want every weekend to be like this: me helping her, making her smile, and listening to her share all her weird, adorable thoughts with me.
“Max? You need to push the post in,” she prompts.
I draw back from the mental nosedive I was in, and notice she’s crouched slightly, ready to wind the tape into position.
I glance at her face, and my breath stutters.
With her chin tilted up, I can imagine cupping my hand beneath it, and as her eyes lift to mine, I can imagine them fluttering closed as I press my mouth to hers.
She’d gasp a little in surprise, the inhale sucking my breath into hers before she’d whimper sweetly.
Her mouth would be warm, wet as my tongue flicks out to—
“Max?” Rosy pokes me in the side.
“Ouch, you have some next-level strength in your tiny finger. Do you even need my measly assistance?” I shove the post into the ground, still a little unnerved over where my thoughts were going.
We’re friends.
Friends.
Friends.
“Not if it takes you so long to get the job done, I don’t,” she fires back, the sass I love coming out as she strides ahead of me. “Come on. We need to get this finished so we can start feeding everyone their dinner.”
“Yes, mistress!” I holler, following and doing my best not to get distracted by the view.