CHAPTER TWO
WALKER
Sonya’s smile is the first thing I see when I feel a set of eyes on me, and it’s instantly the best part of my day. She’s always the best part of my day. I’m not sure I understand this magnetic pull I feel whenever she’s near, but it’s hard not to appreciate it.
It’s why, after slowly descending into madness while working through the first three case studies for my psychology class, I needed a little bit of her magic. That, and peach pie, which is how I landed at Adam’s Diner. It was the first place that felt like home when I moved to Michigan from Georgia for school. Best known for their pie, it was like a little slice of home was cut out and dropped at my feet. The sweet smell of fruit filling and coffee is always a comfort whenever I’m feeling a little homesick.
“Hi, Cowboy,” Sonya says the moment she sinks into the booth across from me, reaching for the fork off my plate to steal a bite of pie like she always does.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” I ask, lifting the highlighter already in my hand to point at myself. “Not a cowboy.”
She grins. “Yeah, but you’re my cowboy.”
My chest immediately tightens at her words, like two strings pulling me towards her. Sonya and I are just friends. It’s what we’ve always been since we met a year and a half ago, but it doesn’t stop my heart from squeezing anytime she says things like that. I know deep down she doesn’t mean it in any other way than me being her friend. She all but fell into my lap, tripping up the lecture hall stairs after mistakenly stumbling into my business writing class in my second year. Her smile threw me so off that when she asked what my name was, I blurted out where I was from instead. Something about Georgia and the slight southern accent in my voice clicked in her brain, and I’ve been Cowboy ever since.
“You know, I could always get you your own slice,” I say when she goes in for a second bite. She hums around the fork in her mouth, completely unaware of the attention the noise draws from the group of guys sitting directly behind her. A scowl forms on my face when one takes an especially long time looking her over, but she doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. She’s oblivious to the fact she’s a beacon of light.
“Sunny.” I nudge her foot with mine, drawing her practically glazed-over eyes to me. I reach for the fork in her mouth and gently take it back, watching the way her lips fall apart. “You’re earning yourself an audience.”
Without missing a beat, she leans forward on her arms. “Have you ever thought about having sex with me?” she asks, completely ignoring the words out of my mouth.
Not that I can even think about that right now because my brain is currently trying to work out exactly what she just said. The fork clatters against the plate when it falls from my hand. “I’m sorry,” I sputter, reaching up to adjust the glasses sitting on the bridge of my nose. “What?”
“You heard me, Cowboy,” she says, reaching for another fork from the cutlery holder on the edge of the table near the window. “Have you?”
My eyes dart around the room, settling on the countertop at the center of the diner and the torn vinyl on the bar stools to avoid looking at Sonya as I let her question tumble around my brain. I don’t want to have to answer it. I’d give anything to backtrack this conversation and keep her from ever asking it because it means looking at the side of our friendship I’ve kept tucked away since she told me she wasn’t interested in a boyfriend. That she was having fun being single and wanted to keep it that way.
Of course, my answer is yes.
Despite my best efforts, it’s hard not to. Especially when she’s sitting there, messy curls and soft brown eyes, smiling at me like I put the stars in the sky.
“Where is this coming from?” I ask, hoping answering with a question will buy me enough time to come up with something that doesn’t involve putting my foot in my mouth.
“Just something Dylan said.” My eyes move back to her, taking in the way she doesn’t even bat an eyelash, but before I can ask what exactly he said, she’s telling me. “He said you’re basically my boyfriend without the benefit of sex.”
My lips part in surprise before pressing back together, trying to wrap my head around what she said. Is that how her friends view our friendship? Is that how she views it? When she said she wasn’t interested in a boyfriend, I respected it. It didn’t matter that I wanted to ask her out when we first met because she had put up a clear wall. A boundary. I was fine having her in my life in any capacity she was willing, but maybe this is her taking the wall down.
“You never answered my question.”
Without thinking, I ask, “Why do you need to know?”
Her smile widens, dimples dipping into her cheeks as color tints them. Her honey eyes sparkle at me. “So, that would be a yes.”
I shake my head. “I’m neither confirming nor denying that.”
She giggles. Fucking giggles at me.
“Definitely a yes then,” she says, bringing her fork to her mouth. “It’s okay, you know, that you have. I’ve thought about it with you.”
Shock punches me directly through the chest as she wraps her lips around the fork and hums softly at the sweet peach filling. I’m working through what I’m supposed to say when she takes another swing.
“I think we should,” she says, setting her fork down before reaching up to tuck a dark curl behind her ear. “Have sex.”
Holding her gaze, I let out a laugh and dig my fork into what’s left of my pie. “Sure, Sunny. Let’s have sex,” I joke back quietly and take a bite. She waits until I’m digging in for another bite to lean forward again, drawing my attention to the neckline of her white sweater. The color is even brighter against her sun-kissed skin.
“I think you think I’m joking,” she says, pulling my plate towards her so my focus stays on her. “And I’m not. I miss sex, Walker. Like…really fucking miss it, and I don’t want a boyfriend right now.”
“So, I’m the consolation prize?”
“No, Cowboy, you’re the jackpot,” she says, sitting up a little straighter. “I know I’m bringing this up out of the blue, but I just figured…we’ve both thought about it, we’re both single, and we already spend so much time together. It could be fun.”
“What exactly are you proposing?”
“Casual sex. You and me.”
If my brain wasn’t fried before, it definitely is now. “Friends with benefits?”
She shrugs. “Or fuck buddies. Whatever you prefer. What do you think?”
That this is insane. That this isn’t worth the risk of potentially losing you. That I’m not sure I can ever go back to just being your friend.
“Walker?” she asks, reaching across the table to take my hand. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“No?” Her face falls, and with it, so do her shoulders as she leans back into her seat, taking her hand with her. “What do you mean no?”
The sad look on her face almost makes me want to eat my words.
“I’m not having sex with you, Sunny.”
“Can I ask why not?”
“Because you’re my friend,” I tell her the truth, despite the burning at the back of my throat because the words feel like acid on my tongue. “And I’d like to keep you around.”
“We’d still be friends.”
“Not if we sleep together.”
She stares at me for a hard second, and I watch any hope she may have had that I would change my mind deflate from her body. With it, anxiety creeps in and presses down on my lungs. “Okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Walker.” Her laugh wraps around me, filling me with relief as the tension seeps out of the air between us. “It’s not like I can force you to sleep with me. You don’t want to, and that is okay,” she says, smiling brightly.
“We’re okay then?” I ask, waiting for the other shoe to drop like she might have a delayed reaction to my rejection.
She nods her head, sliding to the edge of the teal booth she’s sitting in. “Nothing you say to me would ever make us not okay, Cowboy. Especially not a boundary. I kind of like you,” she says, stepping down to the black and white tiled floor. “You’re stuck with me. Sex or not.”
“Where are you going then?”
“Showing you what you’re missing out on,” she teases, smoothing her hands down the length of her body. She directs my attention from her collarbones, over the swell of her breasts, and to the small of her waist before finally landing on her perfect handfuls of an ass. When she sees the way my eyes follow her hands, her face lights up. Like my checking her out is a small victory. “But I do have to get home. I forgot I have an early lecture tomorrow, but we’re good.”
“Promise?” I ask, holding my pinky up.
She smiles, wrapping her finger around mine before pressing her lips to my cheek. Her breath a whisper across my skin. “Promise.”
The lights are on in the living room when I unlock the door to my apartment and step inside, spotting my roommate sitting crisscrossed, computer in lap on our green fabric sofa. Setting my bag on the kitchen table, I move around the sectional and take the side Flynn and her cat, Fish, aren’t occupying. The second I do, the ball of cream and brown-striped fur uncurls from her spot along Flynn’s thigh and moves toward me.
“Hey, girlie,” I say with a smile, scooping her up to lie on my chest while kicking my feet up on the square coffee table in front of me. “Did you miss me?”
“It’s really unfair she likes you better than me,” Flynn groans, moving her headphones down to rest around her neck. “When did you get in?” she asks, unclipping her shoulder-length auburn hair from its updo before running her fingers through it.
“Just a minute ago,” I say, running my hand along Fish’s back.
“How was your night?” she asks, shutting her laptop to rest it on the couch cushion next to her before reaching for the brown-knitted blanket and snuggling in deeper to the mustard and floral throw pillows propped up behind her. “Did you get the rest of those case studies done? The last one was brutal.”
I nod my head, chewing my bottom lip. I can’t even begin to remember what I read, not after that conversation with Sonya. Anything that wasn’t her hands sliding down her body, showing me exactly what I was missing out on, flew out the window the second she fled. Now, it is all I can think about, and after a year and a half of living together and nearly two and a half of being friends, Flynn can read my face like the back of a book.
“What’s that face for?” Flynn asks. “You don’t usually go all quiet on me after that many readings. Where are the talking points? My ears are ready and waiting.”
“Sonya asked me to have sex with her.”
The teasing smile resting on her face falls, her eyes darting around my face, waiting for the punchline to follow, but there isn’t one. Sonya was being serious, and like a complete dumbass, I said no. A decision I’m beginning to overthink.
“I’m sorry.” She lets out a laugh of disbelief, her blue eyes bright with delight. “She did what?”
“Yeah, just out of the blue,” I share, scratching behind Fish’s ears to keep myself from looking at Flynn and reading into whatever her face might be saying. “Okay, maybe not completely out of the blue. She suggested it after asking if I ever thought about having sex with her and then said we should start having casual sex.”
“Fuck, I had no idea Sonya was so bold,” she says, like it’s the first time Sonya has completely flipped my world upside down. Most of the time, it’s one of my favorite things about her. She doesn’t have the filter everyone else does. She says whatever is on her mind.
Today, it threw me into the deep end without a life preserver to find my way back.
“Well…” she trails off, scooting forward on the couch. “What did you say?”
“No, obviously,” I tell her, suddenly finding the four botanical prints hanging behind our couch very interesting. Flynn draws my attention back by clearing her throat, her thick brow arched in at me. “It was the only thing I could tell her.”
I expect her to immediately agree with me and tell me I made the right choice, but she doesn’t. “I mean…I don’t think it’s the only thing you could have told her,” she argues. “You could have said yes.”
An unexpected weight comes crashing down on my chest at the serious look on her face. “You’re seriously suggesting I should have said yes?”
She shrugs. “You should do what you want. I just think it could do you some good, and it’s Sonya! If you were going to do it with anyone, it’d be her. You’re basically already dating.”
Why does everyone keep saying that?
“We’re friends.”
She hums. “Friends, sure.”
“I’m serious, Flynn.”
“Oh, I know you are.” She gets up, grabbing her laptop off the cushion. “You know, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to let go of what you think you need to do and start doing what you want to do. You’ve liked her since you met, Walker.”
“I’m not doing it.”
“And I totally and one thousand percent believe you,” she says, moving around the couch towards the hall leading to our bedrooms and bathroom. The motion causes Fish to stand on my chest before jumping down to follow her, because despite what Flynn says about Fish liking me better, Flynn is still very much her person. “Night.”
When I hear the click of her bedroom door, I pull my glasses off and set them on the coffee table. With my elbows on my knees and my face in the palm of my hands, I let out a frustrated groan as I run my hands down the length of my face and around the back of my neck, squeezing the tension nestled in the muscles there.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?