23. Kate
A dream. It feels like I woke up, left one dream, and entered into another one. My dainty arms are tangled around a much thicker and burly one, dark skin wrapping around a trunk of muscle with a faint pink line cutting across the bicep. A farmer’s tan. My ankle is crossed over his, like they found each other in the night.
Drool is slithered down my cheek and neck, caking pieces of my hair to the side of my face in the process. Malcolm stretches, his body lengthening against mine, and lets out a soft hum as he continues sleeping. His mouth twitches up in a smile. It’s comforting to see him having a peaceful sleep after the other night.
I let myself soak in the sight of him in the morning, in the bed, lying next to me, for a moment before slowly releasing his arm and sliding out of bed. Everything about the scene is comforting. Even if Malcolm sleeps like a Victorian child on his deathbed, limbs straight and head pointed up to the ceiling, it’s peaceful in the most adorable way. The sight sends a warm fuzzy deep down my center. Goosebumps cover his legs from where the air conditioner blasted him all night. I cover him with my half of the comforter and slide into the bathroom.
I spend a dramatic amount of time in the shower, replaying the events of last night. Seeing Eric. Seeing Malcolm in disguise. The attempted kiss goodnight from my ex. Falling asleep next to Malcolm. I feel dizzy from the emotional roller coaster I’ve put myself through. Maybe Emma was right: I am torturing myself.
A knock sounds on the bathroom door. “You alright in there?” Malcolm’s voice, rough and gravelly from the morning, sends a tickle down my spine.
“I’m done now!” I rush around, throwing on my clothes for the day, and swing the door open. He’s leaning against the doorframe, wrapped in a towel with droplets of water gliding down his arms and ribs. They taunt me as they travel down farther and farther. I snap my eyes up to his, a pool of blue so hypnotizing it’s hard to think straight.
“I showered down the hall. You were taking so long.” A borderline psychotic laugh bubbles out of me when he gives me a wink. My limbs feel like rubber when he slides past me into the bathroom, the heat from my shower not holding a candle to the scalding tension I feel from his closeness. “May I?” He touches my elbow and tries to direct me out of the way, but all I can do is wobble my way to the door frame for balance, letting incoherent sounds come out of my mouth as a response. He watches me, concern and amusement lining his face, as he closes the door.
I throw myself onto the bed and let out a muffled moan. What is happening to me? One night touching the man’s arm and I’m falling apart.
Another knock on the door disorients me when I realize it’s not from Malcolm. I roll off the bed and check the peephole of our hotel room.
Eric stands on the other side. I press my head against the door and wait, hoping he will assume I’m not here and leave.
He doesn’t.
Reluctantly, I open the door to the uncomfortable man holding two cups of coffee, one with an I’m sorry scribbled on the side. Eyeing the cup, I ask, “What’s up?”
He holds out the apology cup, a small frown pulling at his lips.
“It’s alright.” I take the cup.
“It’s not.” He rubs the back of his neck and stares at our feet. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I didn’t mean to make things awkward.” Well, you did, buddy.
“It’s fine.” It’s not. But I don’t need to prove my point when he’s figured out what he did was wrong and inappropriate on so many levels. “Is there anything else?” I ask curtly.
“I just want to make sure we’re alright.” He finally looks up at me, eyes filled with regret.
“We’re fine. It’s in the past.” I wave the situation off, mentally and physically. What else can I do? Yeah, the guy tried kissing me, twice, but I can’t change it. He made a poor decision. There’s no need to let it ruin the final days of camp with weird, awkward tension. I just have to make it through tomorrow, and I won’t see Eric Sanders again for a long time. A part of me feels at peace with that, and I don’t know if it’s the universe giving me the okay, or if it’s just the realization that I’ve outgrown someone, and I don’t need to feel wanted by them anymore.
“Thanks, Kate.” His face is sincere as he turns and walks away.
I let out a sigh of relief when I click the door shut.
“He kissed you?”
I whip around toward Malcolm’s clipped tone. He’s standing at the edge of the bed with his fists clenched at his sides and back ramrod straight—the military stance he slips into when he’s either angry or anxious. Fury blazes in his eyes.
“He tried to kiss me,” I correct.
He doesn’t move. He’s a statue. I watch as his eyebrows pinch and the lines on his forehead deepen with his thoughts.
“Did you want—”
“Ugh, no!” I throw my arms out to the sides. “Absolutely not.” Feeling defensive, I say, “I turned it down.” Every part of me wants to reassure Malcolm that nothing happened with Eric. Malcolm ponders this, fists unclenching ever so slightly.
Malcolm relaxes, his eyes softening as I step closer to him. “Good.” His words are a hot whisper on my chin as I look up at him.
“Why?” I raise a dramatic eyebrow, my heart pounding in my ears when I get the guts to ask, “You jealous?”
That distracting Adam’s apple bobs. The muscles of his neck tighten, and the vein that drags along the side pulses rapidly. His mouth parts, and mint tingles my lips. My mouth parts in response—of its own accord, I might add. We’re so close, and something about it feels different, like I want to get closer. I want him to close the gap. Some primal part of me wants Malcolm to press his lips to mine so I can taste his mint toothpaste and feel the prickle of his beard around my lips. The rational part of me is missing. Every logical cell in my brain that would tell me why I can’t kiss my best friend seems to be on a hiatus at the moment.
“Yes,” he says.
“Yes?” Our conversation is now lost in my mind as I bite my bottom lip to keep myself from tugging his face against mine.
“Yes, I was jealous.” He leans in closer, his voice a seductive whisper.
“Oh?” My breath quivers. It’s all I can manage when he steps closer, pressing his chest into mine, his fingers grazing the tips of mine, sending a heat wave washing over me. It pulses through my chest, my stomach, every inch of me until all I see is red. My body is no longer just experiencing mild episodes about this man. It’s downright malfunctioning.
And I can only think of one fix. Which is ridiculous, Katherine! He is your friend. He is not one of your dating options. This is a man who prefers life alone, with chickens and steak dinners. A man with a life so different from mine it’s baffling how we get along. I cannot keep letting my mind wander down this what if road.
“I am jealous.” It’s a husky murmur as he moves in closer, his mouth just an inch from mine. A borderline obscene noise leaves me as he moves his hand up my arm, goosebumps following in its wake. “Insanely jealous.” His eyes soften as conflicting emotions swirl in them like a whirlpool until they settle on something intense and unmistakable.
Need.
His gentle caress moves up my arm, past my shoulder, and settles at my neck. My eyes flutter closed when he touches a spot behind my ear, the pad of his thumb stroking my cheek for a moment before he moves it across my bottom lip. My entire body shivers as he tugs at it, need stirring within me now.
A knock at the door jolts Malcolm out of our trance first. Resting his forehead against mine, he sighs, “We gotta go.” The chatter of our teenagers bellows out in the hall, and I find myself wishing they would get locked in a stalled elevator.
A lingering kiss on the forehead is all I get before Malcolm releases my arm and heads for the door. I stay planted, feeling as if I’ve had an out-of-body experience, before shaking out every limb individually.
Arm. Arm. Leg. Leg.
Just like Ellie taught me.
I collect my things, and my thoughts, and follow Malcolm.
The chivalrous man holds the door open for me as the rest of the team races to the elevator. He runs a hand across my lower back, my wrist, my elbow—touching any part of me he can get away with as I pass him. “After you, Ms. Stanley.”
“You almost kissed?” Ellie just about busts my ear drum as she squeals on the other line. A slur of shrieks, yips, and the sound of a cat getting stepped on blare through my phone as I wait in the hotel lobby.
“I think we did…I don’t know,” I groan and slouch to an almost parallel position to the floor in my chair, receiving a few glares from the group of high-profile elderly ladies sitting at the bar. My lack of lady-like etiquette is probably offensive to their judgy eyes.
“What do you mean?” Ellie’s question is followed by some faraway whispers. Benny. Probably listening in, per usual.
“It all happened so fast! One minute we were talking about Eric, and the next we were practically Velcroed together!” I exclaim, my manic voice drawing more eye rolls. “El, I could smell his breath.”
“Okay, ew.”
I ignore her. “It was, like, pre-kiss vibes out the wazoo!” I place my fingers on my throat, feeling my pulse ratchet up at the memory of Malcolm’s lips.
“Would you have kissed him? Ya know…” Ellie pauses. “…if he initiated.” She sounds giddy, her words coming out in a high-pitch whistle.
“I don’t know.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, the weight of everything filling my head with a buzzy pressure.
“Don’t lie to us,” Benny pipes in.
“Excuse me, I don’t remember dialing your number.” The pressure moves to my temples. I let out a gruff moan and rub one side.
“It’s my job to check on my employees.” His voice is smug on the other line.
“Don’t you have other faculty to harass?”
“Nah, no one has anything interesting going on.” A gush of air rushes out of him followed by the squeak of leather. “So, really, what are you going to do?”
“I. Don’t. Know. Bayani.” He gasps in fake offense as I call him by his Filipino name. “Can you give the phone back to my friend now?”
“Am I not your friend?”
“No.” The biggest lie I could tell anyone. Benny is the closest person I have in my life, edging out Malcolm and Ellie most days. After his parents died and he started living with Lola, we spent almost every weekend together until I was eleven, when I officially moved in with them. Even in the absence of my parents, having Lola and Benny made it bearable. Family dinners on Saturday nights were sitting on the floor around a coffee table, whooping Benny at Bananagrams, and Sundays were fighting over what movie to watch until Lola broke it up by making us watch General Hospital reruns. It was a simple upbringing, but I loved every moment of it. I felt loved and wanted every single day. Some days, it was almost enough to forget about the parents uninterested in raising their only child.
“Liar,” Ellie says in the background. They share whispers and giggles, their bliss palpable through the line.
For the past few months, the reality that my family is growing apart has been forcing itself into my thoughts like a tiny weed growing through a crack in the middle of a concrete slab—tiny and fickle but persistent as heck, and not even an entire can of RoundUp can get rid of it. Their laughing blends with the noises in the lobby as I wait, picturing their coziness on the couch that sits in the corner of Ellie’s office. Happy—that’s what I feel for them. Truly. But it doesn’t hide the desire that I want that too. I want the giggles that make others cringe. I want the soft whispers like no one else is around.
I couldn’t be happier that Benny’s new family is Ellie. And Lola has her secret handyman boyfriend. Everyone has their person, that someone who makes them feel wanted. I just want that. And I think the closeness with Malcolm lately has started to cloud my overall goal to get that.
I can’t deny the chemistry with Malcolm, the ease of it. But being with Malcolm isn’t an option. He’s my best friend. He has his life, and I have mine. We’ve forced it to mesh overtime, tolerating each other’s quirks, like his incessant need to quote the entire Lord of the Rings films, or his borderline neurotic fascination with naming each of his chickens. The man has almost thirty chickens now, with no intention of stopping, and he remembers them by name. He gave each of them personalized saddles to tell them apart, because Sparkles and Cowgirl are both black and speckled, but, “they’re their own chicken and need their own identity.” Malcolm’s deep voice replays in my head at the memory.
“I think I’m just going to let the rest of this week play out, and then, when we get home, maybe discuss expectations. I have no idea what’s going on in his head, but if I want to find someone, I can’t let myself get distracted with my best friend.”
“Second best friend,” Ellie corrects.
“My guy best friend,” I continue, annoyed at the interruption. “As I was saying…I can’t get distracted, even if it’s with a hot man that has been giving me intense vibes ever since the Christmas party. I can’t focus on that. I have to focus on the endgame.”
“Which is what exactly?” Ellie poses the question, some underlying reason hiding in her tone.
“To find someone,” I say, dragging the words out in a growl, irritation evident as I readjust in the lobby chair. I check my watch. “Where the heck is your sister, by the way?”
As if she was a genie and that question was the act of rubbing her lamp, Emma glides through the front door of the hotel lobby. Steven, her husband, follows behind, carrying three different suitcases. I try not to eye the load, seeing as they’re only here for two nights, but he catches me and gives me a swift nod. Don’t mention the bags is written all over his face.
“Hello, Ms. Stanley!” Emma rushes over to me, looking like she just ran a marathon—face red, sweat lining her forehead, heavy gasps occurring with each stride she takes across the lobby. Somehow, in a matter of days, her belly looks twice the size that it was when I last saw her. I pin my gaze on her face, resisting the urge to touch the sweet bump she’s failing at hiding with the oversized tunic she’s sporting. She snags the phone from my hand. “We’ve got it from here,” she informs Ellie then proceeds to disconnect the line.
Handing my phone to Steven, she walks over to the front desk to check in. Steven hands me my phone back, equally confused as to why he has it. “How’s the week been?” He forces a smile, the kind that is trying too hard to communicate that he knows absolutely nothing about what’s going on in my personal life, and he hasn’t listened to Ellie and Emma discuss it at length for the entirety of their travel.
I glare at him. “Fine,” I say through my teeth. He pats me on the shoulder before joining Emma at the desk. His dark skin puts my sun-kissed glow to shame and makes Emma’s ivory skin look like she hasn’t seen the sun in years. He wraps his hand around her waist and rubs her belly as they wait for their room keys. Another ping of jealousy stings my chest at the sight of someone else’s happiness. “It’s fine,” I whisper to myself.
Emma thanks the concierge, leaving the giant bags for Steven, which he gathers without hesitation. “Shall we?” She directs me to the elevators, I follow, taking one of the bags off Steven’s hands. He gives a grateful nod as exhaustion lines his face and posture. Ever since they found out they were pregnant, Steven has been working extra shifts to build a bigger nest egg so he can work less when the baby gets here, all so Emma can start as Glendale’s principal next year. It’s sweet, but the weight of stress is clinging to Steven like chains, dulling his usually perky demeanor.
We climb into the open elevator, the bags taking up half the empty space. “Steven, thanks for doing this. Dr. Reynolds had a last-minute schedule change and had to leave camp early. Without you, we wouldn’t be able to have the scrimmage today.” Steven smiles at me, pressing the floor for our rooms. Dr. Reynolds, the orthopedic doctor that takes a week off every year to be the onsite doctor for our athletes, free of charge, left yesterday afternoon on short notice. For liability purposes, we can’t have strenuous workouts or scrimmages without some type of medical professional on staff. One phone call to Emma, and Steven was loading their car. Of course, it probably wasn’t fully up to Steven to be here. I’m sure he’d rather have stayed home and slept than left the airport at 5 a.m. to get here and stand on the side of a football field in 90-degree weather all day.
As we drop off our bags, I sense a shift in the air. Silence. Weird, awkward silence. We meander back to the elevator—in silence. Suspicion creeps in as I begin to glance between the two of them leaning against the back wall of the elevator, me on the side wall. We hit the second floor when a small group of senior citizens piles on, half naked with their revealing swimsuits on. Emma’s gaze snaps to the ceiling when the only gentleman in the group, wearing a bright-orange Speedo leaving nothing to the imagination, gives her a wink and saddles up directly in front of her. Steven shoves his fist up to his mouth and bites his finger as he restrains his laugh. The older man shimmies his hips left and right, offbeat to the elevator music, while the older women in the group spur him on with whistles and catcalls.
“You’ve still got it, Herb,” one of the ladies says as she claps.
Herb glances over his shoulder at Emma, shimmying his shoulders at her, before shuffling off the elevator. Silently, we exit behind the group, and differing expressions mar our faces from the experience. Steven belts out a laugh, and his bright teeth shine against his dewy dark skin. Emma erratically brushes off the front of herself—shirt, arms, belly—essentially brushing off the old-man aura that must have clung to her. Steven’s laughter continues when she lets out a repulsed sigh before leading us out of the hotel. She leads like she’s the one who has been here all week.
We find our way to the field where preparation for the scrimmage has begun. “So…” I drag out, breaking the endless silence, “what’s up?” My face is apprehensive as I glare at them from the backseat when we find a parking spot.
Emma unclicks her seatbelt from the passenger seat, twisting to face me. Ungracefully, the belly is an obstacle. “Why are you kissing Malcolm but you won’t date him?”
“We didn’t kiss!” I throw myself face down into the backseat, my damp skin sticking to the leather. “We. Almost. Kissed.” The seat muffles my words as I glance out of the corner of my eye. Emma looks at me incredulously. Unconvinced.
“Semantics.” She waves me off, climbing out of the car. Steven follows suit, opening the back door for me. Emma waits for me as I peel myself off the sticky material and stumble out of the car. “The point is”—she points at me for emphasis—“why are you getting so cozy with him if you’re not even interested in dating him?”
“I’m not—”
“Yes, you are,” she interrupts. “Malcolm is a good man, and he deserves honesty. If you don’t like him more than a friend, then this flirty nonsense”—she waves a circle around me, indicating it is me that is causing the flirty nonsense—“needs to stop.”
“But he—”
“I don’t care who started it,” she interrupts again. Very much like her sister, she can just about read my mind. “It’s about who stops it.”
We make our way toward the gym that sits catty-corner to the field, the sun oppressive at our backs. “If you care about him or yourself, you will stop what you’re doing. Or one of you is going to get hurt. Or worse…” Emma trails off as she enters the gym without us. Steven holds the door for me as I follow.
“What’s worse than that?” I murmur to myself.
“Both of you will,” Steven says.