Chapter Six

Eric was screwed.

Why the hell had he agreed to keep his hands off Lexi? And why the hell had he told Dylan and Jake that they’d decided to be just friends?

Jake had gotten that shit eating grin on his face as he’d watched Lexi order a drink from Marina at the bar. “So the new girl’s up for grabs then?”

It had taken every ounce of self control that Eric had not to backhand Jake across his pretty, asshole face. Jesus, first the Fed Ex guy. Now Jake. Eric had never had a problem with feeling proprietary over a woman.

Not until Lexi.

Dylan had clapped a hand on Eric’s shoulder. “Y’all don’t look like ‘just friends’, but whatever you gotta tell yourself, brother.”

And now they were all sitting in a booth in the back of Skeeps, Jake and Eric on one side and Dylan and Lexi on the other.

Dylan had been quietly talking with Lexi for the last twenty minutes and Eric was getting in an increasingly bad mood just watching them.

He sipped his beer and turned to Jake. “Jake,” he said, loud enough for them to hear across the booth. “In your expert opinion, is sexting filed under the ‘flirting’ category or the ‘sex’ category.”

Jake grinned, tipped back his baseball cap, and took a long, meditative sip of beer. “Interesting question, my dude.” He squinted his eyes and seemed to look off into the distance.

Lexi’s face was neutral across the table, but Eric was almost positive she was about to break into either a scowl or a smile.

“In my extremely expert opinion,” Jake started. “After years of research, focus groups, test after test—”

“Jesus Christ,” Dylan grumbled before taking the last swig of his beer and motioning for more from Marina.

“I would have to say that as you can’t get somebody pregnant from sexting, it is firmly in the category of flirting.” Jake tapped his beer on the table like a judge tapping a gavel to signal the end of court.

Eric raised an eyebrow at Lexi across the booth who raised one right back.

“Still, there are degrees of flirting, wouldn’t you say?” Dylan said in his lazy drawl, eyeing Marina as she approached the table with another round for everybody. “Flirting between strangers. Flirting between friends. Flirting between people who have far more in mind. Wouldn’t you say that sexting is flirting with a definite destination?”

Marina’s hands bobbled her tray before she quickly righted it. Dylan’s gaze stayed fixated on her face, but she staunchly ignored him, setting the drinks down in front of everybody.

For the hundredth time in the last few days, Eric wondered what was going on between his two friends. And even though he knew she should let Marina off the hook, what with the way she was blushing, he also couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps she and Dylan could have something special, if only they were given half the chance.

“What do you think, Marina?” he asked her. “Is sexting just flirting?”

She pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t know.”

Jake leaned back in his seat. “You’ve never sexted anybody before?”

“I…” Marina’s cheeks flamed as she stared resolutely at the table. “I, well, I guess I’m not sure how you’d define sexting.”

“Well,” Jake said, “sexting is defined as one, naked pictures; two, dirty words; three—”

“Intentionally trying to get the person you’re texting all worked up,” Dylan cut in.

Marina’s cheeks flamed even harder before she narrowed her eyes at Dylan and raised her chin. “Well I guess maybe I have sexted before.”

“So, what do you think? Is sexting just harmless flirting?” Eric asked again.

“Flirting is never harmless if it could ruin a friendship,” Marina answered, tucking her empty tray under her arm and hurrying back toward the safety of the bar.

“I guess the jury’s still out on that one,” Lexi muttered as she watched Marina’s retreating back. A tense silence came over the table. Suddenly, Dylan cursed. When he slid out of the booth to go after her, Lexi suddenly pressed a hand to his arm, stopping him.

“Do you mind if I talk to her?” she asked.

Dylan opened his mouth to argue, his eyes flitting back to Marina. Then he glanced at Eric.

Eric nodded. “You can trust Lexi. I do.”

With that, Dylan reluctantly settled back into the booth.

Lexi mouthed, “Thank you,” then headed after Marina.

* * *

Lexi patted Tulip on his big, grinning skull as soon as she entered the backroom where Marina was sitting on a case of bottled water in the back corner.

“Hey, girl,” Lexi said, turning over a bucket to sit on and taking a seat next to her. “Look, I know we don’t know one another very well. And subtlety isn’t exactly my strong suit. But I don’t ever lie and I don’t ever tell secrets. So, if you want to talk about it, whatever it was out there, the buck stops with me.”

Marina took a deep breath and immediately Tulip was there, pushing his head under her hand and letting his tongue loll to one side. “I don’t know what the hell that was either. I…” She took another deep breath. “I was happy being just friends, you know. I don’t need a man. I don’t want one. Not after…”

Lexi gently laid a hand on Tulip’s head. Marina’s eye followed Lexi’s movements like a bird following a fly swatter. It made something bone deep and awful cry out inside Lexi. It was obvious someone had hurt Marina and once again, Lexi wanted to ask, but Marina was trembling like the last leaf on a branch and Lexi didn’t want to tip her over the edge.

“You don’t have to tell me everything but just to tell me about one thing, Marina,” Lexi said softly. “Tell me about Dylan.”

Marina sighed softly and Lexi wondered if she knew how much longing was in that sound. “We’ve been friends our whole lives. And actually, he was the one who saved me from… something really bad. The worst thing that’s ever happened to me. And since then, he’s been my best friend. But lately, he wants more than I can give.”

“Maybe you just think you can’t give more,” Lexi said.

Marina looked into Lexi’s eyes and gave her the most solid, direct look that she’d seen from her yet. “No. That part of me is dead. It has been for a long time. And Dylan looking all handsome and talking all sweet and coming around with rides home and texting me when he thinks about me… He’s trying to resurrect something that’s better off dead. And it’s causing me to do things. Things I shouldn’t do, that just give him false hope…”

“Well,” Lexi said, scratching Tulip under his chin. “If you don’t want him, you don’t want him. And that’s something he better come to terms with quick.”

Marina winced. “It’s not that easy. Sometimes you can want something and just have to accept you can’t have it. No matter how much you wish things were different. Sometimes we have to make the difficult choice and live by that choice. Do you know what I mean?”

Lexi stared at Marina, thinking of the choice she’d made to keep her heart safe from Eric, then nodded. “Yes, I know what you mean.” She wished she didn’t. She wished she could contradict Marina and tell her that no matter what happened in the past, she didn’t have to deprive herself of what could make her happy in the present. But that would be hypocritical on Lexi’s part. She knew all about having to make the difficult choice. In Lexi’s case, the difficult choice was to avoid any emotional ties that would get in the way with her dreams. In Marina’s case? If she wanted to choose feelings of safety and piece-of-mind over what Dylan could give her, then who was Lexi to argue with her?

Marina suddenly stood. “I should get back out there. But Lexi?”

Lexi looked up at her new friend. “Yes?”

“You and Eric. I…sense something between the two of you. And I want you to know, the same’s true with me. If you ever want to talk, the buck stops here.”

Lexi smiled. “Thank you, Marina.”

Marina left and for a moment, Lexi just sat there. Then she followed Marina out to the bar, stopping to order a glass of water to bring back to the table.

When her phone buzzed in her pocket, she knew immediately who was texting her.

She bit her lip and replayed all that had just happened. She’d made her difficult choice.

She had, but she also wasn’t Marina. She didn’t have to draw such hard lines when it came to her attraction to a handsome man who clearly wanted her.

No, she couldn’t have Eric, not without risking her dreams of moving to L.A. and becoming a screenwriter. But so long as she didn’t get too involved, as long as she didn’t sleep with him again, would it really be so bad to continue enjoying some harmless flirting? After all, she hadn’t been hurt, not like Marina. She was thinking far more clearly. And Eric knew exactly how things were. That she wasn’t staying. That the last thing she wanted was quicksand.

So…

Unable to resist, she slid her phone out of her pocket and sure enough, there was a text from Eric.

-See? Even Marina sexts. And she was a band geek in high school.

Lexi couldn’t help but laugh. She turned and flashed a smile over her shoulder at Eric. He sat with one arm over the back of the booth, talking with Dylan, but her smile caught his eye and pretty soon he was grinning and shrugging right back at her.

Lexi faced back toward the bar in time to see Marina sliding over a bright red drink with a little sprig of green poking out of it. Lexi raised an eyebrow and tossed some of her hair back over her shoulder.

“I know I look like a total girly girl,” Lexi joked, “but I draw the line at fruity drinks.”

“Trust me,” Marina responded easily. “This isn’t too girly. I made it up. It’s hibiscus, rosemary iced tea with vodka and just a kiss of lime. Not sweet at all.”

With one eyebrow still raised, Lexi leaned in and took a sip. The flavor exploded in her mouth. “Holy shit, Mari.”

Marina grinned. “Told ya.”

“Fuck Dylan,” Lexi said, taking another drink. “You’re my girlfriend now.”

For a second, Lexi bit her tongue, worrying that she’d gone too far, but Marina only laughed. A little delighted sound. She moved down the bar to take another patron’s order and Lexi found herself eyeing her phone again.

Either it was the vodka in the drink or Lexi was really trying to walk the walk, but she took a deep breath. Honesty time.

-Flirting/sexting sounds fun. But it also sounds like another word for quicksand.

Instantly, the dots that meant he was typing a reply showed up on the screen, and Lexi swallowed down the little giddy bubble that had risen in her chest.

-Not quicksand. I promise. Consider it practice for your first few lonely weeks in L.A. You’re going to need SOMEBODY to take care of those needs. And by then I’ll be a thousand miles away. Nobody can get stuck in quicksand from a thousand miles away.

Lexi sucked her teeth and tried not to smile. It all came down to how much she trusted herself and Eric. Did she trust Eric to help her chase her dream at the end of the summer? Did she trust herself to know what she was doing?

Lexi signaled to Marina that she was heading for the bathroom. Flipping the lock, Lexi debated taking a picture in the mirror, classic selfie-style, but she instead held the phone over her head. She looked up at the camera, making sure that the lens got a great view right down her top. She leaned forward just a little, her breasts, which were on the larger side, crushed against her bra. At the last second, Lexi brought her thumb up to her bottom lip, pulled it just slightly down, and snapped the picture. She turned around her camera to see the image.

Bingo.

She looked sexy, turned on, and all kinds of bothered. She scuttled back out of the bathroom and sat on a bar stool. Tossing her hair behind her back, she took another long sip of her drink and pulled open her text convo with Eric.

And she sent the photo.

She couldn’t help but grin when she heard him coughing up a swallow of his beer behind her. Mission accomplished.

And then her phone buzzing with his reply.

J

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-You gotta warn a man, woman!

Lexi couldn’t help but grin.

-You got what you wanted and now you’re complaining?

-Hell no, not complaining. I’m in the process of bowing down to my new god. Well, Gods, I should say. Your breasts deserve a house of worship.

Lexi rolled her eyes.

-Your turn, she texted.

-To send a pic?

-Duh.

Within seconds, he was at her elbow at the bar, but he didn’t speak to her. “Marina! Another round for the boys, alright? My tab.”

He didn’t look back at her as he walked down the back hall.

Lexi picked up her phone. She needed to clarify one thing.

-No dick pics.

She heard his bark of laughter as he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.

Seconds later she received a picture he’d taken of his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It showed him with one hand pulling up his shirt, revealing his six pack abs and the v of his muscles down into the waistband of his pants. The band of his briefs hung dangerously low on his hips.

Lexi’s mouth went dry. God he was so hot. And his face.

She stifled a groan. He wasn’t smoldering cheesily for the camera like guys so often did in sexy pics.

No, he was just smiling, but there was a definite message in his eyes. One that said he wanted to lick her from head to toe.

Lexi took a deep breath and another sip of her drink. When Eric emerged from the bathroom, Lexi lifted her glass and toasted him.

He winked and took a little bow.

Flirting, she told herself. Just some harmless flirting.

But even as the words echoed in her head, the fluttery feeling in her stomach—and in her heart—gave her pause. And made her wonder if of the two of them, Marina wasn’t the smart one, after all.