COLTON (AGE 17)

“IF YOU BRING CHELSIE, I’ll bring Dean,” I offered. It was the end of our junior year, and our families were getting ready to go on our yearly trip to Alex’s grandparents’ beach house in Pensacola. I knew she had a thing for my buddy Dean, and as much as it grated on my nerves, I also knew it was the only way to get her to bring my new girlfriend, Chelsie.

She sucked on her teeth, shaking her head. “I really don’t like that girl, Colt.” But I could tell she was starting to reconsider. I could get Allie to do anything with the right motivation.

“Come on, Al...” I begged, sticking out my bottom lip. “Please? I really like her.”

She rolled her eyes. “You really like her big tits,” she accused.

I laughed. “I do...” I couldn’t lie to her any more than she could to me. It was pointless. So, I stuck with brutal honesty. “I’d really like to look at her big tits in a bikini for two weeks too,” I said, waggling my eyebrows.

Oomph. The book that was just in Alex’s hands came flying at my chest. “Pig.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Guilty.”

There was only one girl I’d ever had feelings for, and she was shooting daggers at me from the foot of my bed. I’d given up on the idea of us a few years ago when I realized that she didn’t share the same feelings. It sucked, but I would take Allie any way I could. Even if it was only as friends. I still had the best parts of her, and I made up for the physical stuff with whatever girl tickled my pickle at the time. Currently, the position of pickle tickler belonged to Chelsie Montgomery, a blond, busty cheerleader that Allie barely tolerated. She gave good head and worshiped the ground I walked on. I needed a distraction from Alex if I was going to survive two weeks looking at her in a bathing suit. Last year, I’d nearly died of blue balls. True story.

“Why’s it have to be her? What about Jeanine? You seemed to get on pretty well at Ryan’s party last weekend, and I actually like her. What’s so special about Chelsie?”

I raised my brows. “Besides her tits?”

“Colton!”

“Fine...she, uh. She has good ball handling skills,” I teased, sucking in my bottom lip. Hey, she asked.

Her face turned beet red. “Stop with the basketball humor. It’s not funny.”

“Blocked by my best friend,” I pouted.

Her eyes rolled up in her head.

“Come on, Allie, it’s a little funny.”

She rewarded me with an evil glare. It was time to pull out the heavy artillery. I reached out my arms, pretending to stretch, and grabbed hold of her foot and began tickling her mercilessly. Alex fell back onto the bed, and I climbed over her, straddling her waist with my knees as I tickled her ribs.

She bucked and writhed beneath me, and as she rubbed against my crotch, I began to envision what it would be like to make love to my best friend. I tried not to think about how I knew she’d respond to my touch. How she always had.

Her hands began slapping at my chest, drawing me from my thoughts. “Get off, I’m gonna pee!” she shouted. “Fine! Fine! You win, Colt. Just stop it.”

“You’ll invite Chelsie?” I asked for clarification as I stopped the assault, but didn’t let her go.

She was gasping for breath as she answered, “Yes, goddamn it. Get off of me. And you better bring Dean.”

Dean...Fuck. “Deal.”

Dean aggravated the ever-living shit out of me the entire twelve-hour drive to the beach. All he talked about was Allie and how he couldn’t wait to get his hands on her. I should have won some sort of award for not beating his fucking face in. This never got easier.

When we finally arrived at the beach house, I couldn’t get out of my parents’ 4Runner fast enough. The girls hadn’t arrived yet, so I helped unload our bags then excused myself to the bathroom to splash some water on my face in preparation for what was sure to be a grueling couple of weeks.

I heard a light knock on the other side of the bathroom door where I sat on the lid of the toilet, hiding from Dean. “Who is it?”

“Colton Fowler, you’d better get your butt out here before this girl drives me crazy,” Alex grumbled through the door.

I smiled at how miserable we both were with our friends as I unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Wanna come hide in here with me?” I asked, peeking my head out into the hall. I grabbed her hand and ushered her into the small bathroom then shut and locked the door, resuming my position on the lid of the toilet.

“Colt, she’s terrible. You owe me. Seriously, she never shuts up, yet she somehow never really says anything either. You sure know how to pick ’em,” she said, throwing her hands in the air.

“I have no interest in her ability to hold up her end of a conversation, Al.”

Her face was stricken. “But why, Colt? Why do you date these idiots? You can do so much better than a brainless pair of tits.”

“I have better.”

She shook her head. “No. Noooo, Colton. That girl is not better. She could be the worst of them all.”

Perched on the commode with my head in my hands, I uttered the most honest words I’d said to my best friend in a very long time. “I don’t mean her...”

Allie’s face screwed up in confusion. “Huh? You lost me, buddy.”

I ran my hands through my hair and raised my eyes to meet hers. “I have you for all of that, Al.”

I watched her throat move as she swallowed hard and just stared at me. I stared back, trying to force the words that I’d been choking on for so long, but couldn’t. And just as I was working up the nerve to say fuck it all and confess my feelings, there was a bang on the other side of the door.

I brought my finger to my lips, instructing Alex to keep quiet. “Yeah?”

“There you are, Colty...” I stifled a laugh as Alex shoved her finger in her throat and exaggerated a gag. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“I’m here. I’ll be out soon. Go put on that little red bikini for me?”

Brainless giggled through the door. “Okay. Hurry up. I’m dying to see you!”

“She’s dying to see you, Colty,” Alex mocked and then burst out laughing.

“Unless you want to explain to Chelsie and Dean why we’re locked in the bathroom together, you’d better be quiet.”

That shut her up.

Allie looked at me expectantly, clearly waiting for me to finish what I’d started before the universe reminded me of why it would be a terrible idea to confess my feelings to a girl who clearly didn’t feel the same. I’d lose her. I couldn’t lose her, no matter how much it was hurting me to hold on.

“You should go,” I whispered, gesturing toward the door.

Her face fell as she turned the lock, hesitating for a moment as she allowed me one last chance to finish what I’d started. If I’d known then the way the rest of that trip would go, I’d have fallen to my knees and laid my heart at her feet. I’d have made a complete fucking fool of myself and risked it all before it was too late.

Alex and Dean couldn’t have hit it off better, and I was consumed with jealousy as I watched the two of them making out on the beach a few yards down the shore from where Chelsie and I were lounging. I had a gorgeous girl lying topless beside me, and I couldn’t peel my eyes from my best friend.

Our parents had been taking off in the evenings and leaving us to our own devices for a week now, and each night I watched my girl fall harder for the schmuck I’d brought along for her entertainment. I’d hand delivered the guy who would snatch my heart right out from under my nose, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to stop it.

I’d seen Allie with lots of guys in the past, and none of them made me burn the way this one did. Because, somehow, I knew that this was different...

“Colty, will you rub some lotion on my back?” Brainless asked, pulling me from my murderous thoughts.

“Sure,” I answered indifferently as I grabbed the lotion and mindlessly rubbed it into her sun-kissed skin. She was drop-dead gorgeous and more than willing, but I couldn’t bring myself to want her anymore.

I tried to lose myself in her sick body, but all I saw was long, dark hair and chocolate brown eyes looking at Dean the way she usually reserved for me. I spent the rest of vacation counting the days ’til we returned home, hoping that everything would revert to the way it was before. But, of course, it never did.

“Oh my God, Colton...Thank youuuu,” Alex sang as she danced around my bedroom braless, in a tiny tank top and the shortest fucking shorts I’d ever seen. Did she always sleep in such revealing clothes?

I forced a tight-lipped smile. “Don’t mention it.”

“This was the best vacation ever...right? Did you and Chelsie have fun?”

My stomach gurgled. I was going to be sick. “Yeah, Al. It was great.”

“You just...well, you don’t seem all that excited.”

I buried my face in my pillow. “Just tired, Allie. Can you shut off the light and get to bed, please?”

“Really? But we just got home...Don’t you wanna talk?”

I forced a laugh. “Al, what I really want...is to go to sleep.” I was so tired of hearing how much she liked Dean. I just wished she’d shut the hell up about him already.

She huffed. “You’re awful grouchy for a guy who just spent the past two weeks playing with the world’s greatest pair of tits,” she teased, poking out her tongue.

Alex was a talker, and usually, I was more than willing to listen to her endless drivel. Tonight was not one of those nights. I was barely holding it together. “Alexis Mack...the light, please?”

“Fine,” she growled. “You didn’t pull out the trundle. Should I do it, jerk?”

She was pissed, and I was a mess. “Just get in with me,” I said, lifting the comforter.

A shocked expression crossed her face before she switched off the light and scurried into bed beside me. We hadn’t slept together this way in a few years. But, tonight, I just wanted the old us back. I wanted to hold her in my arms and pretend that nothing had changed...that everything hadn’t just changed.

“This is nice,” she whispered, snuggling into my chest.

I smoothed her long hair back and placed a kiss at her temple. “Yeah, Al...it is.”