I was rolling my cart down the supermarket aisle when Bobby MacPherson turned the corner coming toward me. Normally I would have kept moving forward, head straight, not saying a word, but I figured we were cool now so I had to at least be friendly.

“Hey Bobby.”

He smiled and came over to me, a small cart hanging from his arm. “Hey Ellie, what’s up?”

“Nothing much.”

Nothing at all really. Since graduation it had been all work and no fun. Jake and I were managing, but it was there. Between us now. This weird thing. A mutual attraction we were not going to act on for good reasons.

We were both trying to pretend it wasn’t there. That wasn’t working either.

“What about you?” I asked him.

“Helping my mom out. I don’t know if you heard. They are officially getting divorced.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“For her it does. That’s why I’m trying to help out. Make things easier for her.” He lifted the basket of food.

“That’s nice of you.” Bobby MacPherson and nice. Two words I would not normally put together. “Are you still heading to school next month?”

I knew Bobby was planning to go to University of Montana. It was where most of the kids in my class who were going to college were going.

For the first time, I found myself a little jealous. The idea of getting away from home. Being some place new and different. Right now it was very appealing.

“I’m not sure. Might have to put things off a semester. We’ll see.”

“Oh, that sucks.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. “Well, good luck. With everything.”

He gave a chin nod and I started to roll forward.

“Hey can I ask you something?”

I stopped. “Sure.”

“What is the deal with you and Jake?”

It was weird, but I got this horrible feeling in my stomach even thinking about what we were. “No deal. Same as always. We couldn’t get divorced because of the storm…”

“No, sure. It’s a money thing. But at Pete’s on graduation night… I don’t know, I thought maybe things were different between you two.”

They were. They were totally different. Not in a good way either.

“Nope. Nothing different.” Then I said it. The dreaded line everybody who has ever been in this situation really hates to say, but sort of has to say. “We’re just friends.”

“Cool,” he said as if he liked my answer. “I wasn’t trying to pry or anything. Curious is all.”

“Sure. I understand. Jake and I are weird.”

He smiled. “A little bit. Anyway, see you around.”

“Yep.”

I finished my shopping and as I was checking out I thought about what Bobby said. Or didn’t say about what he thought was going on between Jake and me on graduation night. Or as I liked to refer to it, the most embarrassing moment of my life.

Granted I was only eighteen, but it ranked.

Then I thought about why Bobby cared. Jake thought he had a thing for me. Maybe that was his subtle way of asking if I still considered myself single even though I was married.

I don’t know what I thought I was. Not that it mattered. My head was so mixed up about my feelings for Jake it was impossible to think about anyone else. Definitely not Bobby. Sure we were cool, on speaking terms, but I knew too much about what he was like with girls. He could have grown up some, but I just wasn’t interested in him that way.

Because he wasn’t Jake. Which was crushing. I couldn’t be with Jake, because Jake didn’t want me, even though he did. But I couldn’t think about other guys because they didn’t compare.

I was going to be a virgin forever. Worse, I still wasn’t getting the whole masturbating thing right. I had tried so many times since our kiss, because that kiss, once he’d kissed me back, had been super hot. Every time I thought about it I got aroused, but I just couldn’t get myself over the finish line.

You might think running a cattle ranch and keeping my hands off my best friend, who only now wasn’t, would be enough for any adult woman to handle.

But oh no, I was determined to have an orgasm.

Very determined. Because if this was it for me—if I was going to spend my life pining after a guy I couldn’t have—it was only fair that came with as many self-induced orgasms as a woman could handle.

* * *

I let the hot water hit my back and leaned my head forward on the cool tile. I had done some heavy lifting today, moving hay bales around the barn, and I felt it. I let the water do its thing and let my mind wander.

Except when I did that, it usually only ever wandered to one place.

Ellie.

We were off. I knew that. I had confused her and she wasn’t really sure where she stood with me. I don’t know if it was fair or not, but it’s how things stood. Eventually, she would get over it.

Eventually, I would too. I had to believe I wasn’t going to spend the next three years on the edge of desire only to never fulfill it. At some point the wanting had to fade away.

Then I thought of the kiss. This was usually the part where I forced it out of my mind. Where I refused to dwell. But I was alone, in my shower, and my body needed… something.

All I had to do was remember how it felt to have her in my arms. I remembered grabbing her ass in that dress. That fucking simple but sexy dress. All her hair falling down around her back.

Helpless to stop myself, I wrapped my hand around my now-hard cock. Stroking myself hard while I thought about her.

I told myself I could replace with her with some actress. Scarlett Johansson. Charlize Theron. Blondes. I liked blondes and Ellie had honey brown hair.

Ellie’s hair. All down her back, her ass in my hand, her tongue in my mouth. It had been so fucking hot. Just a kiss, too.

I pumped myself faster. I needed this done. I need to come so I could stop thinking about her. Stop thinking about her like this. My balls got tight and I started snapping my hips as if I was actually fucking her. Then the punch came, the one that felt like it started in my lower back and ran down through my balls as my come shot out of me. So damn good.

This time I put both hands on the tile and rested my head again while I caught my breath. While I let myself feel my body. How good and sated it was. The guilt would come eventually. That I had done that, thinking about her. Wondering how it would feel if it was her hand.

Her mouth.

Her pussy.

Oh God.

I turned off the water, dried myself off, got dressed, and made my way downstairs where my wife was making us dinner. Some taco pie casserole recipe she found on Facebook she knew I would like.

Because she always knew what I liked. It was that simple with her.

“Hey,” I said.

She turned away from the pan she had on the stove and smiled.

“Hey, this is going to be so freaking good. You are going to cry.”

I thought about her smile. It was pretty. It would always be pretty. But it wasn’t the same. Not since I shut her down. Not since I drew a line between us and told her to stay on her side.

“Smells good,” I told her.

Then I let myself think it. Just for a second I let myself think, what if this really could be our life? What if we stayed married? What if we made it real? I could buy my land and we could add it to Long Valley Ranch.

Have kids, raise them together. Two best friends. Two lovers.

I waited for how it felt in my chest. I expected I would have a sense of claustrophobia. That I was putting myself in a situation I would never be able to get out of. That even if at some point I realized I was never going to love her like a husband should, I would never let myself leave because of how guilty I would feel doing that.

Hurting Ellie hurt me. I’d felt like crap after the kiss, because I knew even though she had eventually understood why I’d shut her down, I’d still hurt her. If we became lovers, if we tried to turn this into something real and it didn’t work, I would go to my grave never letting her know how I felt.

That wasn’t even considering her feelings. I showed up on a damn white horse and saved her from a foster home. Was it all those feelings of gratitude that had morphed into her thinking she wanted me like that? Hell, was it plain teenage horniness? She was a young woman. Living with me. Was it circumstances that made her believe she wanted me?

If I crossed the line, if I took her to bed, would she ever really know the difference between loving me or forever being grateful to me?

I didn’t consider myself much of a romantic, but I had to think it would suck if I knew deep in my gut that Ellie never truly loved me. That she couldn’t know if she loved me because she never had a chance to see what anything else was like.

I could see it there. Right in the middle of the damn kitchen floor. The line I had drawn between us. I could step over it, turn off the gas, take her hand and lead her upstairs. To my room. To my bed.

She wouldn’t say no. In fact she’d be happy. Excited.

I could do that and potentially trap each of us into something that was no less than a life sentence.

“I need to head out to the barn for a second. Is that okay?”

“Sure. This thing needs to bake for another fifteen minutes. You’ve got time. Jake, everything okay? You’ve got an odd look on your face.”

I looked at her. I thought of how hard I’d come just thinking about kissing her.

I thought the line was so damn thin.

“Fine. I just need to leave.”

It probably sounded stupid and made no sense to her, but I knew if I didn’t walk out the back door….

If I didn’t head to the barn and take a few seconds to get myself under control…

I might cave.

I couldn’t do it. I had to be strong enough for both us. I walked outside, made my way to the barn, got to the center of it and I sunk down on my haunches. I counted it out. From a hundred down to one.

That’s how I would get through this, I realized. This wasn’t about me and what might happen to me if I crossed the line. This was about her. I had to protect Ellie. From myself. From herself. I had to be strong enough for her.

That, I thought I could do. That, I knew I could do.