She looked up, and upon seeing my face assumed she knew the thoughts running through my mind. And based on her flying off the couch and shutting off the music to instead turn on the television, she assumed wrong.
I watched her aim the remote and flip through channels while rambling. “I know you hate my TV choices as much as you hate my taste in take-out, but I must watch The Royals tonight. Jasper broke Len’s heart last week. The kicker, she doesn’t know he did it to protect…”
“Haven.” Ignoring me, she tossed the remote on the table and began straightening pillows that didn’t need straightening. “Haven!”
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder casually. “Just forget I said that, Mooner,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I forgot to tell you the New Yorker needed to change your interview until next week. I didn’t think it would be a problem. I scheduled it immediately after Constance’s therapy session. Gives you a great excuse to end it right on time and run.” She stopped to grin before continuing. “Oh, and Natalie said they need new promo shots of you because of your fantastic ratings. They want to redo all the ads to include…”
“I don’t care, Haven.” I yanked on her wrist until she fell onto the couch beside me. “Stop avoiding.” From the look on her face, she found my words comical. “What?”
“I’m the one avoiding?” She always had a knack to call me out on my shit.
“Fine. I’m the one avoiding. But now I want to talk about it.”
She raised a hand palm up. “Okay. Talk.”
Yeah, well, the problem—I wasn’t the talker. By profession, I was the listener. At my silence, she began to stand forcing my hand. I stopped her with a strong hold on her shoulders.
“I know that wasn’t easy for you to admit. The fact that you did tells me I need to grow a set and admit the same.”
“Admit the same what?”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake. You need me to say it out loud?”
“Yes, Vaughn,” she whispered. “I need you to say what you’re feeling out loud.”
We studied each other, trying to read the other’s mind. There would be no way she could know what I was thinking, unless I came right out and told her. This charade wouldn’t end if we weren’t honest with each other. By admitting she wanted the kiss to go on, she took the first step. Since I felt the same, I needed to spit it out.
Being honest had never been a problem with Haven, even when she pissed me off I could verbalize what I needed to. Until now… I knew what I had to say, what I wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t find their way to my mouth.
Meanwhile, she watched and waited for me to speak. Her eyes fell to my throat when I took an audible swallow before dragging in a deep breath.
“Haven, I felt the same way last night. That was the reason I freaked out. That was the reason I said it was a mistake. Not because I didn’t enjoy every goddamn minute of your lips against mine. Because, fuck, all I wanted was to lay you down on that table and really give Connie Cougar something to watch.” Her mouth hung open in shock, but I powered through. “My freak out was because, well, you’re my perv. You’re my best friend. I wasn’t supposed to be imagining what you looked like under that sexy pink dress, or if your bra and panties matched.”
Her chest rose and fell with each breath. My words affected her as much as they did me.
“Haven, I don’t know how to handle what I’m feeling.”
“What are you feeling?”
“Desire?”
“You desire me?”
“Yes.”
Gripping my wrists, she pulled my hands from her shoulders. “Why are you acting like that’s a bad thing?”
Now it was my turn to stare at her in disbelief. “For fuck’s sake, you’re my best friend,” I repeated. “You work for me. You’re…” I sighed again, struggling with my issues. “Because I’d lose you when it ends,” I finally spit out.
“When it ends?”
“Well, yeah. It always ends.”
Her impatient expression morphed into one of sadness.
In the three seconds since I spoke, I watched her withdraw in the way she wrapped her arms around herself and gazed into space distracted and distant.
Normally, I could read her mind no matter what she was thinking. Yet, I had no idea what seemed to occupy her thoughts. I wanted to touch her. Again, that was new. The urge to wrap her in my arms, run my hands over her skin, and kiss her full lips became a strong force within me. Instead, I dragged a hand through my hair in an attempt to break the pull I felt toward her.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t.” She turned her head and smiled regretfully. “I’m just confused, and I don’t like the feeling.”
“Confused about what changed between us?”
“Well, yes, that… but also…” I could tell that now she was the one debating over her words. Her full lips parted a few times before she’d press them closed. Finally, she sighed with a slow shrug.
“Haven. I feel like I’m pulling teeth. You need to talk to me.”
Smirking at my statement, she said, “Always the therapist.” A newfound determination struck her. She turned to face me, tucking her legs beneath her as she did. “I think we can both agree something changed between us last night.”
“It did.”
“Clearly, you aren’t any better at handling it than I am. You proved that earlier with Elliott.”
“That was just your best friend protecting your virtue.”
She giggled manically. “Really?” I nodded like an idiot. “You never cared who I fucked before, Vaughn.”
“True. But I never walked in on a situation where it could have been happening. You and I don’t know how I would’ve acted in the past if I had. Why are you rolling your eyes at me?”
“Because you’re a pain in my ass,” she said with a playful shove. “Forget Elliott…”
“Prick.”
“Any… way… so, where do we go from here, Vaughn?” She may as well have asked me to predict tomorrow’s winning lottery numbers. At my silence she added, “You’re the therapist. Let’s say I was a caller and admitted I kissed my best friend and now he was acting all weird.”
“You’re acting weird, too,” I said with a defensive tone.
“You more so. What would you tell her?”
“I’d say it sounded like deep-rooted emotions were brought to the surface because of their intimacy, and before they took the friendship to the next level they’d need to be sure it wasn’t purely physical.” Her brows lifted in challenge. “What?”
“You need to heed your own advice.” She grabbed the remote control off the table and unmuted the television.
“Wait. Conversation is over? Why is this all on me?”
“I didn’t say it was all on you. All we can do now is try to figure out what that kiss meant to ourselves before we can figure out what it means to us.”
I flipped over and punched the pillow beneath my head in frustration. A glance at my nightstand showed the clock read 4:45 in the morning, yet sleep was the last thing on my mind.
Did I feel better regarding the situation with Haven?
Fuck no.
Sure, we both admitted things. But now that they were out in the open it would be hard to go back to our normal selves. And she was right. We needed to figure ourselves out first before we could figure our relationship out.
I found myself standing on a precipice between two very different bonds. The platonic best friend connection we shared over the past ten years versus the need to own every inch of her. The possibility that we could have the best of both worlds if we embraced the so-called inevitable, as my cousin Lizzy put it, was tempting. Yes, a huge part of me felt if we succumbed to our desire what could be would be perfection. But, the other part of me felt by crossing that line I would without a doubt lose my best friend.
Fuck.
Not more than a minute later, I twisted around again ending up on my back.
In the shadows on my ceiling I could see her face staring at me while I said things I never had before. I closed my eyes, and the kiss we shared played in vivid color in my mind. But in my mind we weren’t in that awful restaurant with that horrid woman. Instead we were in Haven’s bed, and my hands roamed all over her smoking hot body. Our mouths fused together. Her hands burrowed in my hair. And the most disturbing part, my cock swelled on its own accord.
A vortex of confusion took hold within me. I clenched my eyes closed but the visual became more vivid. The effects of it to my body were immediate through my growing hard-on. Skimming my hand down my chest and beneath the elastic waistband of my boxers, I gripped my overheated flesh. With each stroke, my anxiety over the situation worsened, as did guilt over having lewd visuals that starred my best friend. I needed relief. I reasoned if I just came, maybe I’d be able to settle my mind and go to sleep.
I pictured what her bare breasts would look like once I removed her silly T-shirt. I anticipated what they’d feel like when I held one in each hand. I envisioned the look on her face when I pulled her pebbled nipple into my mouth. I wondered what her moan would sound like when my hand traveled down her smooth skin toward her pussy. I assumed she’d be wet and ready when I dragged a finger through her folds before dipping inside her. Would she be natural or smooth shaven?
In my fucked up fantasy, I moved over her perfect naked body and slid my entire length into her at a snail’s pace. There would be no use for a condom because she was Haven, and I trusted her implicitly. I could feel her warmth surrounding every inch of me. I could hear her moans in my ear. I could smell the scent of her coconut shampoo when I buried my nose in her hair.
It wasn’t long before I came hard and swift while plunging into her over and over, but it wasn’t her body accepting every drop I released. No, it was my hand that had that honor.
The unsettled feeling that I just jerked off while imagining fucking my best friend consumed me. As my chest heaved from the exertion I just endured both in my mind and with my cock, I knew the last thing I wanted at that moment was sleep. If I had the balls, I’d show up at her place to make my dream a reality. While I was being honest, admitting that I even wanted to fuck my best friend to begin with would be a good start.
I dragged my ass into my bathroom seeking solace in my shower. It was the one place I depended on to eliminate all my stress. But under the steady stream of my rainfall showerhead, the warm water that normally calmed me down had the opposite effect.
Deciding to start my day, I dressed for the gym hoping a punishing workout would do the trick of distracting me. An hour later with no such luck, I was back in my apartment pacing like a caged animal.
I blamed temporary insanity for picking up my phone, tapping the contact named Apple, and punching out a text saying:
It’s Vaughn. Hope you’re well. I’ve been thinking about you, and wanted to remind you I’m here if you need to talk.
It was barely six a.m. I wasn’t expecting a response. But when one immediately came back, I couldn’t stop staring at the words:
I’ve been thinking about you, too.
She missed my point. I should have explained I wasn’t thinking about her in a personal sense, more so in a professional one. Giving advice was my thing, and how I was able to detach from my own issues. But when a follow-up text came through with Apple admitting she hasn’t been able to sleep lately, I lost my opportunity to clarify my intentions. Needless to say, the texts kept bouncing between us for well over an hour.
Our conversation via text was easy and comfortable. There wasn’t any mention of sexuality, and we chatted about nothing of importance… yet, it managed to ease the tension that coursed through me just enough to settle my confusion over Haven.