A couple weeks have passed since the confrontation with Avery in the quad, and subsequently, the conversation Keene and I had in my bed. The one where I laid some of my biggest fears about this entire situation on the table for him to see.
I wasn’t lying to Keene when I said my major concern was protecting him. He’s my best friend, and I’d do anything for him. As if that wasn’t obvious enough the day I convinced him that us sleeping together was a good way to figure out his bi-curiosity. A decision I still stand by a hundred and ten percent…even if it’s messed a few things up in my own head.
But what I didn’t say to him is I can’t shake this feeling that I’m one of the people he needs protection from.
I wish I knew why my brain is latched on to this idea.
My head falls back against the brick of our dorm’s roof—my favorite spot to come and think in peace—and I take a long drag from my cigarette. The normally calming effects of the nicotine never hits, and no matter how many drags I take, it doesn’t seem to ease the swirling feeling in my stomach.
Maybe it’s because I don’t think I’m enough. Not what he deserves or what he needs in the long run.
Sure, I can fulfill the sexual aspect of this arrangement. Help him discover the pieces of who he is that’ve been missing. But when it comes to something more than that, I’ve got nothing to offer but a really shitty track record of letting my guard down with people I should trust, and a long string of emotionless hookups to show for it.
I scoff out a laugh, one of those people coming right to mind, and I wonder what she’d think of all this shit. After all, she’s one of the few people to ever call me out on my shit.
Her words from the restaurant during our failed date echo through my head on playback, and I stare down at my phone resting on the concrete between my feet.
I think it’s better for you to put the focus on yourself. But just know, I’m happy to help however I can.
Flicking ash to the ground, I internally debate on taking her offer to heart. Truly opening up to her, maybe getting some advice or insight that I can’t go to Keene for in this instance.
Fuck it. What’s one more bad idea?
Picking up the phone, I hit the call button and wait while the phone rings.
“Aspen?” a soft, feminine voice comes from the other line.
“Hey, Brist,” I say, stubbing out my cigarette on the brick. “Catch you at a bad time?”
“Not at all, just on my way home from the gym. What’s up?”
I pause, second thoughts starting to creep in. But then I shove them down and ask, “Any chance you can meet me?”
She’s silent for a moment, and I think she’s about to tell me no or to fuck off or some other variation of that. Then she surprises me.
“Give me thirty minutes to shower, and send me your location.”
True to her word, Bristol calls me from outside our dorm building just over thirty minutes later, and I run down to meet her before sneaking her up to the roof with me.
She looks around the rooftop, and I shove a loose brick in the door to prevent us from being locked out. As she’s taking in the view of campus while the sun sets off on the horizon, I move back to the spot I was taking up residence in earlier and snag another cigarette from my pack. After a few moments, she joins me, her back hitting the brick with a soft thud.
Word vomit spews from my mouth before she has the chance to open hers.
“I’m sleeping with Keene.”
There’s a slight lift of her eyebrow, nearly imperceptible, and she lets out a low whistle. “Damn, Kohl. I was expecting you to ask about rekindling our friends-with-bennies arrangement; not finally out yourself to me.”
“Why would you—”
Wait a fucking minute.
“Did you say finally out myself to you?”
She shrugs, a small smirk on her face. “Maybe.”
I’m floored. Absolutely flabbergasted, staring at her with wide eyes and mouth agape. Something that clearly entertains her, because her smirk grows even more.
“Better be careful there, Kohl. You’ll let the flies in.”
I have no idea how she’s joking at a time like this. She just flipped my entire damn world on axis with one fucking sentence.
After blinking a few more times, I’m able to form a coherent thought and string some words together to speak. “So, wait. You…called this?”
She snatches my pack of Marlboros from out of my hand and pulls one out. But instead of lighting it with mine, she starts peeling the paper off, letting the tobacco and other shit fall to the cement. “With you, absolutely. I always got a vibe. With Waters…I had an inkling, but I wasn’t really sure.”
“How?”
Her brow arches when she looks at me. “You’ve heard of this thing called gaydar, right?” When I nod, she smirks and continues, “Well, when you’re queer, your gaydar tends to be stronger than that of a straight person’s.”
That definitely makes sense but—
Wait…
“You? You’re queer?” She nods, and my jaw drops slightly, a slight worry hitting me that causes even more word vomit. “I didn’t turn you into a lesbian because of that awful date, did I?”
She burst out laughing, shaking her head. “Oh, Kohl. I’ve been bi long before I met your cock, and I’ll still be bi long after I’ve forgotten what it looks like.”
I don’t know if I’m supposed to be offended by that statement or not, so I just give a nonchalant shrug. “Okay, well…sorry. That was a little self-involved, I’ll admit. You just took me by surprise.”
“Understandable.” She laughs. “But God, that reaction will live rent-free in my head for months. I wish I would’ve been recording it so I could make it into a GIF.”
“You’re a real comedian,” I deadpan before taking another drag of my cig and mumbling to myself, “Wow. What are the fucking odds?”
The question was rhetorical and wasn’t meant for her, though she had no issues hearing it since she’s seated only a foot from me.
“The odds are pretty high, actually. Especially now that our generation is more apt to speak out—or come out.”
I raise a brow. “No shit?”
She nods. “Straight isn’t the default. No matter how many people want you to think it is.”
Wow. I guess I’ve never really looked at it in that sense, but now that she’s said it, I understand. Hell, I’d just assumed straight was my default for the past twenty years. Even when there might’ve been signs that I wasn’t long before Keene and I kissed.
I’d see guys and I’d think they were hot. A specimen of male beauty or whatever. I just never had any physical urge to act, so I’d just assumed…it was admiration. Not an attraction. Looking back, I know now that I was probably wrong.
Especially with the way Keene and I are together, I know for certain I’m not straight. I might not know exactly what I am—and truthfully, I don’t really care all that much to figure it out. I am who I am, I like what I like, and that’s the end of it.
But, I think it’s safe to say I like dick. Keene’s for sure.
I was being honest when I told Keene I hadn’t thought about him being a guy since that first momentary freak out, because it doesn’t really matter to me. And even that bout of overthinking and analyzing things up the ass was more because he’s him, not because he has a dick instead of a pussy.
“The more you fucking know,” I mutter, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
“Is he the reason you needed to…how did you put it?”
“Figure myself out?” I say with a laugh. “Yeah, he was. He got in my head a little bit.”
“It’s bound to happen when you two are as close as you are.”
Yeah, she hit the nail on the head with that one, especially if the night I took her on our disaster date is anything to go by.
“Is that when it started? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Yeah, it was right about that time. We’d…sexted a bit. After he came out to me about his curiosity.”
It’s her turn to be shocked again. “Really?”
I nod. “Yeah. It was sort of on accident, kinda on purpose.”
She lets out a soft laugh. “Oh, Kohl. So are you guys dating now or—”
“No,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “It’s…casual. Just while he figures himself out.”
This time, she lets out a loud laugh. One that says my comment is the funniest thing she’s heard in, well, this entire conversation.
“You’re trying an emotionless, no-strings style hook-up with your best friend?”
I frown in confusion. “Yeah?”
If possible, she starts laughing even harder.
“What the hell is so funny? Is there something wrong with us keeping things casual?”
“I mean, I wouldn’t say there’s anything wrong with it. But baby, it’s gonna backfire on your ass so hard, it’s not even funny. Might as well light the fuse now.”
Her comment sets me on edge. What she just said is exactly part of why I’m feeling so uneasy about this all of a sudden. It just took hearing someone else say it for me to finally figure it out.
If only I could figure out the why, now.
“Why do you say that, Brist?”
A perfectly manicured brow arches above her blue eyes—hers more icy than my cobalt. She must think I’m joking, because she blinks after a second.
“Oh. You’re serious?”
Obviously.
“Honestly? He’s always kind of looked at you like you hung the moon. For a while, I thought I was just seeing things; thought maybe it was part of this deep friend connection the two of you have. But now that you’ve told me this…” She shakes her head. “I mean, you two are about as casual as a white-tie gala. As in, not at all.”
“It’s just sex,” I tell her again, but it sounds like a lie to even my own ears.
“You really believe that? Or are you just trying to convince yourself of it? ‘Cause the way I see it, you two are either gonna become the greatest thing to ever happen to each other, or you’re gonna toss his heart in a frying pan the moment he wants something you won’t give him.” Her eyes hold a dash of sympathy. “And Kohl, there’s nothing casual about a seared heart.”
My head sinks into my hands, and I thread my fingers through my hair.
On some level, I know she’s right. I just let my possessiveness and protective nature when it comes to Keene overshadow the flaws in this idea.
I see them now, though. Clear as day.
I added sex, the one thing I’ve always tried to keep emotionless, to a relationship with someone who has the keys to unlock every single feeling I keep hidden. Of course it’s gonna be impossible to keep it as casual as I would with anyone else.
I’m such a fucking idiot.
“You’re thinking awfully loud over there,” she muses. When I lift my head, I find her using the paper from the cigarette she shredded to make a pile of its guts.
“I think I fucked up.”
She smiles, still focused on what she’s doing. “Not yet, you haven’t.”
“How haven’t I? I went and I took him to bed with the pretense of keeping this casual with no-strings, and you literally just told me it’s going to implode on us in a spectacular blaze of glory.”
The snort she lets out is anything but ladylike. “All right, cool it there, drama queen. You must’ve missed the part where I also said you two could be the greatest thing to ever happen to each other.”
We already are! I want to scream. And I can’t lose that, or him.
“Or end up cooking his heart like a fucking steak,” I mutter. “Which sounds pretty terrible to me.”
“You’re right. But the thing is, you have the choice. The decision is in your hands about where the two of you end up.”
“Just my hands?” Surely he has just as much of a say in this as I do.
She nods. “You’re the one who doesn’t let people in or allow them to get close. If you decide to pull that shit on him, there’s no way it’ll last.” Finally, she looks over at me. “You told me Keene is like a golden retriever, and I can see it. He just loves and loves and loves. Never has met a person he didn’t like. And he’s also the kind of person who needs that kind of love in return.”
Her usage of the word love causes my stomach to roll uneasily. No, actually, it feels like it’s currently in the middle of the ocean during a goddamn typhoon. Rocking back and forth, no hope of escaping without taking some serious damage.
Swallowing roughly, I give life to the words I didn’t even know were the truth until this very moment.
“I don’t know how to give him that. Or how to be what he deserves.”
Her brows raise. “And you want to be?”
I open my mouth, but words evade me completely. Just slip right from my grasp at a time when I need them most. But whatever it is I’m not saying, Bristol must get it, because she gives me a slow, solemn nod.
“Don’t mess with his emotions, Aspen. Don’t screw up what you two have.” Her gaze is soft, yet I feel the firmness in her words. “Your friendship is something special. One I’d kill to have. So if you’re gonna attempt this with him? Something real and true and more than just a few quick fucks while he explores his sexuality? You have to be all in.”
My throat constricts tightly, but it’s not nearly as painful as the vice currently wrapped around my heart.
“I don’t know what I want…other than to keep him safe. From the world, and from me. I don’t want to ruin him or hurt him or—”
Her hand lands on my forearm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “I know. You don’t have to explain it to me.”
Knowing I don’t does ease some of the burden on my shoulders. I think part of the reason Bristol and I always worked in this friends-with-benefits style arrangement is because she and I are a lot alike. At least when it comes to something like being vulnerable with other people.
Which I think, funnily enough, is the reason I’ve been able to confide in her about this as easily as I have.
I stub my cigarette out on the ground beside me, hoping to tread lightly with my next question.
“How…do I even go about trying to give him more? If that’s what route I wanted to take? Like, I’ve never even had a girlfriend…or a boyfriend, for that matter. Not a real one who knew me the way—”
“He does?” she finishes.
I take a deep breath and nod.
“You’re overthinking this, Kohl. Just let him in. Show him you care. Don’t start erecting walls where there’s never been any before, and do your best to not freeze him out.”
I blink at her, dumbfounded. She makes it all sound so fucking…simple. “Is that all?”
“It is, young grasshopper.”
Great. So, basically, she’s telling me to change my entire human nature if I decide to try to make things with Keene into something serious.
Defeated doesn’t even begin to describe how I’m feeling.
“This’ll be impossible.” I give her a look of dismay. “How am I supposed to be able to keep any of that from happening with him? He might know me better than most people, but I also know me. There’ll be a point where it’s too much and I’ll do something I’m not supposed to.”
“Not if you try not to.”
“Easier said than done, Brist. My heart might as well be stuck inside the fucking ice castle from Frozen.”
She glances at me, a devious smirk on her face, and said heart sinks.
“What?” I ask cautiously.
Her grin only widens at my wariness. “Well, in the words of the great Olaf? Some people are worth melting for.”
