“Come kiss me and I’ll wait in the living room.”

My eyes narrow. “Is this like your newest game?” I ask on a head tilt. “I have to tell you, I'm not interested in playing with you, Trevor.”

“No game,” he says, shrugging. “Like I said before, we’re going to be best friends.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t kiss my friends, so if you could kindly leave and let me get dressed, that would be great.”

“We’re going to do a lot more than kiss, baby,” he says, smirking. I want to throttle him; instead, I grab a lace bra, a white tank top, and a pair of sweats. If he’s going casual, so am I. Once I have everything I need, I head to the bathroom, leaving a smug looking Trevor on my bed. I slam the bathroom door for good measure. “Are you always this cranky in the morning?” he yells. I ignore him and get dressed.

Standing in front of the mirror, I wonder why he’s acting so strange. I look to the ceiling, hoping for the answer. When we were friends before, he never kissed me; he never even hugged me until the night July was born. And our make out—and my almost-orgasm—night was more the vodka than anything else, so that doesn’t even really count. “Why is he interested now?” I whisper, looking at myself in the mirror. I haven’t changed. I pull my hair up into a messy bun on top of my head, do a couple swipes of mascara and a little blush, then I open the bathroom door. I look at the bed and see that Trevor is now laying down, with one arm thrown over his eyes, and the other against his abs.

“Trevor, let’s go,” I say, walking to my closet to grab a pair of sneakers. I sit in the chair next to the bed, bend and put them on, and he still hasn’t moved. “Trevor,” I sigh, going to stand next to him. I touch his arm lying across his stomach, tracing the tattoo that travels down his wrist. All the air is pushed out of my lungs when I'm grabbed suddenly, and tossed onto the bed with Trevor half on top of me. “What are you doing?” I breathe, trying to push him off.

“You haven’t kissed me since I got here,” he says, his hand going to the hair at the side of my head, sweeping it back.

“I'm not kissing you.” I push him again and he doesn’t budge.

“Did you sleep in my hoodie?” he asks. I completely freeze, trying to think of an excuse for wearing his hoodie. His face bends towards mine, his nose running along my jaw. I can feel him inhale, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if he just sniffed me. “Did you sleep in it?” he asks again, this time quietly. I can feel goose bumps breaking out across my skin. His hand travels from my hip and down my thigh, to the underside of my knee. My brain is in overdrive, and the words that I want to say seem to have gotten stuck in my throat. “Did you wear something under it?” he asks, running his nose down my neck. “Or did you want to feel me wrapped around you all night?”

“We need to go.” I say quietly, finally getting my brain to function. I push him again, and he presses me deeper into the bed.

“What scent is that?” He runs his nose along my jaw, behind my ear, and down my neck.

“Heaven,” I gulp, as his hand behind my knee travels up to my hip again.

Softly, he whispers in my ear, “Yeah.” He breathes against my skin, causing my heart to skip and my belly to drop. “That smell makes me want to eat you,” he says, nipping my neck. Oh God! My thighs squeeze together automatically. Oh my God! My brain is screaming at me to stop this, but my hands itch to grab his head and drag his mouth to mine.

“W-we ne-need to go,” I stutter out on a shaky breath.

“In a minute,” he mumbles, right before his tongue touches the base of my neck, then it travels up to my chin. When his mouth crashes into mine, all thoughts leave my head. One of my hands goes to his bicep, the other to his head, running my fingers up the back of his scalp, pulling him closer. His mouth travels down my neck; the roughness of the scruff on his face rubs against my skin and all I can feel is fire, the same fire I felt the last time we were together. That thought is all I needed to snap out of this crazy moment.

“Trevor,” I whisper, wishing that my voice would come out stronger. His eyes meet mine; they’re darker than normal. He rubs his chin against mine; I bite my lip against the urge to moan or press into him. I want to scream. When we were friends, I told him things that I had never told anyone else. I trusted him. I had been falling in love with the person that he is, not the guy that every woman in town wants a piece of, but the real him. The one who listened to me when I shared the hurt of my past and the one who helps old ladies carry groceries across the street. The one who stopped in the middle of the road when he saw a bird with a broken wing, and the one who loves his mom so much, that no matter who’s around or where they are, he hugs her and tells her he loves her. That guy; that was the Trevor that I was falling in love with. Then he showed me a side of him that was ugly and hurtful, a side that I can’t forget no matter how much I want to.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and I nod my head, pushing against him.

“We need to go,” I repeat for what feels like the millionth time.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, and I almost want to laugh.

“I don’t even know where to start,” I shake my head. He pushes off the bed, pulling me up so that I'm standing in front of him. “I'm just going to be honest so that things don’t end up crazier than they already are,” I tell him, taking a step back. “First, thank you for the ride home last night.” I look up into his amazing brown eyes and get lost for a second. He’s so handsome; part of me wants to just say, “Screw it; Que Sera, Sera”, throw caution to the wind, and get lost in bed with him for a day. But I can’t do it; that’s not me. I would end up crying or confessing my feelings for him, and he would walk away with another notch on his belt, while leaving me feeling alone and empty. “I'm going with you today to see July, but after that, I think that it would be best if we went back to the way things were. I'm not having sex with you. Just because I'm not a virgin doesn’t mean that I'm going to sleep with you.” I say in my most serious voice.

“You were going to sleep with me.”

“Yeah,” I whisper, feeling tears clog my throat. “Thankfully, that didn’t happen. I mean, how humiliating would it be to have slept with you, then have you walk away without ever talking to me again,” I laugh, but it’s humorless and full of hurt.

“Listen, I was fucked up, okay? You’re so innocent; I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“So now that you know that I’ve had sex, you think it’s okay to sleep with me?” I'm so confused by his logic.

“Stop fucking saying that you’ve had sex,” he growls, his hands sliding down his face. “Jesus, I don’t want to fucking talk or hear about that shit.”

“Okay,” I whisper, startled by the pissed off look on his face.

“I said I was sorry for that shit.” I try to think back, but I'm pretty sure that he never apologized. “It’s in the past; we’re moving on and going to be best friends.” I shake my head, wondering what it must be like to live in his universe. And why the hell does he keep saying that we’re going to be best friends? I was starting to feel like I was in a bad episode of Barney. “We need to go,” he says, walking out of the bedroom. I follow him out and watch as he bends to put on his shoes. He grabs his keys off the counter, I grab my bag, but when we get to the door, he stops and turns to me. “This is going to happen.”

“What?” I ask, my eyebrows drawn together in confusion. His finger comes up and skims down the center of my face, forehead to chin.

“You and I, we’re going to happen.” He kisses me, then opens the door, putting his hand on the small of my back to lead me out. “We can get your bag later.”

“I have my bag.” I lift my hand, showing him my bag that’s hard to miss since its hot pink and covered in glitter.

“Your overnight bag, baby.” He puts his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him.

“I'm not staying overnight with you, so I don’t need an overnight bag,” I say, as he helps me into his truck. He has to lift me into it because it’s so tall, and there are no sideboards to step onto.

“You are,” is all he says, slamming the door and walking around the back of the truck. He slides behind the steering wheel, looking over at me. “So where does the douche live?” I give him directions, and then we’re on our way.

Chapter 3

Trevor

I wake up feeling Liz’s body pressed against mine. Her small hand is tucked under her cheek against my chest; her thigh is over my hip, and my hand is full of her pink lace-covered ass. Yesterday, after she gave me directions to douchebag Bill’s house, and made me promise not to call him douchebag Bill to his face, we drove the thirty minutes a few towns over to his house. He lived in a newer neighborhood; the houses all looked the same. They call it “cookie cutter”; I call it lame. “This peach house is his?” I asked, looking over at Liz. “What the fuck is wrong with this guy?”

“Trevor, please be nice, okay? He’s helping me find my brother.”

“You want me to be nice? There’s a fucking Mini Cooper in the driveway, a yellow Mini Cooper, Liz. What man drives that kind of fucking car? Jesus,” I said, shaking my head and looking back at his house.

“Please,” she whispered, her soft, sweet voice pulling at my heart. Looking into her beautiful eyes, I saw fear of rejection; she was still guarded. I fucked up with her. I didn’t want to do that again; I needed her to trust me so we could move forward. I had been a coward, didn’t want to admit what I was feeling for her, so I took the easy way out, found something that I thought I didn’t like and latched onto it with both hands. Now, every time she said she wasn’t a virgin, I wanted to rip someone’s head off. No one should touch her but me, and from now on, no one would.

“I won’t call him a douchebag to his face,” I told her softly.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, leaning across the seat to kiss my cheek. Something about that small act gave me hope. When we got out of the car, the front door opened, and Bill walked out wearing a pink polo and plaid shorts. I looked at Liz to see her looking at me, her eyes telling me to remember my promise.

“You didn’t call me last night,” Bill said, walking towards Liz, his face red.

“Sorry. I got home and went to sleep.” She held out his hoodie towards him.

“You went to sleep?” His voice was sarcastic as he looked at her, then at me. “So you’re telling me that Trevor Mayson drove you home and you went to sleep?”

“That’s what I said, Bill.” With her hands on her hips, she looked at me when I took a step forward. “I just want to know what you found out about my brother,” she sighed in frustration. I knew she was upset, so I stepped towards her, pulling her into my side. Her body stiffened until I rubbed the smooth skin of her arm, listened as she let out a deep breath, and her body melted into mine. I couldn’t help but to kiss the top of her head in approval.