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The next morning, Dani had decided I’d slept long enough and woke me up by throwing a pair of shoes on my bed. I grunted as the pain lit up on my side and pulled my blankets over my head.
“Are you out of your mind?” I groaned.
“Come on, Eli,” she said with a laugh. “I haven’t seen my big brother in over a year. You’re not going to waste this precious sibling bonding time by sleeping all day.”
“What time is it?” I emerged from the covers to sit up and look for my phone. Apparently I’d knocked it off the bed in the middle of the night because I couldn’t see it anywhere.
“Six forty-five,” Dani said, looking at her watch. “Come on, I want to go for a run.”
What my eyes were seeing finally connected to my brain. She was dressed in workout gear with her hair pulled back into a ponytail and a water bottle in her hand. She was the epitome of the saying “bright eyed and bushy tailed.” I glared at her, but her response was a mischievous grin.
“I hate you,” I said.
“See you in a bit,” she teased and exited the room, leaving the door wide open.
I threw myself back with a huff, covering my face with my arm. “Hey Siri,” I called out.
Somewhere under the bed I heard my phone ding, letting me know it was listening.
“What’s the temperature outside?”
“The current temperature is twenty-six degrees outside.”
Fuck me.
***
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER I came to a stop next to Dani, holding a stitch in my side. My lungs felt like shards of ice were stabbing into me from the inside out as I exhaled huge plumes of white steam. The sweat pouring down my face was already starting to get too cold for my taste.
“You’ve gotten slow, big brother,” Dani teased. The only visible sign of any exertion was the sweat sticking her hair to her forehead and her flushed cheeks. She stood there looking annoyingly unbothered, drinking a long pull from her water bottle.
“How are you even functioning right now?” I asked, hands on my knees. That last mile had killed me. I’d gotten lazy with my cardio. Put that on the list of things to fix after New Year’s. “Didn’t you drink several gallons of wine last night?”
“We all have our gifts,” Dani offered me her water, which I took gratefully.
After gulping down the remainder of the bottle, I felt a bit better.
“So you and Adam are dating,” Dani said. She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.
“Guess so,” I said. It was totally unconvincing. I should act more enamoured. I’d spent a good hour laying up in bed last night shifting through confused feelings about the situation. I’d never had a boyfriend - serious or otherwise. So it seemed like some great cosmic joke that my first relationship would be not only fake, but with a straight man.
It was just my luck.
“You know you can talk to me, right?” Dani said. “Our family is crazy and I’m probably the only one who truly understands.”
“I know,” I said. “I just... wish things were different.”
“Tell me about it,” Dani said. “The worst part about it is, yeah, Sam, Tammy, and the rest are crazy, but if it was just them, it would be tolerable. Mom and Dad literally don’t register what dicks they are. It was especially infuriating last night.”
“It’s been like that our whole lives,” I said.
“Doesn’t make it right,” Dani said. “And on a selfish note; I’d like to see my brother more than the one time a year I travel to you. So I need them to stop that way you’ll actually come around.”
I winced. I had gotten terrible about making time for Dani. I had to remember that not coming home affected everyone. Even the people I wasn’t trying to stay away from. “I’m sorry, Dani.”
“Hey, I get it,” she grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it gently. “That’s why I never give you a hard time about it.”
“That makes me feel slightly less terrible, I guess.”
Dani punched me playfully. “Stop being such a girl,” she said. “I’m only saying that Mom and Dad need a big wake up call if they think what they’re doing is enough to support you.”
“I wish I knew what that looked like,” I tried to keep the sadness out of my voice, but it still crept in. “Mom and Dad supporting me, that is.”
“I don’t know, but being able to make out with hot guys in our living room might be a step in the right direction,” Dani said with a laugh.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”
“Not,” Dani said, straightfaced. “Right now you’ve closed them out from your life so well that they can pretend that they have a straight kid. I mean, they know it’s not true, but they don’t have to really address it either.”
“So you’re saying that kissing Adam last night was a good thing,” I said.
“Look man, I don’t have the answers,” Dani said. “It might’ve been good, or awful, but hell was it entertaining to watch those idiots squirm.”
We both laughed. Funnily enough, even though my body was aching from the exercise, this was the best I’d felt in months. For the first time since I’d made the decision to come home, I was glad I had.
“I missed you,” I said to Dani in a sudden fit of sincerity.
“Don’t go soft on me now,” she teased. “Let’s go back in. It’s starting to get a bit chilly out here.”
I rolled my eyes. “Real quick,” I said. “You know Adam and I aren’t actually dating, right?”
It was Dani’s turn to roll her eyes. “How dumb do you think I am?”
I opened my mouth to respond.
“Shut up,” Dani said before I could get a word out. “Don’t worry, Eli, your secret’s safe with me. Not that they’d believe the truth at this point. Y’know, small minds and all.”
“Yeah, I doubt you’d ever be able to convince them we weren’t dating after that kiss. In their minds friends don’t just do that.”
“They definitely shouldn’t know about my freshman year of college then,” Dani said with a short laugh. Then she was suddenly serious. “For real, Eli, I’ve got your back.”
I gave her arm a playful punch before heading up the stairs back into the house. It was that or get emotional.
And we couldn’t allow that.
***
WHEN WE GOT INSIDE, Mom and Dad were up and drinking coffee in the kitchen’s breakfast nook. Mom was holding her mug I’d gotten her for mother’s day one year that read “I love you this much.” It was the size of a small cereal bowl.
“You two look nice,” I said, noting Mom’s dress and Dad’s shirt and slacks.
“We’re heading to church,” Mom said pointedly.
I stopped in my tracks. Somehow, in the dark corners of my mind, the connection between Sundays and church attendance had been lost. In the past several years, Sundays had shifted from meaning being in uncomfortable pews where guilt riddled sermons were given to hanging out with friends and getting mimosas at brunch.
The fact that I’d been capable of blocking out the former, even for a second, was jarring. Maybe that was a sign of growth.
Dani was unbothered. She opened the fridge and pulled out a box of almond milk and grabbed some cereal from the top of the fridge.
I poured myself some coffee from the pot, sitting down at the island with my mug cradled between my hands, enjoying the hot steam as it rolled over me. My hands were finally beginning to thaw after that god awful run.
I took a sip of coffee, shuddering as the first traces of caffeine touched my soul.
“Has Adam come downstairs yet?” I asked, deciding to side-step the whole topic of church for as long as possible. Knowing my parents, it was only a matter of time before they tried to guilt me into going.
“He has not,” Mom said, scrolling on her iPad. She took a sip of coffee with pursed lips. I could tell she was still butt hurt about what had happened last night.
I also didn’t have the energy to address that, so I took another drink of my own coffee before traipsing upstairs to the guest room. I knocked gently on the door. When no reply came, I quietly entered the room.
Adam was laying sprawled out in the bed in only his boxers. It looked like he’d started out covered by the comforter that now lay crumbled in a ball by his feet. He was covering the top half of his face with his left arm and his mouth was slightly opened. His toned chest rose and fell with the deep breaths he was taken.
God, he’s perfect. I couldn’t help but think. Even though I tried to look away, I still found my eyes tracing every line of his body. From his jawline, down his neck to his collarbone, across the expanse of his chest and his abs, to the v lines near his waist that plunged down into the thin material of his boxers.
Stop being such a creep, Eli.
Shaking my head to clear the intrusive thoughts about Adam, I walked over to him and shook his shoulder. He lifted his arm slowly, peering at me from underneath.
“Good morning,” he said with a typical Adam smirk. Normally I would ignore it. Now, with him mostly naked in front of me and the memories of last night’s kiss fresh in my mind, the expression made my stomach twist in uncomfortable knots.
“You should get up,” I said, reclaiming my hand after realizing it had been on his shoulder for a second too long. “Also, you’re indecent.”
“I’m always indecent, Eli,” Adam’s voice was thick with sleep still and the way he said my name sounded too seductive to be any good. The back of my neck prickled in response.
“I’m going back downstairs before my parents think we’re up to no good,” I said. And because I couldn’t guarantee I wouldn’t do something stupid if I stayed up there much longer.
Adam squinted at me. The air between us tightened and then snapped when he darted out a hand to grab me. He pulled me into bed with him, digging his hands under my shirt, tickling my sides. I burst out in laughter as I tried to fight him off me.
“You need to lighten up,” he said over my involuntary laughter. “You’re so tense.”
I squirmed on top of him, trying to pull myself out of his grip. I couldn’t stop laughing and the more I fought, the harder he held on. Finally, I managed to grab ahold of his one of his hands and pivoting; I straddled him, pinning the second one down.
Panting to catch my breath, I put my full weight down on his limbs so he couldn’t get free.
“Enough,” I said firmly.
His dark eyes smoldered as they looked into mine, and I felt a tug from somewhere in my abdomen. I was suddenly aware of how we were positioned. I was sitting on top of his stomach with his hands pinned over his head. Our faces were mere inches apart. My shirt had ridden up on the sides so my bare skin was touching his, even if only a little.
It struck me again how attractive Adam was. His full lips that I could still taste when I closed my eyes tugged upwards in another smirk. His curly hair was draped over one eye. His stubble caught in the early morning rays coming through the window and cast tiny shadows over the skin beneath. Before I knew it, I found myself staring at the place where his jaw met his neck. The perfect place to plant a kiss.
“You’re looking at me funny,” Adam teased.
“No, I’m not,” I said a little too forcefully. “I just zoned out.”
“What were you imagining doing to me?” His eyes glinted with dark mischief. For a breath, I almost answered him with the truth.
But then the thought soured as I thought more about his words. So cocky.
“You’re so full of yourself,” I said, shoving off of him in exasperation. “We’ve got coffee downstairs.”
“Wait, Eli-”
I closed him off with the bedroom door. Inhaling deeply through my nose and out through my mouth. I tried to center myself in the hallway. What had he been playing at back there? In the time I’d known Adam, he’d had several serious girlfriends. Two of them hadn’t even lasted a year, but the third and most recent one had been with him for nearly two. It hadn’t been pretty when they’d finally split. Sabrina - the big ex - had been fine, I guess, but I could never really see what Adam saw in her.
He’d been single for a few months now, but I needed to keep in mind that this was the same Adam as before. Part of him was still aching for Sabrina, and like I’d seen and experienced many times in the past, Adam loved flirting and loved the attention from it even more. I think it served as a welcome distraction from having to feel.
That’s all that was going on and I needed to remember that or else I was going to get hurt. Adam was flirting because it was fun for him and that’s all I could give him in return. I couldn’t start letting myself think he’d be willing to be anything more to me or doing anything else with me.
He was Adam. He was straight. He was just my friend. We weren’t actually dating.
I blinked and in that second I could feel the traces of where his hands had been as he’d tickled me. Those traces morphed into memories of how his hands had moved when he’d kissed me the night before. And now I was thinking about the kiss again. The look in his eye before he’d laid his lips on me, asking me if he could do it.
I remembered how easy it had been to say yes to him. And now I was thinking about how easy it would be to go back into that room and flirt with him again and touch his body. The tickles could become something more. I could even try to get away with another kiss...
With enormous effort, I derailed that train of thought and came back to an awareness of my surroundings. I was standing in the hallway alone, breathing heavily at the thought of kissing my friend.
Fuck, I need a cold shower.